DAY ONE... cont'd
Sam and I went our separate ways after that. Although I was avoiding the movie/TV rooms this year, there was one exception: a panel for the USA TV series Burn Notice. Sue and Ben and I really enjoy the show, but Sam hasn’t had the opportunity to follow it so he went back down to the Exhibition Hall, and I went to line up about a half hour early to get into Room 20. The line looked daunting--- it accordioned down the entire length of the building in the way I imagine tapeworms take up residence in the intestinal tract--- but, like I said, Room 20 holds a few thousand people, so once the doors were open, I easily found a seat inside.
Attending this panel seems to fly in the face of my earlier statement about the lack of appeal these kind of movie/TV panels have for me, but I couldn’t resist seeing Bruce Campbell, who’s a Burn Notice costar, in action. His biggest claim to fame is probably as the star of a trio of Sam Raimi movies entitled Evil Dead; Evil Dead II; and Army of Darkness, and on the strength of those three titles alone, he could sign autographs at the Con for the rest of his life, just like the guy who played Imperial Storm Trooper # 26. His list of credits, while not prestigious, is extensive, and he’s always involved with something that justifies annual appearances at the Con. But even if his only current project was painting his living room, I’m convinced the Con would find a way to put him on a panel. Because Bruce Campbell knows this audience, and he plays them like a virtuoso. When he walks on the stage, he’s greeted as if he were Elvis (who he played in the movie Bubba Ho-Tep). He works hard to entertain the audience and he makes it seem effortless. Every endeavor, no matter how humble, has its masters, and Bruce Campbell is the Picasso of working a Comic-Con crowd.
There was an added bonus to being at the Burn Notice panel; a little ticket was handed out to every audience member that, we were told by the studio representative, could be redeemed for a free Burn Notice T-shirt down at the Fox booth in the Exhibition Hall.
One of the upsides of enduring the crowds to get into Hall H or Room 20 is that the studios customarily arrange plenty of swag, usually in the form of posters or T-shirts or tote-bags with logos plastered on them. We Con attendees love these give-aways, and are grateful for the opportunity to be walking billboards (I’m sure most of the Twilight contingent took advantage of the free forehead tattoos). By shying away from the two big rooms this year, I missed out on all this kind of stuff, so the Burn Notice T-shirt (which I thought Sue would find pretty cool) took on added value for me.
After the Burn Notice panel, I had to hightail it over to the Golden and Silver Age of Comics panel, which was featuring some of the industry old-timers on which I had decided to focus this year. The panel was hosted by Mark Evanier, a guy who has made a living as a writer for both TV and comic books. At one time Mark was the production assistant for Jack Kirby, who is generally revered as one of the all-time greatest comic book artists, and Jack must have taught him the Comic-Book-Senior-Citizen secret handshake because Mark has always been the go-to guy at the Con for talking with the older-generation creators. He does his best to make sure these folks are remembered and appreciated by a crowd that, for the most part, were in Huggies when these creators were being put out to pasture.
As much respect as Mark has for the participants of these panels, hosting them is still a challenge. None of the participants are wired for sound (unless you count hearing aids). Instead, in front of each chair at the long table where the guests sit, there are table mikes that everyone must speak into. The mikes are essential, Acoustics in these rooms are non-existent; sound waves take a nose-dive about 3 cm from their point of origin. But a guest can be heard clearly if he looks straight ahead, hunches over in his chair, and puts his mouth up against a device that has been in contact with many other mouths from previous panels.
I’m sure it’s tough for anybody to maintain the posture demanded by the Comic-Con PA system, but it seemed to be particularly challenging for the generation represented by this panel, a generation that was around during the McCarthy hearings and probably didn’t want to look like they were testifying in front of a Congressional committee. Much of the time that could have been devoted to reminiscing was instead used by Mark to issue reminders like “Could I ask you to speak into the microphone?”; “A little closer to the mike, please,” “Please, don’t look at me while you’re talking, talk to the audience,” “Please, don’t grip the microphone while you’re speaking,” and ultimately, “Let me repeat what our guest just got done saying.”
Still, they had interesting stories to tell, to the utter delight of all of us in the front row.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton