Kristi's Great Comic Con Adventure, Part 2
Part Two:Getting Started Again
Ow&my feet feel like theyve been bludgeoned with a meat tenderizer&no wait, that was last night. Todays Saturday. Time to get up and get started. Mom wants to go garage saling before she drops me off&I sure wish those people in the other room hadnt spent so much of the night yelling and laughing at the top of their lungs. More Comic Con revelers, I expect.
Not a garage sale in sight. In fact, we cant even find the residential section. Mom decides to drop me off at Comic Con so she can head off on a quest of her own. After a terrifying sprint through two lanes of traffic, I am safely back on the sidewalk in front of the Convention Center.
No trouble today. Good old Alexander walks right in, then spends a good hour and a half waiting for the hall to open. Ooh, but theres an artist painting over there&funny, I never knew you could do watercolor upright on an easel. I guess my technique is more runny, like soft-boiled eggs&food for thought (Let the bad puns begin!).
Time to meet up with the others in Hall H, via a detour to the only real Starbucks in the place, that is to say, the only one that serves frozen drinks as well as hot ones. One long line and a Caramel Frappucino later, I meet up with the gang in Hall H.
The Stakeout
The Narnia panel isnt due to begin for almost four hours. First we have to sit through previews of The Simpsons Movie and several other films my brain has since dismissed&oh, The Strangers. I remember they previewed that one because Liv Tyler showed up, which was neat. Go Arwen!
Anyway, our hours here shall not be wasted. Were making up goodie bags for all of the Narnia panelists. Narniaweb and Narniafan t-shirts, and some munchies from us folks at The Lions Call, plus some nice handwritten notes of appreciation. Not sure how were gonna get these to them. Were not allowed to go up to the stage and pass them over. Well have to see if we cant catch them in the Exhibit Hall later on.
Gymfan just let slip something I was completely unaware of: Turns out shes the owner of Spareoom.net. I adore that site! Best collection of Narnia wallpapers, siggies, and avatars on the Net. I swoon a little, especially when I learn were practically neighbors&but shes moving soon. Rats.
Nina joins us too, and Jen comes later. Our attempts to snag better seats nearer the panel members between sessions isnt working out. Nina manages to grab two that are a bit more central, and Gymfan gets a kind fellow attendee to save our original seats so she, NarniaJewel, and I will have places to sit after we finish asking our questions. When I get back to the question line after sorting part of this, Narniajewel puts me in front of her, and Gymfan behind. Looks like we get the first three questions. Wow! (And the Question Interrogator, a term I have just invented, approves of our questions when he checks us out beforehand. Apparently we look like decent folks who are not going to ask for impertinent things like Ben Barnes home phone number or whether Skandar has discovered girls yet.)
The panelists arrive. You can read all the facts on Narniaweb and Narniafans, because Narniajewel (who tells me she also goes by Into the Wardrobe) and Gymfan and I all sit down afterward and compare notes at length, and they wrote spiffy articles, too. But for the feel of it, here was my experience:
Cool, the panels here. Must clap and catcall! Hurrah! Oh, theres Andrew, coming in via satellite from New Zealand. Um&theres no sound. Someone near me suggests sign language. Andrew couldnt have heard him, but he attempts it all the same. Gee, that doesnt look like sign language&oh, well of course, its New Zealand Sign Language, silly me. Oh, theres the sound. Andgasp!Bens with Andrew. They didnt tell us that in advance. Perhaps they feared he would attract groupie girls.
The panel discusses how they took lines from the book like Caspian led a couple of successful sorties and fleshed them out. Theyre gonna show us an animatic! Hurrah. Oooooooooh. Thats&what is it? Oh, someone being airlifted onto a tower by a griffin&thats kinda weird. Is it Edmund? I think it could be, but you never can tell with these animatics&did Ed just throw that Telmarine off the tower? I really hope theres a lake down there somewhere&but maybe Im just wimpy that way. Ooooh, it is Ed! Hes using his electric torch to signal the others!
Narniajewel and I grin at each other. The torch made it into the film! The fans love the details.
Now others are being airlifted in. Lucys got a bow, Susans swordfighting, the mice are dropping in via ropecats all tied up nowthis is terrific! The purists are gonna die&and now Trumpkins falling backward off the parapet and Susans grabbing him by the beard&ehhhh? Oh, that must be the tribute to Lord of the Rings they put in for kicks which isnt gonna make it into the actual movie. Whew.
How I Failed at Public Speaking in Front of Thousands at Comic Con
Animatics over. Were all a bit breathless. And now its time for questions&and Im first, and they said something about a two second delay over the satellite. Are they gonna show my face on screen to let me know when to start talking? Why do I feel like everyones staring at me?
Whap! Someone has smacked my arm. I start talking. Thanks, Narniajewel, I needed that! (I cant believe I froze&I never freeze&.)
I ask what the most difficult creature or effect was to accomplish so far, and what they anticipate as being the most challenging one coming up. Aslan and Reepicheep seem to top the list, but I miss some of the answer because I am now desperately trying to find a place to sit. I want to wait over here till the other gals ask their questions, and our seats are being saved on the opposite side of the hall. I settle for squatting in an aisle till theyre done. Then we all move back to our seats, with me sidetracking to reclaim my camera from Nina Ruth (who took brilliant pictures of all of us. She somehow got one during my question that shows me, Narniajewel and Gymfan together. We couldnt have planned that pic.) I start taking photos and recording audio segments for later transcription.
The Panel, Abbreviated Version
What a blast. These panelists are so interesting. They show us live movie clips, too, mostly of the Pevensies. Nothing of Caspian (turns out hell be out on his own online blog by Monday, so that explains it.)
Lots more talking and a few more questions. Aw, theres a great story about Richard Taylors five-year-old son meeting Caspian and Peter. Make sure to read the transcript on this site.
And now Howards throwing out crew T-shirts. One features a 70s faun and the other a stick figure of Prince Caspian. We run to the front. Gymfan catches one. Woot! (The pics up in our gallery.)
And the panels done (Yes, yes, I skipped almost all that they said, but lets face it, youve already read everything Narniajewel and Gymfan wrote. They did a great job! And hopefully youve read some of my transcripts&oh you havent? Cmon, those took forever to type up&please? *pouts.* READ THEM!).
Oh wait&there were a few more important things that ought not to be glossed over. Narniajewel asked them about the timetable for releasing other films in the series. They said that as long as the fans keep embracing the movies like we did the first one, theyll keep making them. And they aim to bring us one every May, starting on 2008. Spiffy, huh? Oh, and Isis referred directly to the future filming of The Horse and His Boy, so there ARE plans to make my favorite book if all goes well. Yay!
See Kristi Run. Run Kristi, Run.
Panels done. Wish I could stay for the Pixar presentation, but weve got gift bags to deliver. Narniajewel and I sprint (or hobble, gasp, and stagger, in my case) back to the Disney booth in the Exhibition Hall. Not a panel member in sight. Humbug. Oh, the booth workers think they can get the bags to the panelists. Should we trust them, or will they eat all the munchies and wear the shirts themselves? Decisions, decisions&might as well hand them over. Otherwise well be stuck carrying them the rest of the day.
(I found out today that Howard Berger, at least, got his bag and liked it. Thanks Disney booth people. You rock!)
Met Hwin from Narniaweb. Apparently she knows who I am and is a big fan of Pattertwigs Puppet Productions&her mother says they play it every time they get in the car&snerk. This gives me a warm fuzzy feeling.
Time to sit down with the gals and compare notes. This takes a while. We finally have the idea of recording each other reading off our notes on our digital cameras&gotta love those.
Of Art and Agony: or Why Glass Cases Should be Bolted to the Floor
All done. We exchange hugs and farewells and I move off to explore a booth several rows down, which turns out to belong to fantasy artist Kiruko Craft, who signs and doodles all over the inside of her book for me. I am grinning ear to ear.
Just enough time to go back to the antiques booth before I run to meet Mom at the pickup point. The pictures I took yesterday didnt turn out so well, kinda blurry. I decide to try harder this time, steadying my hand against the glass case since I cant use a flash with the reflective surface. I do this for five or ten minutes (Stop laughing. I love Art Nouveau.). Then I decide to go for a wider shot. I brace both arms against the glass and&the cabinet tilts! Horror! My life passes before my eyes and I jump back as the booth manager jumps up. The case resettles without a slide or a clink of the roughly $100,000 worth of merchandise inside it. After a while, my pulse goes back to normal. I snap some final shots (without leaning on the case anymore) and head off to meet Mom. We spend a nice Sunday exploring the San Diego Art Museum and head home.
Our dog, incidentally, has all but forgotten us. She seems to like her new friends at the dog-sitters. Lucky dog.
Signing off now. Ciao!
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