I was going through my little flash drive thingy, sorting things into a better folder structure and deleting stuff I found to be redundant or otherwise useless, and I ran across a .TXT file that seems to have been written after last year's Comic-Con, and intended to be published as a blog post.

Clearly, I had meant to come back to it later and clean it up, complete some ideas, and put the paragraphs into some sort of order that made sense, and take out some irrelevancies. So I tried. Also, I failed. Some of it makes no sense. I'm sure it would have made some if I'd come back to it within the day I started it, but with several months separating me from the sleep-deprived haze that traditionally envelopes me after Con... Wow, that is some disjointed stuff.

Since I won't be able to make it happen the way I'd originally intended, I undid all my edits to the save point in late July, and now present an un-edited, disjointed, and largely nonsensical reaction to Comic-Con 2009:

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July 30, 2009 5:20 AM

Allow me to become a bit of a curmudgeon.

The Comic-Con isn't what it used to be. You're probably aware that it's grown a ridiculous amount over the last forty years. The first one had about a hundred people. This year's hosted about 126,000 attendess. I'd venture that most weren't actually there for the comic books. I know I wasn't. I went because it's a social event.

I've been to the last 22 of these things, and only a few of those years I went for the comic books. It used to be that I went for the shear spectacle, the bizarre cross-section of society that would be there. I would be entertained by the people themselves, the color, the culture.

Of course, I'd always been into generally geeky things, so I would also get caught up in the science-fiction stuff and whatever role-playing games I could find there. Except for the few years that I worked as a comic retailer myself, I had very little interest in the comics. I used to tell people that they should go, at leasst once, explaining that it's not completely nerdy and it's not all about comic-books.

Last year, the largest comic book retailer out there was not sure about returnig (as the owner of Mile High said during the CBLDF auction).

Mile High was not there this year.

It has not gotten less crowded. After the first day, I discovered that I enjoyed the convention more by going out of my way to avoid lines. If the thing I was going to had a line, I found something else to do instead. Much better. Spent quite a bit of time in the Independent Film Festival, which was pretty entertaining.

Attendance was estimated to be 126,000. In 1988, first year I went, total attendance was 8,000 at Golden Hall. For further perspective, Hall H, the largest auditorium of the San Diego Convention Center, where the Comic-Con is now held, is limited to 6,400 people and is constantly full with ridiculous hours long lines. I'm pretty sure Golden Hall could fit inside Hall H.

Overall it was enjoyable. Of course, I think I was more frequently inebriated at this year's Con than previously, which had the indirect side-effect of creating one of the more surreal moments:

Having fish-and-chips, and drinking a beer twice as large as the one I ordered, but having been charged for the smaller - not complaining. As I'm finishing up my Blue Moon with a slice of orange, I look up to see some older Mexican dude walking out to the patio with his order. Edward James Olmos. He goes to sit down at his table, right behind me. Cyndi pointed out that the guy with him was Colonel Tigh. Grabbing a chair from another table was Kali (apparently it's supposed to be spelled Cally, but I think Kali is more in line with BSG's mythological naming conventions). I almost went to her to point out that she really shouldn't be there, having been killed about two seasons back.

Okay, so it was possible to get in to the panel, though it required much more waiting in line than I'd prefer.

Pretty sure it was worth it. Rather amusing bunch - a good balance of writers and actors. The draw to the more "Hollywood" panels seems to be the performers, rather than the creators, who are usually the ones *I* want to hear from.

One of the writers said that when they script the HOWTO voice-overs, he tries to write it the way Matt Nix (the creator) talks.

During the Q&A, someone asked if Nix would be interested in doing a horror project with Bruce Campbell, and he responded, "The thing you have to keep in mind when fighting a zombie with a chainsaw is..."

As close as I got:
http://mypict.me/show.php?id=dye9

I found out about the hunt itself after Thursday night's reveal, so I was clearly out of luck. I blame the glitternecrophiles.

I was in line for the panel that would be discussing Tron (as well as the upcoming Alice In Wonderland). The panel after that was the one for the Twilight series. They don't clear rooms between panels. Some of the Twilight folks were camped out since late Tuesday night.
http://mypict.me/show.php?id=cPHO

So we waited in the line for *our* panel, but it was cut off with us pretty close to the door. Because of the people there for Twilight sat through a panel they didn't care about, keeping me out, and away from Flynn's arcade.

I have since been even more grumpy about Twilight than when I found out it had glittery vampires.

Sometime in the last year, I found myself watching Tron on cable. I was surprised at how well it holds up, especially considering the subject matter. Yes, it's a bit silly and requires some suspension-of-disbelief, but it's reasonably enjoyable.

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There you go. We will never know where I was really going with all that. Pretty sure it amounts to: Twilight sucks, Tron rocks, and OMG Edward James Olmos!!!eleven!!

Also something about Burn Notice. Hmm.