Phoenix Comicon 2010 Day 1

Through a blend of charm, skill, and ancient black magic I was approved to do media coverage by Phoenix Comicon this year. The event took place over May 27-30 in Phoenix, Arizona and I was there covering the whole thing for this blog and the far less funny Examiner.com. Over the next few days I’ll be updating both sites with stories and photos from the convention. Today I present my chronicle of my first day at Phoenix Comicon 2010:

Phoenix Comicon 2010 Day 1: I’m In Way Over My Head

I arrived at the Phoenix Convention Center for Thursday Preview Night around 6:30 in the evening. I’d never been to the convention center before and had not realized that it was actually multiple buildings spread over several city blocks, so I found myself immediately lost. Luckily, after only a few minutes of quietly sobbing while rush hour commuters laughed and threw things at me, I noticed several young men, all poorly dressed, looking unwashed, displaying a variety of terrible haircuts, and all headed in the same direction. Trusting my journalist’s instincts, I followed them directly to the Comicon.

If you showed this photo to the woman from What Not To Wear she would burst into flame.

I mounted the steps to the Phoenix Convention Center South Building and was immediately confronted by a massive line. Registration had been open since 4pm and the line was still out the door and curving down the sidewalk outside. A convention staffer keeping the crowd from rioting notified me that media can actually skip the line and pick up their credentials inside. I humbly waltzed past the massive geek pileup with an absolute minimal amount of strutting.

“Hehe step aside losers, Media comin’ through! ….Oh, hey, does anyone know if the concession stands take food stamps? I forgot to ask my mom for lunch money…”

On the way into the building I passed this:

Which taught me two things. One, apparently there’s such a thing as a “Knight Rider Festival.” Two, David Hasselhoff looks way different in person.

Despite the fact that Registration had been open for over two hours, convention programming had been going on for half an hour, and the massive line outside, the lobbies and main halls were pretty empty. On my way to media registration I passed a gaggle of anime kids and made a note to myself that anime kids continue to be fucking terrifying. Besides wearing intricate recreations of costumes designed for cartoon characters, having hair that looks like lacquered cotton candy, and carrying massive paper mache weapons, they talk in an indecipherable mix of Japanese, English, and anime references, and they’re so hopped up on Pocky and green tea hard candy that all I see are blurs of color and gibberish moving around in small packs, occasionally stopping to admire a particularly garishly-hued Furry.

Pictured: Garishly-hued Furry, pretty empty room, terrifying anime kids.

Once I’d composed myself I continued on my way to media registration and was greeted by another (much shorter) line. While waiting I noticed several overweight bald men, all with prodigious beads of sweat coating their hairless scalps despite it not being particularly warm out. It was around this time that I made another note to myself that I should avoid touching anything. I got my credentials and, while saddened to find it didn’t have my name on it, was quite pleased to note it didn’t have my press affiliation either. I spent the rest of the convention telling people I worked for Cat Fancy.

“I won an award for my expose on the mental health care options available for Crazy Cat Ladies.”

After getting my press badge I read through the official welcome letter given to media members. I was a little disappointed, although not exactly surprised, to find that it was earnestly signed “Live Long and Prosper.”

Sigh.

Now, press credentials proudly displayed and scarcely believing that I’d made it this far without anyone realizing I was wildly unqualified to even be here, I began really buckling down and getting into some serious journalism. After 30 seconds of that I began taking silly photos and cracking jokes. Enjoy.

Right away I noticed several massive promotional posters for Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. Besides a 6” x 9” free standing poster of Jake Gyllenhaal that passersby described as “gay,” there were also a series of posters behind the volunteer registration table. Here giant Ben Kingsley reminds volunteers to keep their walkie-talkies turned to channel 5. Oh, and REVENGE!!!!!!

There were two sponsored video gaming rooms, and they seemed to have attracted a lot of people, so I thought I’d check them out. They had tons of computers and the latest gaming hardware…

…like a 2001 Xbox.

Still the kids seemed to enjoy it. There was Rockband, and DDR, and classic fighting games, and kids who’d paid $35 attendance to do the exact same thing they do every day at home.

Worth every penny.

In the comic book trivia room I spotted Paul from Cheers:

In the Exhibition Hall there were free posters for tons of current and up-coming comic book and sci-fi movies…

…Like this three year-old romantic comedy about a shut-in who falls in love with a latex sex doll.

If you’re not clear what a movie about the fetish of a socially dysfunctional man-child has to do with Comicon…

…Then clearly you’ve never been to a comic book convention.

There were several celebrities present at this year’s Comicon, including The Honky Tonk Man, 57 year-old professional wrestler and 24-hour sad reminder of Elvis’ last days…

A lot of lesser known comic book artists and publishers went to great lengths to get attendees’ attention…

…Including sporting the most impressive pair of pigtails ever seen on a grown man.

While in artist’s alley I spotted this guy…

…Who seemed to be at the wrong convention…

…OR WAS HE?

While browsing the vendors I had to admire the girth of this woman’s mushroom tip.

I was saddened to find that Honky Tonk Man hadn’t arranged to be seated nearer to this poster. I hope someone got fired over this, Honky.

I don’t know why, but “puppet pie” just sounds really dirty to me.

When I first saw this poster, I could’ve sworn it said “Tulip Man.”

The Godaddy.com booth made the brilliant marketing decision to leave the scantily clad Go Daddy Girls at home, and instead brought a random dinosaur and a modestly dressed staffer who seemed genuinely surprised that anyone was interested in their booth.

This terrifyingly realistic Spawn mannequin was wisely placed directly across from the adorable, kid-friendly Godaddy.com dinosaur. I can only guess at the number of children this traumatized. Enjoy your impending lawsuits, Phoenix Comicon!

It’s hard to see in the photo, but this guy’s name tag was a couple letters away from reading “Spermaniak,” which I think would be a really good name for a Thrash Metal band. Also, Arizona has their own Ghostbusters, so suck it, New Mexico!

Here we see the Art Institute of Phoenix showing off their strict admissions standards.

At the Southwest Sketchoff competitors had a limited amount of time to draw well-known characters from comics and science fiction, all chosen by the moderator, while the audience…umm…watched. Ok, it wasn’t the most terribly exciting spectator event, but the drawings themselves were actually pretty cool:

Back in the video game room a couple guys showed up to show all the poseurs the kind of style and panache it takes to really master Rockband…

…While the last gen Xbox made friends with the only piece of technology in the room as outdated as itself: A late ‘90s Sharp brand television.

Elsewhere, Nick of the Miniskirt Army showed off the latest in band uniform fashion…

…and in the Hyatt lobby I discovered an impromptu meeting of the prestigious Samurai Council:

I was in this lobby for a solid ten minutes. The entire time, never once did they blink.

There were a couple of after party events going on in the Hyatt ballrooms, but they were unbelievably dead. Either most of the convention attendees hadn’t yet arrived or, unbeknownst to me, comic book fans do not drink. Or dance. And are easily frightened by bright lights and loud music.

Turns out comic books fans are eerily similar to my 80 year-old father.

In any case I knew that I had barely hit the tip of the Comicon iceberg, so I decided to call it a night, head back to the hotel, and prepare for the next three days. I’d already gotten through press registration without anyone realizing I was a complete fraud, taken pictures of complete strangers without anyone smashing my camera, and my chub rub status was, at most, moderate. I considered the day a success. I showered off what I assumed to be the smell of a hard day’s work and went to bed. Tomorrow was Friday, the first full day of Phoenix Comicon, and I needed some rest.

Coming up: Phoenix Comicon 2010: Day 2!

Reasons I Liked the Film Doomsday

I recently watched the movie Doomsday. I wasn’t expecting much when I decided to see it. I’d been playing a lot of Fallout 3 and wanted to watch a movie set in post-apocalypse. It was between Doomsday and The Road, and Doomsday finished downloading first.

Did I say downloading? I meant I legally rented a copy of Doomsday at my local video entertainment rental emporium. Yes, that’s the ticket…

If you’re thinking of downloa—I mean exchanging money for a licensed copy of Doomsday, I highly recommend it. It’s legitimately good. Here are some reasons why.

Bob Hoskins Adds a Touch of Class to Everything He Does

The film has a lot of very classic relationship archetypes and Bob Hoskins pulls his off the best as the main character’s boss/mentor/father figure. This film would still be good without him, but as an actor he just brings a certain sense of legitimacy to the film that helps you enjoy it that much more.

See? Classy.

Doomsday Borrows a Lot from Other Movies and It Doesn’t Hide It

In the film a deadly hyper-contagious virus forces the government to wall-off Scotland and a talented British agent is sent back in several years later to look for a cure. The whole plot borrows a lot from 28 Days Later and Escape From New York (and Escape From L.A. but only because John Carpenter is a fucking hack). Not long into the film there’s a big speech amongst the crazed society of rebels where their leader whips his followers into a frenzy while they eat handfuls of really gross meat. This reminded me of Dennis Hopper’s speech to The Smokers in Waterworld. Just then I realized the whole scene was a blatant rip-off of the big gang meeting in The Warriors. Just when I was beginning to think the writers either A) didn’t realize all those films were still covered by copyright, or B) didn’t realize that they were stealing these concepts, I saw this:

That’s right. That's a fucking Baseball Fury.

The people behind Doomsday knew exactly what they were doing and not only did they not care, they happily reveled in it. I have to respect that.

This Movie Has a Sense of Humor

As you might have guessed, this movie knows not to take itself too seriously. It plays up tension and drama when it needs to, but most of the time it wants to have fun. Still, it manages to walk the delicate balance between not taking itself too seriously and outright laughing at you for wasting your time on it.

You reading this, Brendan Fraser? STOP MOCKING ME WITH YOU CAREER.

Most movies wouldn’t know how to both dedicate themselves to their own storyline and throw in gags about the villain driving around the corpse of his brutally evil girlfriend, but Doomsday does and it totally works.

Corpse humor: Often attempted, rarely perfected.

It Knows How to Portray a Strong Female Lead

Movies suck at portraying strong female characters. Maybe it’s because actual strong women scare the hell out of most people. Maybe it has something to do with a disproportionate ratio of the filmmaking workforce, from directors and writers to grips and sound engineers, being men. Maybe it’s that most actresses are cast for looks, not their actual ability to realistically portray combat ability.

No offense Milla Jovovich, you’re still a fine actress, but I’ve seen greyhound dogs with a higher BMI.

Most strong female characters are either so unrealistically stoic they make Christian Bale’s Batman look histrionic, or they break into tears the second some aspect of their childhood/shoe-horned romantic interest/any personal trauma is brought up.

Indiana Jones never cried this much and he once saw his father get shot by Nazis.

Doomsday avoids that emotional dichotomy brilliantly. The main character has personal investment in finding a cure for the virus and seeing what has happened to Scotland, but she never gets all weepy about it like an emo kid who just dropped his ice cream cone. Similarly, while she does have the classic little drama moment when her Redshirts die, she’s almost immediately back to killing bad guys while racing a BMW backwards. That’s neither callous nor over-emotional: It’s awesome.

Find something that is not awesome about this. I dare you.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading my over-analysis of a two-year old English B-movie. Come back next time when I’ll almost certainly be writing about more random crap.

Things That Are Killing The American Sitcom Pt. 4

Censorship

Censorship kills a lot of things: creativity, avant-garde cultural change, a young boy’s ability to masturbate to basic cable programming (well, in theory). But censorship is also sticking a knife between the ribs of the American sitcom.

Censorship in action.

This may at first seem an odd argument. Isn’t the sitcom a paragon of storytelling so traditional, inoffensive, and simplistic that it makes "Ziggy" seem edgy? Well, yes, but the best sitcoms, those considered not only historically and culturally significant but extremely popular as entertainment, are also those that were widely considered offensive for their time. Shows like All in the Family, MASH, and The Simpsons have had to struggle with censorship, and in doing so became popular for taking a stand.

Taking a stand against censorship.

The problem is all of these shows came to be before there were any real alternatives besides fighting censorship if you wanted anyone to see your show. While cable television has existed since the 1940s, it didn’t really take off until the late 1980s, just around the time we stopped seeing shows that challenged the status quo on broadcast TV. Sure legitimately good shows have come out on broadcast networks since the advent of cable, but even the most innovative of them don’t really push the envelope, so much as make the most of where it is. With the advent of the internet and premium cable channels becoming more popular, even basic cable programming has seen a brain drain.

As previously discussed.

The problem with this is that the American sitcom, like all creative endeavors, are defined by their medium. When you take the sitcom off broadcast television, and eventually off of television entirely, it fundamentally changes its very nature. If you think it’s an exaggeration to suggest censorship could eventually send all situation comedy innovators to the lawless wastes of the internet then you’re clearly unaware of the lengths writers and other artists will go to avoid being censored.

“I don’t get it.”-NBC Programming Executive

When I wrote a sex column for my college newspaper I once had an entire column rejected by my editors for being about blowjobs. Specifically, the column was about the etymology of the term “blowjob” and didn’t actually discuss the act itself at all. It was rejected because several years before my column another writer wrote an entirely different column with a step-by-step guide to giving a blowjob. That column passed through the editorial process and was published during the university’s annual Parents’ Week. Needless to say, angry letters and mass firings ensued. Because of all this the current editorial staff was wary of blowjobs….so to speak, and nixed my column immediately. The fact that my blowjob column couldn’t have had less in common with the earlier offender was considered irrelevant.

“Huh huh ‘Blowjob Column.’”

My point is that I wasn’t really all that inconvenienced by the incident. Writing the column only took about an hour, writing a new column took about the same amount of time. I didn’t get in any trouble, I just got a talking to about “boundaries” and “acceptable content.” And I got paid the same pittance either way. Even so, I was upset. I had been told that something I had created and worked hard on and truly cared about wasn’t acceptable. It was dirty and wrong and was held as an example of what I should never do again. Because of this I was tempted to outright quit writing the column. While I didn’t quit over it, I’m still so mad at that editor that below is his name and picture.

This is Chris Etling. He’s still Editor-in-Chief of the Northern Arizona University Lumberjack. He’s been pursuing a Bachelor’s degree for the past seven years. He is a cockbite.

Ahem. Where was I? Oh, right. Censorship. See, this is exactly why censorship is killing the sitcom. Simply put, censorship kills comedy, situation or otherwise. It creates the kind of anger that not only makes artists (loosely defined to include sitcom writers and college sex columnists) want to quit, but also leads to uninteresting blog rants years after the fact.

Do you see what you’ve done, Chris Etling of Flagstaff, Arizona, phone number 267-436-5063, birth date March 11, 1985, SSN 532-64-1416, with a fatal allergy to peanuts? DO YOU SEE WHAT YOU’VE DONE?

Come back next time when I’ll be putting all this behind me and starting a new topic: Observations on the Film Doomsday, because I just watched it and I’m profoundly lazy.