Sometimes, weaving through the crowds at Comic-Con is easy.
Sometimes it’s like being herded.
Sometimes it’s like swimming upstream.
And sometimes it’s like playing Frogger, looking for an opening and moving with traffic even though it’s not going in the direction you want.
This being San Diego, perhaps tacking a sail might be more appropriate.
»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.
While Katie got up early Saturday morning to wait in line for the Warner Bros. panel in the cavernous Hall H (her goal was Harry Potter, but Green Lantern was an equal or greater draw), I slept in a bit before going down to the Hilton Bayfront for Leverage at the Indigo Ballroom. I really had no idea what to expect, and wasn’t even 100% sure who was going to be there since I couldn’t find a description in the program.
I certainly wasn’t expecting to have to walk straight through the hotel, out the back, and along the edge of the waterfront to get to the end of the line.
Fortunately, the Indigo Ballroom is big, and they hadn’t started letting people in yet. So even though the line looked long, I still managed to find a seat 1/3 to 1/2-way back from the front. It was a bit nerve-wracking to start with, though, especially since a large part of the line was made up of people who were more interested in the Venture Brothers panel immediately afterward (many of whom no doubt had bad memories from a year or two back when VB was put in a room much too small for its audience).
As I neared the front of the outdoor section of the line, a shout went up, and people started waving up at the balcony. It was hard to see in the gloom, but several of the actors were out on a balcony. Tim Hutton (Nate Ford), Aldis Hodge (Alec Hardison), and Christian Kane (Elliot Spencer) started waving back, and as we took pictures of them, they took pictures of the line. Meanwhile, the Venture Brothers fans were wondering just who the heck was up there.
Everyone received a T-shirt on the way in, with the show title on the back and one of the character’s roles on the front: Hacker (olive green), Hitter (red), Grifter (gray), Thief (blue, I think) or Mastermind (black). I started with an XL Grifter, but traded it immediately for an L Mastermind — which will actually fit. No luck swapping it for a Hacker, though, which is what I really wanted.
They also had Beth Riesgraf (Parker), producer/writer Chris Downey, and guest star Wil Wheaton…who will be returning as Chaos this year in an episode called “The Ho-Ho-Ho Job.” (He said that John Rogers called him up and asked him to come back as the Grinch who stole Christmas.) Gina Bellman was the only member of the main cast who didn’t make it.
It was mostly a Q&A panel, with a surprisingly good mix of questions. (Too often, audiences seem to focus on one or two of the guests to the exclusion of the rest.) There were a lot of funny moments, and in the middle, they ran an extended segment from “The Gone Fishin’ Job,” which was set to air the following day.
Apparently there’s a show coming up in which you find out that each of the members of the crew tried to steal the same thing years ago, and they all met without realizing it. You’ll see what each of them remembers…and then what really happened.
The best quotes — or at least the best ones I managed to write down — came from Beth Riesgraf and Wil Wheaton.
One fan asked what Parker would think of Comic-Con. Beth Riesgraf said, “She’d have a field day picking everybody’s pockets… so many costumes! This is her crowd.”
Another fan asked about progression of character relationships, and they explained that Parker and Hardison were taking things slow. Wil Wheaton piped in, saying, “I think the Internet has you covered.” Some time later, Aldis Hodge said something to Beth Riesgraf about pretzels, which neatly separated the Leverage fans from the Venture Brothers fans in the audience.
Regarding Hardison wanting to run his own crew, Aldis Hodge said, “I’m not taking on my own crew anytime soon, but maybe 27 seasons in…” A beat or two later, Wil Wheaton added, “27 seasons in, it would be Leverage She Wrote.”
Jumping off of Christian Kane’s singing and cooking, both of which have found their way into Elliot’s background, one fan asked whether any of the other actors had brought hobbies in to their character. I hadn’t realized that Aldis Hodge actually plays the violin and paints. Then Beth Riesgraf joked, “Well, I was really good at stealing stuff when I was little…”
As for favorite memories from the show, TIm Hutton immediately answered, “Food fight.” Almost overlapping, Beth Riesgraf added, “I was going to say the cold cut fight.” Someone asked her to elaborate, and she explained: “It’s a food fight, except you only use cold cuts.” “Good times!”
Finally, one of the last questions was: When do we see Hardison steal Comic-Con? I can’t remember what anyone else said before Wil Wheaton summed it up: “If ever there was a time when Hardison and Chaos would team up…”
Now that would be a fun show to watch!
»Saturday at Comic-Con.
»Full index of Comic-Con posts and photos.
We’re back from Comic-Con International! It was fun and exhausting as usual, and I think I’ll be drinking water all day to rehydrate. Photos are up at Flickr.
Here’s an index to all of our stories, quotes, panel write-ups and photos from the con. Continue reading
I finally made it to a Westercon! It’s been years since I’ve been to a general science-fiction/fantasy convention. The last one was WorldCon/LACon IV in 2006, but I was distracted by a summer cold and lots of DayQuil. Before that was the last Loscon I attended in 2002. So while I remembered how this sort of event is usually run, I wasn’t sure what to expect.
Westercon is a fan-run convention that travels around the western United States and Canada, similar to WorldCon on a smaller scale. It’s usually held during the Fourth of July weekend. This year it was held in Pasadena, California, and combined with the filk convention ConChord 23 to form WesterChord, Westerconchord, or simply Confirmation.
I’ve been to a couple of Westercons, but not anything you’d call recent. I remember attending one in San Diego and one in Anaheim, having a dinosaur-themed T-shirt from one year, and picking up a particular issue of The New Teen Titans in San Diego, so I think the two I attended were San Diego in 1986 and “Conosaurus” in Anaheim in 1989. Yes, it’s been twenty years since my last Westercon!
I had no trouble finding the Pasadena Hilton, but getting inside was a little tricky. The entryway was under construction, so they were routing people through one of the ballrooms, which had been set up for some sort of banquet. (More about that later.) The hotel was vaguely familiar from my memories of Loscon in the 1980s, but has been remodeled to add a coffee shop and a restaurant in the middle of the conference center. The Starbucks was most welcome, though the con was good at making sure pitchers of water and plastic cups were available in each panel room and the main hall.
Since I was only there for the day, I didn’t explore the area looking for restaurants or other activities. I just relied on Starbucks and the ad-hoc pizza, sandwich, pastry and salad counter that had been set up across the way.
Anyway, I found registration easily, but the onsite sign-up forms were on a table behind a planter. I wasn’t the only one who walked straight past them.
It was a much smaller convention than I’ve become used to in years of attending the big comic-book events like Comic-Con International, WonderCon, and Wizard World. Even Long Beach Comic Con pulled in 6,300 people its first year, but I’d count the attendance here in the hundreds.
Attendees were also older than Comic-Con on average, mostly 50+ rather than mostly around 30. Certainly there were plenty of younger fans at Westercon, and there are plenty of older fans at Comic-Con, but there does seem to be a generation gap of sorts between the two types of conventions, at least in the southern California area. At least this con seemed more alive than the last few Loscons I attended — and a lot less bitter!
Maybe it’s the literary focus. LASFS has always been very book-oriented, and there were a lot of writers among the con guests. One of the book dealers even had an entire shelf set aside for books by authors who were guests at the con.
Today is the last day for people to cancel their hotel reservations at Comic-Con International for a full refund. Starting Saturday, they’ll keep a $75 cancellation fee.
So what’s the good news?
If you couldn’t get a room in March, and haven’t found alternative housing for the convention, this may be your second chance!
Even if there were fewer “just in case” reservations this year, there are always at least some people whose plans just fall through. Someone gets sick, their financial status changes, they were counting on a raise that didn’t happen, a cousin schedules a wedding for that weekend, etc. Rooms should be opening up over the next few days as people take their last chance to cancel without penalty.
The question is: what happens to them?
The old reservation process worked like a crowded store, where everyone kept trying to pick a room until they ran out. So when rooms freed up, they were made available to whoever happened to be checking up on the system.
This year, though, was like a massive take-a-number system, with Travel Planners assigning rooms to people in order (even though it’s not clear exactly what order it was). They did cap the line, but there were an awful lot of people who got requests in but no rooms, and ended up on a waiting list. A representative confirmed by email that they will contact people as rooms free up.*
So, what we should see in the next few days is Travel Planners offering rooms to the early part of the waiting list. Edit: Maybe not – see the comments.
It’s a safe bet that some people on the list have already secured a room through other channels, and no doubt some of them will want to stick with their alternate lodging (especially if their alternate hotel is across the street, and Travel Planners hands them something ten miles away). That will probably trigger a second round of free rooms next week.
No doubt the process will repeat itself on June 18, when the rest of the deposit becomes non-refundable.
Of course, it all depends on just how many people cancel their reservations to start with. I doubt anyone outside of the travel agency (and maybe CCI) has solid numbers of just how many con-goers are stuck in limbo.
*The way they put it was that they were trying “to identify any rooms already committed that might not be ultimately utilized.” Gotta love corporate-speak.
I checked out Wizard World’s new Anaheim Comic Con this past weekend. At only 10-15 minutes away, it seemed like a waste not to go, and with Anaheim courting Comic-Con International, I wanted to get a better sense of the convention center.
So I bought a Saturday ticket, drove out for the afternoon, and had a much better time than I expected.
Photos are at Flickr if you want to jump straight to them.
For those not familiar with the area, the Anaheim Convention Center is literally across the street from Disney’s California Adventure. There isn’t much in the way of public parking in the area that isn’t attached to a shopping center, a hotel, or Disneyland, but there was plenty of room in the convention center parking structure. Of course, it took more than 10 minutes to get into the structure — longer than I spent on the freeway!
There were two events at the convention center this weekend: Anaheim Comic Con in Hall D, and a Specialty Coffee event in Halls B, C and E. I was half-tempted to find out whether the coffee event was open to the public!
The first thing I saw when stepping onto the main floor was the Red Mist car from Kick-Ass (which opened this weekend). The second thing was the Suicide Girls booth. The third was a long line of people waiting for an event.
There was the usual mix of collectibles dealers, comics dealers, artists, celebrities, the ever-present giant T-shirt booth, prop & costume exhibits, fan groups, etc. There was a heavy Star Wars fan presence (more about that later). The one that really surprised me was the bar that had been set up next to the food service area!
The weird thing: There was virtually no industry presence. I’m not sure I saw a single comic publisher booth. In the battle between C2E2 and Wizard, the publishers came down solidly on the side of C2E2, not even bothering to send a token delegation to Anaheim. It can be done. Last year, DC did full-up DC Nation panels at both WonderCon (California) and MegaCon (Florida) the same weekend.
Compared to WonderCon two weeks ago, the main floor seemed bigger, but took less time to explore. Judging by the floor plans, the area actually used looks about the same, but the breakdown was different:
It was probably comparable to the last Wizard World Los Angeles, except that I remember a lot of empty space at that con, a bigger Artist’s Alley, and a smaller celebrity area. I’d actually guess that the celebrity area at this con took up about 1/4 of the floor space!
One annoying thing: the main floor was at one end of the convention center. The programming rooms were at the opposite end. Because of the coffee con in between, to get to the panels, you had to go outside, then walk along the entire length of the convention center, then go back inside and up to the second level.
The Star Wars presence was probably a mix of two things: 1. Regional groups aren’t going to Chicago. 2. It’s the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back.
That included groups such as the 501st Legion, the Saber Guild, LA Jedi, and a group that builds working droids.
The Sabre Guild had a prime spot near the T-shirt booth and had set up a ring to perform mock lightsaber battles and demonstrate other skills. Sort of like a mix of fencing and tall flags with lightsabers. They also had music from the movies playing continuously all day, broken up occasionally by the disco version of the Star Wars theme. There were a couple of really good Aayla Secura costumes in that group, and a little girl wearing a Republic Jedi costume who at one point added a Hit-Girl mask and wig and posed in front of the Kick-Ass car.
The other big costume theme was the 1960s Batman TV series — almost certainly because the con had brought together much of the show’s cast, including Adam West, Burt Ward, Julie Newmar, Yvonne Craig and Lee Meriwether, and the Batmobile.
Because of the light industry presence, there weren’t many in the way of booth babes. The Evil Cheerleaders seem to be everywhere these days, plus there were cheerleaders for a energy drink called Bite Me. I was surprised at how many kids were posing with them, actually. Suicide Girls had a big presence, with at least a dozen models, and there was a dance troupe (the Purrfect Angels) who dressed in skimpy versions of super-heroine and sci-fi costumes and danced on a raised stage next to the lunch area.
Then there was the booth placement in the celebrity area, where a pair of 14-year-old girls who had written a science-fiction novel were placed next to a bikini model. Way to send the kids a message, Wizard.
Late in the day, I was walking by where a man dressed (if you can call it that) as Gollum was crawling around, mewling about “My Precious” and showing off a DVD of an independent film with that title. This was at the corner of the celebrity area, where Nichelle Nichols was doing a signing. He crawled into her booth, jumped up on the table, started showing everyone “My Precious,” then turned toward the Star Trek actress. 
She yelped and started hitting him with a plastic water bottle, at which point he took a dive off the table and tumbled onto the floor, then scurried off.
He did pretty much the same thing with the judges’ table at the costume contest that evening.
The costume contest was more organized than the one at the last Wizard World LA, though nowhere near as formal as, say the Comic-Con International Masquerade. Most contestants simply walked in one door, past the judges, and out the other. Actually, a lot of them early on hadn’t been told to pause so that the judges could see! A few had prepared simple routines, or at least speeches — including, as I mentioned, Gollum, who made the biggest impression. Some other stand-outs (some for craftsmanship, some for attitude) included Count Chocula, the Angel of Death from Hellboy II, Doctor Octopus, and Silk Spectre.
As I was going through my photos, I found it interesting that I had actually run into a lot of the winners out on the floor: Doctor Octopus, Gollum, Silk Spectre…
Concession stands line the edges between the exhibit halls: coffee, sandwiches, tacos, etc. I only had the coffee, which was decent, though the clerk warned us to use the swizzle sticks and not the spoons, because they might melt! All of the hotels in the convention complex have their own restaurants ranging from casual dining to somewhat more expensive places like Morton’s. The Hilton also has fast food including a Starbucks, Sbarro, Baja Fresh, and a smoothie place.
Across the street you can find standard fast food like Subway. The Ramada has an Indian restaurant with a lunch buffet. If you walk around Disney’s California Adventure to the west, you can get to the Downtown Disney shopping center. If you walk east along Katella, you can get to the Anaheim Garden Walk, which has a few mid-range chain restaurants (California Pizza Kitchen, P.F. Chang’s, etc.) and a food court that’s currently running at half capacity. Unless your name is Barry, Jay, Wally or Bart, figure on about 20 minutes to get there. The blocks are large and the traffic signals are long.
Tip: If you plan to cross the street, go out to Katella along the convention center first, not out to Harbor through the hotels. It’s just as long, but there are trees and shade.
Assuming the other halls are about the same size as this one, I think the full convention center could probably handle something the size of the Comic-Con International exhibit floor. The main hurdle is that only about 1/3 of the wall between each section is actually removable (the middle section is permanent, holding the concession counters). Sure, it would make it easy to divide the main floor up into themes — one section for comics, one for movies and TV, one for games, etc. — but it would also create bottlenecks.
I didn’t get a good sense of the meeting rooms, since the con only used a couple of rooms, and I don’t remember much from the only other convention I’ve attended since the expansion. (It was a WorldCon, and I experienced the whole thing through the combined haze of a summer cold and Day-Quil.)
There is room to spill over into the nearby hotels, though. There are at least four in the same complex, and I know at least two of them have a good supply of meeting rooms and ballrooms. They’re closer to the center than anything in San Diego other than the Marriott, and they don’t require you to cross a busy street or railroad tracks.
Check out my full set of photos on Flickr.
Stopped for coffee on the way to Anaheim Comic Con. Yes, actually, I am wearing a Flash T-shirt. Why do you ask?
Even better, the rest of the convention center was taken up by a coffee convention! (For the uninitiated: There’s a running gag in the current Flash relaunch about how much coffee people drink in Central City…especially Iris Allen.)
Follow-up: read my full convention report and check out my photos.
