Countdown to Comic-Con
San Diego, here we come.
Tomorrow at this time, I'll have dropped my son, Josh, off at a demo for EA Sports and other games and I should in line at San Diego Convention Center for a seat at Comic-Con International's Preview Night.
While doing some last minute errands, 87 more e-mails made it into my Post-Gazette Inbox and I got a call about a one-on-one interview with a star of one of the upcoming films featured at Comic-Con. One of those e-mails announced that Hayden Panitierre and Milo Ventimigilia has been added to the off-site "Heroes" panel, but there'd be no press seating and no additional interviews for the media. There's too much going on at the convention center and I can barely keep up with the schedule now, so that's not looking good.
Josh and I are in our third year of attending Comic-Con in beautiful San Diego, and this is by far the most demand I've seen for our attention, from the gaming, film and TV industries. We went on a lark that first year, as vacationers planning to do some work, and were totally unprepared for the scope and variety of what could be squeezed into the convention center by the harbor. Now that we know how to navigate, change has come. "Heroes" isn't the only remote panel -- several are spread out in hotels as close as across the street and some deeper into the Gaslamp District.
What's a geek to do? Decisions will have to be made, of course, some at the last minute as more interviews crop up.
Saturday's "Iron Man 2" panel promises to be the most coveted seat, so we'll be in line early for that, but we're wondering if Robert Downey Jr. will make an earlier appearance at a panel for his "Sherlock Holmes," with Jude Law as Watson and directed by Guy Ritchie. At Comic-Con, you never know who's going to show up.
Josh and I will be reporting live from Hall H, where most of the big names and film news happens, but we'll leave occasionally for the hundreds of booths, where films, TV, comic books and video games are previewed and promoted in ways that boggle the imagination.
Stay tuned to POPi for daily reports. Meantime, California, here we come . . .