On Saturday I wore my costume, because the Masquerade was in the evening so I figured more people would be dressed up (if you didn't know, I wore clothing from the game Oblivion). Unusually for me, several people recognized what I was wearing! Not a whole lot, but they were generally enthusiastic (one person gave me a high five). A few other people liked the costume, but didn't know what it was from. I think it was a very good idea for me to include the Amulet of Kings. I know that you can never wear it yourself in the game, but it was still the most identifiable part of the costume.
So here are my notes for the day:
On the Floor:
-
Virginia Hey has her own line of perfume. Which is weird. She talked to me and didn't demand payment for taking her picture, which is nice.
- I'm in one of the smaller rooms, and again sufficiently (but not terribly) early so that I again have a fabulous seat. In the second row. In the middle. I'm less than 15 feet from he closest seat on the panel. And I didn't have to wait in line at all. I just walked in.
DC Universe Panel:
- Yay, the
Green Lantern Footage again! (abridged, but still awesome)
- Hey, I've actually heard of one of these people - Paul Levitz. Why have I heard of him?
[oh. I think it was because he was one of the people who had a Spotlight panel on him this year, and I remembered his name from the program.]- I need to get Brightest Day
[the current DC main narrative]. I may have to wait 6 months or whatever for the trade volume, though.
- Part of the amusement of this panel is how much difficulty the panelists are having in talking about upcoming issues of the book without giving away too many spoilers.
- Some of the best questions have come from a couple of preteen kids.
Super Panel:
Super is a small superhero movie staring
Rainn Wilson (and various other people like Nathan Fillion and Liv Tyler). Like
Kick-Ass, it centers around a normal guy who decides to become a superhero. It's very different, though.
- There is no moderator, so Rainn Wilson and
James Gunn (the writer/director/etc) are interviewing each other.
- The movie cost a couple of million to make - the actors did it for scale.
- "Our movie was made on the craft services budget of Iron Man." - James Gunn
- The Crimson Bolt's catchphrase is "Shut up, crime!" (his weapon of choice is a large wrench)
- The film is much darker and more dramatic than
Kick-Ass. The violence is more realistic, so much so that the film is unrated.
- RW says that he didn't improve much for the movie, and notes that most of the time when actors are asked to improve on set it's because the script sucks - e.g.,
My Super Ex-Girlfriend.- Q: Who would win in a fight between Dwight (on the Office) vs. Frank (The Crimson Bolt) vs. a bear (not a Rainn Wilson character)?
A: The Bear, no question.
On the Floor:
- I just passed the guy who plays Josh the werewolf on the US version of Being Human. He was walking down the hallway between the small panel rooms.
- Aww... the Anthropology of
Firefly panel was canceled, but too late to be removed from the schedule.
LGBT in Comics Panel (instead)
The panel consisted of various writers who have included LGBT characters in their comics (in case you didn't know, LGBT stands for Lesbian Gay Bisexual or Transgender). These included a few mainstream people and a few independent people.
- Consensus among the panelists - DC is more open to LGBT than Marvel.
- "Gay men are only interested in Wonder Woman." - Direct quote from a retailer that one of the panelists spoke to.
On the Floor:
- I just saw a guy dressed as Dresden. He was wearing a hat, but I guess that makes him more recognizable.
[Harry Dresden never wears a hat. Despite this fact, on every cover of every book he has been depicted wearing one. Dresden even specifically refuses to wear a hat on more than one occasion. Snark from the author.] Before the Masquerade:
- I am going to be spoiled for Comic-Con. I'm in the fourth row again. Not quite so close to the middle this time, but I think that's a good thing in this case, since it means I can more easily see the screen, and detail might be an issue with the costumes.
To entertain the masses while they were setting up backstage, they played the trailers for several movies on the screens:
- Huh.
Super 8 could be cool. Or it could just be another JJ Abrams monster movie with Spielberg familyness.
- My God,
Thor is so pretty.
[It's probably going to be terrible. Sigh. Oh well. And yes, that is me trying to not get my hopes up while still grinning in anticipation at all the shiny gold and silver and explosions]Dylan Dog intro:
The Masquerade was sponsored by the movie
Dyland Dog: Dead of Night, so naturally the main actors,
Brandon Routh and
Sam Huntington were there to introduce their movie and the main event. This confirmed that it was indeed Sam Huntington that I passed in the hallway, and not some random guy who looked like him. (You know, it only occurred to me later that those actors have a similar role to those they had in
Superman Returns, in which they played Superman and Jimmy Olson, lead and sidekick. Anyhoo...)
- They played a couple of clips from the movie. It looks kindof silly, but it's hard to tell how good it is from just the trailer and the clips. The actors claimed that it is "fun and cool and awesome."
- Brandon Routh is pretty off camera, too.
Masquerade:
The Masquerade is a costume competition that they do every year at WonderCon and Comic-Con. There are group costumes and individual costumes, and they are awarded prizes in various categories. The costumes can be worn by the designers/makers or not, but they all have to be done by non-professionals (whatever that means. Some of the costumes were pretty damn professional). There is no way in hell I would ever compete in this. I could describe all 32 costume sets, but I'm not going to. I will describe the top winners, though:
Best Novice: A group of Jedi fighting a Sith. I think part of the reason why they got this prize was their presentation, which was pretty good. They did a whole fight scene.
Most Humorous: A group of characters from
Tangled. (queue girls screaming when Flynn walks on stage).
Best Workmanship: Jack the Ripper vs. Steampunk Batman. Just what it sounds like. And it was good steampunk, not lame steampunk, unlike one of the other entries. Hers was called "Lady Metalica" (one of the presenters rolled her eyes visibly at that name). Her presentation involved pistolwhipping. Steampunk Batman had a Victorian lamp post and everything.
Best Original Design: Another Medusa (there were a few), but this wan was silver and sparkly. Very sparkly.
Best Recreation: An alien in full body armor and weaponry with moving parts. His face even had an articulated jaw. I didn't recognize what he was recreating, though.
Judge's Choice: A group of children dressed as Batman characters. Cat Girl was particularly weird.
Best In Show: Vampires vs. Vampire Hunters. Characters included Blade, Edward Cullen, and Count von Count. There were also several other characters from video games, but sadly I didn't recognize them. I even saw one of the vampires the next day and asked who they all were, and still didn't recognize any of the names. Even so, the presentation was pretty damn funny and the costumes were very impressive.
While the judges were making their decisions they played the winners of a Star Wars fan film competition from the night before. They were all really really good, ranging from stop motion to animation to CGI to live action. The CGI one gave a back story to why Han Solo had a price on his head. One of the animated ones turned the bounty hunters waiting around in the Star Destroyer in
The Empire Strikes Back into them waiting around to get into a night club. Dancing Robots were involved. The Best In Show went to a live action film staring four kids and a teenager (as the badguy), and included relatively good visual effects. Luke was played by an unbelievably adorable little kid who looked about five.
The Masquerade ended shortly before 11, and I took the bus home again. I only had one one dollar bill, so but a guy waiting at the bus stop gave me one of his. The bus driver was the same as the night before, a very chatty woman who had helped me find the best place to get off and gave me a piece of candy. She recognized me.
When I got to bed there was only one person snoring, and I was sufficiently tired that I didn't have to break out the seran wrap to smother them. Yay.
The Chinese restaurant whose exterior was the inspiration for the story that is at the center of my work.
One of my favorite picture books as a child, it showed me a world full of mysterious transformations and drew me in with its illustrations that helped my imagination run wild.
Their image may exist only in my memory now, but they were my first regular experience with porcelain and its marvelous subtlety.
The museum in general and the gate in particular showed me that the way fragments are displayed can make all the difference in making the distant past seem real.
The book from which I learned the potency of ice and eye-horror as themes in storytelling.
Which showed me that silly things can be art and art can be silly.
Which taught me that confusion can be orderly and that an image doesn't need words to tell a story.
I don't remember where I first saw them, but they suggested some possibilities of pierced surfaces that I had not considered before.
The extensive discussion of chaos theory in the book taught me that chaos is beautiful.
Which inspired me to make some of my earliest drawings of nature for its own sake, rather than just decoration in the background.
Which made me realize that my love of things that looked like one thing but were actually another could apply to my art.
The painting that taught me the delights of the grotesque and that discomfiture is a good thing in art.
This episode taught me the use of disembodied faces and their power to be both amusing and disquieting.
Which were the original inspiration for the porcelain lace that I am making today.
A book that reminded me that the combination of beauty, creepiness, and silliness is a recipe for awesome.
