Thoughts, Ramblings, and Recollections of a Weekend of Adventure in San Diego: Comic-Con, Craziness, and MORE

What a weekend!

I may only have been in San Diego for three days, but it feels like I've just come back from a long, strange trip. And I have - this past weekend was pure craziness from start to finish.

On Friday morning, the G-Man and I boarded his G-Mobile armed with sleeping bags, plenty of tunes for the long ride ahead of us, and a vague idea of what to expect once we reached San Diego, which for one weekend only would be the Mecca of Geekdom, host to the annual Comic-Con which has become not only the world's biggest comic convention, but a madhouse that has all but been overtaken by the likes of Sony, Universal, FOX, and Warner Brothers. But though Comic-Con has incrreasingly become a forum for the big studios and TV networks to build buzz for their latest fanboy-ready projects, Comic-Con is still like nowhere else. Walking around downtown San Diego was like being in another world altogether. The geek had truly inherited the earth. Of course, you get the hundreds of people walking around in all manner of crazy costumes - comic characters, movie characters, anime characters, you name it - the outrageous outfits were everywhere and there were photo-ops aplenty. Check out my Myspace or Facebook page for some scenes from the Con.

But it's not just the novelty of seeing girls walking around dressed like Batgirl or Zatanna that makes the whole scene so unique. If you speak Geek, then you are in a place a veritable Bizarro World where everyone speaks your language. You've come out of the Diaspora and arrived in the Holy Land. On Day 1 of the Comic-Con, I came out of NBC / WB's panel for new fall show CHUCK and was explaining to some of my NBC co-workers why co-star Adam Baldwin got such a geekgasmic reaction when he appeared on-screen. As soon as I mentioned Adam Baldwin, a very enthusiastic girl who happened to be walking by ran up to us and started talking about how much she loved Adam Baldwin, much to my amusement and to the surprise of my less geek-saavy co-workers. But this is how it goes at Comic-Con, and to be honest, it is just an awesome atmosphere. It's like us fanboys feel so repressed not being able to talk comics and whatnot out there in the "real world" that at Comic-Con it's one big lovefest. Everywhere you go, people are as friendly as can be and eager to make conversation. "You see the Marvel panel?" "How great was Iron Man?" "You read the latest Countdown?" "What comics do you read?" Everyone is walking around, comparing notes, sharing their favorite comics, telling their stories. I mean, I was lovin' it. You don't even mind standing in the big lines for the panels too much, because part of the fun is making random conversation with the poeple next to you, and catching up on all the latest buzz from the show floor. I almost hated mentioning to people that I worked for NBCU, because the truth is, I work in entertainment but I couldn't be farther from a Hollywood suit. At Comic-Con there's this great feeling like "we're all in this together." At night, walking down the streets of San Diego's hopping Gaslamp District, most people even left their entry badges hanging around their necks as they visited the bars and restaurants and shops - the badge was a badge of honor, a symbol - if someone had that badge, then they were a-okay.

As for the convention itself, it was pure madness. Crowded as hell, with panels scheduled from early morning to evening with no letups or slowdown. In fact, many of the big, must-see events overlapped, not to mention that most required a long wait in line to ensure entry. So you really ahd to pick and choose a few key panels to attend, because there was just no way to do more than a handful in one day. So what did we see? A quick rundown:

CHUCK Panel: I was very, very eager to see how this upcoming fall NBC show was received by the fanboys at Comic-Con. It's a show that I'm a big fan of, and I've been a big supporter of the pilot at NBC, from as far back when I read the script and immediately e-mailed a bunch of people I know from development and shared my enthusiasm about a show that struck me as Y: The Last Man meets Alias meets The OC. Of course, my enthusiasm wasn't exactly universal - many older and stuffier types didn't get the show and I was worried that it might not even get picked up for the fall slate. Well - how AWESOME was it to see my favorite new show of the fall play before a capacity audience that CLAPPED and APPLAUDED and CHEERED and was on the edge of their seats the whole time?!?! It rocked! The show got a standing ovation, and when the cast and creator Josh Schwartz and director McG came out for the panel following the screening, they were totally blown away by the reaction from the crowd, and it made them visibly giddy with enthusiasm. And so was I. This is one of those shows that, honestly, would never have been on NBC a few years ago and the network certainly considers it a risk, whick is justified, as it is to some degree. But this is a case where the geeks won, baby! And I use the word geek in the best possible way- I mean this is a show for smart people who get irony and layered humor and pop culture and don't want more of the same old crap on TV. So when I met back up with my co-workers outside the panel, I was totally excited and pumped.

KEVIN SMITH Panel: Ever since my friends and I first saw Smith speak at WizardWorld a few years back now, I make a concerted effort to see him speak live whenever he attends one of these things. And this was the maestro on the biggest stage of them all - with a gigantic line and hour + wait to see the director of Clerks and Mallrats do his thing. So we braved the line and sat down in the huuuuuge Hall H which holds thousands and is adorned with hanging video panels for those too far back to see the stage (aka most inside the hall). The first 20 minutes or so of the panel was classic Smith. To me, Smith, love him or hate him, is one of the main people we have to thank for the current renaissance of geek culture. Clerks and Mallrats helped make it cool to be a nerd, and Smith's runs on comics like Daredevil and Green Arrow brought in a new era of big-name Hollywood talent writing comics. So even with no new movie to show off, Smith is a must-see, not only because he's friggin' hilarious to listen to, but because to me he is kind of this Master of Ceremonies at Comic-Con. You want to hear what he has to say about all that is going on in the world of geekdom. So yeah, for 20 minutes or so, Smith did some classic riffs and Q and A. The highlight ( now on YouTube), was undoubtedly when a fan bitingly asked Smith when he would "make a new movie that doesn't rehash old characters yet doesn't completely suck?" Well, Smith got red in the face, and proceeded to verbally WAIL on this dude looking for cheap heat as only a true master of the insult can. Smith's tirade was drop-dead hilarious, topped only by his later random story about his two dogs' lusty affair with each other. The downside of the panel was that instead of it just being a forum for Smith to go off on whatever, it was turned into a quasi-panel for the new CW show REAPER, which Smith directed the pilot of. We saw the entire pilot, which is pretty decent and funny but not GREAT, per se. Kind of Ghost-Busters meets Bill and Ted's Bogus Jouney meets Buffy, with a dash of Clerks. Smith then introduced some of the show's cast and crew for Q and A, but of course the fanboys were more interested in their typical Kevin Smith questions than asking about Reaper. Anyways, a bit of an odd panel for its shoehorning of Reaper into the mix, but worth attending for its classic bits of Kevin Smith hilarity. And it looks like the biggest bit of Smith news actually came at the HEROES panel, where it was announced that he'd be doing an episode of HEROES: ORIGINS. Nice - Bluntman and Chronic in the Heroes-verse? Claire had better watch out ...

Well, Saturday at the Con was a total mob-scene. In the afternoon I met up with Justin of NBC and some of his interns in line for the HEROES panel. We couldn't get in with any special NBC access, and ended up being too far back in line to make it in! So, no Heroes panel for us. Being hungry and exhausted (more on why later), we decided to eat and walk around and then focus on making it into the MARVEL STUDIOS panel later that afternoon. It meant we'd have to miss the Futurama panel, but what could we do ...?

MARVEL STUDIOS Panel: We waited outside in the San Diego sun for this one, also in Hall H, for like an hour and a half. But what we eventually saw was way worth it. The first half of the panel was the cast and crew of Universal's upcoming HULK movie, which means big guns like ED NORTON, LIV TYLER, the guy who directed The Transporter movies, and of course Marvel's Avi Arad and Kevin Feige. Well, so far, things look good for this movie. The odd thing is that I thought the whole point of the franchise reboot was to do a more comic bookish, action-packed Hulk movie than Ang Lee's more contemplative film. But the way Edward Norton describes it, this one will be just as if not more cerebral than Lee's take. Norton is actually co-writing the movie as wll, which is kind of interesting. But man, is that guy intense. He answered every simple question with these slow, intellectual answers and seemed to really ramble on at times, but in a very interesting way - the guy could probably be an English professor if he ever chose to. But, it was cool just seeing him and LIV TYLER in person ...

But then, the IRON MAN portion of the panel was just KICK-ASS. I mean, WOW. Director Jon Favreau came out to join Avi and Kevin, and introduced an freaking all-star lineup of Robert Downey Jr., Gwyneth Paltrow, and Terrance Howard. Their excitement and comraderie was palpable, and there was a huge, undeniable energy in the big convention hall. The atmosphere was electric, and when they finally showed a 4 minute movie trailer, HOLY LORD, the roof blew right off of Comic-Con.

About this trailer - it may well be the best superhero movie trailer I've seen, MAYBE second only to the Batman Begins footage I saw at WizardWorld a couple of years back. But man did this thing rule it. Robert Downey Jr. was spot-on as Tony Stark. The look of the film was already amazing. The grey suit was pitch-perfect, and a scene where a soldier tries to sneak up and shoot the grey Iron Man only for the bullet to boune back and hit him was SICK. The cliamctic moment of the footage, with the full red and yellow-suited IRON MAN flying in the blue sky leading a squadron of F-15's into battle, as the guitar riffs of Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" grinded in perfect time to the action, was off the chain-awesome. Exactly as I always imagined this movie in my wildest dreams. I. AM. IRON MAN. Indeed. This movie is going to be the bomb.

The kicker though, and one of my personal highlights of the weekend, was when the lights came up from the trailer, and STAN F'N LEE himself came out to praise the cast and crew. When I saw the living legend walk out with that patented gleam in his eye shining through the trademark tinted glasses, I couldn't help but smile from ear to ear. Between the pitch perfect trailer I'd just witnessed and being in the presence of the man who helped conceive these characters in the first place, I was moments away from jumping out of the seat and screaming "Excelsior!" Stan Lee looked over at Favreau and exclaimed "If we'd had writers like you at Marvel back in the 60's, we would have overtaken DC a lot sooner than we did!" Hot damn, you all know I'm a DC guy, but I was ready to jump up and say Make Mine Marvel. I was in fanboy heaven, and rightly so - I was in the presence of greatness.

SMALLVILLE Panel: After the Marvel shindig, we headed over to get in line for the Smallville event, the first the show's had at Comic-Con in a few years. It was a bit underwhelming after Marvel, especially since my enthusiasm for the show has dimmed after a few years of substandard episodes and storylines. But, it was still very cool to relive some of the show's highlights in the form of a nice video montage, which also included some sneak peeks at next season and its impending Supergirl storyline. We were then introduced to a panel that included the show's creators, Erica Durance (aka Lois Lane), and the actors behind Oliver Queen, J'onn J'onzz, and Kara Zor-El. Some funny banter between Erica Durance and Josh H aka the Green Arrow, especially when they were asked about the ins and outs of their on-screen romance. Otherwise, a pretty cool panel but not much newsworthy other than the introduction of the statue-esque blonde who will portray Clark Kent's superpwered Kryptonian cousin next season.

So those were tha main panels we attended. I would have liked to have seen a lot more, and had to miss out on some big ones like Disney/Pixar, Bionic Woman, Simpsons, Family Guy, and DC Comics. But like I said, Comic-Con is a madhouse, and realistically there's only time to do a few big panels per day.

But, we did see plenty of cool stuff and interesting people on the show floor. Of course, there are all the professional show-workers dressed as everyone from Homer Simpson to Bender to Princess Leia roaming aorund the show floor, and then the hundreds of amateurs who dress up as all manner of comic book and sci-fi characters, which like I said makes for plenty of cool photo-ops. I did manage to see lots of other people of note though. Off -hand, there was:

- On Friday, upon entering the Convention Center, me and Brian spotted CHRISTIAN CAGE and SHANE HELMS (with a nasty-looking neck brace) entering the Con, presumably just as interested fans.

- Speaking of professional wrestlers, I got some great pics of the one and only GI Joe commander, SGT. SLAUGHTER himself, manning the fort at the Hasbro booth. TEN-HUT! Sadly, I must've missed RVD and Virgil ...

- If only Aksel had managed to come to the actual Con with us. He would have geeked-out over the woman who played DEANNA TROY on Star Trek:TNG. Personally, I was more excited about seeing one of my childhood heroes, LEVAR BURTON, aka Jordie LaForge, signing autographs on the show floor.

- It's funny, I just caught the cult classic film Faster Pussycat, Kill! Kill! for the first time a few weeks back. Then, I am randomly wandering the show floor, and look up to see this large, nearly elderly woman at the Fangoria booth, sporting a black catsuit, jet-black hair, and a chest that makes Dolly Parton look like Nicole Richie. Holy crap, it was TURA SATANA, the B-movie icon who starred in Faster Pussycat! Sweet!

- Of course there was the obligatory checking out of the SUICIDE GIRLS booth. No sightings of that one girl from my high school who went to to become an SG, sadly.

- Tons of comic luminaries were in the house. Saw everyone from the legendary JIM LEE doing signings to the aforementioned STAN LEE, to GAIL SIMONE, Nicolla Scott, GREG RUCKA, and many more in attendance at the DC Booth (where we snagged free WATCHMEN movie posters).

- And aside from celebs and comic book legends, there were huge booths aplenty from big media companies and indie comic publishers alike. Sony, Capcom, Square-Enix, LucasArts, Sierra, and Konami all had huge booths showcasing kiosks with playable demos of some of E3's biggest games. I was particurly jazzed to see CONTRA 4, Ratchet and Clank: Future, UNCHARTED, and Heavenly Sword. Capcom had some sweet Street Fighter tournaments goin' on, and there was a huge Donkey-Kong themed booth in honor of the upcoming documentary film, King of the Kong. Of course, I checked in at the NBCU booths, which included a futuristic SCI-FI booth, a ROGUE PICTURES booth, and a mobbed HEROES / NBC booth, which was filled with cheerleaders handing out various trinkets and walls adorned with Tim Sale's original artwork from Heroes. The G-Man was also representing his company, MGM, and it's big franchise of STARGATE. Brian volunteered to participate in a special promotion at the MGM booth, where barbers were shaving hardcore fans' heads with Stargate logos and colors. Brian took one for the team, ever the company man, and emerged balder if not more hardcore for his efforts. Then, I was walking around on Friday when I unexpectedly bump into Jules! My fellow Boston U grad-turned Hollywood bigshot was in the house helping to run the show at the G-4 booth, so we got to hang out with her a bunch at Comic-Con as well, which was very cool.

- Now, as for the rest of our stay in San Diego, we actually had a whole other set of adventures completely apart from the actual Comic-Con. On Friday night, Me, Brian, and Diane The X-Plosian Panosian met up with man / myth Aksel, a native and current resident of San Diego, for a night of food and revelry in the Gaslamp District. It was a crazy night full of hearty food, interesting characters, and many classic Aksel moments (for better or for worse). Then, me and Brian somehow ended up staying the night at a friend of Aksel's. On one hand it was very nice of them to let us stay over, on the other hand, it was not a very fun night. We were cramped and burning up in the small and non air-conditioned apartment, and I think I got about an hour's worth of sleep that night. Not fun at all per se, but it was certainly an adventure the likes of which only occurs when with the man called Aksel. On Saturday, I saw Justin from NBC, briefly met up with Diane, but totally missed Adriana, who came down to meet us Saturday afternoon. At night though, it was abother bigtime BU reunion. Chris Agra himself, my roommate in Boston for many years, had been vacationing in San Diego with his girlfriend Lindsay following his completion of the bar exam last week. Chris and Lindsay met up with us for dinner Saturday night. Many classic stories of the BU days were recounted and tales told, jokes exhanged, and then the four of us proceeded to wreak havoc on downtown San Diego. Finally, and let me thank them again for this publicly, Chris and Lindsay offered me and Brian a chance to crash at their swanky hotel room in the famous Coronado hotel. It was a much better arrangement than the previous night, and the next morning we had a nice brunch in a great area of Coronado Beach / San Diego by the water. Finally, I bid farewell to Mr. Agra (for now), and me and Brian headed back for one last look at Geek Paradise. Sunday, we met back up with Diane, Adriana, and some other friends of the X-Plosian, checked in with Jules back at G-4, but mostly we headed to the back end of the show floor where hundreds of vendors were selling their wares at low, low, everything-must-go prices. Again, the place was a madhouse, and fanboys and girls were swarming around the tables of comics, artwork, posters, toys, and other collectibles for sale. I snagged a few trade paperbacks and a Con-exclusive Alec Ross signed sketchbook, but it was too crazy to purchase too much, and too rough on my wallet as well. Finally, after one last sweep around the show floor, me and Brian exited the building. There was a palpable sense of sadness in the air. People were exchanging numbers with new friends, and old friends were saying tearful goodbyes. Back home, they'd once again be the geek, the outcast, the loner. Here, these costumed masses were among their peers. People with vivid imaginations and big dreams, with open minds and a rare appreciation for the written word, the magic of pencil on paper, and the collective hopes and fears of mankind brought to life on the page, the screen, the dialogue of life. I'm not one who has ever shunned the company of those who don't have the same appreciation for these things that I do, but I couldn't help but share in the growing sense of emptiness. Here I was, in a place where the people sitting next to me aat dinner gladly made small talk with a bunch of strangers about upcoming movies and the awesomeness of the Iron Man trailer, where a guy standing next to me in line eagerly showed me his photos from the show and told me of how he moved to LA from Alaska. Those who find comfort only in the banal and everyday walk into San Diego and see a bunch of weirdos. But those who look for something more than what is considered the status quo walk out of San Diego with a sober realization that they are leaving a place of bright color and vivid imagination and re-entering a world that can be harsh, boring, bland, and close-minded.

Me and Brian walked up and down the main strip of the Gaslamp one more time, grabbing some food and taking in the sights and sounds. A bunch of Pirate Minstrels on a street corner singing sea chantys. Guys in garish T-shirts and girls in fishnets and combat boots. Finally, not wanting to brave the sure-to-be horrendous traffic back to LA quite yet, there was only one fitting way to end our San Diego adventure - with an early-evening showing of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE in downtown San-Diego, in an audience filled with the True Believers. The fact that the movie, while not *spectacular* per se, was very funny and overall a lot of fun, made for a nice cap to our journey. We then got in the car, and weary, tired, barely concious, made the long trek back to LA, through stop and go traffic and both discs of Rush's greatest hits (only fitting that such a unabashadly geeky bacnd be our soundtrack home). With hastily rolled-up sleeping bags, plastic bags full of schwag, and duffle bags of clothes in tow, we drove home, back to LA, back to reality.

It was a great weekend. It had it's nightmarish moments (that first cramped, sleepless night). But overall it was an adventure well-worth having. The Comic-Con was a great experience, one I'd gladly do again, armed with better knowledge and planning. I got to see Chris for the the first time in about a year, and we had a great time with him, Lindsay, Aksel, and everyone else in the great city of SD. Certainly, to put it one way, it was worthy of a hearty exclamation of "Excelsior!"

NEXT: My long-awaited review of THE SIMPSONS MOVIE~!