Comic-con

Here I am, at the Javits Center, completely baffled and bewildered. Competing in my head are my overwhelming excitement to be among the Batmans, and Nightwings and Spideys, and the persistent pounding that the last two or three beers I had last night left me with.

I'm disoriented enough as it is, and the crowd scene going on just gets me more so. In my head, I'm warbling 'Hungover again at Comic-Con, Searching for a damn schedule." The meter doesn't quite work. I know this.

But finally I get my hands on a schedule and map. I've missed The Science of Battlestar Galactica. I've missed Stan Lee (though I doubt I would have gotten in.) But there's plenty I'm still in time for.

For instance, the panel on The Thing prequel. Like any good nerd, I get two warring impulses upon hearing of a remake or a prequel. On the one hand there's a 'oh man, The Thing is awesome, seeing more of The Thing would be fucking awesome.' But on the other hand, there's the certain knowledge of, if a production company is deciding to do a remake, prequel or sequel, it is because they don't have a more original idea. And if they don't have the ability to come up with original idea, then maybe they should keep their filthy mitts off of material that was original. Diluting the legacy of great ideas down to weak dishwater.

That being said. The Thing prequel...might not be totally a crime. Sure none of the actor's panel seemed the slightest bit as cool as Kurt Russell or Keith David, but the director and the producers knew the right answer to a bunch of the right questions. The most memorable aspect of the Carpenter movie? The paranoia and dread of the blood testing scene. Practical or CGI effects? Practical. How is it structured in relation to the Carpenter's? It is the Norwegian base, so half of the cast will be Norwegian, and the stuff that MacReady finds there will all be explained out, so it fits in snugly onto the beginning of the Carpenter film, ending with the dog running off into the snow, with the helicopter running after it.

Maybe, just maybe, it won't suck.

But, confession time, I was at the Thing prequel panel in order to get a good seat for the next panel. The Women of Battlestar Galactica with Tricia Helfer, Michelle Forbes, Nikki Clyne and most most MOST importantly, Katee Fuckin' Sackhoff.

I could go on for a whole blogpost about how awesome Starbuck is, and wouldn't be saying anything that hasn't been said before. But let's just leave it at, it was a lifechanger and a breath of fresh air to see a woman playing the vice-ridden loose cannon hotshot pilot. But not playing it as some hardass, but with giggles, shit-eating grins and the certain knowledge that she is not someone to be frakked with. Plus having her be an actress with some meat on her bones, who still gets plenty of play without dropping the tomboy act and obeying perfect female conventions.
Unflippin' heard of.

In person, Katee Sackhoff does not disappoint and I was pleased to find out that Tricia Helfer was also a total badass. Listening to them banter with each other sounded so natural to my ears and I felt like I was eavesdropping on a barroom conversation between old friends.

On why they decided to learn to ride motorcycles.
" Well, My husband and Katee's boyfriend both ride, and we got sick of riding bitch."
"Not that there's anything wrong of riding on the back, I mean, you can wave at people, you can make sandwiches. You can drink because you're not really driving."
"You texted me once when you were riding in back."
"Yup" mimes texting "I'm riding bitch. It sucks."

On filming sex scenes. "To save money in editing, there was that time when I was filming that sex scene where I was with Lee, no wait, damn I don't remember character names anymore, but I was having sex with Gaius and fantasizing I was having sex with Lee, but they filmed it all at once, and you were in the corner, wagging your finger up at me. And it's like 'Alright, Jamie, that's enough, James, get on 'er.' And Tricia's there in the corner glowering at me. "

On fans saying strange things to her "Were you there when that woman came up to me and said she wanted to have my babies? I had to tell her that there was a basic biological problem with that."
"That you're a woman."
"No, because I was Starbuck. C'mon, if I had one, it would be HUGE."
And she's saying this while wearing a miniskirt. Man, oh man, Katee Sackhoff was every bit as awesome as I was scared she wouldn't be.

Then out came Michelle Forbes and Nikki Clyne. Cally? I mean who gives a rat's ass, although it was funny to see the combination of horror and giggles inspired in the audience by her talking about trying to take her baby with her out of an airlock.

Michelle Forbes was an impressively intelligent woman who talked about BSG and The Wire and feminism and roles for women in TV and movies.

Gotta say, it jumped out at me, comics fans are a very racially diverse bunch. I guess being a passionate nerd knows no color. I saw a Black Robin, an Asian female Robin, a female Nightwing, and more Jokers and HarleyQuinns than you can shake a stick at. I was really hoping for a Black Captain America, but no dice.

The only other panel I made it to was "Do Zombies Dream of Undead Sheep?, made up of authors of various humor books on Zombies. The one that just made my list was "Feed" because the authoress is a fascinatingly hilarious and unapologetically morbid and nerdy human being. I wanna get proper fucked up with her and watch Night of the Creeps like woah while she tells me about how the virology is incorrect.

She bragged about being voted most likely to raise something horrible in a cornfield. As a child she came out of her room after reading a pile of EC comics "Mom, can I raise the dead?" "Sure." "Can I have knife?" "No." "Some scissors?" "No." "Can I have the baby?" "Sure."

One of my favorite spiels of hers was about how zombies are the universal healthcare of monsters "To be a vampire you have to drink their blood, and be in their thrall or whatnot, start hanging out near crypts or with pale people. To become a werewolf you have to be stupid enough to go walking out on the moors on a full moon 'oh honey, we live in a world with werewolves, I'm just going to take a stroll out on a full moon to the convenience store to get some Haagen Dasz, do you need anything?' but the zombies, they come to YOU! You don't have to do anything stupid or anything at all really but be there and be biteable. Zombies are the universal healthcare of monsters."

Other great moment, guy dressed up like Doctor Horrible gets to the front and asks "As part of my evil plans I wish to raise the army of the dead, how do you suggest I do this?"

Other woman on the panel "I just watched Dawn of the dead and the contrast of the green pale skin and the greasy red shiny innards and thought 'oh, how pretty.'"

One member of the panel suggests that the resurgence of zombies, and them turned into humorous subject matter is a sign of the death knell of the genre. He gets roundly poo-poohed by the rest of the panel and the audience. Virology lady says "Night of the Creeps 1982! That was funny but zombie movies kept happening for the next twenty-five years!"

Awesomely, this panel cured my hangover, but I was still feeling pretty dead, and when I accidentally went to the wrong venue to see my buddy play, I took it as a sign that I should get a full night's sleep, and went home.

On the juke? One cannot talk about so-called lowbrow art with pretension without thinking of the Ramones.