{"id":1922,"date":"2019-06-18T09:49:00","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T16:49:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=1922"},"modified":"2023-12-21T09:52:05","modified_gmt":"2023-12-21T17:52:05","slug":"devourer-of-words-063-days-of-comic-cons-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/devourer-of-words-063-days-of-comic-cons-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Devourer of Words 063: Days of Comic-Cons Past"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MARC BERNARDIN’S DEVOURER OF WORDS<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devourer of Words 063: Days of Comic-Cons Past<\/h1>\n\n\n
Marc Bernardin<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Toucan<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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If you\u2019re the kind of person who attends Comic-Con International then you, like me, have already been preparing for it. You\u2019re months in: You\u2019ve got your badge, your lodging, your transportation sorted\u2014or mostly sorted. (There\u2019s always a bit of last-minute jockeying, especially if you live in the same time zone as San Diego\u2014train or drive? Three people in a hotel room or four?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But you\u2019re going. You know, deep in your soul, that really wasn\u2019t up for debate. Of course you\u2019re going because going is what you do. This year\u2019s con will be my 17th in a row. I came the first time because of Spider-Man. Well, specifically 2002\u2019s Spider-Man<\/em> film. I was working for Entertainment Weekly<\/em> at the time and was looking for a lever into covering comics more for the magazine\u2014and Sam Raimi\u2019s movie making $400 million in the U. S. was a pretty good lever.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back then, you could book a hotel room about six weeks out without issue. Getting a badge wasn\u2019t insane, because there weren\u2019t 175,000 people descending on the Gaslamp in a weekend. You could just walk into a Room 6 panel, which was Hall H before there was a Hall H. Since that first trip, I\u2019ve seen some pretty amazing things that only could\u2019ve been possible because of Comic-Con.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stealth<\/em> Bomb<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

One of the first big Hollywood panels I witnessed was for 2005\u2019s Stealth.<\/em> You\u2019d be forgiven for not remembering this one. Directed by Fast and the Furious\u2019<\/em> Rob Cohen, it was about a futuristic stealth fighter that becomes both sentient and mad. The best part was watching the three stars\u2014Josh Lucas (who was supposed to be the next Tom Cruise), Jessica Biel (who\u2019d done SDCC for Blade: Trinity<\/em> and knew a bit of the experience), and Jamie Foxx (who\u2019d just won an Oscar for Ray<\/em>)\u2014process the experience in different ways. On the panel, Lucas was just kind of wide-eyed, while Biel just kind of smiled at the exercise like a steely-eyed veteran. But Foxx was in full-rock star mode. The man loved a crowd and loved talking about the movie and, to a greater extent, loved himself. (That the film would later come out and bomb only makes the look-back that much more interesting.) There would be more movie stars, and Oscar-winners, to come\u2014and most would learn the lesson first taught by films like Stealth.<\/em> You have to do more than simply \u201cbe famous\u201d to court the Comic-Con crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Launch Date<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve done most Comic-Cons as a member of the press but, occasionally, I\u2019ve been involved with a project that\u2019s made its public debut in San Diego. From comic books (like The Authority<\/em> or Genius<\/em>) to TV shows (like Alphas<\/em> or Castle Rock<\/em>). It\u2019s a different experience, to say the least, but illuminating to be coming to the Con from the other side. There are four cons, honestly: the fan con, the press con, the producer con, and the \u201cwe\u2019re the ones throwing the con\u201d con. It\u2019s invaluable to be able to see it from other points of view.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finding Your Flock<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve been going for long enough that there are people that I only see during San Diego the third weekend of July. It\u2019s a bit like, when you were in college, and Thanksgiving would roll around and everyone who\u2019d gone away to school would be home for three days and you\u2019d get to hang out with all your high school homies and share stories and catch up and remember why you were friends to begin with. You promise to stay in touch, but you don\u2019t … because there will always be another Thanksgiving. Some people always refer to Comic-Con as \u201cNerd Prom,\u201d but I prefer Nerd Thanksgiving. Four days in the middle of the year when you\u2019re home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See you down there, yeah?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marc Bernardin’s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of every month here on Toucan! He’ll return in August.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Marc Bernardin<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n