Saturday, July 29th, 2006

An Overview of COMIC-CON

COMIC-CON: AN OVERVIEW by Ray McDermott

Comic-Con. Well over 100,000 people packed the San Diego Convention Center this past weekend for one of the biggest popular culture event of the year and FilmRadar was there. The event covers the worlds of film, television, publishing, animation, computer gaming, manga, and oh yeah… comics. Its influence has grown steadily over the past decade as the buzz leading out Comic-Con can make or break a film or television series.

In four days, there were over 400 different panels and presentations covering topics such as Animation on a Shoestring Budget, Star Trek as a Cultural Phenomenon, Writing for the Computer Gaming Industry, Podcasting 101 and Veronica Mars.  On Friday and Saturday, people lined up by the thousands to get into the massive Hall H, where the studios, with the help of stars like Samuel L. Jackson, Nicholas Cage, and Hillary Swank and filmmakers like Kevin Smith, Bryan Singer, and Richard Donner, presented their major upcoming film and DVD releases. 

Comic-Con also boasts it’s own Independent Film Festival with dozens of science fiction, horror, action/adventure, animation and documentary films in competition, a mini film school, and educational sessions.

The heart of the convention is the exhibit hall that runs the length of several football fields from one end the Convention Center to the other. You can spend the entire 4 days just on the exhibit floor looking at the gigantic exhibits from the studios, networks, and game manufacturers or shopping at the hundreds of vendors selling everything from comics, DVDs, t-shirts, posters, and jewelry to just about anything imaginable. 

But let us not forget the hundreds of fans that walk the convention floor dressed as hobbits, klingons, storm troopers and other favorites characters that culminates in the Comic-Con Masquerade on Saturday night. They give the convention its flavor and help perpetuate the perception of Comic-Con as “nerd paradise.” However, given its expansion in both size and programming scope, it is not unusual to see both young and old, families, and women. Yes, women now make up well over 30% of the attendees. It’s not your father’s Comic-Con anymore.

Over the course of the next several weeks, FilmRadar will provide in-depth coverage from the following panels:

In 1931, Universal released both Dracula and Frankenstein and started a dynasty of monsters that continues to this day. Legendary Forrest J. Ackerman (Editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland), artist Basil Gogos (Famous Monsters), actor Dan Roebuck (Matlock, Lost), and author John Flynn (75 Years of Universal Monsters) join host Jeff Bond (Cinefantastique Magazine) to discuss the history of these famous characters and unveil Universal’s 75th anniversary plans.
Oscar-nominated director Kirby Dick (Twist of Faith) and producer Eddie Schmidt unveil their unprecedented investigation into the MPAA film ratings system in the hilarious documentary, This Film Is Not Yet Rated.
Preview the restoration and colorization of Merian C. Cooper’s She with legendary visual effects artist Ray Harryhausen, author Mark Cotta Vaz (Living Dangerously, The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper), illustrator Joe Devito (Kong: King of Skull Island), and producer Arnold Kunert (Ray Harryhausen: The Early Years Collection).

Roger Corman reminisces about 50 years of filmmaking and looks ahead at future.
Now you may be asking yourself, where’s the coverage of Spiderman 3? Well, that’s not really FilmRadar and besides, I couldn’t get into room.