Gareb Shamus's Super Awesome Philly Star Trek Party A-Go-Go 2010
Jun 18I ducked into the Wawa on Arch Street as I was walking back to my car after my trip to Wizard World Philadelphia Comic Con, and as I stood in line to check out with several con-goers, including one cosplayer who looked like the Snooki Polizzi version of the Silk Spectre, I saw that one of them was wearing a “Wizard World Tour” shirt from 2005, listing a titanic FIVE dates. Today, the slate is upwards of one dozen shows. My, how times change.
While Wizard has changed their branding to ensure that easily confused rubes will think they’re buying tickets for Reed Exhibitions’ (the promoter who produces New York Comic Con, Chicago’s C2E2 and the epic nerd pilgrimage that is San Diego Comic Con) shows, they have not done much to put the ‘comic’ into Philly’s con. Only Zenescope and Avatar had a presence at the show that was outside of individual creators’ tables in Artist’s Alley. Instead, a large swath of the show floor was populated by TV and film stars – James Marsters, Ernie Hudson, Brent Spiner and John DeLancie being the biggest draws and having corresponding mobs of fans in their wakes, not to mention the massive queue for Sir Patrick Stewart’s signing. Vendors appeared to be doing a brisk business as well, and I myself made off with about $200 worth of comics for a fraction of that price. I also grabbed some forthcoming commissions from Jaime Fay (of the third volume of Sentinels and the upcoming NeverMinds, both with Rich Bernatovech) and Avengers Academy artist Mike McKone.
Though I heard I several complaints about the length of the line to get in the door and some ire about increased ticket prices, this year boasted the largest Saturday crowd I’ve seen at this show in the past three years. The lines for the marquee panels, like the Bruce Campbell Q&A or the Star Trek: TNG panel, were expansive. Again, the big draws in the panel programming had little to do with comics apart from Raven Gregory’s “Writing Comics” panel. As someone that generally goes to cons for the programming and not for the celeb autographs or the shopping experience, it feels a bit like this show isn’t ‘for me’ anymore, but the majority of the con-goers seemed to think Wizard is doing something right. The crowd had some inventive costumes on display – with lots of Ghostbusters love, too.
As part of the vaunted ‘Con Wars,’ Wizard’s shows are changing their character, but the change just might be for the better in terms of turning attendance and engagement around.
Two Quotes From Ian Sattler
Jun 07“We have learned we need to be more mindful of things in the future.”
-Ian Sattler – DC Nation Panel, Heroes Con 2010
“We don’t see it that way and strive very hard to have a diverse DCU. I mean, we have green, pink, and blue characters.”
-Ian Sattler – DC Nation Panel, Heroes Con 2010
I didn’t get to attend Heroes Con this year, so I don’t know if this is the most insulting doubletalk out of the DC Nation panel, but the reaction it seems to have gotten from some of the panel attendees seems to suggest that it was. A close second, the notion that it’s okay to kill Ryan Choi because DC has The Great Ten (a team whose 10 issue miniseries was chopped short after seven issues). Not said was that The Great Ten “are like ten Ryan Chois, people. Seriously. Suck it up.”
The End
May 25I realized that we had a flawed episode when I tried to explain the finale to my girlfriend, who is completely unfamiliar with the show aside from the spillover that she gets from knowing a few rabid fans. I realized it more fully when I heard someone insist that the final shots of the unpeopled remains of Oceanic 815 were an indicator that none of the show’s events ever really happened. And then I realized that there are people who are really bothered that we never saw what really happened to Stuart Radzinsky and who thought that the finale was awful for not answering that question. It gave me a dose of perspective. But there were big, broad awesome things in this episode that worked. It was a series of emotionally manipulative beats perfectly executed, and the fabric between them shows as thin sometimes. Knowing that it could not please everyone, it tried to please the most people possible. It pleased me.
There were three hundred and twenty four passengers on Oceanic flight 815. When the plane crashed on a mysterious island, the seventy-two survivors were stranded together for one hundred and one days. But most of them died before that. Six were rescued. Then, three years later, they came back. In the end, six left again, though not the same six as before.
Each of those survivors lived for years – decades, for all of them except Walt* – prior to coming to the Island. They’d had friends, been in love, held fulfilling jobs, saved lives, killed, coveted, were thrown out an 8th story window, sailed around the world. They were people in crisis who’d lived imperfect lives or good people confronted with bad things on their horizons, but as we saw more and more of their pasts, we knew more about them, more about why these people mattered.
In spite all of that, the most important moments in those lives, even the ones that managed to live long, fulfilling lives after flying away, were those comparatively brief days spent on that Island. The characters left an impact on each other that is indelible. So much so that their bonds survive after death. That much is apparent in each of the ‘reconnection’ montages our characters undergo.
That is the final and most important reveal that the Island held in store for us, and one that the series had been preparing us for for six years – the secret of the Island is not a four-toed statue or the name of a cloud of sinister fog or who exactly fired those shots. It has never been about those things and those things are frankly inessential to any real understanding of the substance of the show, an obfuscation over its heart. The real secret of the Island has always been the characters, the survivors, the castaways.
They are everyone in our lives that we knew only briefly yet molded us and changed us for the better. They are that for us because they were that for each other and we have always been one of them, too.
*WAAAAAAAAAAAAALLLLLLLTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Nerdly Advice – Funeral Edition
May 20[The following post contains spoilers for the finale of Siege and the various one-shots and specials that spin out of it. If you have not read Siege #4 and wish to remain unspoiled, you might want to skip this one.]
Sometimes nerds have questions, and we do our best to answer them. Sometimes they’re about important things, but mostly they’re about the ridiculous curiosities of fandom. It’s kind of like Antiques Roadshow in the Batcave. Or something. We call it Nerdly Advice.
Today’s question comes from ‘CLOC’, who wants to know “Jeff, What’s the deal with the Sentry? I don’t know anything about him except that he did it with Rogue and probably Crystal, too, right?”
Lost 6.15 "Across The Sea"
May 14Last time on LOST:
Sawyer deduces that the Smoke Monster is weak against water, is wrong.
Kate gets shot; the bullet is the most character development she has had to date.
Jack – really bad at keeping an eye on his stuff.
Sayid: “I’ve decided I’m good toda-” BOOM!
Jin and Sun – Reunited and the pressure at this depth is uncomfortable.
I’ve been wracking my brain trying to reconcile CJ Cregg’s role in LOST with her history on The Island. As best as I can figure, she crashed on the Island en route to Africa to oversee her charitable work with Hollis. This happened during the crazy time travel period chronicled in Season 5, and while the 815ers were bouncing to the 50s and the 70s and the whenevers, CJ wound up hundreds of years ago. Like people do.
All that Latin that she’s talking? Ronny Jordan lyrics.
Or maybe it happened another way.
Let’s talk about answers.
Any answer that we get about LOST, as the Woman so succinctly points out, will only lead to more questions. Ultimately, any answers that we’ll accept are going to be the ones we discover for ourselves. The theorizing and the scrutinizing is as much of a part of the experience of the show as the watching of it. In fact, there’s something to be said for the metacontext of lies, fakeouts and unanswered questions slowly turning a man bitter and evil, yes? Maybe? Is that reaching too far?
But in lieu of such ruminating, let’s turn our laser focus to the real mystery at the heart of the island – bad parenting, and maybe, in a macro sense, poor sharing/people skills in general (I mean, the Woman does just up and bash Claudia’s head in, and I’ve always been led to believe that that’s a bad behavior). Do any of these people have a good relationship with their parents? No? Is that why Jacob chose them, in an effort to work through his ‘I know you’re an evil witch lady who murdered my mom but I love you anyway because I’m codependent and a bit of a douchebag and I will gladly commend my twin brother to a fate worse than death for killing you after you slaughtered a whole mess of innocent people and wow it’s all like what is good and what is evil really because he just wanted to see the world and now he’s like some murderous fucking fog monster bro and I’m ridiculously smug about it when you’d think that maybe just maybe I’d be like a little guilty or have some kind of remorse instead of sitting on a log and talking about magic wine and shit but hey I’m Jacob what did you expect want to hang out in my magic lighthouse or play Othello in my secret wonder cave’ thing?’ Fuck you, Jacob.
