It was day two down here in San Diego, the german “whale’s vagina.” Which reminds me, before I forget, that I saw a poor gymnast’s vagina due to catastrophic wardrobe malfunction on my facebook feed tonight…an image I cannot un-see. Thanks to whatever pervert posted that shit.
But COMICON day two was today. We started it off with some free breakfast downstairs. And it was a legit breakfast, too. Eggs, sausage, a place to make fresh belgian waffles, juice…I mean it was much more than just a bullshit continental breakfast, let me tell you.
That kicked things off in style. We weren’t hung over, which is always the fear when you suddenly find yourself being “old” and having gone out the night before. We trekked down to the convention center for our first panel of the day and made friends with a really nice lady while waiting in line who had been in the Navy. That panel was on how to write a TV pilot, and it was actually great. It was an entire table full of showrunners and producers. Good stuff.
Then, we walked the entire length of the exhibit hall with all the vendors. Holy shit people…there were a lot of PEOPLE. I mean, it was bananas. Some people were saying it was way more busy than last year. Others said it wasn’t. Who knows? It was jam-freaking-packed to the point where it was frequently hard to move around. But, we found some dope shit, including an amazing photo booth at the BBC America pavilion that would take your face and put it on a bunch of Orphan Black clones (the cover image for tonight). We also tracked down an artist that Liz had found last year and wanted to see what new stuff she had. That was an adventure.
Then, we came back, ate some freaking delicious Mexican food from the taqueria near our hotel, took a half hour snooze, and then went back downtown to catch three panels in a row. The first one we ALMOST didn’t get into because the line was bananas for the NEXT panel, which was David Fincher along with the writer of Fight Club and the Dark Horse Comics team that was helping him publish the sequel which hasn’t come out yet….but WE wanted to see the previous panel which was about writing a novel and making it into a bestseller. And that was with the writer of Maze Runner, which our friend Ki Hong is in the upcoming movie for…anyway, a big deal. But, we almost didn’t get in, but the moderator for the panel let us join his entourage so we could make sure we got to see that panel. I mean, the David Fincher panel was cool too, but we honestly wanted to see the one on novels, both for me, and just to meet the guy who wrote the Mazerunner book.
I just realized that Mazerunner was a terrestrial and less-horror-centric version of the canadian horror movie Cube, and so I spent a few minutes seeing if it was possible to watch anywhere online. It isn’t, not from above-the-board sites anyway. Shame on them. It’s an obscure movie from the 90s and you don’t have it on Netflix or Amazon Prime? That’s stupid.
So yeah, David Fincher was cool, as was the writer of Fight Club. Then the last panel that we’d eyed for the day (in the same room, no less) was a bust. It had a nice-sounding title about the Alchemy of creating a Franchise and Story Worlds…but then they literally spent 15 minutes debating whether there was a difference between a “franchise” and “transmedia”…what the fuck? Who gives a shit? It kind of went along from there, and when we realized we just weren’t taking any notes on what was being said, we decided to move on. Whatever was being discussed just wasn’t what interested either of us, and so we called it a day. But, that was the first time that had happened in the entire experience, so that’s a definite win overall.
Finally, we got to hang with a cool dude Stephen Hu, who Liz did a show with a while back and has been down here in San Diego doing the MFA program at the University of San Diego. He took us to a cool local spot, and we had some nice food and drinks and conversation about Godzilla and Edge of Tomorrow and Shakespeare and Moliere and whether or not women get happy endings after massages like guys do.
Overall, an extremely satisfying day. And not too exhausting either. I mean, we will definitely be tired tomorrow, but not run ragged. And I appreciate that.
Okay, off to bed now. Goodnight y’all!