2007 San Diego Comic Con Report
Written by Sean McGrath

It's 8:05 AM and the bus just pulled out of the terminal in Phoenix (sorry, Mary, but I wasn't there long enough to call and have a cup of coffee with you), so beginning the second leg of my trip back to Austin. I have about 20 hours until I reach Dallas, but only about an hour's worth of battery life on my laptop.

Let's see if I run out of stories before the laptop runs out of juice.

As last year, I can tell that Comic-Con was something special because I'm already in the throes of "post-event letdown" ("PEL" - the condition that exists in one who knows s/he has to return to normal life after an extraordinary experience, also commonly known as "The Feeling When Summer Vacation is Over"), and not, per se, looking forward to being back in Austin (although I do miss Hogan, my dog, and worry if he'll remember who I am. And the cats. I KNOW they're gonna be pissy with me). No offense to my friends there, but I really want to live in a fantasy world where all my heroes just sit around and be brilliant for me. And 25,000 others. You know what I mean.

There were three major events that truly defined my time at the Con:

1: Thursday's panel on Up and Coming GLBT Super-stars with me, Tommy Roddy (of Pride High), Setve MacIsaac (of Shirtlifter and Hard to Swallow), Lynx Delirium (of a wide assortment of titles), Megan Gedris (of Yu+Me (which I bought and LOVED!!)) and some chick named Allison (I'm too pooped to go looking up details). We all got to introduce ourselves and talk about our work. I said that I was an associate professor of English as a Second Language for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students at ACC by day and by night (or whenever I had time) I write Frater Mine, which, I explained "is probably better pronounced 'Frotter Mine', but that sounds like it's going to dry hump you in the middle of the night while you're asleep. Which may be a draw for some." All of us got off some great one-liners and also had a chance to say what was important about us as gays in comics and the future of GLBT characters in comics, so it was a nice balance between goofy and pedantic (if you're into pedantic). I, of course, praised Rachel Pollack for her work on Doom Patrol and said that DC did a horrible thing with Batwoman-as-lesbian, making her disappear for 40 weeks after her one and only appearance in 52. Lynx said he grew up with Disney movies, but nothing really gay. To which I responded "You mean, nothing gay besides the Disney movies, don't you?" I think all of our sales went up that day. Lord knows I had plenty of people come up to me and say they enjoyed the panel, so WOO HOO!! There is apparently a video out there somewhere and I'm going to track it down.

2: After the panel a crew from LOGO (the gay and lesbian network) recorded all us panelists doing bumpers for Alien Boot Camp (both the TV and online versions) as well as mini-bios of ourselves for...some kind of promotional use. With any kind of luck, they'll keep my face but transplant it onto David Boreanas' body.

3: Being recorded (yeah, I signed the release form on this already) by Sci Fi...ok ok ok, let me explain the background first before I tell you what happened. The final panel I had to go to was Sci Fi's Flash Gordon, which, as I learned from the rather bland full-length trailer, will be nowhere near as stylish as the 1980 movie (which to me is a classic), so I was a bit taken aback when the producer of this new series slammed it. I mean, come on! Costumes all in primary colors! Lines like "I resurrected you. With a kiss. Because I liiiike you." and Max von Sydow not only chewing the scenery but actually swallowing, digesting and pooping it out right in front of your stunned eyes!!! Classic. OH OH OH!! And the movie will be released sometime in August (so I heard) on DVD for the first (?) time as the "Savior of the Universe" edition), but should be a fun watch once they get their space legs. I hope. Anyway, after leaving the panel, I was accosted by a woman with a microphone, and she asked me if I knew the song. I said I did, so she grabbed me and put me (and thankfully, two girls) in front of a camera and said, "Sing. We'll use it on air." We did. It was TERRIBLE!!!! We signed release forms and...apparently, it's a contest of sorts or something - http://www.scifi.com/flashgordon/anthem/ - but hey, keep watching Sci Fi and maybe you'll see me make an ass of myself.

My laptop tells me I have 7 minutes of power left, so I'm going to close for now and finish this up when I get home tomorrow morning.

[Insert main title from Greig's "Peer Gynt" here...]

Right. On we go...

I got to meet Tommy Roddy (writer of Pride High), FINALLY! And Scotty Mullen (writer of some acidic reviews of the recent Wonder Woman comic), FINALLY! And Scotty's partner-in-bile, Michael Troy! And Jonathan Riggs (editor for Instinct magazine), FINALLY (though this meeting last for 30 seconds on the street as were were walking in different directions, and I never saw him again, like The Equalizer or.. or... The Finder of Lost Loves), FINALLY! And ... oh my, scads of people. These were just the ones I was trying to meet.

I eschewed the major programs (which would have been cool to go to, but not at the price of queueing up three hours early) to go see panels that really meant something to me. For example, on Saturday, the doors to Comic Con opened at 10. By 12, Ballroom 20 was no longer accepting participants ALL DAY. Now, this was one of the largest rooms and could hold about 15,000 people, but it was completely full by 10:15 and the queue was impossibly long. Don't get me wrong, the programming was awesome - screening of the full pilot episode of the new Bionic Woman series plus panel discussion with the actors, sneak previews of new shows brought to you by TV Guide, the complete cast of Heroes discussing season 2, the cast of Battlestar Galatica discussing season 4, the cast of Futurama discussing the NEW season, Joss Whedon being brilliant all on his own, and finally the Masquerade Ball. People waited in line for TEN HOURS just for the ball. Once they went in, they never came out for fear of missing something. But this is what a floor looked like:

The good thing is that a couple thousand people were off the floor. Friday was a nightmare to walk around, but Saturday and Sunday were good for casual strolls.. well, not too casual because if you walked slowly enough you might die of hypothermia. I was cold the ENTIRE TIME I was in San Diego!!!! The bus was cold. The restaurants were cold. The outside was breezy. And the Halls and panel rooms... colder than Santa's nutsack, let me tell you. I was actually searching for places that were selling sweaters (they were - at $45 apiece.. thanks, I'll freeze.).

All things considered, San Diego was not as congested as I thought it would be. Not only were the geeks invading, but countless hordes of Gen-Yers in halter tops, leather pants and Paris Hilton-inspired tortoise shell sunglasses were in town for the American Idol auditions. Luckily, they were sluiced to a stadium far away from us. San Diego Pride was also pushed back a week, so three major events weren't happening all at the same time. I'm sure the Chamber of Commerce knew that had we all been in the same part of town a.) traffic would have been a nightmare, and b.) the three kinds of "cool" forced to be in proximity to one another would have caused the city to blow up. Or there would have been a West Side Story-like rumble. Who knows?

OH OH OH!!! THE BEST panel I went to was the guys from MST3K previewing their NEW series, "The Film Crew". This was one of my two "big purchases" - their first DVD (the other purchase was a double-DVD set of the old Elvira, Mistress of the Dark TV show. Woo hoo!!) These guys were HYSTERICAL! I mean, yeah the show is funny and all, but one imagines that they can't possibly be "on" all the time, right? WRONG!!! Pee shot down my leg more than once, I was laughing so hard. True story! OH! You can also download MP3s of these guys to play when you watch your favorite mainstream movies (like Star Wars, LOTR, Daredevil...). They're not movies (I'm sure copyright is a bitch), just audio tracks you synch up with the movies - like "Dark Side of the Rainbow". Check 'em out at http://www.rifftrax.com/.

Here we see the back side of the San Diego Convention Center. It's not the dump one usually associates with the back sides of convention centers - all that garbage and urine, to say nothing of the cats.

Here's the front of the Convention Center, taken Sunday afternoon as I walked away for the final time this year. I won't lie - I choked a few times (damn PEL).

And I finally got to meet Norah's Dev. They've only been together 12 years, right? Oh! And did I get a picture? Of course not. I was so airheaded, I only have the vaguest recollection of what was said at the table. We met at Urban Mo's (formerly Hamburger Mary's) and ate too much food considering I was leaving in an hour or two.

There are still a TON of things I haven't mentioned yet - Ralph's, Angela of Crowd Control, Elvira, the WB bags, the bus breakdowns (4!!), a signing at the Prism booth, OH so much!! - and even a few Con cons, but, overall, I enjoyed the hell out of every minute. Am I going back again next year? Oh sweet, horned Moses, YES!

Glad to be home and resting on a horizontal surface. Did I mention the nightmare I had on the bus that woke me up screaming? Yeah. That was fun.