My July Fourth Weekend

Comic Convention, San Diego,

Darin and I headed down to San Diego this year for our second Comic Convention International (the convention formerly known as "San Diego Comic Convention") in a row. This year we dragged along CJ and Lance, so I've spent more time in the past week with CJ than I have with anyone in my immediate family in the past year.

Last year's Comic Con kicked butt; this year's was kind of dull. The Babylon 5 presentation was way cool, with the scenes from the five remaining episodes of this season and a surprise appearance by Jerry Doyle (who plays Garibaldi). But Straczynski was prohibited by the Warner Bros. (boo, hiss) lawyers (boo, hiss) from showing a new episode, because there were so many people in the room it constituted a "theatrical exhibition."

The blooper reel was cool, though.

But no other kick-butt presentations this year, the way that there were over and over again last year. Neil Gaiman wasn't around--oh sure, he's off in London or something working on a TV series. Like that's an excuse. And the Vertigo panel was on Sunday, the worst attended day, so the room had at best 300 people in it, which was kind of stupid in a room designed for 1500-1700.

The comic book industry is on the downslide after an incredible explosion in the Eighties. It's one of these natural expansion/contraction cycles, with right now being the contraction part. There are still the fantastic success stories: Preacher from Vertigo, Spawn from Image. A lot of the me-too comic books have disappeared, thankfully. Not that I read them much anyway: I read pretty much just Vertigo titles (Preacher, Hellblazer, Books of Magic, any of the Endless series) and the X-Files comic book.

We did a couple of new things at this convention. We went to the Masquerade, which is not, in fact, a masked ball but instead is a fashion show of costumes made by fans. It was fun and somewhat embarrassing (for me at any rate, but then, I am easily embarrassed for others).

The highlights included:

The 7-year-old boy dressed as the Silver Surfer, with a surf board strapped around his waist and fake legs on the board, with his real legs hidden behind a black skirt.
The man announced as "Steve Trevor", who walked out in a suit but then ripped it off to reveal the Wonder Woman costume underneath. The top of the costume kept falling down and he'd tug it up. Following him out were two women dressed as Nazis in black suit twirling American flags, a guy who kept handing WW bouquets of flowers (WW would then blow kisses towards the audience), and the guy who was lip-synching the theme song to the 70s TV show. At the end the emcee announced that this entry was "Diana, formerly known as Prince."
The Rebel Scum, a group of fans dressed up as Boba Fett, two stormtroopers, a fighter pilot, Princess Leia, and Chewbacca. They enacted a little scene in which the pilot, Princess, and Wookie overcame the stormtroopers and got away from Boba Fett. Their costumes were quite good, and they took home the most prizes that evening.

The lowlights included:

The worst part were a small group of fans in one of the balconies who kept shouting through everything. They never shut up. I started calling them the "frat boys" because you could imagine they were out on the town for a night of rowdiness.
The improvisation group the Enigma Players, who were brought in to entertain the crowd during the intermission while the judges were off judging. They were awful, and when comedy isn't funny, it's painful. Their specialty was supposed to be comedy related to science-fiction, but it was terrible. They were booed off stage three times. At one point, during a chorus of boos, one of the players looked up at the "frat boys" and said, "Hey, give us some credit--we came back." Darin told me they came in from Los Angeles to do this gig. Oy. Learn some improv basics, guys.
The Masquerade contestant dressed as Beavis. He pulled his t-shirt over his head (a la "Cornholio") and came out on stage making muttering noises. You got the feeling he did it just to see if he could get away with it. He got booed off.

We also went to MCA Universal's preview of The Frighteners. It's a pretty good flick, a nice scary/funny summer film about ghosts, starring Michael J. Fox and directed by Peter (Heavenly Creatures) Jackson. There's one plot hole that's still bugging me, but Darin shrugged it off as a slip-up.

They need me down there to make their scripts make sense. I know they do.

When we arrived back home last night, I immediately hopped on my Browseboard (CJ says anyone who calls it "surfing" should be taken out and shot) and started checking out my favorite sites. What I discovered was that many of them hadn't been updated. No new entries on Coffee Shakes. No new entries in Tracy's diary.

Hey, what, was everyone on vacation or something?