It’s Thursday morning, the morning of the first day of actual programming at Comic-Con, and the atmosphere is approximately the same as right before the fiesta starts in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.
At least nobody’s getting their genitals shot off here. As far as we know.
The preview night last night was really nice for about an hour, which is all the time you can spend on the exhibition floor before you have to take a saving throw vs. madness. If you looked really carefully, in between the giant gleaming metal Transformers, and the giant gleaming throne of Asgard, and the giant gleaming Tron light cycle, you could see tiny scurrying forms. These tiny scurrying forms were artists, who were at Comic-Con with their art, and much of it was amazing.
So that was good.
This morning I’m on a panel myself, which is pretty much why I’m here. (It’s on here somewhere.) The small panels at Comic-Con are great. Great writers come to be on them (Patrick Rothfuss, China Mieville, Naomi Novik, Scott Westerfeld, and others I’m forgetting right now are all here.) The rooms are always full (partly because it’s impossible to get into anything else, but partly because people here care passionately about fantasy and science fiction). The conversations are fascinating.
Even I lack the power to bitch about it. I wish that were more the focus of the Con.
I’m going to stick to the panels as much as possible today. But I will decloak long enough to go see Joss Whedon and J.J. Abrams talk onstage, and then tonight I will plunge directly into the fires of promotional hell to see a screening of Scott Pilgrim. Don’t let me down Scott.
(I was going to interview Robert Rodriguez for Machete, too. But his people bailed.)
Which will be followed by an absolutely mental event celebrating the 30th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. As far as I can tell in advance this will consist of trying to make eye contact with celebrities while people in stormtrooper costumes dance to house music. Because what better way to celebrate the history of a great nerd franchise?