Day 11
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Day 11

(August 3, 2002)

World's Largest Comic Convention

Day Three of the World's Largest Comic Convention, and the exhibit hall is actually starting to get really crowded. Showing up are all those people who have jobs and couldn't come until today (or don't have jobs, and couldn't afford to come except for today). They pack the aisles, even in the Small Press area. And there are lots more kids in strollers and racing around on foot.

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To give you an idea of what Comic-Con is like (other than the exhibits), here's a small sampling of some of the presentations and panels:

  • Talk to the Spider-Man creative team to find out what's ahead for the web head.
  • Hasbro: Star Wars, Transformers, & GI Joe
  • Do you have what it takes to pitch and write for Star Trek?
  • Intro to 3-D computer modeling
  • Comic Book Law School 101: The Basics
  • Comics in Europe
  • Elvira's Haunted Hills
  • 25 years of Anime and Manga Freedom
  • Custom action figure forum
  • Voice-acting workshop
  • An hour with Ray Bradbury
  • Philip K. Dick and the movies

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Plus, there are surprise appearances by James Cameron and the hobbit actors from "Lord of the Rings." And here're some of the folks we see in the exhibition hall just walking around:

  • "Weird Al" Yancovic

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  • The "real" Chewbacca, in costume (he does the roar too, which is pretty damn impressive)

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  • The "real" Darth Vadar, also in costume (and yes, he is 14 feet tall)

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  • The "real" Mark Hamill (but he's old news, huh?)

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We spend most of the day wandering the exhibit floor, nursing stroller injuries, and occasionally filling in for Keef or Michael (Keef was on a panel, which he said consisted of drinking a bottle of whiskey and getting rowdy with the other panelists).

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The big event of the day is the Masquerade, a costume show. People have been waiting in line since 12:30 for it. We join the line about 7:15 (when the doors are supposed to open). Of course, it starts late, so we're in line about an hour ("I'm not waiting in any more lines for a couple of months," says Laura).

The event itself is pretty surreal, because some people do inscrutable skits while in costume. Our favorites were the Klingon cheerleader ("Fight, Klingons, Fight!") and the Lord of the Star Wars Crossover (starring Frodo Skywalker, the Wizard Obi-Wan and Aragorn Solo).

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Some skits are merely obscure (one featured about 15 people in various costumes milling around the stage lip-synching random bits of pop music) and others are completely incomprehensible. One of them reminds us of the impromptu plays performed by the Rachels (6-year-old daughters of friends). We kinda wish they are here to translate for us.

We don't wait around for the results of the judging, but stagger back to the hotel, almost glad that there's only one more day to go...

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