The A.V. Club - Comic-Con

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 4: Passion project

Mon, 25 Jul 2011 08:00:00 -0500

Everything started somewhere. When you dig down deep enough, you find the core, the DNA that keeps things ticking along. And Comic-Con, beneath all of the movie stars and TV fans in long lines and voice actors performing radio scripts and comics being sold and artists sketching commissions, started out as a simple, downright idealistic concept: If you put a bunch of aspiring artists in the same room as the professionals and the comics companies, then the amateurs will get advice from the professionals and get jobs from the companies. But is it still that? Portfolio reviews are still a ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 3: Lines, lines, everywhere lines

Sun, 24 Jul 2011 12:00:00 -0500

A big part of Comic-Con culture is found standing in line. A big part of what aggravates just about everybody about Comic-Con is standing in line. There’s really no way to get the full experience of the Con that most people are attending—the one where you spend all weekend attending panels instead of, I don’t know, playing role-playing games based on the long-dead TV series Jericho (which is an actual thing you can do here)—without standing in a few lines. So I went looking for lines today, though I went out of my way to find ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 2: Seven short films about Comic-Con

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 09:00:00 -0500

Phil Foglio is in high spirit. A young woman seeking a critique of her work has brought her portfolio to the venerable comics artist (best known at this juncture for his work on the Web comic Girl Genius), and he’s been happy to oblige her request. As he stalks through her portfolio, the others in his booth—including his wife, Kaja—keep wincing, as though terrified he’ll scare the poor girl out of her art. But he can’t stop. He’ll say something like, “See, now this is good,” then lavish some praise on the overall composition ...

Archer: Comic-Con: Comic-Con 2011, Day 1: The many faces of Comic-Con

Fri, 22 Jul 2011 09:00:00 -0500

The most common misconception about Comic-Con, even from people who regularly attend, is that it’s one convention or even one kind of convention. If you read media portrayals of the event, they seem to think it’s merely a Hollywood propaganda tool that tricked its host into raising some other bird’s egg as its own, until that other egg tricked the mother bird and kicked it out of the nest. Comic-Con used to be all about the comics, this particular narrative goes, and while that’s still present, every year, big Hollywood gains just a little bit more ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 4: Why cover Comic-Con?

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 05:00:00 -0500

Sons of Anarchy and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia: I plan to spend only an hour on the show floor, but I end up spending nearly three. Just walking around and talking to people - like the creator of my favorite webcomic, Axe Cop - ends up being a lot of fun. I always forget just how approachable most everyone is at the Con, and even though my feet are killing me (note to self: better shoes if we go again), I can't stop. I briefly consider spending the rest of the day there but remember I'm supposed to ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 4: Artists' Alley

Mon, 26 Jul 2010 03:00:00 -0500

When Al Wiesner looked at the superhero landscape in the late '80s, he thought something was missing: Judaism. Naturally, he responded by creating his own superhero, a strange rock-turned-man called Shaloman. Shaloman rides the uneasy line between parody and straight-up superhero comic, and it's never immediately clear if even Wiesner knows his true intentions, outside of one issue, his favorite, which he constantly refers to as "the parody issue." But the parody issue doesn't look appreciably different from the regular issues, outside of jokes like "Nosir Nyafat." ("Instead of Yassir Arafat," he says.) Behind him, a woman I ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 3: For the love of Community

Sun, 25 Jul 2010 00:15:00 -0500

Community creator Dan Harmon sits at the table in the green room for the Hilton's Indigo Ballroom, playing through worst case scenarios. Someone could ask just why Community, the show he created, is at Comic-Con, suggests a publicist. He tries to convince himself that if the room is half full or completely full, it's good both ways, since the former means that everybody who wanted to see the show got in and the latter means that lots of people wanted to see the show. Unless it means that the room is full of people waiting for something else ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 3: Where the fans are

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 23:18:00 -0500

The idea, I guess, is that Comic-Con is for the "fans." You hear the word "fans" more than just about any other at Comic-Con. And for the most part, that's true. Most of the people here are hardcore fans of one thing or another and are here to celebrate that one thing or another. Some people are here to gawk, sure, while some people are mostly just here to try and find some celebrities (like the kid I stood in line with this morning, who kept asking me which celebrities I thought would be there today). And other people ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 2: Berkeley Breathed brings much-needed joy ...

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 00:09:00 -0500

The hardest thing to do at Comic-Con is remember what it is that YOU love, not what Comic-Con loves. Take, again, my favorite whipping boy: Tron. I have never, ever in my life seen Tron. I have never wanted to see Tron. I'm sure that it has good elements, and I'm sure that it appeals to the people who like it, but there's just nothing in it that I'm terribly interested in seeing. And yet, when Tron: Legacy took over Hall H yesterday and when there was some sort of weird ARG last night, specifically designed ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 2: Bring out the Dead

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 15:52:00 -0500

There are few comics series I enjoy as much as Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead, a sparsely written and gutsy tale of life after the zombies take over. What I love about The Walking Dead is its close-up focus on its characters, the way that it turns the trappings of a zombie movie into the stuff of domestic drama. Kirkman is unflinching with plot twists and things like character deaths, and while that can sometimes feel cheap, he's also good at giving these moments the weight they need. If someone dies in The Walking Dead, or if someone ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 1: Hall H-E-double hockey sticks

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 03:37:00 -0500

Any true Comic-Con experience is incomplete without a visit to Hall H. Obviously, if you want to avoid the behemoth space where major movie announcements are made, you can, but the big "news" that comes out of the Con? It's all being announced there, and if you want to find out that, say, Joss Whedon is confirmed to direct The Avengers or that, I don't know, Tron: Legacy looks pretty cool, it's the place to be. Getting into the place is also a massive, massive hassle, involving standing in line under tents and hot sun for hours ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 1: It never changes to stop

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 16:57:00 -0500

The primary reason the press coverage of Comic-Con has ramped up in the last decade is the fact that it's become Hollywood's primary clearing house for REALLY BIG ANNOUNCEMENTS about WORLD-SHATTERING STUFF. It's the first place Avatar showed footage. It's the place the Lost pilot first screened for the adoring public. It's the land of big, carefully managed announcements, where the studios and networks and publishers go out of their way to hedge their bets. Sure, it sometimes backfires (as it did last year when everybody hated that Avatar footage - not that it ended up ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 0: Comic-Con Among the Ruins

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 04:29:00 -0500

For a lot of people - myself included - Comic-Con is about seeing old friends again. I didn't manage to make it down to San Diego until about 7 p.m., then spent an hour looking for parking and picking up my badge, which left me with only an hour to spend hanging out at the Con itself. But the experience - shortened though it was - wasn't wholly worthless. There's always this sense in the first few moments of the event that this will be the Comic-Con where the good geek vibes overwhelm the fact that, well, this event has ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic-Con, Day 0: Tell me what to do

Wed, 21 Jul 2010 16:26:00 -0500

Been noticing a random uptick of Hulk references in your daily newspaper lately? Has the local news been showing B-roll of people dressed up as obscure video game characters? Wondering what it all means? Well, it could mean any number of things, but most likely, that all-consuming beast known as "the media" has noticed that it's time for yet another San Diego Comic-Con, where geeks and nerds of all stripes gather to celebrate all things that might possibly be of any interest to them. There's still comics stuff, to be sure, but increasingly, it feels like that's ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic Con Day 4: The British Are Here and So Is the End

Sun, 26 Jul 2009 23:45:00 -0500

(Sorry for the delay in this post. As it turns out, the traffic between San Diego and LA after Comic-Con is exactly as bad as everyone says it is. Also, sorry for the length of this. It was going to be two posts, but the opportunity to write up the first half never presented itself. - TV) For the final day of Comic-Con, my wife joined me. My wife is not known for her devotion to all things geek, but she does enjoy Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the Con was screening the musical episode as a special sing-along event as ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic Con Day 3: Comics, Pilots and an (Elderly) Illustrated Man

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:41:00 -0500

You know me by now, AV Club readers. You know I'm a TV guy. That's what I know. That's what I'm comfortable with. That's what I do, by and large. And when I decided to come to Comic-Con, the assignments I started taking were all TV-related because, well, that's what I know. So today after Lost, I was supposed to head over to Futurama, but Keith was able to catch it when he didn't think he would be able to, so that left me with a big, blank space in which to try ...

TV: Comic-Con: Comic Con Day 3: Cartoon capers (and the ongoing Futurama controversy)

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 17:47:00 -0500

Can I mint a phrase for the occasion? “Survival of the fannest.” Here’s who’s getting into these panels: The hardest of the hardcore, those willing to plot, strategize, and sacrifice to get where they want to go. My plan for today was to hang in Ballroom 20 from morning until afternoon, kicking things off with a panel for Chuck, a show I’ve come to like quite a bit. I was in line to enter the Convention Center before the doors opened at 9:30. Once in, I stopped by the bathroom then got in line for the ...

TV: Comic-Con: Comic-Con Day 3: Hornblare. Timpani. Lost.

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 14:24:00 -0500

When Lost screened its pilot episode at Comic-Con in 2004, it was one of those things that longtime goers of the Con now grouse about. Every other panel, it seems, is now screening the full pilot of something or other for Con visitors. At this edition, such incongruous programs as Patricia Heaton star vehicle The Middle and reincarnation cop drama Past Life are having sessions, but since Lost had such success in the fall of 2004 and part of that success is attributed to good buzz out of Comic-Con, everybody takes their best shot. But no one seems to begrudge ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic Con Day 2: Jack Bauer Goes Down to Fraggle Rock

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 23:38:00 -0500

After a little while in Ballroom 20, especially a little while without sustenance beyond the insipidly named Kawoosh purchased at the Cafe Diem, one starts to get a little punchy, especially when one is pretty much only there for panels situated at the end of the day that the cruel networks/Comic-Con schedulers are making you sit through other stuff for. But that said, I had more fun with the 24 and Bones panels than I thought I would. 24 mostly showed up to promote the fact that, hey, it's eight seasons old, and you used to be obsessed ...

Books: Comic-Con: Comic Con Day 2: Oh yeah! Comics!

Fri, 24 Jul 2009 19:07:00 -0500

Comic Con and grousing go hand and hand but some of the complaints have become clichés over the years. Mention that it’s not about the comics anymore and you’ll probably get a shrug. It’s a bit like complaining about MTV not playing music videos anymore or the Dodgers leaving Brooklyn. That ship sailed along time ago. That said, it’s not not about comics either. There’s certainly more focus on comic books and comics, sigh, properties here than any other gathering on Earth. Comics companies large and small make their presence felt even when while ...