Comicon 2008 Journal
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DAY TWO...CONT'D
We attended a panel touting the upcoming animated
series BATMAN: THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD from Cartoon Network, and starring
Diedrich Bader (who used to play Oswald on the old Drew Carey show) as
the voice of Batman, which is already more information than most of you
want to know. But the panel did its job and I’ll be watching the show.
After that we cruised the exhibition
hall for a while. I noticed quite a few folks sporting signs that said
“free hugs.” I’m sure it’s an innocent sentiment, and all in the spirit
of promoting fellowship and brotherly love, but honestly: at a place
like the Comicon, is that a prudent invitation? Even without thinking
about it too much, in a place where they’re jamming 120,000 people into
a vacuum-packed venue, is it necessary to wear an invitation to invade
your personal space? Conversely, if you wear one of these signs and
never get a hug, what does
that do to a self-image that’s already so fragile that you’re dressed up
like Green Lantern?
We spotted Lou Ferrigno, who played The
Hulk in the old TV show, signing autographs. You can count on seeing him
every year, and it’s encouraging to know that a guy twice my age can
still be in good enough shape to snap me like a pencil.
We started at one end of the exhibit
hall and started working our way toward the other end. Similar
exhibitors are grouped together, so all the surrounding booths seemed to
be hawking an assortment of action figures and Japanese toys. This is
one of those parts of the exhibit hall that closely resemble the kind of
third-world marketplace you see in movies, where the hero is accosted on
every side by street vendors. We transitioned from toys to the DVD area,
a magical zone where the laws of trademark and copyright no longer
apply, and you can purchase episodes of your favorite sci-fi show,
complete with originally-aired commercials, on DVDs labeled with a
Sharpie.
Soon it was time to go to a preview of
Watchmen, a film adaptation of
what’s generally agreed to be one of the greatest comic books ever
produced, which means that most people outside of San Diego this day
haven’t heard of it. It’s due for release in March, and the director and
cast were there to talk it up, show some clips, and answer some
questions from the audience. Major studio stuff like this takes place in
Hall H, a huge room with a capacity of 6500. It was filled for this
program. We were expecting the usual warning that anyone caught
recording any of the presentation would be taken out and shot, so we
were pleasantly surprised at the announcement of this year’s change in
policy: violators would no longer be taken out, but would be shot there
in Hall H. A couple of people with “free hugs” signs were used as
examples.
After that program, all 6500 of us went
back to the exhibition hall, which made for some interesting traffic
problems. Sam and I cruised through some more booths, and I snapped a
few more pictures. There were a couple of impressive Lego sculptures
that bring new meaning to the phrase “too much time on your hands”:
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