Guest Post: Craig Gordon, SDCC and Comics, pt. 1
Since our managing editor has already given the details of our Comic-Con trip, I’ll just provide the highlights from my experience/perspective.
This was my first year at Comic-Con and I was approaching it with mixed feelings. I’ve always liked/read comics but..
Steam DC, picture by Jennifer Bevan
- I don’t read super-hero comics (yes, there are other kinds)
- I despise crowds
- I don’t see many movies
- I don’t collect figures/signatures/themed items
- I don’t care about previews/sneak-peeks of upcoming projects
- I don’t get fan-boyish over actors/writers/artists
So why was I going? Part curiosity and part supporting the blog mostly, but there were some “educational” panels that I was looking forward to. Regardless of any expectations, post-Con the highlights for me were: the racebending.com panel and talking to N.K. Jemisin (details in another post), morning panel for Community (6 seasons and a movie!), checking out everything Archaia and bugging Mark Smylie for more Artesia (details in another post), hitting up the independent comics area, an interesting evening at the Stage Door bar, and hanging out with friends.
The first two days were mostly panels and getting used to the Con.
We started off Thursday by getting in the badge line at 6 AM. For those of you who haven’t been, there is a separate line for people who already have their badges to get into the building. Some of the staff directing people did not know that.
Period costume
I think the line for people who already had their badges was actually the longer line.
The line started moving at 8 AM and moved fast after that. The entire Sails Pavilion was given over to badge pickup. Row upon row of staff printing out badges. Waiting in line we were worried about getting to our 10:00 panel. We ended up having an extra hour of waiting in the hall. Yay coffee.
A FYI – the little Starbucks stands around the Con do not sell “coffee” as an irate woman in front of me was loudly complaining to them about. They have tea and espresso but no “coffee”. You have to go to the actual Starbucks downstairs for that. And the line for that was almost as long as for the panels.
Another FYI for those at the handicapped entrance – that entrance has much fewer staff and they have to send someone running upstairs to the printers for each badge. They apparently weren’t even doing multiple badges in a run. They did them one .. at .. a .. time. For those of you attending on your handicapped friends, the badge you receive is not person specific. There is no name on it, so it could be given to someone else if you are switching out. Not all of the staff were aware of that this year. Also the attendant badge doesn’t give you any privileges if you are not with your attendee.
We started off with the racebending.com panel. This was so awesome it is getting its own post.
Then we split up to do different things. I went to the spotlight on N.K. Jemisin. I hadn’t read any of her books (The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms et al) but I was curious after the racebending.com panel. She also wrote the somewhat infamous blog entry on “Why does magic have to make sense?” The panel was crowded but it seemed that most of the people were not actually there for her. They were waiting either for the Marvel panel that was after her or the ST:TNG panel that was after that. She did readings from some of her books. I like her writing style but will probably still not read her well-known series, The Inheritance Trilogy. I waffle though. The world building interests me and her writing flows well but the plot seems to be primarily about family intrigue and politics, which I try to avoid.