San Diego Comic-Con International Report #3 : Programming Day One

In this 3rd San Diego Comicon report, I will talk about the programming that I attended on Thursday. As I suggested in my previous 2 posts, being a newbie, I wasn't quite as aware as I now am, of how easily one can lose track of time in the exhibit hall, trying to score swag, autographs and sketches. Next time out, I'll probably try to get to more sessions. Still, it was a worthwhile first outing for me.

My wife and I arrived at the Convention Center too late to get to the session that had the unveiling of the DC superhero stamps, but she bought me a book about them, as well as sets of the stamps.

I did get to the "Comic Arts Conference Session #2: The Great Leap: Adapting Comics into Film", which was quite well done. Personally, I enjoyed Richard A. Becker's presentation the most, out of all the panelists. He discussed more examples than others and hit all the right points about them (points people in the audience may never have stated so well, but have thought for themselves). I think the biggest laugh came when he said something like "and let's not even bring up the Catwoman movie".

I then went to the first part of the Sony Animation session to learn about how the idea for Open Season came about (a syndicated comic strip artists's concept) and watched some clips.

Leaving midway through it to go to the exhibit hall, I didn't get back to programming until 5:00, when I got to hear Brain Fies talk about his artistic history and specifically his webcomic-to-printed-book sensation Mom's Cancer. The funniest bit had to be when he showed a graphic of a mock Mom's Cancer cover with simply the words "Mom's Cancer" superimposed over a reproduction of the classic Action Comics #1 scene where Superman smashes a car into a hillside.

I had wanted to follow that with the webcomics panel, but my wife and I got advised that if we wanted to make sure we'd get into the Star Wars Fan Film Awards show, we'd better get in line early (a line had already been formed by then. While in line a documentary film-maker interviewed us (& others) and we were handed an "I Brake for Wookies" bumper sticker by promoters of the Haynes Film movie Fanboys. An unexpected surprise - they screened the trailer for Fanboys at the awards show.

The awards on the stage were guarded by guys dressed up like Stormtroopers (kind of like this guy, but their uniforms were shinier and cleaner).



We also saw a fine selection of short films (10 minutes or less), including 3 of the the crowd-pleasing Pink Five films. What was really cool was that we were the first audience to get a sneak peak at volume 2 of Return of Pink Five.

My favorite two films were the ones which one for Best Commercial Parody (Blue Milk) and the one which won both the George Lucas Selects award and the Audience Choice award (Pitching Lucas). To watch the award-winning shows, go to Atom Films.