It’s Day One of Comic Con and all I want to know is where the bloody hell is my Jayne knit hat? Also, do you know what 125,000 nerds stuck in a small space smells like? Cuz I sure do…
Let me just preface this post by saying that I am writing this at 11:41 PM on Thursday night, and that I have been up since 3:15 AM, either standing in line, being crushed in the hoards of crazies and jerkfaces down in the Exhibition Hall, sitting in a panel behind a wall of giants, trying to figure out who was dressed as which anime character, and desperately seeking respite from the crazies and jerkfaces down in the Exhibition Hall.
I have just come back from a very amazing dinner that came with very delicious drinks poured by a very liberal bartender, and I’ve spent the last few minutes watching the end of “Where No Fan Has Gone Before” and am now trying to ignore Jason Alexander and Sandra Bullock roasting William Shatner. So, basically, I’m not exactly the most coherent person right about now.
This is my first time at Comic Con and, I must say, I have yet to be disappointed. I was lucky enough to come with my two best friends Adelle and Phaedra (the latter of whom, despite plenty of warning ahead of time, still insisted she could wear her admittedly very cute hot pink heels but within four hours had to suck it up and buy the ugliest sparkly flip-flops known to man to quench her suffering feet). After walking 15 miles to the back of the line we finally secured a scenic spot that also, judging by the stench apparently doubled as the yacht latrine dumping grounds. After two days of waiting in line we finally made it inside…only to wait in line again just to get into the Exhibition Hall. Nothing was open even though it was well past 10 AM, so we consumed sandwiches I’m convinced were really science experiments the guys from The Big Bang were working on.
I then split off to catch the “Caprica, Battlestar, and Beyond” (Richard Hatch, Bear McCreary, Michael Tayler, Kevin Grazier, and Aaron Douglas) panel and ended up catching the last half of “Cuckoo Nest Films: Hoohah! Heroes Behind the Heroes” (Amanda Conner, Mark Evanier, Bill Morrison, Jimmy Palmiotti, Scott Shawl, and Jerry Hogrewe). I’d like to tell you what went down in the “Cuckoo” panel, but for some reason a group of people decided that the only place available for them to hold a loud conversation was RIGHT NEXT TO ME. Fortunately they left before the Caprica/BSG guys showed up otherwise I might have had to kill someone. At least I would have been within my legal right.
The Caprica/BSG guys were all shades of awesome, Aaron Douglas especially. He spent much of the panel cracking jokes and saying “frak” while bitching about getting canceled (CBS just axed his Canadian cop show). Not much news to report except that ***SPOILERS HIGHLIGHT TO READ***Starbuck really is dead***END SPOILERS***, that Bear is planning to release a DVD and CD of his House of Blues performance from last year, that the upcoming “Science of Battlestar Galactica” book will for once and for all explain exactly how Cylons could scientifically exist, and that there may be a Battlestar Galactica feature film (as in theatrical release!) in the nearish future.
After wandering around the Marriott Hotel looking for the pick-up spot for a T-shirt I won—and then ogling Michael C. Hall as he stood within 5 feet of my person—we did what every good conner does: took a nap in the hotel lobby. It was the best nap I have ever had. Later we wandered back through the Exhibition Hall looking for alleged steampunkers when I saw a person wearing a Jayne knit cap who told me he bought it “over there.” Jayne’s knit cap has now become my Holy Grail. I WANT THAT GORRAM HAT! To console my temporary failure I bought myself a leather corset. But it’s still no orange and yellow knit cap.
Lastly the three of us caught the “SFX Presents The British Invasion” (Dan Abnett China Miéville, Paul Cornell, Kieron Gillen, Toby Whithouse, Pat Mills, and Dave Bradley). This was yet another fantastic panel that veered regularly between Doctor Who praise and fanboys and fangirls trying to out-geek each other on British SFF shows that haven’t crossed the pond with China interjecting intellectual arguments about the socio-cultural state of “Britishness” and the politics of SFF. Neither of my friends were familiar with China, but both were fans of his by the time we left and the three of us agree we would like to take him home and keep him forever and ever. He is both awesome and yum. Again, not much news to report since just about everything was locked up with “I am contractually obligated not to answer that.” What was revealed is that Paul Cornell is working on a Prisoner Zero comic, whoever is doing the 140K series is working on even more (not really my deal…), that China’s new book is due out July 2011, and that his two favorite characters he’s written are the Inchman and the Remade.
And now I’m going to have to call it a night. Another early day…oh, and check out my ever-growing Comic Con Flickr stream for more epic insanity.
Alex Brown is an archivist in training, reference librarian by day, writer by night, and all around geek who watches entirely too much TV. She is prone to collecting out-of-print copies of books by Evelyn Waugh, Jane Austen, and Douglas Adams, probably knows far too much about pop culture than is healthy, and thinks her rats Hywel and Odd are the cutest things ever to exist in the whole of eternity. You can follow her on Twitter if you dare…
