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Friday, July 30, 2004
Comic-Con Fan Report part 7
Parts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5,
6.
Right, this it. Simpsons and Sin City and that’ll be the end of this Comic-Con business. I will post an appendix to all of this, though, but that’s not essential. Looking around I see there are a lot of great post-Con reports. The thing is those people have enough sense to keep it to one post. Me, well, mine have to come with an appendix! Ah well, people enjoy reading them and I enjoy writing them (most of the time) so who cares? On with the goofiness:
Sat.
Daniel and I had a train to catch at 4:00 p.m., so this is really half a day. Granted, it’s half a day with three of the biggest panels of the con, none having to do with comics. Saturday, more than other day of the Con, is movie/TV/etc. day. As long as they still give me plenty of comics stuff, I don’t mind. I was just there to soak up the geek goodness.
We got to the Simpsons panel early. Seems the preview/panel of the new J.J. Abrams series Lost was getting started. With nothing better to do, we decided to sit down. They showed the first hour of the two-hour pilot. Pretty decent show about a bunch of airplane passengers stranded on a (supposedly) desert island. One of the airplane passengers happens to be played by Lord of the Rings actor Dominic Monaghan. Hearing half the audience scream with delight whenever he appeared on screen or when he came on stage for the panel, I knew this was the closest thing I will ever get to a Backstreet Boys concert. Pretty much all the questions were directed towards him. He admitted he couldn’t answer much because of a bit o’ the hangover, but he tried any way, the poor sod. I thought it was cool that former Batman: The Animated Series writer Paul Dini was there as one of the show’s writers, but he didn’t get to so much because he was never in LOTR. The poor fool.
After all the Lost fun it was time to get better seats up front for the upcoming Simpsons panel. The show started off with clips from last season on the big screens. Then we got to see something special, very special. They played a French detergent commercial starring Our Favorite Family. At the end of the commercial (featuring voice work by French actors who did amazingly good impressions of the real Simpsons cast) we get to see young Bart Simpson doing a full frontal nudity scene for a good few seconds. Bart’s penis is very small, just so you all know.
Creators Matt Groening, Executive Producer Al Jean and a few writers and other crew members trotted out on stage to hearty applause. Bongo Comics big-wig Bill Morrison did an ok job of moderating, but this presentation was dominated by audiences from the questions. And most of them were bloody terrible. One question was someone asking for more appearances by Rich Uncle Skeleton and Dinner Dog. The producers told us that the return of Dinner Dog was no high priority. The mention of said Dinner Dog would become a running joke throughout the show. Another question came from someone who was supposedly a big fan of Gabbo. If he was such a big fan, why did he complain that we have only scene this character once? Doesn’t he know of the Great Gabbo’s appearance at that Indian Casino?
All these questions and more were made bearable by writer Matt Selman. This man’s fanboy baiting puts the likes of us comics-bloggers to shame. It is one thing to dismantle some Newsarama poster’s poorly made argument from the safety of one’s computer; it’s a whole other thing to call out some Comic Book Guy stand-in right in front of many thousands of people. The venom this man had for any fan’s who complained how thing aren’t the same as they were during 1992 is truly inspiring to us all. The fact that he wrote one of my favorite recent episodes of the show, the Run Lola Run-inspired Trilogy of Error, makes me like him even more.
Other news such as Springfield legalizing gay marriages and the subsequent coming out of a character were revealed. I even heard that piece of trivia being reported on CNN. Yes, come to the San Diego Comic-Con, where the real news is made! I’m more looking forward to the guest appearance by Gary Busey on the show. He’ll be narrating an educational video entitled So You’ve Gotten a Restraining Order.
The panel ended with a clip from last season of The Simpsons, Comic Book Guy and Edna Krabappel attending a comic book convention. This was a big hit for the crowd, and was to fun watch with a ton of fellow nerds.
Time for the Sin City panel. We decided to get there early as well. We did and we got in line. Not just any line, mind you. This was the biggest line in the world. It went from Hall H, the farthest right portion of the convention floor, to outside the convention center. By outside the convention center I mean it went to the grass and almost to the building right next to the convention center that was under construction. Every fifth person that came outside was heard to exclaim “wow, look at the size of that line!” That was funny the first two times and excruciating the last ten.
Still, it was all worth it when we got to finally sit down and hear director Robert Rodriguez tell us about the creation of the film adaptation of Sin City. He basically didn’t want the comics to become a film; he wanted the film to become like the comics. That’s why he drafted Frank Miller to co-direct the film. Rodriguez introduced Miller and the crows went wild. Miller and Rodriguez talked about Miller’s apprehension to movie making based on his experiences with the Robocop franchise. Rodriguez eventually melted that cold, cold heart of Miller’s with a short film he did in Austin based on the story The Customer is Always Right. Miller liked it so much that it would become the first scene of the movie. The movie is an anthology of stories from various Sin City books, the longest featuring the character Marv (Newsarama has a pretty good rundown of the show).
Rodriguez and Miller let the film speak for itself by showing us some clips of the film. The first was the test of the film that was previously talked about. This and other clips they showed were basically the panels of the comic moving. They even cut the actual panels of the film into the clips, although I hope that doesn’t make it into the final film as it’s distracting more than anything else. The film is over-the-top with the violence, sex, dialogue, everything. Just like Miller’s work the film looks like it has no time for subtlety. I don’t know how the movie audience as a whole will react to the film (although big fans of Kill Bill will probably like it, the fact that Quentin Tarantino directs a scene doesn’t hurt) but fans will get a huge kick out of this piece of work. I think it’s fantastic to see a wonderful artist like Miller get his work out on such a large level.
After the clip show Rodriguez introduced the lovely ladies of the film, but Daniel and I had to split. The 785 to Santa Barbra and intermediate stations was calling us and we had to answer. After all, we had gone too long without a home-cooked meal.
I want to thank you, San Diego. I was born in the city some 21 years ago, and just a few weeks ago I was reborn. If I had any doubts of being a nerd before, this crushed them forever. Not to worry, though, as I now know that there are many, many, many, many, many, many, many more like me. And a lot of them smell awful when you get real close to them.
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