The Best of San Diego Comic-Con, and Goodbye to All That

Best thing I saw: it’s a three-way tie between Ponyo, Tron: Legacy, and Kick-Ass.

Surrealest moment: having a dude dressed in some kind of mechwarrior armor blow past me while I was in line for Iron Man 2, and realizing that the dude was Jimmy Fallon

Best-dressed: I want to say it was the flock of Monarch’s henchmen from Venture Brothers. Or the massive steampunk presence, awesome both in every particular case and in aggregate. Or the many, many hopelessly sexy fangirls swanning around getting their cosplay on. But I have to give it up for Hayao Miyazaki. The man can rock a white suit.

Purchase I regret not making: an uncolored production proof of a page from an old Defenders comic

Purchases I don’t regret making: the rest of the Penny Arcade books I didn’t have, plus a giant Japanese pink octopus.

Best things I missed: Where do I start? Comic-Con is so overscheduled, it’s more about missing stuff than seeing stuff. District 9, Avatar, and Iron Man 2 (much of the press got shut out due to a SNAFU). Plus MC Frontalot’s show on Saturday night.

Best line: It was in Kick-Ass:

Kick-Ass: How do I get ahold of you?
Hit-Girl [she's 10]: Just contact the mayor’s office. He has a signal that shines a light in the sky. It’s in the shape of a giant c___. [This was followed by a standing ovation.]

Worst meme: Free hugs.

Most painful irony: By winning, nerd culture has lost. When I was a kid the fact that comics and games and fantasy and whatever were awesome was a secret, and people gave me a hard time about it. Now suddenly everyone’s all, hey, no, this stuff is great, Iron Man, woo! Which means instead of being our little secret, now it’s all about big corporations selling nerd culture to as many Joe Douchebags as it can pack into the multiplex. And where am I in that transaction? I don’t want to be anywhere near it.

Best sign: There was a guy crashed out on the carpet on Sunday afternoon. Before he passed out he had managed to scrawl on a piece of cardboard: TWILIGHT RUINED COMIC-CON.

Obama’s Inner Geek: Robots to Flying Marshmallows

On Tuesday, Obama hosted the second White House Science Fair, an exhibit of more than 30 student projects that ranged from a system to detect nuclear threats to a prosthetic hand to portable disaster shelters. For nearly an hour, Obama toured the displays and visited with students, pressing them for details and admiring their work.

anon76

Coolest, non-corporate over-run entity which your readership continues to encourage you to see, yet which you continue to be ambivalent about to your own nerdly detriment: Oh, f*ck it. At some point trying to convince you that cool things actually are cool is exactly as pointless as trying to enjoy nerd-dom at an event controlled by studios and douchebags.
ipisking

Nerd-dom will never be the same…
http://youtube.com/churchhatestucker Church

Did you go to the Diamond Select Toys party? Looked like fun.
Kemper

If you would have stayed home and watched BSG DVD sets over the weekend, you could have reflected on the Emmy snubs and how a certain blogger covering geek culture in a major magazine continues to refuse to watch and comment. Then you would have felt like the outsider with awesome secrets all over again…..
http://www.twitter.com/leverus Lev Grossman

You realize, right, that whereas there was a point in time, in the past, when I might one day have gotten around to BSG, now there is _no_way_ I can ever watch it? It’s part of the brand now.
byron12

Um, Lev, does that include the BSG prequel, Caprica, mashups, and the original series? What about BSG fan fiction? Can you clarify, please? After you’re chlonopin kicks in?
Kemper

Part of the brand? Like “Nerd World – Proudly Ignoring Battlestar Galactica Since 2003!”
tyrantking

Wanted to give you props for not caving on BSG. Yeah you should do it, but it’s about the principle now. I for my part am never joining facebook. It’s just not going to happen.
http://jollyandy.com/home/?p=46 Henching at San Diego Comic-Con 2009

[...] Us Around the Web: CollectionDX MaximumPC Frakking TIME MAGAZINE [...]
dennitzio

Psst – Lev – the secret to not watching BSG? Have a Greek mother-in-law who loves the show and watches it religiously… Thus showing you that you actually aren’t the target demo… Then happen to be in the room when all the secrets are revealed in the last episode or so. See, I know who’s a Cylon, what happened to Earth, etc. Now if I watch the series, I already know all the secrets, so I’ll end up getting frustrated by how much they were just making it up as they went along. Far better as a an unseen mystery.
http://youtube.com/churchhatestucker Church

You have your brand, and we have ours….
anon76

But part of the brand is also being forced by your employer to endure the monstrosity that comic con has become. Your brand’s pleasure-to-pain ratio is in serious misalignment.
As a doctor I prescribe some BSG watching- see if that helps.
anon76

I was forced to join facebook, but I can still one-up you: I do not own, and have never owned, a cellphone. Suck it, modern world!
http://www.woodka.com/2009/07/28/the-best-of-san-diego-comic-con-and-goodbye-to-all-that/ Changing Places » Blog Archive » The Best of San Diego Comic-Con, and Goodbye to All That

[...] via The Best of San Diego Comic-Con, and Goodbye to All That – Nerd World – TIME.com. [...]
tereglith

And I thought I was the only one not to have a cell phone.