San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog

There’s a lot left to think post-mortem about this year’s Comic-Con. Certainly there were some big issues that didn’t sit well with a lot of you. Generally, we were pleased with this year’s convention, but everyone’s a critic and we’ll take our turn with what we thought could have gone better, with the hopes that CCI is watching and will make the necessary improvements for next year.

All in all, we can lump our thoughts into three main topic areas. Click the jump to read our thoughts on each.

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For the uninitiated, Comic-Con can be a pretty daunting experience. There’s the crowds, and the lines, and the sheer magnitude of the event to deal with. And on top of that, there’s all the super villains lurking around every corner. Like Man-Ant, The Time Sprinkler, and the Sand Fleas.

Only one team of super heroes can save us from such threats. Justice League? Naw, too old fashioned. The Avengers? They’re too busy prepping for their Hollywood debut.

It’s…The Aquabats. Stopping intergalactic terrorism through pop/punk/ska music since 1994, the California outfit known for their over-the-top live performances is comprised of bassist Crash McLarson (aka Chad Larson), guitarist Eagle Bones Falconhawk (aka Ian Fowles), keyboardist Jimmy The Robot (aka James Briggs), drummer Ricky Fitness (aka Richard Falomir), and lead singer MC Bat Commander (aka Christian Jacobs, Yo Gabba Gabba).

And this fall, they’ll be flying into action courtesy of The Aquabats Super Show! on the Hub TV Network.

Only The Aquabats, in their first official appearance at San Diego Comic-Con, could announce a children’s television program and at the same panel entertain a raucous crowd by performing a full-on back-flip from the Q&A table in room 5AB and closing it out with a full-on, riotous, and totally impromptu, kaiju battle with costumed audience members. It’s the closest Comic-Con has come to some cosmic Jerry Springer segment, but that’s an achievement they were able to reproduce the energy frequently on display during their live shows.

Following the panel, the band, staying in character of their onstage alter egos (“We play tennis in these costumes,” MC Bat Commander revealed), sat down with us to talk about the upcoming Hub TV show, how it came to be, and what hijinks we can expect from the greatest crime-fighting super group ever assembled.

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Please welcome blog reader and now guest blogger for the site, Megan Gotch. Megan wrote up a post about all the great swag she received at this year’s Comic-Con, so I asked her if we could repost here – good thing she said yes!

Megan is a photographer and San Diego resident who has been attending Comic-Con for the past three years. She loves Futurama, SDCC, Firefly, Being Human and “all things celebrity”. You can follower her on Twitter at @megangotch or her blog at http://megangotch.blogspot.com/.

I MISS COMIC CON!!!  So much so that I had to blog about it one more time!  I got so much awesome swag this year that just gets put where no one can see it, so I want to share it with you all!!!

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Traditionally, Sunday at Comic-Con is a subdued affair. Most of the AAA panels have already come and gone, exhibitors have run out of their exclusive merchandise and the schedules and audience is focused on family fare. But this year was a bit different – Ballroom 20 was closed, we still had some anticipated television panels, and the 2012 pre-registration saga would come to an end.

So how did everything go on Sunday then? We can say for certain that Sunday consummated SDCC 2011 as “The Year of Television”

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SDCCBlog.com reader Tyler Miller sent us a firsthand account on how he went about planning and hosting his SDCC panel, geekEd: Bringing Geek Back to Higher Education, at Comic-Con 2011. Interested in what it takes to pull off a successful panel? Read on.

It was Comic-Con 2010.  My first.  Overwhelming to say the least as my wife and two kids (5 months and almost 3) navigated our way through the exhibits, went to panels, and had a blast.  Since 1990, it was a dream for me to attend comic-con and I was living out a dream to be in attendance at the Con.

My friend and colleague Ryan let me know that Comic-Con was reaching out to college educators.  I registered my family for tickets and we were ready to go!  During the Con, we took Ryan out to dinner to thank him for helping us go to Comic-Con.  As we sat at dinner that Thursday evening at Comic-Con 2010, we looked at each other and knew.  We could TOTALLY present at Comic-Con.  We could talk about higher education and geekdom.  We knew it was possible as we’ve presented at conferences before.  Both of us had won awards for presentations given in our own field at our regional conference.  My wife came up with the name – “what about geekEd. ?”  It was a play on “geeked” but was a blending of our passions – higher education and geek life.  Then and there, Ryan and I agreed that we would put in the proposal when it came out to present at Comic-Con 2011.

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I’ve talked before about how front-loaded the programming schedule was for Comic-Con 2011. In my analysis of the schedules, it was hard-pressed to find a panel I didn’t want to attend, and Saturday and Sunday it was nearly the opposite.

I also wrote how I was expecting a surprise from Hollywood, as it seemed they were clearing the schedule for something. But up through Saturday, they’ve stuck largely to the schedule.

But part of the magic of Comic-Con is those moments you don’t expect – ending up in a panel just for kicks or by chance and finding some memorable moment that defines the con for you. Today was a great opportunity to stumble upon one of those moments.

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Day two of Comic-Con had attendees a little on edge. First, the pre-registration had most freaked out about the line that snaked even farther down the marina than on Thursday, and they worried about their chances on attending in 2012. And the wait time throughout the day Thursday for Ballroom 20 was in jeopardy of being eclipsed by Friday’s maxed schedule of can’t-miss panels.

On top of that, we had Spielberg and Spider-Man in Hall H.

See, didn’t we tell you Comic-Con would test even the strongest of you?

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The first day of Comic-Con was a day of surprises. And not the kind those who have been going to the con are normally used to.

The big news leading into the con was that Twilight was going to open the Hall H schedule. A couple of years back, Twi-hards filled the convention hall and caused some ill will with regular attendees because it attracted a crowd that differed from the conventional convention folks. So when Twilight was put on the schedule for Thursday morning, many breathed a sigh of relief. The panel which would clash most with the big-budget Hollywood fare would be over and done with before most people even stepped foot on the convention crowd.

And indeed, the Twi-hards descended upon San Diego with a lot of attention. Word was they were camping out for days to get a front row seat of Edward and Bella; some reports had them camping out over a week in advance of the panel. What came after was the first surprise of the con.

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It’s been no secret how trying the ticket registration process has been for this year’s con. First it started when it was announced all Preview Night tickets for 2011 were sold to attendees last year, during pre-registration. That created a frenzy for everyone who wanted to get tickets this year, to make a mad dash to the online ticket registration back in the fall. That heightened demand, with hundreds of thousands of eager attendees to hit the system and cause it to crash on more than one occasion.

So Comic-Con International, the organizers of the convention, decided to handle the pre-registration process a little differently this year. Basically, they would offer 2012 tickets on each day of the con, allocating a certain number of each type of ticket to be available for purchase. Pre-registration would also be held at the Manchester Grand Hyatt, as opposed to Sails Pavilion in the Convention Center as in years’ past. CCI tried to make things fair and right with attendees by taking this approach.

Instead, they lost a little bit of goodwill among their long-time fans.

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Comic Con is almost here! I know many of you are frantically doing some last minute packing and planning. Here are my top 10 items I don’t leave home without. See you in San Diego!

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