SDCC Day the Second, Pt. 2
After the panel was done, I was feeling quite hungry. It might have been all the talking of food while we were in line, but biological imperative kicked in. So, we missed out on the Korra panel… and the Firefly panel and got lunch instead.
We weathered the huge crowd on 5th Ave. to make our way to Broken Yolk on 6th. Now, when I say crowd, I mean it. There were so many people that at times you had to walk in the street to pass by people. Thankfully, the street was closed to traffic. If you’re looking for freebies, outside of Comic Con is one of the best places to get it. There were so many people handing out all sorts of stuff.
Ship by 5th Ave. Picture by Craig Gordon
When we finally made it to the Broken Yolk, we noticed that it was being inhabited by the Hub for the weekend. Which means that all the decoration was based on Hub programming like My Little Pony, Care Bears and The Aquabats Super Show. There were monitors showing bits of different programming throughout the restaurant. They have specially printed menus that were made for that weekend in which they say that they are able to do substitutions… except that they didn’t allow for substitutions. That’s right, something that could have been omitted for the Con was left on. It’s a bit annoying when the menu explicitly says that it can do substitutions and then you’re told that it’s not possible. While not being able to get egg substitute was annoying, it wasn’t a deal breaker. However, pomegranate mimosas and a tasty California breakfast burritos made it worth staying for.
Now, one thing I hadn’t mentioned was the amount of proselytizing happened at the con. This is something that I don’t think I get. There is a Christian Comics group at Comic Con. This should meet their need for religion available at the convention. There was even a Sunday devotional. This apparently doesn’t meet the proselytizers need to tell people they’re going to hell for dressing up and attending a convention. Now, this isn’t just unique to Comic Con. I’ve also mentioned that there’s the same thing at Fanime. However, there’s not just mocking the proselytizers. There are con goers who would reasonably talk to them and make legitimate arguments about how they’re arguments aren’t entirely founded and actually contradict what they’re quoting from the bible. This is something that I like. Instead of just antagonizing the religious types, they’re trying to find a middle ground.
Penguin rushing to a panel. Picture by Craig Gordon
After the walk back from lunch it was time for my ASIFA panel talking about the current state of animation in Hollywood. There was a lot of discussion of traditional animation versus digital animation. Within digital animation they discussed 2D animation, 3D animation. They also discussed video game animation with digital animation and the differences between gameplay animation and pre-rendered animation. There was also a brief discussion of animation geared for adults and animation geared for children… and what is profitable for studios. There was also discussion about Kickstarter for video games. Overall it was an interesting and enlightening conversation. It gave me a greater appreciation for the animation industry and insight in to the future of animation.
After the ASIFA panel we headed over to the dealer’s room. Now, it’s difficult to give an apt description of the dealer’s room. The biggest part is trying to describe the degree of chaos that you encounter once you’re in there. I’ve been to plenty of conventions and have gone through plenty of dealers rooms. There is nothing that can match the magnitude of Comic Con’s dealers room. It was insanity. Picture a street in a crowded city where everybody is trying to get you in to their shop. Now turn that up to 11. It is an assault on all the senses. The space is almost the entire length of the bottom floor of the San Diego Convention Center, minus Hall H. There is so much there that you could conceivably spend your whole convention looking around in the dealers hall. I wish I had a head count to go with, because I would wager that there were about a couple of thousand of people milling around the dealer’s room at any given time.
ASIFA: http://asifa.net/
Broken Yolk Cafe: http://thebrokenyolkcafe.com/