Saturday, July 26, 2008

Comic Con : Nerd Central ...

Time flew ridiculously fast whilst in San Diego, so much so that we never really got time to check out everything on offer in the convention center. we were lucky if we just got into the main presentations we had bookmarked. but all in all it was most enjoyable and for all its craziness, i kinda miss it.

The 5 day stop began the minute we landed, checking into the hotel early from a flight landing at 12PM we headed straight to the Convention Center located on the harbour foreshore, much like Perth's only 50 times as large and well laid out. its funny, the more and more we got into San Diego, the more and more we felt at home, kind of a mix of Perth in the mild summer and also a spin of Sydney modernness in there as well. picking up our tickets for the so called "Preview Night" we soon realised that this convention would be bigger than anything we had encountered .... ever. imagine 120,000 people hitting one place, everyday for the next 4 days.

The Preview night is set up as a sneak peek opening to those people that had bought a special "Weekend Pass" for all 4 days of the convention. the theory being that not alot of people would pay extra and see all this for 4 days. well your wrong. the place was packed and seemed like a day one, rather than a preview. it proved to be great though, as we met up with some local comic fans who themselves had traveled all the way from Boston on the east coast. shout out to Trevor and Abby, meeting these guys was one of the best things of the weekend, not only giving us a heads up on what to expect from the presentations, but also just to share a laugh with some semi normal folks like ourselves, away from the nerd storm :)

At this point i was still under the weather from the flu in San Francisco, but we managed to see a preview screening on the new J.J Abrams show, Fringe, which was quite good and gave us a taste of things to come. for those wondering, this aint a bad show, its kinda X-files meets Re-Genesis, i'd like it to be a bit darker and less to the point, but it moves rather quickly. once the screening was over we headed over to the show room floor, to take in the exhibition hall and the real nerve center of the Con. the floor where all the artists and publishers set up their booths and flog their latest books, films and toys to the passerby. but nothing could have prepared us for the sea of people that flooded in, it was crazy and left us dazed.

The next day we took off to Seaworld as mentioned, but on our return to the Con we managed to head into the Dexter panel showcasing the new season and discussions with the panel. throughout the weekend the majority of your time is split between shooting into preview screenings and panel discussions, or spending time on the showroom floor buying up comics, artworks, signings and general eye gazing. if this is your entertainment world, you will have a blast. simply seeing the freedom people have to dress up and be creative in their own world for 24 hrs is fantastic. hilights for this year included seeing new footage of the new Watchmen movie, Terminator movie and various TV shows in Lost, Dexter, 24, Prison Break, Heroes and much much more. on a personal note i stumbled over and saw Mike Mignola at his signing booth, Brain Wood, Brain Azzarello, Ben Templesmith and many more. but i must say, i was very shellshocked. these guys are some of my heroes and it felt sureal to see them in the flesh. to the point that most of the time i felt like just hanging back, almost hesitant to really say something. i mean what do you ask them that they haven't already answered 20 times a day. sometimes the mystery can still be kept alive. on exiting Comic Con rumors are flying round that LA or Las Vegas will bid to host the event in the future, but thats going to be a hard pill for San Diego to swallow as this has been an integral part of this economy for 39 years, yeh ... next year its the 40th anniversary. it all started with 300 people for a day convention, now you all want to be involved. great times.























Heya guys .... i know i know, your dieing for updates, well i know ive been slack an all, but seriously that flu just could not be shaken easily. losing it now, feelin much better. anyhoo, currently in line for a Comic Con presentation on the latest Prison Break season ... Mark's inside watching the latest stuff on 24. much much more to be said ....





ok ok i swear im here for the .. a, ... comics :)

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mmmmmmm info.....news....??

Anonymous said...

MMMMMM... WAX OR REAL PAPER COMICS!!
GLAD ITS WARMER WISH IT WAS HERE GLAD
YOU GETTING OVER YOUR FLU CAN WAIT FOR NEWS ON CANADA
BE SAFE DEB

Anonymous said...

Well it's Tuesday..... still no news?? :)
Just heard on the news a huge fire is being battling out of control in Yosemite's!

Anonymous said...

Ello,...... where are you? It is now Wednesday......
Heard on the news this morning that San Diego was shaken by an earth tremor! Stay safe.

SHAUN FOX said...

Yeh yeh keep ya pants on, HA! love ya, seeya all soon enough.

S.

Anonymous said...

I see you leave the good bits till last?
Some people forget that you are on holiday and just want to chill out and not sit in front of a Mac all the time.
Enjoy. Cya.

SHAUN FOX said...

Ha ! amen brother, but its all been good bits really, Comic Con was a blast and yeh, it took alot out of us, we were there from 6AM till 8PM, meeting up with people, going for dinner, just really took a break from it all.

hopefully the miss mash of photos give a good idea of what it was like there at the convention centre, the huge amount of people, the lines, the chaos, the panel speakers, the floor, the costumes and the eyecandy ofcourse.

S.

but don't you go putting off the dedicated reader and poster here :) if it wasn't for her i think this would be a rather quiet place lol.

Anonymous said...

Dude the convention looked awesome!! Seeing it kinda makes me feel like a half-ass nerd lol, there are some real die hards there!
And whats with all the hot chicks?? Since when did nerd gatherings have those?? By the sounds of it it may have been the first girls many of the attendants have ever seen.... and the first sunlight in a long time :P

SHAUN FOX said...

It was AWESOME!
man i thought i knew a bit about comics, artists, movie and fan stuff, but i felt outa place compared to some of these guys, true fan-atics! but great people ... the nerds finally had their day in the sun lol.

Hot Chickitoes a plenty lol, 60% are simply there as sponsored walk arounds for major companys selling crap at the show, but others like Ruby Rocket aka Black Cat and Phoenix (above) are true fans and actually make their own costumes and attend every year... no shortage of eye candy and cute comic nerdness :)

Dude, we had so many inside jokes between Mark myself and our two Boston friends there for all the nerd "1st's" at the show ... lol

S.