Comicon 2008 Journal
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DAY THREE – CONT'D
We came across Castle Grayskull (in the background)…
And nearby was Mr. Man himself…
… or as his friends call him… “He”.
There were quite a lot of announced projects based on 80’s
cartoons. Besides the upcoming He-Man
movie, there was a teaser for a
Transformers sequel coming in 2009, and there’s also
G.I.Joe movie in the works.
You know you’re getting old when nostalgia starts operating a couple of
decades this side of your childhood.
As the afternoon approached, the crowd level was approaching
Soylent Green proportions. Ben remarked that you couldn’t put this many
people into such a relatively small piece of geography without some sort
of impact on the planet’s gravitational field, and he convinced me that
all the stuff we’re laying at the feet of global warming is really the
fault of the Comicon. I had
to admit, that night the moon seemed closer.
I wanted to see a preview of a new Fox show called
Doll House, and since the
show’s creator was fan-favorite Joss Whedon, I decided to attend the
program just before it, then stick around so I’d have a chair.
That program was an appearance by best-selling author Dean
Koontz, and this was the first time he had ever appeared at the Comicon,
or stepped foot off his front porch.
I’m just kidding, but it was pretty obvious that Mr. Koontz
wasn’t at all familiar with this venue, didn’t know what to expect, and
hadn’t really been given any guidance on what to do once he stepped out
on stage. The only reason he was there is because a publisher is
producing a comic book based on his series of
Odd Thomas novels. Although he claimed to have approved the
material, he had no hand in writing it, so basically he was just doing
his due diligence in promoting it. But you could tell when he started
talking that he didn’t quite know how to approach the rather sizeable
segment of his readership that also happen to read comic books and use
them for fashion tips.
Most of the savvy Comicon guests just come out and start taking
questions. But Dean Koontz wasn’t savvy, and thought that, as an invited
speaker, he should actually deliver a speech. He wasn’t completely
unaware of his location, so he tried to relate his remarks to comic
books, but it was tough since he admitted he hadn’t read any since he
was a kid. So the best he could do was say, “You know, there are things
that have happened in my life that seem like they came out of a comic
book,” and then go on to relate some random anecdotes that had nothing
to do with comics. It was sort of like if I was invited to speak at a
plumber’s convention and told my audience that toilets were a total
mystery to me, but there were times in my life that seemed to take place
in one.
But you know… he did okay. He was such an obviously nice man who
cares deeply about his work, and his anecdotes were genuinely
entertaining. I was afraid the Comicon crowd would get impatient and
treat him rudely, but instead they listened, and laughed, and when he
opened it up for questions, they were respectful and admiring. He
visibly relaxed over the course of the program, and I think he was
relieved by the appreciative applause he received when he finished… but
I’m pretty sure he still peeled out of the parking lot as soon as
possible.
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