Full disclosure: I'm writing this on the Friday following ComicCon (already? wow), so the details are a little hazy. It's amazing how much stuff we packed into those five days, not to mention the time we spent in LA. We never did end up going to the Masquerade. Not that we'd have gotten into the actual event, mind you, but it might have been cool to at least go to one of the rooms where they showed recordings of it on screen. Oh well. We have our priorities, and we did see a number of the costumes just walking around on the floor.
We got up at around 6:30 in order to get to the lines earlier. Actually, we got up a little earlier on each successive day. The first three days we parked at Qualcomm stadium and took the trolley from there. The problem with that was that it took about an hour to get to the Convention Center from there. On the last two days we switched to parking at the Old Town Transit Center, which took a significant amount of time off the trolley ride-time and only added about a minute to the driving time (I'm mostly writing this for my future reference. I don't expect it would be very interesting to anyone else).
It's a good thing we did get there so early (about 8:00 or 8:30), because there were already a significant number of people waiting in line, and within 45 minutes twice that had line up behind us. Did I mention what we were lined up for? No?
David Tennant is Who! (pun intended). There were tons of people with Doctor Who shirts, including Ari and me. We wore our Vote Saxon t-shirts. We saw a number of costumes as well, including several people dressed as Daleks in clever ways. We also saw a few Tenth Doctors, and even an
Eleventh Doctor. I was very impressed with that one, considering how short a time they had to gather the components. Granted, a tweed coat with elbow patches, a bow tie, and army boots aren't that hard to come by, but he even had the hair exactly right. In fact, Russell T. Davies even noticed him in the crowd and pointed him out to everyone.
As I was saying,
David Tennant!!!!! [grins insanely in memory]. He was very hyper and silly, and responded at once almost every time someone shouted something at him from the audience (for instance, someone yelled "I love your hair!" and he instantly said, "thank you!"). Also on the panel were Russell T. Davies (writer/exec producer), Euros Lyn (director) and Julie Gardner (exec producer).
After the panel was introduced, they played a preview of Tenth Doctor's final two-part special. The whole crowd cheered loudly when we saw that John Simm (The Master/Mr. Saxon) is indeed returning! We also gave a loud cheer for Catherine Tate (Donna Noble), and I was gratified to join in loud applause for Bernard Cribbins (Wilf Mott, Donna's grandfather).
I am glad to hear that everyone is looking forward to seeing Wilf be the Doctor's Companion as I am (yay!). David Tennant, who had not seen the preview before either, asked that they play the preview again, which they did, to loud applause. Later they played a trailer for "Waters of Mars," which is the next special. I had seen most of the footage in previous trailers, but not all of it. It was still pretty cool.
One of the audience members asked if the reason Tenth Doctor wears a Brown Coat is because he is a fan of
Firefly, but David said that, while that is an interesting theory, it was incorrect. He said that the reason for the coat is merely that, when it came time for costuming, David Tennant requested that he have a long swishy coat (yay!). He added that while it was not the reason for the coat, he is indeed a fan of
Firefly and
Serenity (yay!) (OK, so that's probably not terribly interesting to most people, but it was yay-inducing to me. It's always nice to hear that someone from one of my favorite shows is a fan of another of my favorite shows).
Next was the
American Dad panel. Alec went back to the floor for the duration of the panel, while Ari and I stayed to guard our seats (which were good. we moved even closer for the last panel).
American Dad wasn't all that bad, particularly compared to
The Cleveland Show. They showed a whole episode, which was incomplete. Only the last part was fully animated; the voice actors had to read the script for part of it.
Ari and I went to the floor during the next panel while Alec saved the seats during the next panel. He said all three of the mini-panels looked good: Paper Heart, Mystery Team, and Alien Trespass. Ari and I caught the very end of the last one, which looks like a sort of loving tribute/spoof on 50s scifi. (Alec left again during the next panel, and came back with an action figure of Bender from
Futurama and a shirt from
Firefly).
The next panel was for BBC America, the first part of which was devoted to
Being Human. The show is going to air soon for the first time on BBC America, so the panel was meant to be a sort of preview for US audiences. It aired some time ago in the UK, so Alec and I, like much of the audience, had already seen it. That wasn't a problem, though. All three of the main actors were there, which was fun. They were all funny and charming, particularly Russell Tovey (George, the werewolf). Toby Whithouse the writer/creator of the show, talked about its inception. It was pretty interesting. Apparently, BBC originally approached him just to make a "genre nonspecific" show about three college students who buy a house together. It sounded extremely dull to him, until three full characters dropped into his head: An agrophobe, a recovering sex addict and a guy with anger management issues. He and the execs had trouble developing stories around these characters, however. Finally, they had one more meeting where they decided that they would come up with something or give it up. At that meeting the idea occurred to him that hey, a guy with anger management is kinda like a werewolf! From there it was an easy leap for the agrophobe to become a ghost and the sex addict to be a vampire. So now we have a show about Mitchell the vampire, George the werewolf and Annie the ghost who rent a flat together.
Despite how it sounds, the show is definitely not a comedy, though it does have humor in it. Every problem that they face, whether supernatural or not, is based on normal human issues.
The very last panel was for
Torchwood. Russell T. Davies, Julie Gardner, and Euros Lyn were back again, along with John Barrowman! He is every bit as over-the-top as Jack Harknes, and was very entertaining. He frequently had to read the card on the panel table reminding guests that there were members of the audience who were under 18. They talked mainly about
Children of Earth, which is airing soon on BBC America.
They expressed their amazement at the reception of the miniseries, which took up a huge fraction of the television audience in the UK. In fact, even though it aired the week following Micheal Jackson's death, on the night of the episode in which Ianto dies, twitter had more traffic talking about Ianto's death than
Micheal Jackson's. Awesome.
Finally, Comic-Con 2009 ended with a showing of "Once More With Feeling," the famed musical
Buffy episode (in fact, someone asked the
Torchwood panel if there would ever be a musical episode, to which John Barrowman gave a firm "no." Besides, Russell T. Davies added, who could ever top
Buffy's musical?). Alec left after the first few minutes to wander on the Floor one last time, but Ari and I stayed. They put the subtitles on the screen to allow the audience to sing along with the songs. It was very fun seeing it with such a huge crowd of people who all knew all knew the songs and joined in. Also, I was amused by the fact that every time Dawn (Buffy's annoying little sister) spoke or did anything, a huge part of the crowd shouted "shut up, Dawn!" Apparently it's a tradition for public screenings of the musical.
After the end credits, there was a mass exodus to the trolley station, though not as bad as it could have been. On the drive back to the Schumachers' we decided to drive all the way back to Pacific Palisades that evening after dinner. We were somewhat delayed by a long (but interesting) conversation about religion, but we did make it that night.
The next day we went to see Ari's grandfather and step-grandmother, who made delicious barbecue ribs and extremely sweet corn. Their dog, a boxer well-named Matilda, was very sweet and playful. We made one final stop at the Vasquez Rocks. It was windy and hot, and the Rocks were deceptively steep, but I'm still very glad that we got to go.
At last we started up North. We went past Oakland and kept each other entertained by reading and
Dealing With Dragons and
Sunshine, which I had on my computer. Alec and I switched off driving every hour or so, just like the drive down, and we both drank canned Starbucks coffee, which was not as bad as it could have been. At one point we stopped for a few minutes to look at the stars, which were amazing, particularly after being in the city for so many days. We could see the whole Milky Way as well as Summer Triangle, Signus, and several other constellations. Jupiter was particularly bright, and we even saw a few meteors. By the time we got home it was about 3:15 am. I fell asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow.
I'm trying to think of a clever sentence to sum up our trip, but I'm failing. All I can say is, 357 days 'till Comic-Con #41!
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.
