Comic Con 2013: The Hall H Day

Friday was to be our first day in Hall H. As I’m sure you know, Comic Con gets more and more crowded every year, and Hall H gets harder and harder to get into. Last year, we got in line at maybe like 7am? This year, though.... this year we went in line at 5am. And let me tell you, that extra 2 or 3 hours made a huge difference, in both good and bad ways!!

The view from our spot. As far as views go, this one isn't bad!

Waking up at 4am is something I haven’t experienced in quite a while. And, I would not want to make a habit of it. Erin and I left the condo around 5am. To get to the back of the line, from just the front of the line, took at least 10 minutes. Maybe 15. Of course, the front was all tents and sleeping bags, which gave way to people in chairs of decreasing comfortability. We parked ourselves at the end of the line on these little stools I bought on eBay. I thought it would be better than sitting on the ground (spoiler alert: it wasn’t). I brought plenty of stuff to keep myself occupied: Nintendo 3DS, Kindle, iPod. But I was so tired all I could really do was stare into space. That’s literally what I did most of the time 3 or 4 hours we were in line: look around, talk to Erin a little, stare into space.

I have to say, the staff at Comic Con improves exponentially every year in how they handle the lines. They make sure to have very specific areas for each line (for Hall H, Ballroom 20, whereever else). At a certain point in the morning, they 'compress' the line - the campers at the beginning are pretty spread out, so they have them squish together and then suddenly you in the back are much further in line than you thought you'd be. So it's important to remember that, just because you had to walk a mile or two to get to the end of the line, that doesn't mean the line is actually that long.

Anyway, we eventually got into Hall H, just barely! We were probably in the last group of 100 or maybe even 50 to get in at that time. We got seats near the back; and oddly, never were able to find closer seats later in the day. Usually, a lot of people will leave after certain panels, once they've seen whatever they came to see. But this day, almost no one left between panels. I've never really seen that before. The first panel of the day was The World's End, a movie by Edgar Wright, starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. They were so gracious, even with people with dumb and overdone questions they were asked.

Next up was the Veronica Mars movie. I never actually watched the show, but I’m pretty impressed by the dedication of the fans to fund the Kickstarter to make the movie. After that was Kick-Ass 2, with Aaron Taylor-Johnson and Christopher Mintz-Plasse in attendance.

During the Riddick panel, my exhaustion started to set in. It ended up being the kind of Comic Con panel that I really don't enjoy and I kind of hate to see more of in Hall H. Nothing to do with the fact that I've never seen any Riddick movie nor do I plan to see this one. I've seen plenty of panels where I started out not caring about the movie, and ended up being really engaged in the conversation on stage. This one seemed more like a press conference - it sounded scripted, as though the questions the moderator was asking had already been given to the stars (and their PR teams) beforehand so they had time to rehearse a canned response. The panels I enjoy are the kind that someone like Chris Hardwick tends to do when he moderates: lively conversations and engaging, off-the-cuff talk about the movie.

Things picked up after that! I finally got to see a Walking Deal panel! Quite a few of the cast was there: Andrew Lincoln (Rick), Danai Gurira (Michonne), Steven Yeun (Glenn), Lauren Cohen (Maggie), Scott Wilson (Herschel), Chad Coleman (Tyrese) , David Morrissey (The Governor), and Norman Reedus (Daryl). Chris Hardwick was the moderator on this, and it was a marked difference from the last panel. Norman was adorable, taking selfies and not really paying attention. They showed a clip from next season and it looked really great!

I also finally got to see a Game of Thrones panel!! A lot of the cast was there for this one too: Peter Dinklage (Tyrion), Michelle Fairley (Cat Stark), John Bradley (Samwell), Kit Harrington (Jon Snow), Rose Leslie (Ygritte), Richard Madden (Robb Stark), Emilia Clarke (Daenerys), and George RR Martin. Jason Momoa (aka Khal Drogo) came out at one point, and ran over and kissed Emilia on the cheek. As he ran off, she reached after him saying 'My sun and stars!' It was super cute.



Other interesting panels followed: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 2, Mortal Instruments, Robocop. And then the big one at the end of the day: The Amazing Spider-Man 2. Andrew Garfield was there, dressed up like Spider-Man - or rather, pretending to actually be Spider-Man, as a consultant to the film about himself. He's so adorable - he's just so excited to be there and to have the chance to play Spider-Man. There's no artifice in how he talks about making the films. They showed some footage, including some with Jamie Foxx's Elektro, and it looked pretty awesome.