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One Con to Rule Them All

Previewing the 38th Annual San Diego International Comic-Con

By Cody “Micajah” Bye

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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.

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

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.

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.

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?

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Make sure you check out all of our Comic-Con 2007 coverage!