Letters From The Loft
Stuff From The Desk Of Chuck Thornton
DAY ONE - PAGE 4
We looked around a little more. I thought the Nickelodeon booth was pretty cool...
... mostly because I caught it at a time when it was one of the few areas on the Convention floor where you could see the Convention floor. It had that neat "curled-up" carpeting motif, and the carpeting was actually the best quality of any booth there. The carpet padding must have been three feet thick, and it felt wonderful to feet that had spend the last few hours tramping up and down concrete hours. I started to take my shoes off and run barefoot through the booth, but Sam cold-cocked me and dragged me out of there.
Just in time, too, because I wanted to attend the panels for the USA Network's White Collar and Psych TV shows. Sam and Alan weren't interested, so I said goodbye to Alan and "see you later" to Sam, and headed up to Ballroom 20 to get in line. As you'll recall, Ballroom 20 is the second largest venue (after Hall H), so the entrance queue can be rather intimidating. It snakes down the outside of the entire south wing of the Convention Center before making a U-turn into the building and coming back again to the entrance doors, and when you first step in line, what you see are a bunch of folks in front of you extending beyond the horizon. I wasn't discouraged because a seasoned Con veteran like me knew that I was still likely to get in. As Madison Avenue knows, if you stack any moderate size group of objects end-to-end, they'll stretch to the moon and back, and CCI attendees are no exception.
Although in recent years, I've shied away from the more celebrity-oriented events in Hall H and Ballroom 20, I still try to take in at least one USA Network program. It's not just because I like the USA shows... it's that the producers are great about handing out free t-shirts, and I like to bring one or two back for Sue.
I got in line while another USA program was in progress in the Ballroom: the panel for Burn Notice. That's one of my favorite shows, but I had attended that panel last year (got a great t-shirt) and missed the Psych panel. So this time I was hoping to pick up swag for White Collar and Psych. I stood in line for about 40 minutes, but made it into the ballroom while the Burn Notice panel was still in progress, and when I sat down, they were still passing out the tickets that could be redeemed later for the swag, so I ultimately ended up scoring a t-shirt trifecta.
Besides the latter part of the Burn Notice panel, I sat through the White Collar and Psych panels. All three were great fun. These are shows that have nothing to do with comics or science-fiction or teenage sorcerers or undead bloodsuckers, yet there's still an intense fan base for them at CCI. I'm guessing that, for the shows' cast and creators, this is the only time in the year where they encounter such a large and enthusiastic crowd of fans. Most of the panel participants seem to be pleasantly surprised that their shows can gather such a large audience at a "comics" convention, and they look like they're having a lot of fun answering questions and telling stories. They definitely seemed to be having more fun than Bruce Timm.
I met up with Sam afterwards, and we attended a panel on the 75th anniversary of DC Comics, but I was pretty tired by then, and I can't remember too much about it, other than the fact that they didn't hold up any of Ben's pictures.
After that, it was about 5:30 and we decided to call it quits for the day. My free t-shirt tickets, tucked safely away in one of the 22 pockets of my ScotteVest, were redeemable at the Con's "fulfillment room", but I could pick them up on any day of the Con, and I didn't feel like hunting down my freebies at the end of the day.
We decided to get dinner at the drive-through at Jack-In-The-Box. We weren't lucky enough to stumble across another Bunch O' Lunch en route, and they forgot to put sweet-and-sour sauce for my eggrolls in the bag, but neither of these setbacks could ruin a great day. I was already nostalgic before my head hit the pillow.