One Con to Rule Them All
Previewing the 38th Annual
San Diego International Comic-Con
By Cody
“Micajah” Bye
What do Star Wars, crystalline beaches, Jennifer Love Hewitt,
and Warhammer all have in common? In all reality, they should have very
little in common (although I’m sure Kevin Bacon somehow can
be connected to all of them), yet here I sit in my room in the Gaslamp Quarter Hilton eagerly awaiting the opportunity to see all of these
venues at the same time. For those of you who remain blissfully
unaware, tomorrow is the unofficial opening for the 38th Annual San
Diego International Comic-Con where over 120,000 individuals who will
be descending in a fanboy-induced fever as they desperately try to push
and shove their way to the front of an autograph line, to the top spot
in a masquerade contest, or through the bouncers at Sony Online
Entertainment’s block party.
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The San Diego Comic-Con Logo
Unlike most conventions that the Ten Ton Hammer staff attends,
the International Comic-Con (as the name suggests) is not specifically
oriented around video games, digitized media, or any specific genre of
nerd culture. Although the title of the convention
(“Comic”) may convince many of you that this is a
convention for comic book lovers, you’d also be mistaken.
Over the years, the San Diego Comic-Con has become something of a
jack-of-all-trades, eagerly accepting any sort of presentation,
lecture, or exhibition that can be presented as part of
“geek” culture.
Unlike the fearful members of the ESA who determined to
downsize the Electronics Entertainment Expo, the San Diego Comic-Con
regularly allows over twice the number of individuals to grace its
hallowed halls and meeting rooms and they are eager to spread the
flavor of nerd-dom to the farthest reaches of contemporary
media’s long arms. Throughout the whole of this week,
I’ve been receiving truck loads of emails
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I think this scene needs an Imperial March background
theme.
ranging from the
mundane interview request to the absolutely bizarre pairings that many
of these event coordinators come up with to “sell”
their event.
So what is the Ten Ton Hammer staff doing at a convention that
doesn’t focus entirely on video games? Thanks reader,
I’m glad you asked. Despite its jack-of-all-trades mentality,
the San Diego Comic-Con is an ENORMOUS event, with more booths,
interview opportunities, and exciting encounters than you can shake a
stick at. Even being an exclusively MMOG oriented network,
we’ve thoroughly filled our schedule with developer meetings,
exclusive media footage, and some awesome celebrity interviews that you
really shouldn’t miss if you’re a fan of the MMOG
genre. Although I’d be loathed if I gave away all of our
terrific interview pairings that we’ve arranged for this
show, I can give you a list of the games and development studios that
we’ll be exclusively featuring throughout our Comic-Con
coverage.
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As you walk down the halls of Comic-Con, you'll often
have enounters with strange movie celebrities.
To whet your palette a bit, here’s a few of the
names that we’ll be approaching during our time at the con:
38 Studios (formerly Green Monster Games); EA Mythic / Warhammer
Online; Blizzard / World of Warcraft; Turner Interactive / FusionFall
(the Cartoon Network MMOG – check out our video of the game
if you haven’t done so already); Sony Online Entertainment;
Disney Interactive; and many, many others. The list actually blows my
mind and frightens my fingers, because I know that Jeff Woleslagle and
Phil Comeau are going to be standing behind me with rulers in hand to
insure that I get the articles to you in a timely and detailed fashion.
Although I curse the work load he’s placed upon me, you can
thank our resident industry relations specialist, Garrett Fuller, for
putting together the supreme schedule for our Comic-Con encounters. In
all seriousness, the interviews Mr. Fuller has organized will be
magnificent compared to anything the competition may have to offer.
Wait and see.
Aside from the scheduled events, there’s simply the
reporting that we’ll be accomplishing from the show floor,
which will be fun and entertaining to say the least. Our camera
shutters are going to be moving at a rapid page with so many things to
see and take in. It’s our duty as an editorial team to bring
you a personal look at the events and happenings of Comic-Con.
We’ll be sure to cover all the MMOG related material
that’s being displayed at Comic-Con, but we’ll also
bring you that extra bit of info that will put you directly on the show
floor.
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The Cosplay contest features some spectacular entrants,
like this version of Davy Jones.
When I was preparing to journey to the beautiful coastal
trappings of San Diego, I told our C.O.O, John
“Boomjack” Hoskin, that we’d be bringing
back all the strangeness and tantalizing tidbits that Comic-Con had to
offer us. At its core, Comic-Con is built upon a foundation of oddity
and cult-culture, thus to appropriately report on that sort of
all-consuming nerdity, the Ten Ton Hammer staff is almost required to
dive right into the thick of things with all our digital gadgets and
goodies in tow. Think of it as our gift to you, readers of Ten Ton
Hammer.
On top of all this, you can always find your MMOG needs
throughout the rest of our Ten Ton Hammer network. Our Vanguard forums
continue to smoke with activity, the WoW site churns out content at a
breakneck pace, and the LotRO site is full of terrific guides and
materials to learn from. If you get tired of reading about our
Comic-Con craziness, you have those materials to fall back on.
That said, make sure you keep your Internet browsers pointed
directly at Ten Ton Hammer throughout the next two weeks. The content
will be entertaining, informative, and a bit wacky –
everything you need for terrific reading. *straps on his Stormtrooper
helmet* Now where did I put my blaster rifle?
Ten Ton Hammer is your
source for event
reporting and articles!
Make sure you check out all
of our Comic-Con 2007 coverage!
