Another year, another Comic-Con, but this time, not my usual mad dash down to San Diego for one day – this year, I was going for the weekend: Friday through Sunday. As always, I plotted my schedule (panels, signings, shopping, visits with friends) carefully ahead of time based on the info on the convention website. I knew where I was going and what I was planning to do for most of the weekend, but I still left room for the unexpected. Comic-Con always brings the unexpected and this year was no different...

Friday

As usual, I was up before dawn in order to get to town in time to park and get to registration when it opened at 9 a.m. Registration was quick and painless once I got there (though it was a HUGE pain trying to register online this year – the left hand didn’t know what the left hand was doing and had never even heard of the right hand!). Once I swung my badge around my neck, I made a quick turn by the autograph area schedule to confirm the person I wanted to see was still scheduled at the announced time (he was) and quickly made my way over to the freebie (swag) table.

It was even worse than the last few years – there was NOTHING on the freebie table but flyers. No pins, keychains, posters. Nothing. (In fact, I never saw a full-sized poster given away either at the freebie table or in the dealers' room all weekend long!) In recent years the freebie table has become the leftover distribution area rather than the primary one. So you have to just be at the right place at the right time to get anything good. But starting out the con with nothing – not a good sign. Still, I had places to go and things to do.

First on my to-do list was to pick up the two con exclusive action figures I wanted: the Star Trek “Mirror, Mirror” McCoy figure and the Buffy the Vampire Slayer “School Hard” Spike figure. I actually picked up two of the Spike figures, so I have an extra if anyone wants to buy it.

But I didn’t have time to wander through the dealers’ room at that point (sadly, I probably missed good swag because I didn’t make that early round of the room). I had a Star Trek 40th anniversary panel I wanted to attend, so I headed in that direction. I was early for the panel and walked right into the medium-sized room. I was glad that the room eventually filled up by the time the panel started, indicating people still had an interest in the past and future of Trek. IIRC, the panel included Paula Block and John Van Citters from CBS Consumer Products, Pocket Books’ Margaret Clark and Marco Palmieri, Trek experts Mike and Denise Okuda, the gentleman (whose name escapes me) in charge of the new Trek manga (Japanese-style comic books), and moderator and Trek author Andy Mangels. The folks on the panel did a great job of talking enthusiastically about forthcoming Trek projects from the planned JJ Abrams movie (everyone was excited, no one had any details), to forthcoming book lines (featuring all the Trek series, predominantly fiction as the non-fiction line had simply stopped selling), to the Trek manga (a learning process in combining the two worlds), to the various video games for multiple platforms, dvd releases yet to come (including the highly anticipated November release of Star Trek: The Animated Series), and the upcoming Christie’s auction of Star Trek props and costumes from the Paramount vaults (apparently the Okudas chose the items to go up for sale and the sale was intended to save money from the supposedly enormous storage costs for the studio). After the various announcements from the panel, they took questions from the audience. Each person who asked a question was then in return asked a Trek trivia question for the chance to win a prize, so there was quite a rush for the Q&A line! At the end of the panel, all attendees were given a Star Trek: The Next Generation graphic novel, “The Hero Factor”.

After the panel, I made my way back to the autograph area. Having recently completed writing a book about the making of the science fiction series Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, I wanted to give a copy of the book to one of my contributors, Andromeda co-star Steve Bacic. Steve was in high spirits when I arrived at his booth, greeting his adoring fans. I waited for a break in the crowd before I re-introduced myself to him and handed him the book. Steve (as most people seem to be) was surprised by how big the book had turned out to be, but seemed pleased to get a copy. I didn’t want to hold up the line, so after a few moments of chatting about the book (and showing him where his interview was in it LOL), I moved on.

After another pass by the freebie table, where they were giving out paper fans with the faces of Babylon 5’s G’Kar and Wonder Woman, I went back down to the dealers’ room to take my first swag pass through. Maybe it was the studios getting cheaper, maybe it was the lack of a blockbuster film to promote (Snakes on a Plane was the biggest title being promoted), but there seemed a distinct lack of interesting swag this year. Or maybe I was just missing it.

After some time in the dealers’ room, I went up to one of the smaller rooms for a panel about the dvd releases of various Filmation titles from BCI/Ink and Paint distributors including animated series He-Man and She-Ra and the ones I was interested in: Blackstarr, The Lone Ranger and Zorro, Dungeons and Dragons, Groovie Ghoulies as well as live action series including Jason of Star Command and The Secrets of Isis. The panel included Filmation owner Lou Scheimer, and various writers, directors and producers from the company including Scheimer’s daughter and writer Michael Reaves and was moderated (again) by Andy Mangels. The panel was a lively one, with much ire aimed at the toy company that the shows tied into. It was clear that working at Filmation in the early 80’s was both rewarding and chaotic! Unfortunately for me, most of the panel focused on He-Man and She-Ra, with little reference to the titles I was interested in.

By this time, I was ready for dinner and sleep, so I did both eventually. I would need my sleep for the insanity that was Saturday at Comic-Con...

Saturday

Maybe it’s because I’m used to Saturdays at Comic-Con, but Friday had seemed quiet by comparison, a ‘small’ crowd of only a few tens of thousands. But Saturday was the normal push your way through the masses and pray you’ll get to the panel on time craziness. A friend of mine compared it to being on the 405 freeway only with people instead of cars!

While I’d given up on attending panels for the most part at Comic-Con after one too many experiences of lining up for hours and not getting in, since I had a weekend to spread out my schedule this time, I decided the number one panel I wanted to go to was the 300 panel. What’s 300? Frankly, my dears, I didn’t give a damn. I didn’t care that the panel featured Frank Miller, re-inventor of the modern graphic novel, or “God” as one attendee referred to him. Nor did I care that the director of this movie version of Miller’s graphic novel 300 was also in attendance. No, I was there simply for the eye candy. Err... I mean... actors. Dracula 2000’s own Gerard Butler (let’s please forget he ever mangled the Phantom) and Lord of the Rings’ Faramir, David Wenham, were on this panel. To heck with whatever the movie was *about*, I’d happily watch anything that paired the two of them! But rather shockingly, as soon as the room (of 6,500 seats) filled, the lights went down and the trailer for the film ran... and blew my freakin’ mind! In fact, the trailer was so good, even Gerard asked to see it again... so they ran it again, and again the crowd went nuts!

This was a visual feast – dark, artistic, violent and sexual – this is a typical Frank Miller R-rated piece. And according to those who’d read the original graphic novel, as well as the director’s constant reassurances, it was apparently very close to the style of the original story of Spartan soldiers and kings of two thousand or so years ago. Fans of Miller’s Sin City who knew the writer had ‘guest-directed’ on that work, asked if Miller had done the same with this film – he said he had not, he’d left it in the director’s capable hands. The director told stories of how during production he’d slavishly kept to the look of the original source material and when any crewmember suggested changes, the director would just point to the original and say, “Just do that.” The trailer incorporated music from Nine Inch Nails, but the director said the soundtrack would be a mix of rock and more classic movie score. For the fight sequences, there were a lot of speed changes from slo-mo to sped-up incorporated to make the heroes seem super-human, though Gerard joked that he simply was that good! He told stories of all the hours of training he had to go through to beef up for the part and handle the fight scenes and joked he hadn’t worked out a day since they finished filming in January. He and David both acknowledged their initial discomfort with their costumes (essentially just codpieces), but they eventually got used to it, though Gerard mentioned how his sword kept getting caught in his cape in the fight scenes. At the audience’s request, they ran the trailer one more time at the end of the panel. It was still amazing, though I later admitted to a friend that gorgeous as that trailer was, the reason I want to see the film is still Gerard and David and that if it had starred anyone else, I’d probably skip it.

We’d been given swag tickets to redeem down at the studio’s booth in the dealers’ room, so that’s where I headed once the panel was over. Rather unimpressively, the panel swag was simply a movie pin. Hmph. Make me walk all the way down there for a pin. Grumble. While I was down at the booth, though, I noticed there was to be a Gerard signing there later in the afternoon. I asked one of the booth employees if it was a ticketed event or could we just line up. I was told no ticket was required. Though in typical Comic-Con fashion, when I arrived for the signing, I was told we could line up... if we had a ticket. We could also line up without a ticket, but he wouldn’t be signing if you didn’t have a ticket. Uh, yeah, okay. So after a few moments of standing in a non-line for a non-signing, I gave up. And it was a good thing, too...

At that point, I was debating whether to see if I could get in line at the Marvel booth for the Joss Whedon signing or go get in line for the Disney panel about their 400-disc ultra-maxi-super-duper edition dvd of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe and Pirates of the Caribbean 2 & 3, or just stay and try and find more swag in the dealers’ room. And as in uffish thought I stood, who should pass me by but one of my favorite actors... nay, one of my favorite people!

Those of you who’ve read my account of earlier Comic-Cons know of my adoration for the actors from one my favorite TV series, Witchblade. I try to keep up with appearances by said actors, and knew that none were scheduled to be at Comic-Con this year. So I probably did a double or triple-take when Anthony Cistaro walked right by me on the dealers’ room floor. At the time, I was standing with a friend of mine trying to figure out our plans. When Anthony passed by, I said disbelievingly, “Anthony?” He didn’t hear me nor turn around, but I knew him when I saw him. So I tossed my poor friend aside, said I’d call after I’d caught up with Anthony (what ever did we do at Comic-Con before cell phones?) and ran. Well, walked. No, pushed, shoved and elbowed my way across literally half of the dealers’ room trying to catch up with Anthony. Fortunately, he’s tall, so I couldn’t lose him! At first, I assumed he was heading for the Top Cow booth (creators of Witchblade), but it turned out he was heading for the Inkworks booth, where he’d done signings of the show’s trading cards in the past. But he wasn't there to sign - he was just stopping by to say hello! It was just pure luck that I'd run into him while he was there visiting!

As I got closer, I took in the view of this handsome and charming man and then piped up and called his name. He turned around and it may be narcissistic of me to say, but I do believe he genuinely recognized me from my other visits to his signings at previous Comic-Cons. Nonetheless, I re-introduced myself as one of his ‘regulars’. At that point, I realized he’d been standing there with two other people including his director, Brian Metcalf, from the action-fantasy film The Dreamless that we Anthony fans had been waiting for ages to be released! I’d met Brian at that earlier Comic-Con and he said he remembered me from then! Hurray! I think. LOL

I got to spend the next several minutes in this esteemed company. Anthony is one of those gentlemen who makes you feel like you’re the center of the universe when he talks to you, so it’s always a joy to speak with him. He mentioned the film that he’d written, Tony Transam and of course The Dreamless. In fact, I got to grill Brian for a few minutes about the film which stars four Witchblade alumni – Anthony, Eric Etebari, David Chokachi and Lazar... does he have a last name? Brian informed me the filming has been completed and he’s planning to spend the next two months in post-production, dealing with FX and editing. Once that’s done (by October), they’ll deal with distribution. But he did promise we Anthony-and-Eric fans would have plenty of great scenes between the two actors to enjoy! Brian had a handful of promotional postcards for The Dreamless, which gave me another one of my brilliant ideas! I asked if he and Anthony would sign the cards, so I could send them to Anthony’s website-runner to use as prizes/giveaways on his official site (http://www.anthonycistaro.com). They very kindly signed the cards and Anthony added a special twist: each of the cards, which he numbered, contained one word of his first line in the film! I’ll be sending these out to his website-runner this weekend. (And yes, I got an extra one signed for me!)

Something about seeing Anthony always makes my day and this was no exception. I really felt my signing-needs had been fulfilled for the day, so I decided to just wander through the dealers’ room for a while. And as happens every year at Comic-Con, I proceeded to run into everyone I knew who was going to be there including writers Robert Hewitt Wolfe, Ashley Edward Miller and Bryan Fuller. I also conveniently ran into Eugene Wesley Roddenberry, Jr. aka ‘Rod’ (son of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry), who’d written the foreword to my Andromeda book. I’d been carrying around an extra copy of the book, which I’d planned to give to him at his panel later that evening, but ran right into him in the dealers’ room, so I presented it to him there. So he got to carry the thing around the rest of the day instead of me! Sorry, Rod!

Eventually it was time to leave the dealers’ room and head up to Rod’s panel on the documentary he’d been working on for five years, Trek Nation. On my way, I stopped by Steve Bacic’s table again just to admire the view and say hi; then I circled the freebie table once more before heading into the smaller room where the panel was to be held. Until this year I don’t think I’d ever been to a panel at Comic-Con in any of the smaller rooms. It was nice to do so several times this year – the smaller room feels more like a regular (smaller) convention panel and allows more interaction between panelists and audience.

As the Trek Nation panel began, Rod explained that what originally started out as him trying to understand how his father’s creation of Star Trek had affected others, had eventually turned into a study of a son trying to get to know and understand the father he’d lost. Rod showed the trailer that had been put together some time back, took some questions about the documentary, the state of the Star Trek franchise, and his own creative aspirations, then premiered for the first time ever about fifteen minutes or so of the latest cut of the documentary. As a contributor and researcher for the project, I’d already seen this footage and it was just as moving the second time around. It was particularly gratifying to see how the story affected the rest of the audience. I think the film is finally finding its way after many years and many hours of gathered footage. I’m really looking forward to the final product.

I spent the evening having a wonderful dinner with a good-sized group of friends, but was too tired from two days of solid conventioning to want to stay up any longer, so I bid my adieus and crashed for the evening. I’d like to say on Sunday I rested, but of course, it wouldn’t be true...

Sunday

While I didn’t rest, I didn’t have a terribly busy day either. In fact, it was the only day of the weekend I got to sleep in and then actually have breakfast before running off to the con where the crowds had thinned considerably. There was only one panel left I wanted to attend on the topic of Star Trek books. On the panel (to the best of my recollection and apologies to those whose names I’ve forgotten) were editors Margaret Clark and Marco Palmieri, novelists Peter David (one of the granddaddys of Trek fic), Dayton Ward, Kevin Dilmore, David R. George III and Mike Sussman (Enterprise staff writer and future author). Moderator was again Andy Mangels (how that man got around!). Various novel lines were discussed including the spinoff series New Frontiers and Titan books, as well as the future of the storyline for Enterprise in the novels. Apparently Mike, Dayton and Kevin (I think that was the combination) are writing a book to... reframe... the events portrayed in the unsatisfactory finale of Enterprise. Makes you wonder if the ‘Not. Dead.’ folks might have been right? (The ‘Not. Dead.’ crowd was a group of fans who refused to accept the fate of one of the characters in that final episode.) From other lines of books discussed, I am particularly anticipating David George’s upcoming trilogy of books on Kirk, Spock and McCoy, which sounds cool. In the meantime, I plan to dip into a great freebie from the Pocket Books booth in the dealers’ room: Margaret Wander Bonanno’s Captain Pike novel, Burning Dreams. Sadly, Margaret was late to her signing at the booth on Saturday, so I didn’t get my copy of the book signed, but I’m really looking forward to reading it! The book panel ended on a high note as the Pocket Books folks gave large posters of the various forthcoming Trek book covers away to trivia question winners.

The rest of the day was spent visiting with friends and wandering the dealers’ room looking for last opportunities to pick up swag. Actually Sunday turned out to be the best day for getting swag as everyone was dumping stuff at the freebie table and at their booths to get rid of it all before the end of the con!

Following is a rundown of the swag achieved at this year’s con, broken down into 2 piles: keeping and not keeping –

In the keep pile, I wound up with:

Beowulf t-shirt and pin
Fearless t-shirt
The Grudge 2 baseball cap
Stargate SG-1 10th anniversary keychain
Final Destination 3 battery-powered light-up fan
Babylon 5 paper fan with G’Kar’s face on it
Nickelodeon snap-bracelet
The Simpsons movie pin (given to me by a friend)
Pin for The Return (new Sarah Michelle Gellar film)
Heroes (new TV show) pins
Lenticular promo cards for Fallen and Eureka
Promo cardstock flyers for dvd releases for Smallville, Animaniacs and Pinky & The Brain, A Nightmare on Elm St.

In the not keeping pile:

Inflatable hobby horse from Brisco County Jr.
Spike Scream Awards 2006 small tote/backpack
Bandanna from RabbitTakeover.com
Wonder Woman face paper fan, V for Vendetta face paper fan, extra
Babylon 5 G’Kar face paper fan
Who Wants To Be A Superhero? plastic cape from SciFi Channel
DVD of ‘King of the Zombies’/’Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde’ (loose disc inside – scratched)
Glow in the dark liquid-snap promo keychain for Incredible Hulk TV dvd release
Promo plastic spoon for The Tick dvd release
Employee of the Month movie bottle opener
SpiderMan 3 The Game wacky wall crawler
Flushed Away pencil
Descent sneak peek dvd and pin
Mini movie flipbook for The Fearless
Magnets – Star Wars books magnet, Lost season 2 dvd magnet, Alias/Rambaldi dvd magnet
Promo/free comic books
Promo cardstock flyer for dvd release for Smallville (great pic of Clark and Lex)
Promo trading cards (Lost, Inkworks, LOTR)
Boatloads of temp tattoos

(If anyone wants any of the above - cheap LOL - drop me a line. I've run out of room to store stuff!)

So, with bags full and feet sore, I ended another year at Comic-Con and all I can say is... thank goodness I have a year to recuperate before I do it all over again!