Letters From The Loft
Stuff From The Desk Of Chuck Thornton
DAY TWO - PAGE 2
While we were standing in line, a couple of people asked us where we had picked up our Smallville bags. We directed them to the Warner Brothers booth. That gave me the idea to loudly announce that Bruce Timm would be taking sketch signups in the Marriott lobby next door, but Sam told me I would be on shaky ground ethically, so I didn't say anything.
The doors actually opened a little before 9:30, and we entered the Convention Center lobby near a set of Exhibition Hall entrance doors that were pretty close to the booth Bruce Timm was occupying. We made a bee-line (or, in Comic-Con lingo, we "juggernauted") straight to our destination...
... and could see Mr. Timm turning people away as he pointed at a clipboard full of names. I walked up to him, but he was already shaking his head. I figured I'd at least make some polite conversation with him so he wouldn't think I viewed him as some sort of sketch vending machine with an "out of order" sign on it.
"You're a busy guy," I said.
He nodded.
"Twenty sketches a day... that's got to be some work. Do you get the chance to have any fun while you're here?"
He shrugged. "A little bit. Mostly work."
I nodded. It was pretty clear this conversation fell into the "work" category, so I wished him well and shuffled off in what I hoped was a pathetic manner. Apparently not pathetic enough... Bruce didn't yell out, "Hey kid!" and throw me a jersey.
Although I was disappointed, there were no hard feelings, and it wasn't like he was rude or obnoxious to me. At the convention, guys like Bruce Timm must have to deal with guys like me all the time, and I don't blame them for being cautious or a bit guarded. Who knows how many times he's been friendly to a stranger at CCI, only to have the guy show up at his house for dinner after the Con was over?
Sam asked if we were going to try again tomorrow, and much to his relief, I told him no, explaining that you can't let an obsession dictate your time at the Con. He looked around him, and charitably decided I was trying to be ironic.
We strolled around in the Exhibition Hall till about 10:30, then decided that we should line up early for the program scheduled at noon in room 6BCF. It was a panel on a TV series that's been getting a lot of buzz: The Walking Dead.
The Walking Dead is a critically-acclaimed comic book (yes, there is a such a thing) about a group of folks trying to survive in a world overrun by zombies. I know, I know, it sounds like the premise of about 20 different movies and a couple of my past journals, but execution makes the difference and it's a pretty good story. So good, in fact that the shuffling, flesh-eating corpses will be coming to your TV in October, brought to you by the producers of Blue's Clues.
Just kidding... the show's being produced by the American Movie Classics cable channel. Nowadays, the network refers to itself as AMC, as its programming model has transitioned from old movies to a steady stream of commercials with occasional breaks for movies and original programming. They've already had success with Mad Men and Breaking Bad, but I think it's safe to say that The Walking Dead is their first show to become a major blip on the CCI radar, because the comic book is already a fan favorite. AMC wasn't being bashful about promoting the show; their booth in the Exhibition Hall was pretty elaborate, not to mention crowded and gruesome. It was basically a life-size diorama of a scene from the show; a living room complete with dummy corpses. Here's a couple of pictures I took off a website:
Don't worry... this wasn't near the "Curious George" booth.
I had a feeling that the panel would draw a bigger audience than room 6BCF could accommodate, so we decided to get in line an hour before the scheduled time. We should have gotten there earlier, though, like maybe the day before. When we arrived, the line for the panel was already down the hall, out onto the Convention Center's bayside veranda area, and around into a narrow balcony walkway at the north end of the building that would normally be frequented only by maintenance personnel and hunchbacks. We finally found the end of the line near some gigantic exhaust vents that made us extremely nervous... when you get thousands of people together under one roof, the bad air's got to go somewhere, and we were afraid we might have found the escape valve.