San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog

The “Countdown to Comic-Con” continues, with a mere four days until Preview Night! We can hardly believe it ourselves, and we can’t wait to be on that jumbo jet, San Diego bound.

The folks at Comic-Con International, organizers for the big show, can’t wait to see all of us either, and they’ve been unveiling news and schedules on a daily basis leading up to the con which have been making the wait to opening night just that much more unbearable. Thanks, CCI. We appreciate the tease!

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Hollywood Abandons Hall H.

That was the headline for many a week recently, as Dreamworks, Disney and Marvel all said they would not be following tradition and bringing their big movie reveals to Comic-Con’s fabled auditorium. And with that announcement, emotions among fans ranged from confused to disappointed to downright cheated. This is the place where 140,000 like-minded geeks go on an annual pilgrimage and immerse themselves in swag, celebrities and worldwide media attention. This is the place to where people travel thousands of miles, cross whole continents and into time zones on the other side of the world. This is the event for which fans save their vacation schedules and hard-earned spending cash.

This is San Diego Comic-Con.

If you understood any of that, then you no doubt could sympathize with people who felt the same thing. Maybe you were even one of those people. And if so, you have been asking yourself, “Why would Hollywood destroy the very thing they helped create?”

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We feel like we’ve been stuck on an emotional rollercoaster these last few weeks. Would Hollywood show up for Comic-Con this year or won’t they? We’d heard conflicting reports on either side of the story. And we finally received some closure after seeing the schedules for Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Most of our questions have been answered, but there are some still lingering about the offsite presence of Marvel and Dreamworks studios. And the answers we did get were pretty encouraging, at least for Thursday and Friday, that Hollywood would bring their “A” game to the con.

But then Saturday’s schedule was released, and it wasn’t nearly as strong as the prior two days. So the question on everyone’s mind is, would Comic-Con rebound on Sunday and end this year with a bang?

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Warner Bros. has announced their autograph schedule for this year’s Comic-Con, and as in years past it’s pretty massive. We applaud them for embracing the fans and giving them a chance to shake hands with their favorite stars of film and television.

Last year, the autograph schedule brought massive chaos in and around the WB booth on the show floor, causing entire walkways to be shut down and basically rendered an entire corner of the floor inaccessible. WB also used their Twitter account to announce when folks could start to line up at their booth, just for a chance to get an autograph at a particular session. In other words, it wasn’t a very good system.

Thankfully, we won’t have to worry about that again this year, because they have revamped the ticketing system. Gone are the impromptu announcements via Twitter, each session will now have a set time when people can start to line up for a chance. Also gone are the long lines at the booth for said tickets, because they’ve moved it to the much more accessible Sails Pavilion.

Click the jump to read more on when and where you need to be to meet your favorite stars.

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Okay, we’re officially exhausted. This is good training, though; it gets our mind ready for the insanity that is San Diego Comic-Con. We’ve been officially blown away by the quality and quantity of the panels announced thus far, and we’re only half way through the weekend.

But today, Comic-Con announced their Saturday schedule, which officially pushes us over the mid-point. One more day to go of panel announcements – we think we can pace ourselves.

Although there are some great panels on Saturday, to us it is the weakest of the days thus far. Click through the jump to find out why.

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We’re starting to feel a little deja vu. The Friday SDCC event schedule has been announced, and after going through it we immediately realized we were double and/or triple booked almost the entire day.

Welcome to the SDCC weekend, people. Get used to it.

You’re going to have to make some tough choices, as mentioned in Part 1 of our Newbie guide, because it’s physically impossible to be in two places at once. So, as the good friends that we are, we’re going to go through the events of the day and let you know which ones are worth attending, which are worth skipping, and how to score a seat at your favorite panel.

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Well, this is it. The moment we’ve all been waiting for. All the speculation comes to an end, as Comic-Con officially unveils their 2011 schedule of events. Today saw the announcement of Wednesday’s preview night event, and Thursday’s schedule. Who will be in Hall H? Will Hollywood really be sitting out on this year’s con? And which events are the ones that have us most interested? Click through the jump to find out more.

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A handful more TV shows were recently confirmed for the con so I thought I’d run them down and give my thoughts.

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Based off the moderately successful and well liked comic book of the same name, Locke & Key was one of the most anticipated shows of the coming fall for many con attendees. Unfortunately after good early buzz and even the president of Fox TV admitting it had a great pilot, the show wasn’t picked up and now only the first episode exists. Luckily for SDCC attendees, they’re likely to be one of the few groups of people in the entire world able to see it before it disappears into the void. On Friday July 22 at 10:30 AM, the con will be having a screening of the pilot, followed by a panel with the comic’s writers Joe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez, the pilot’s writer/executive producer Josh Friedman, and executive producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Read on for scheduling weirdness and my thoughts.

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UPDATE: After scanning the list more carefully it also reveals TV will stick to Ballroom 20 as its largest room on Thursday through Saturday but will be taking over Hall H on Sunday (with at least Buffy Musical and Supernatural).

Wow. WBTV just announced they’re bringing 16 shows to the con! After the big lack-of-movies freak out, it’s good to see that TV might be having its biggest con ever. In addition to listing the times and locations for each panel, WB also provided the tentative list of talent for each and it’s pretty impressive. That and some details about their always amazing booth lie below.

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