Ok, so here's my con report for the Comic-Con International 1999 (touted as the last con of the millennium but we all know better!). This is the 7th time I've attended what used to be the San Diego Comic-Con, but it felt very different from previous years. For the past 4 years, I've spent the majority of my time working behind tables in the small press area and this year my friends and I decided not to exhibit, just to go and have fun at the con. A lot has changed in 4 years.
First off, what really blew my mind this year was the sheer number of people there. I don't know if the official attendance numbers have been announced yet, but it seemed like there were a great deal more attendees this year than in any previous years.
The dealer room was always packed full of people and many panels were closed out due to reaching maximum capacity.
Many of these attendees were not even comic book fans, and while 7 years ago this might have been fairly unbelievable, at this point, it doesn't seem that amazing. The Con has really become more of a multimedia convention the past few years with collectible card games and science fiction really stepping up more than they had previously. Several years ago they had to give the Image "founding fathers" their own area of the con, this year it was Pokemon, the Blair Witch and professional wrestling that were making big waves.
My first day of the convention was on Friday this year, having missed Thursday due to work. My first stop that day was over to the small press area where I had to talk with the staff of From Parts Unknown magazine. Their magazine is more or less about masked wrestlers in any sort of media and contains articles that are both very informative and very fun. Hey, the latest issue even has a pin-up by Berni Wrightson! You can check out their website at: .
Not too far into the day, was one of my main reasons for going to this Con, a panel on the movie Mystery Men. After picking up some of the Flaming Carrot comics at last year's show, I've been a big fan of Bob Burden's work and have kept an eye out for it. When I first saw previews for the Mystery Men film I wasn't too sure as to how high quality it would be, but as of this article, I've seen the movie 8 times (beat that George Lucas). If you haven't caught Mystery Men yet, I'd suggest you do so as quick as possible before it leaves the theater. With a great cast, really witty dialogue, and an attention to detail that will have you catching things even on the 8th showing, this is easily the best comic movie adaption in a long time, if not the best of all time.
During the panel, Bob Burden talked about various things involving both his projects as well as the process of the movie. For the most part, he was fairly hands off in regards to the making and writing of the movie unless the filmmakers asked for assistance. The filmmakers were responsible for choosing which of the 30+ Mystery Men would be involved in the movie, as well as adapting them for their specific needs. Part of the Mystery Men premise is that the stories and characters can range a wide array of genres and interpretations and rather than dictate the key points of the film Burden left it to the filmmakers.
Burden gave the examples that the Spleen (portrayed by Paul Reubens in the film) never had any sort of flatulence powers in the comics and that, in fact, he hadn't even determined what the Spleen's powers were. While Blue Raja was a master of silverware in both versions of MM, Hank Azaria's character in the film was a young man who stole silverware from his mother to fight crime, while the comic version was a Vietnam P.O.W. who escaped from the Hanoi Hilton by using silverware as weapons.
Several other cool facts came up about the movie that I had not heard before. William H. Macy (the Shoveller) actually learned how to do all of the shovel "twirling" and fighting his character does in the movie. Burden stated how he was suprised to show up to watch the filming one day and to see a big Hollywood actor like Macy practicing with this shovel very intently. Burden also mentioned how his version of the Shoveller was more of a middle-aged, short and round man along the lines of a Danny DeVito. Another neat factoid was that cast members were forbidden from doing PeeWee Herman impersonations on the set. Apparently, the cast were all big fans of Paul Reubens' previous work. One thing I was bummed to find out is that the Disco Boys were created by the filmmakers and will probably not be involved in the comic series.
Another big movie panel that was going on Friday was for the Blair Witch Project. It's safe to say, that this film doesn't need any introduction. Heather Donahue, the actress who played Heather Donahue (que casualidad!) in the movie was going to be answering questions about the film during this panel. Now the big problem that arose is that her autograph session was originally supposed to run from 2-4pm that day, but due to a delayed flight it was moved to 6-7pm right up to the Exhibit Hall's closing.
The problem came from the fact that this panel was scheduled to run from 4:30-5:30. Fans of the movie were basically stuck with a dilemma of seeing the panel or getting an autograph. I tried to go the median route and watch the first half of the panel and then go get in line. By the time I got downstairs around 5pm, I found out that they had already capped off the line for the signing. Extremely frustrated by this, I was complaining to a friend when a Comic-Con staffer who was none too happy with me being mad about it came over and told me that it wasn't anyone's fault and if they could get more autographs in they would love to and she would love to.
For those of you who have never been to the Comic-Con before, a few minutes before the exhibit hall closes they begin trying to shew everyone out the door, be they professionals or fans. In this case, it wasn't a matter of the Con didn't want her to sign more autographs or that she didn't want to, but it was just a case of needing to get everyone out of the exhibit hall. First off, they had several hours worth of advance knowledge that she was not going to be available for signing until later. One way they could have made this more fair to all of the fans would have been to make tickets or numbers of some sort available when people showed up for the original signing. Another solution would be to hold it in an upstairs exhibit room separate from the main hall so that they could still close their hall on time. This situation led to a lot of disappointment for a lot of attendees, but it just goes to show that if you are interested in an autograph of any sorts you'd best show up over an hour in advance just to see what the size of the line is.
The following day, I was able to check out more of the exhibit hall and see what sort of stuff was available this year. As mentioned before, Pokemon was literally everywhere. I don't think you could walk down an aisle without that yellow dog (or whatever he is) staring you in the face. Another thing I found out about was a new Collectible Card Game coming out from Decipher (makers of Star Wars CCGs). Coming this fall, they are going to have an Austin Powers card game and to promote this they had two sexy birds there in full 60's getup along with the Austin car. You could get a picture taken in the car with them for the price of one Star Wars CCG starter deck, but hey, I'm just Lucased out right now and didn't feel like spending the $10. ;P
Another cool booth I stopped by was the Ninth Circle Studios table, the makers of the comic Sonambulo. This book features a retired Lucha Libre wrestler who is now a private eye and possesses the ability to read the dreams of others. Rafael Navarro has created a very spooky, yet fun series here with some of the best black and white artwork I've seen in a very long time. There is now a Sonambulo website going at . I'd really recommend you check it out!
For the most part, I try to avoid the larger company booths during the cons as they are very crowded, but I did manage to catch one of the signings that I was really hoping would happen. Craig McCracken (creator of the cartoon Powerpuff Girls) and Genndy Tartakovsky (creator of Dexter's Laboratory) were both signing at the DC table promoting their new Cartoon Network comics coming out through the company. Both guys, as well as DC comics, did a bang up job with this autograph session as the line was very long. DC was giving out free Cartoon Network bags to the fans that had both a free CD as well as a strip of Cartoon Network tattoos (which are very hard to find!). Then both guys were giving out free comics for everyone to get signed and doing a sketch for pretty much anybody who wanted one! These days, I hear a lot about creators who charge a lot for even a quick headshot sketch and who complain about doing them, but Genndy and Craig went way out of their way to make sure that the fans were happy!
Overall this year was a little disappointing in comparison to cons of the past, but I still managed to pick up a lot of stuff I was looking for and get some cool autographs. Sometimes things at the con seem very poorly organized or flawed in execution, but I guess when you are planning for 35,000 plus guests, that can happen. I definitely will be at the con again next year though as there is just nothing else like it for scifi, comics, and animation.