Wednesday, February 11, 2009

New York Comic Con Wrap Up - Sunday

The final day of the Con was a great end to a great weekend. I got to see the panels for a show I'm looking forward to and a show I love, plus I got my X Factor #1 signed by Peter David, watched EruditeChick kick some SERIOUS ass in the Marvel Debates, and got interviewed by G4 for Attack of the Show's NYCC coverage & their Watchmen special airing on the 25th. Woot!

I started out the day searching for the elusive Guitar Hero area of the convention. The map in the guide book claimed it was on the upper level next to the stage that featured people with lightsabers prancing around pretending to kill each other (which by the way, I'd do in a heartbeat. I love prancing around pretending to kill people!) but alas, no Guitar Hero was to be found! Disappointing. Hopefully that can be remedied for next year.

Dollhouse


Joss is one of those convention staples who always has a packed panel and who consistently shows everyone a great time. He's a riot & the fans worship him (myself included) so his panels are definitely must see. This one was no exception. Especially because he brought with him the gloriously charming & gorgeous Tahmoh Penikitt. These two are great together and you can tell the working environment on the show must be amazing. They talked a lot about Dollhouse, natch, and showed the first act of the pilot. Sadly, there was no Tahmoh in the first ten minutes but Joss assured us it would be worth the wait cause when we finally meet him, he is shirtless. And. That's the best of all ideas. For a write up of the footage, head on over to Io9 and for some clips from the first act, head to THIS Io9 page. Gotta love Io9.

While the footage didn't blow me away, I can see the potential in the show and will absolutely be watching every episode. I mean, it's Joss. And Tahmoh. I'm watching. I worry about how invested I will be in Echo, since she basically will have zero character development, but hopefully I'll be so invested in Tahmoh's character, Paul, that it won't matter. I definitely got the impression from Joss & Tahmoh that the series gets MUCH better as it goes on and we are encouraged to stick with it and trust them.

Here are some more highlights from the panel:


-In regards to Buffy Season 8, Angel will be making an appearance "as soon Georges figures out how to draw him..." cause there's "so much forehead!"
-Joss' advice to aspiring filmmakers (which is also Seth Green's advice) is "If you have something to make, make it."
-Joss would love to tackle a "frilly costume drama" in Elizabethan times, mostly because of the dresses the ladies would be wearing
-In response to Nathan Fillion teasing the fans about making another Firefly movie, Joss proclaimed "Nathan's a cock."
-Joss would love to see "What's up with Dr. Horrible". Sequel?!?! Please!!!
-Apparently Eliza has a beautiful voice that we'll get to hear some of in Dollhouse's 3rd episode
-No Dollhouse comics in the works, but Joss is looking into a supplementary web series


Whedon talks about Sondheim and directing a broadway show while I close up on Tahmoh cause he's gorgeous. What?


Fringe



First - it should be noted that between the Dollhouse & Fringe panels, while I was backstage gawking at Tahmoh and weirding out Joshua Jackson who thought I was gawking at him, I missed a video IGN made exclusive for Comic Con that is a live action parody combination of Portal & The Office. HOW DID I MISS THIS?! Hopefully they will post it online soon so we can talk about how brilliant it is together. Cause how could that not be brilliant?

But on to the main event - Fringe! Did anyone see last night's episode? Cause HOLY CRAP. I like where you're going & what you're doing, Fringe. That lightboard thing was genius. But here are some highlights from the panel, which by the way was oddly hilarious. The cast clearly gets along supremely & loves working on the show. And John Noble may in
fact be nuts in real life. Not that I'm complaining.

-Lance Reddick is an Ultimate Spiderman fan
-Josh Jackson & executive producer Jeff Pinkner are both huge Calvin & Hobbes fans, which they didn't discover until right then. Lots of Calvin & Hobbes echos appear in Fringe.
-Josh Jackson keeps a flow chart in his trailer to keep track of all the mythology. Can I get a copy of that?
-Apparently the flashing icons that appear before each commercial break are part of a code that diligent fans should be able to crack. They provide clues to the overall mythology of the show.
-Each episode has a clue hidden somewhere about the focus of the next episode. I already knew about these, but it was cool to hear it confirmed.
-Yes, the Observer is in every episode (knew that), sometimes more than once (didn't know that)
-We will be meeting William Bell (and may have already) sometime this season!
-A kid in the audience asked Anna Torv for help for a class project and she obliged. He claimed if they both wore these aluminum hats, he would be able to read her mind (see above) and joked afterwards that now he knows her phone number.

Anna Torv after helping a student with a class project


That's it for the panels! But not the end of the day. One of the highlights of the entire convention was watching EruditeChick KILL at the Marvel Debates at the Ultimate Alliance 2 booth. Some of the questions debated were "Who would make a better Nick Fury - The Hoff or Sam Jackson?" and "Should captured villains be forced to work for the government as superheroes?" The poor kid she was debating didn't know what hit him. I missed out on filming most of the debate (though it should appear on the Ultimate Alliance website soon), I did catch EruditeChick winning the big award. This video doesn't feature any of the lady's vast X-Men knowledge, but her answers, soon to be posted online, feature plenty :)





And that's pretty much it! Somewhere in there, I got interviewed by Blair Butler about the con & Watchmen, so snippets of me being awkward should appear on Attack of the Show sometime this week or at the very least, on the 25th.

Hope you enjoyed the coverage!

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