on fannish pilgrimmages
Jul. 27th, 2018 01:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xparrotI went to Comic-Con and all I got was this...well, actually it's quite a nice t-shirt...
So earlier this year,gnine and I had another go at the San Diego Comic-Con ticket lottery -- and actually lucked out; I got in within the first 15 minutes, and we got tickets for the four main days, Thursday through Sunday. So that was last weekend. And for our first SDCC -- we killed it!
Gnine and I have been to cons of all sizes, from the Seattle-based Bitchin' Party (no celebrity guests, just ~70 fans hanging out, totally awesome) to several years of the East Coast Otakon. SDCC technically isn't even the largest fan-con we've been to -- that would be Comiket in Tokyo, which the summer one sees upwards of half a million visitors.
That being said, SDCC is on an incredibly massive scale. And props where due, they've been doing it long enough to have worked out a lot of logistics. The crowd control is impressive. Such as the Hall H wristbands (trying to cut down on the number of people who start camping out for Hall H the night before) and temporarily fencing off hallways for more efficient movement of lines.
...And more lines. And more lines. A good half our time there was probably spent waiting in lines. We met some fun people while doing so, saw a lot of great cosplay. And we made it into every panel we wanted to see, so none of it was in vain.
(There were a few people who said that with MCU not here this year, it was Comic-Con on "easy mode." So while I'm a bit disappointed to not have seen anything Avengers-related, that was fortunate.)
Comic-Con does have a different feel from other cons I've been to, intriguing though I'm still processing how exactly I feel about it. It's definitely not a by-fans-for-fans con, not with the presence of so many major industry players. While there are a lot of smaller panels, the major activity is the official presentations with the celebrity guests. But unlike the SPN Creation con we went to last year, it's not about profiting off fans, either, at least not directly. It's about advertisement -- selling, not autographs or photo ops, but the properties themselves, convincing people to watch more, to watch something new.
This means it's a whole lot of telling fans what they want to hear -- and that makes it interesting, to see what it is that (TPTB think) fans want to hear. Judging by what we saw, diversity was the major theme of most panels, from Supergirl announcing the first on-screen trans superhero character, to The Walking Dead making much of their new showrunner being Angela Kang (I've never seen any of TWD, but I've now seen most of its stars -- we got into Hall H early to see the Star Trek: Discovery panel.)
Also, politics came up a lot, mostly indirectly -- general remarks about feeling troubled about the state of the nation and its leadership, always met with applause. (The only panel I can recall checking it head-on was Supernatural -- Misha Collins, naturally, who when the cast was asked what famous non-SPN monster should they take on, immediately answered "Trump" (to which showrunner Andrew Dabb admitted, "No, that's too scary even for us.") This was after Misha had gotten several audience members to distribute voter registration forms to the entirety of Hall H, because he's taking every chance he can get, more power to him.)
Along with those panels, we saw the whole CW DC-TV lineup, a couple for random Youtube shows we sat through while waiting for John Barrowman's one-man...whatever that was (amazing, for sure. He was dressed in a glittery "Captina Americana" cosplay and pumps with $1500 worth of Swarovski rhinestones, and made appendicitis hilarious. And his singing is gorgeous as always). Also the Young Justice panel, which was great on its own but also entertainingly happened next door to the Voltron panel, close enough to hear through the divider the audience there going bananas. (At one point one of the VAs for YJ told us, "Okay, let's scream really loudly just to freak out everyone over there...!") (Later that afternoon we learned that the Voltron panel had shown the first ep of the next season, and given the spoilers in that, understood what the excitement was about...)
The most entertaining panels were for Steven Universe and The Good Place. Those took some line-waiting -- we got there about 7:15 AM for the 10 AM panel and only just made it in. While in the looping line circling the Hilton's Indigo Ballroom (SDCC is so huge it spills out of the convention center into half a dozen hotels in the area), we were regaled by a Steven cosplayer singing on a ukulele -- damn good at the thing, too! Talking to the guy, he'd owned his ukulele for 12 years. Also he says he always wore a pink shirt anyway, and he showed us the flipflop tans on his feet -- so yeah, as he said, he was less cosplaying so much as Steven stole his shtick. (The rest of the time we were crab-watching -- we were right on the waterfront, and the tide was coming in -- looking down over the seawall there were all these little 1-inch crabs scrambling over the rocks, eating algae and fighting each other, while all of us in line pointed and laughed in easily amused fascination.)
SU's panel was moderated by Peridot's voice actor, who started things off telling the audience "When I say 'You' you say 'clods'!" which everyone happily obliged. They showed the first episode (which I think has since been released? not sure what the spoiler status is right now?) and talked about casting and voice acting -- and dancing, too; apparently Peridot's VA is also a tapdancer who choreographed and recorded the tapdancing in the musical episode (the audio was all her dancing and the animation was entirely following her moves). And Pearl's VA sounds exactly like her, which is a little disconcerting (the others you can all hear as well, but Pearl's is uncanny!)
Then immediately following that was The Good Place panel, moderated by Mark Evan Jackson who plays Shawn in that show (and Kevin in Brooklyn 99 and a million other roles) -- and he did the whole panel in character (it was always "Emmy-nominated actor Ted Danson" -- at one point one of the question-askers had a question for "Mr. Danson" -- *cough* from Mark -- upon which the questioner carefully corrected to "excuse me, Emmy-nominated actor Ted Danson...") With an entire panel of comedians, it was hilarious all the way through. Kristin Bell and Ted Danson gushed about how much they loved each other (they'd worked together on a previous project), and Michael Schur took a good few minutes to gleefully embarrass his producer by talking about how fantastic and skilled the guy was, and how he couldn't do the show without him, and how much he (the producer) hated being talked about (apparently Ron Swanson's privacy re: his birthday was based on him), while the producer himself sat there next to him with a fixed smile like he wanted to sink through the floor.
The best experience we had at the con, though, was on Thursday night -- the last panel we went to was a small one, maybe only 50-60 people attended, about the psychology of cult TV shows. The panel itself had some interesting ideas, if kind of unfocused -- and the guests, along with a couple practicing psychologists (one of whom uses TV shows when counseling PTSD and assault victims, she's found it a useful tool for giving people something to relate their experiences to), a writer from The Flash, and SPN's Ruth Connell (Rowena) and Rachael Miner (the 2nd Meg), also featured Greg Weisman, creator of Gargoyles, aka one of my favorite shows of all time (one of the first shows I wrote fanfic for, actually -- the year before I got online, so none of it's ever been posted, fortunately...)
So after the panel, Gnine and I went over to see if we could talk to him, just to say we were fans -- only he was talking with a few people who were clearly friends and we didn't want to rudely interrupt, so after waiting a bit we shrugged and went on. But then we were coming out of the bathroom and happened to see him saying goodbye to his friends, so we went over and said our thing, and he was really nice and friendly about it (he'd been talking about Gargoyles in the panel, and how it was still special to him, even after all this time it's clearly something he still loves). And then we happened to ask a question that's been on our minds since we first watched Gargoyles 24 years ago, namely why the heck did half the cast of Star Trek do voices for it?
And he said that was kind of a long story, and he had a party he was supposed to be going to -- but if we didn't mind, we could walk with him and he could tell us?
We did not mind. So Gnine and I spent twenty minutes wandering through San Diego trying to find this library while Greg Weisman told us the whole story about how Gargoyles was cast.
(The Star Trek thing started as coincidence -- Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes auditioned separately for it -- Marina originally for Elisa, but was all wrong for that and beyond perfect for Demona -- and then when Greg needed to cast Coldstone, he was thinking of what voice could convincingly play a brother to Keith David's Goliath, and he was looking at Marina and Jonathan in the recording booth and realized they knew someone who could do it. And they were good at selling the show to their colleagues, as they could say it was good writing and interesting parts for only a few hours' work, and, crucially for Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner, required no makeup whatsoever -- Greg said you could hear Michael Dorn across the city shouting, "I'll do it!" And then once they had that many Star Trek actors, it became too tempting to try to cast them all, though he never did actual "stunt casting," never cast anyone who wasn't right for a role the show already needed.)
He was really gracious and funny and it was so clear talking to him how seriously he takes his shows -- he said outright that he never thought of Gargoyles as a kid's show, it was always a show he wanted to watch. Also the reason the credits always listed the full casting for every part was because as a fan it drove him nuts personally when TV shows, especially cartoons, didn't properly credit who played who. As Gargoyles is the show that got me into voice actors, I always appreciated that, and I got to tell him so personally, as well as just in general how much I've always loved the show, and just, eeeee!!
I also got the answer to a plot point of Gargoyles that I've always wondered about (yes Xanatos remembers Puck's offer re: Owen and so all along knew Owen was Puck).
...We did completely fail to get an autograph, or a selfie -- he probably would've been willing, we just didn't think to ask; not used to meeting idols! I'm a little disappointed about that, but the conversation was worth way more to me than any memento.
So that was the con. By Sunday we were quite exhausted. After the SPN panel we went to the dealer's room to try to pick up a few gifts -- a mistake, it proved, as everyone else at the con had the same idea! Bigger mistake, we went past the WB booth while the SPN cast was signing, and then were stuck in the throng a dozen people deep surrounding the booth, as con staff desperately shouted, "Keep walking! Get out your phones and take a picture as you pass! Keep walking!" I haven't been shoved around in a crowd that dense since Japan. (And then there was the Imperial Stormtrooper cosplayer gesturing and saying, "Move along...")
Overall it was quite the experience. Gnine wants to do it again; I'm as yet undecided and have a few months to consider (and that's even if we can get tickets, which is better odds now but not guaranteed, it sounds like?). But for this time at least, very glad we did it, it was definitely worth it!
So earlier this year,
gnine Gnine and I have been to cons of all sizes, from the Seattle-based Bitchin' Party (no celebrity guests, just ~70 fans hanging out, totally awesome) to several years of the East Coast Otakon. SDCC technically isn't even the largest fan-con we've been to -- that would be Comiket in Tokyo, which the summer one sees upwards of half a million visitors.
That being said, SDCC is on an incredibly massive scale. And props where due, they've been doing it long enough to have worked out a lot of logistics. The crowd control is impressive. Such as the Hall H wristbands (trying to cut down on the number of people who start camping out for Hall H the night before) and temporarily fencing off hallways for more efficient movement of lines.
...And more lines. And more lines. A good half our time there was probably spent waiting in lines. We met some fun people while doing so, saw a lot of great cosplay. And we made it into every panel we wanted to see, so none of it was in vain.
(There were a few people who said that with MCU not here this year, it was Comic-Con on "easy mode." So while I'm a bit disappointed to not have seen anything Avengers-related, that was fortunate.)
Comic-Con does have a different feel from other cons I've been to, intriguing though I'm still processing how exactly I feel about it. It's definitely not a by-fans-for-fans con, not with the presence of so many major industry players. While there are a lot of smaller panels, the major activity is the official presentations with the celebrity guests. But unlike the SPN Creation con we went to last year, it's not about profiting off fans, either, at least not directly. It's about advertisement -- selling, not autographs or photo ops, but the properties themselves, convincing people to watch more, to watch something new.
This means it's a whole lot of telling fans what they want to hear -- and that makes it interesting, to see what it is that (TPTB think) fans want to hear. Judging by what we saw, diversity was the major theme of most panels, from Supergirl announcing the first on-screen trans superhero character, to The Walking Dead making much of their new showrunner being Angela Kang (I've never seen any of TWD, but I've now seen most of its stars -- we got into Hall H early to see the Star Trek: Discovery panel.)
Also, politics came up a lot, mostly indirectly -- general remarks about feeling troubled about the state of the nation and its leadership, always met with applause. (The only panel I can recall checking it head-on was Supernatural -- Misha Collins, naturally, who when the cast was asked what famous non-SPN monster should they take on, immediately answered "Trump" (to which showrunner Andrew Dabb admitted, "No, that's too scary even for us.") This was after Misha had gotten several audience members to distribute voter registration forms to the entirety of Hall H, because he's taking every chance he can get, more power to him.)
Along with those panels, we saw the whole CW DC-TV lineup, a couple for random Youtube shows we sat through while waiting for John Barrowman's one-man...whatever that was (amazing, for sure. He was dressed in a glittery "Captina Americana" cosplay and pumps with $1500 worth of Swarovski rhinestones, and made appendicitis hilarious. And his singing is gorgeous as always). Also the Young Justice panel, which was great on its own but also entertainingly happened next door to the Voltron panel, close enough to hear through the divider the audience there going bananas. (At one point one of the VAs for YJ told us, "Okay, let's scream really loudly just to freak out everyone over there...!") (Later that afternoon we learned that the Voltron panel had shown the first ep of the next season, and given the spoilers in that, understood what the excitement was about...)
The most entertaining panels were for Steven Universe and The Good Place. Those took some line-waiting -- we got there about 7:15 AM for the 10 AM panel and only just made it in. While in the looping line circling the Hilton's Indigo Ballroom (SDCC is so huge it spills out of the convention center into half a dozen hotels in the area), we were regaled by a Steven cosplayer singing on a ukulele -- damn good at the thing, too! Talking to the guy, he'd owned his ukulele for 12 years. Also he says he always wore a pink shirt anyway, and he showed us the flipflop tans on his feet -- so yeah, as he said, he was less cosplaying so much as Steven stole his shtick. (The rest of the time we were crab-watching -- we were right on the waterfront, and the tide was coming in -- looking down over the seawall there were all these little 1-inch crabs scrambling over the rocks, eating algae and fighting each other, while all of us in line pointed and laughed in easily amused fascination.)
SU's panel was moderated by Peridot's voice actor, who started things off telling the audience "When I say 'You' you say 'clods'!" which everyone happily obliged. They showed the first episode (which I think has since been released? not sure what the spoiler status is right now?) and talked about casting and voice acting -- and dancing, too; apparently Peridot's VA is also a tapdancer who choreographed and recorded the tapdancing in the musical episode (the audio was all her dancing and the animation was entirely following her moves). And Pearl's VA sounds exactly like her, which is a little disconcerting (the others you can all hear as well, but Pearl's is uncanny!)
Then immediately following that was The Good Place panel, moderated by Mark Evan Jackson who plays Shawn in that show (and Kevin in Brooklyn 99 and a million other roles) -- and he did the whole panel in character (it was always "Emmy-nominated actor Ted Danson" -- at one point one of the question-askers had a question for "Mr. Danson" -- *cough* from Mark -- upon which the questioner carefully corrected to "excuse me, Emmy-nominated actor Ted Danson...") With an entire panel of comedians, it was hilarious all the way through. Kristin Bell and Ted Danson gushed about how much they loved each other (they'd worked together on a previous project), and Michael Schur took a good few minutes to gleefully embarrass his producer by talking about how fantastic and skilled the guy was, and how he couldn't do the show without him, and how much he (the producer) hated being talked about (apparently Ron Swanson's privacy re: his birthday was based on him), while the producer himself sat there next to him with a fixed smile like he wanted to sink through the floor.
The best experience we had at the con, though, was on Thursday night -- the last panel we went to was a small one, maybe only 50-60 people attended, about the psychology of cult TV shows. The panel itself had some interesting ideas, if kind of unfocused -- and the guests, along with a couple practicing psychologists (one of whom uses TV shows when counseling PTSD and assault victims, she's found it a useful tool for giving people something to relate their experiences to), a writer from The Flash, and SPN's Ruth Connell (Rowena) and Rachael Miner (the 2nd Meg), also featured Greg Weisman, creator of Gargoyles, aka one of my favorite shows of all time (one of the first shows I wrote fanfic for, actually -- the year before I got online, so none of it's ever been posted, fortunately...)
So after the panel, Gnine and I went over to see if we could talk to him, just to say we were fans -- only he was talking with a few people who were clearly friends and we didn't want to rudely interrupt, so after waiting a bit we shrugged and went on. But then we were coming out of the bathroom and happened to see him saying goodbye to his friends, so we went over and said our thing, and he was really nice and friendly about it (he'd been talking about Gargoyles in the panel, and how it was still special to him, even after all this time it's clearly something he still loves). And then we happened to ask a question that's been on our minds since we first watched Gargoyles 24 years ago, namely why the heck did half the cast of Star Trek do voices for it?
And he said that was kind of a long story, and he had a party he was supposed to be going to -- but if we didn't mind, we could walk with him and he could tell us?
We did not mind. So Gnine and I spent twenty minutes wandering through San Diego trying to find this library while Greg Weisman told us the whole story about how Gargoyles was cast.
(The Star Trek thing started as coincidence -- Marina Sirtis and Jonathan Frakes auditioned separately for it -- Marina originally for Elisa, but was all wrong for that and beyond perfect for Demona -- and then when Greg needed to cast Coldstone, he was thinking of what voice could convincingly play a brother to Keith David's Goliath, and he was looking at Marina and Jonathan in the recording booth and realized they knew someone who could do it. And they were good at selling the show to their colleagues, as they could say it was good writing and interesting parts for only a few hours' work, and, crucially for Michael Dorn and Brent Spiner, required no makeup whatsoever -- Greg said you could hear Michael Dorn across the city shouting, "I'll do it!" And then once they had that many Star Trek actors, it became too tempting to try to cast them all, though he never did actual "stunt casting," never cast anyone who wasn't right for a role the show already needed.)
He was really gracious and funny and it was so clear talking to him how seriously he takes his shows -- he said outright that he never thought of Gargoyles as a kid's show, it was always a show he wanted to watch. Also the reason the credits always listed the full casting for every part was because as a fan it drove him nuts personally when TV shows, especially cartoons, didn't properly credit who played who. As Gargoyles is the show that got me into voice actors, I always appreciated that, and I got to tell him so personally, as well as just in general how much I've always loved the show, and just, eeeee!!
I also got the answer to a plot point of Gargoyles that I've always wondered about (yes Xanatos remembers Puck's offer re: Owen and so all along knew Owen was Puck).
...We did completely fail to get an autograph, or a selfie -- he probably would've been willing, we just didn't think to ask; not used to meeting idols! I'm a little disappointed about that, but the conversation was worth way more to me than any memento.
So that was the con. By Sunday we were quite exhausted. After the SPN panel we went to the dealer's room to try to pick up a few gifts -- a mistake, it proved, as everyone else at the con had the same idea! Bigger mistake, we went past the WB booth while the SPN cast was signing, and then were stuck in the throng a dozen people deep surrounding the booth, as con staff desperately shouted, "Keep walking! Get out your phones and take a picture as you pass! Keep walking!" I haven't been shoved around in a crowd that dense since Japan. (And then there was the Imperial Stormtrooper cosplayer gesturing and saying, "Move along...")
Overall it was quite the experience. Gnine wants to do it again; I'm as yet undecided and have a few months to consider (and that's even if we can get tickets, which is better odds now but not guaranteed, it sounds like?). But for this time at least, very glad we did it, it was definitely worth it!
no subject
Date: 2018-07-27 10:07 pm (UTC)♥
no subject
Date: 2018-07-27 11:07 pm (UTC)Yes, I saw that Horikoshi-sensei was there! There was a fair bit of BnHA cosplay, too, so I imagine he got a good reception (as we're not caught up on the anime yet, let alone the manga, figured it was better not to get spoiled!)
no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 01:51 am (UTC)And thanks for the pro tip on doing SDCC on a non-MCU year. I've always wanted to go but the scale is a wee bit daunting, so the concept of easy-mode is appealing. But who knows when Disney/MCU will decide to skip again?
no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 09:17 pm (UTC)Unfortunately you have to buy Comic-Con tickets months before the lineup is finalized, so there's no way of knowing whether MCU will be there or not (there's rumors that Disney is trying to downplay their presence at SDCC in favor of their own expo, but not sure if that's based on anything assured?)
no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 02:39 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 09:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 09:13 pm (UTC)So awesome!
I have recently been binge-watching The Flash. (Side note: I watched the first two seasons of Arrow. It was just so DARK that I couldn't take it anymore, so I stopped watching, and couldn't bring myself to start The Flash when it spun off in case it was more of the same. But the crossovers with Supergirl eventually won me over.) I got to the Gorilla City episode a few days ago and just about jumped up and down in excitement when I heard Keith David's voice. Totally unmistakable.
Sounds like a great convention!
no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 09:23 pm (UTC)Yeah, I enjoy Arrow (or did, last season frustrated me) but it's definitely the darkest of the DC-TV verse. The Flash goes up and down for me but when it's fun, it's a lot of fun (Legends of Tomorrow is likewise but moreso; 3rd season is cracktastic entertainment...)
--But yeah, thanks to Gargoyles you can pretty much get me to watch anything if you tell me Keith David's voicing something in it (my brother got me to play Halo with that!)
(Also we're getting more Lucifer! \o/ I was sad they didn't have a panel (I think Tom Ellis was at something but I missed him, aww!))
no subject
Date: 2018-07-28 11:58 pm (UTC)I was happy when I heard that it had been picked up.
The Flash goes up and down for me but when it's fun, it's a lot of fun
I'm really enjoying it, though there are some continuity errors that drive me batty. (Velocity 6 vs. Velocity 9 in particular had me yelling at the screen.)
Legends of Tomorrow is likewise but moreso; 3rd season is cracktastic entertainment...
The Halloween/E.T. episode was sheer brilliance.
no subject
Date: 2018-07-29 12:31 am (UTC)The Halloween/E.T. episode was sheer brilliance.
I don't know if I caught that one! (I missed a few of the earlier eps in the season, need to catch up.) The ep "Guest Starring John Noble" which is the one that...guest stars John Noble? and also features Barack Obama vs Gorilla Grodd -- that was amazing.