Having Fun at Comic-Con 2017

This year was my 10th year at Comic-Con, and as always, it was awesome. Unfortunately, I didn’t meet the people I had hoped for (see previous blog), but I did get to meet some great people and go to lots of awesome panels and booths.

A panel usually starts with either video clips or information about the panel on display screens. Then the host comes out and introduces the other panelists that are there. Then they talk about the subject of the panel and have a PowerPoint presentation showing both pictures and videos. The pictures are often concept art of locations, characters, sets, or costume designs of the show, video game, comic, or movie. The videos can either be clips from scenes, such as a trailer for a movie or gameplay footage of a character in a video game or a full length episode that the audience gets to see before they come on the air. For the last fifteen minutes or so people in the audience get to ask questions. I love going to panels because I get to learn the process of how the characters, locations, and other things came to be.

Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is a video game that’s coming out in September. Their panel showed several things. 1. How the story for the game came to be by talking about the Infinity Stones which were in an older Marvel vs. Capcom game and are currently a big part of the Marvel movies. 2. The story was inspired by a Marvel Comic event called The Age of Ultron which also inspired the title of the movie Avengers Age of Ultron. 3. Sneak peeks of cutscenes and character gameplay that only those at the panel could see. The character gameplay footage showed new characters that haven’t been seen before. Guess what? Spidey was one of those characters!!

 

Autobots transform and roll out!

The Spongebob panel is always one of my favorites, and this year it was really funny. They talked about a new Halloween special coming out in October and the entire cast of Spongebob Squarepants read a script from an older episode that fans voted for them to read in their cartoon voices.

The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles panel showed a sneak peek of a new episode that recently came on the air and a clip of another one. They also shared the fact that they changed the title of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles to Tales of The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles this season to honor the fact that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles started out as comics. The coolest part of that panel is that one of the co-creators, Kevin Eastman was there. Not only is he one of the creators of the Turtles but he is also the voice of one Michelangelo’s pet cat on the show.

The panels were not the only thing I did at Comic-Con. I also went to the different booths on the show floor and got some autographed posters. The booths have many cool displays like the costumes for the Justice League movie and places that you could hold and pose for pictures with, like the Transformers sword at the Hasbro booth. One of the coolest displays was at the Nick booth. They had the Pineapple House that Spongebob Squarepants lives in and you could play games inside the Pineapple.

I really like going to autograph sessions where I can meet the cast and crew of my favorite shows. This year I went to Spongebob Squarepants and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles signings. Here I am talking with voice actor Rob Paulsen. He is the voice of Donatello & Raphael on TMNT, Pinky and Yakko Warner on Animaniacs, Mark Chang on Fairly Oddparents, and lots more.

I had a great time at Comic-Con this year and I can’t wait for next year.