Before I begin, I must briefly describe to you my delight that my Current Rank is Ikari Warrior. Back in my non-8-bit-Nintendo-having days, which... umm, shoot. I've never owned an 8-bit Nintendo. Let's narrow the scope a bit. Back in the late 80s, one of my Nintendo Friends had Ikari Warriors and we used to play the crap out of that game. I loved it because it was two-player, involved shooting and blowing stuff up (even G.I. Joe action figures were off-limits for me in those days), and, whenever you died, you could jam on A-B-B-A-A-B-B-A and viola, mo' lives. I'd say it was a simpler time, but I realize that I love Halo for pretty much the same reason. Sometimes stuff is just awesome.
On a more topical matter, I went to Comic-Con this year! It was my first time attending and the weeks leading up to my trip were filled with eager anticipation by me, and admirable efforts by everyone I told to combine [geek, nerd, dork, weirdo] with [-fest, -apalooza, -stravaganza, -opolis] in as many different ways (16 possible) as they could. The idea for the trip was spawned by a friend of mine who works at NBC who was going to have a big ol' empty hotel room all to himself. He invited three of us to capitalize on the opportunity, and soon we were flying south.
I was at the show Friday and Saturday, two days marked by distinctly different states of being: the former ambulatory, the latter sedentary. I went to one "panel" on Friday - Neil Gaiman. This man's work is breathtakingly awesome - The Sandman comic series alone blows me away, plus Neverwhere, American Gods, Stardust (yes, there's a movie now)... it's all wonderful. As might be expected, he's a wonderful storyteller, so hearing him speak is always a pleasure. I'm done gushing about him now.
The rest of the day was spent wandering the massive exhibit hall, costume-watching (some pics will turn up later, I reckon), and basking in the sensory overload. It was actually quite pleasant as wandering through a crowd of tens of thousands people goes. I bought a signed Armadeaddon poster (at the bottom) from the Penny Arcade fellas, and two posters of the cover art for Flight. I looked at a lot of artist tables and wondered how many of them would take umbrage at being asked to draw Wonder Woman getting it on with Link (or some equally bizarre pairing). I briefly pondered spending $20 to get LeVar Burton to sign a picture of Geordi LaForge with the phrase "But you don't have to take my word for it," but, in the end, declined.
Then Saturday, I sat in the same chair for 7 hours. This is a feat I perform almost daily, but there's something different about it when, instead of being surrounded by a few headphoned co-workers, I'm in the midst of thousands of people straining to catch a glimpse of famous actor types. I luckily scored a pretty good spot, and proceeded to watch a pretty stellar line-up of panels, detailed below:
The Bionic Woman panel - Watched the pretty cool pilot, then listened to the panel. Want to know more about the panel? Why then, read more stuff I wrote! The TV.com fellas weren't as lucky as I in gaining entry, so I volunteered to write up two of the panels for the site. The Bionic Woman panel was one.
Heroes was the other. The cast seemed super happy to be there, and everyone was amped. Very enjoyable.
The Women of Battlestar Galactica panel - Lucy Lawless, Tricia Helfer, Katee Sackhoff, and Mary McDonnell on stage. What more could you ask for? Answer: Grace Park, but hey, don't look a gift horse in the mouth. And by gift horse, I mean four beautiful and charismatic women.
The Futurama panel was sweet as well, with all the major voice actors present. They read a short comic that "bridged the gap between the end of the series and the beginning of the four new feature length films" that they are making. Oh yes. Futurama is back. The highlight of this panel was when the actors talked about where the voices came from. Billy West described Kiff as "Spock totally fed up with Shatner's antics," or "Jon Lovtiz + Truman Capote." [Bonus fun fact: Billy West is the voice of the red M&M in commercials!]
The day ended on a high note, with the final panel consisting of one man - Joss Whedon (prepare for more gushing). I love Joss Whedon. Buffy, Angel, Firefly, Serenity, Fray... love 'em all. His writing is witty, sharp, and remarkably deep (rein it in, buddy). Ok. It was awesome. Deep breath. He talked about Ripper, a Buffyverse movie featuring Giles that the BBC is on the cusp of green-lighting. More Fray. He knows how Buffy: Season 8 ends, and knows what happens in Season 9. Putting lots of time into Goners, whatever that is. Very exciting end to a great first Comic-Con.
More soon. I promised a buddy I'd write more, so hopefully some more regularity will work its way in here. Next time: more Blog Backlog, and some Mario Strikers Charged. If I write that I'll write it, that makes it more likely for me to write it. Right?
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