Category: SDCC

There’s plenty of SDCC coverage up at the San Diego Union-Tribune site. Tonight is preview night. I’d love to be there, but alas I am here in NJ instead.

There’s an outdoor IMAX premiere showing of Star Trek Beyond tonight that would have been fun to go to, but I probably wouldn’t have been able to get a ticket for that, even if I was at the con.

I bought the “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Ultimate Edition)” Blu-Ray today. I haven’t seen the movie yet, and I may regret buying it instead of renting it. Reviews are mixed. Now I just need to find a three-hour block when I can sit down and watch the thing. I think I’m probably going to have to watch it in two (or three) sittings. I want to go into it with a positive attitude too, so I might need to have to have a beer (or two) before I start watching.

I signed up for Comic-Con HQ today. It’s a paid video streaming service that’s a co-venture of San Diego Comic-Con and Lionsgate. In theory, they should be streaming panels and stuff from Comic-Con this weekend. The service costs $5 per month, and it doesn’t look like there’s really much content up there, so I may cancel the subscription pretty quickly after the con is over. The sign-up process said it was a 30-day trial, but then it said the first billing would be July 25th, so I’m not even sure about the trial period.

In addition to the content from the con, they’ve got some original shows that (in theory) will be releasing new episodes regularly. Plus some random old movies and TV shows. It doesn’t really seem like enough to justify $5 every month.

A number of the shows look to be similar to stuff that was on the old G4 channel, or some of the stuff from Revision3 (before they got bought out). There are a few interesting people showing up. Chris Gore and Robert Meyer Burnett were guests on a movie-related show that I started watching, for instance. The stuff I’ve watched so far seems kind of cheesy, but I haven’t watched much. And their news shows seem to focus on film, TV, and games, with little to no coverage of actual comic books, so that’s a bit disappointing.

I’m wondering if they’ve got enough infrastructure to keep the site up during the actual con, when (I assume) a lot of people will be signing up for trial accounts and trying to watch panels. It’ll be interesting to see how that works out.

Right now, you can watch the content through a web browser or an iOS app. It looks like the iOS app is iPhone and iPad only; I couldn’t find a version for Apple TV, which would have been nice.

You can buy a subscription to the service through their website, or as an “add-on” to Amazon Prime Video. The Amazon option was tempting, since that would have let me watch it via the Amazon app on my TiVo (I assume). But I went the direct route for now and signed up on their site.

I’m really wishing I could be at Comic-Con this weekend, but watching some coverage on the internet is as close as I’m going to get this year.

It’s just one more day until open registration for SDCC 2016. I last went in 2012, and haven’t been able to get in since. So I think I’m due, right?

The 2012 con, now that I think of it, was pretty much the last time I went on a real vacation, not counting occasional overnight stays in NYC and a couple of short trips to Georgia and Florida that really weren’t vacations. If I don’t manage to get in and snag a ticket for SDCC this year, I should probably plan some other vacation, just to keep myself sane.

Weirdest/coolest thing at SDCC this year: Rep John Lewis “cosplaying” as himself, dressed in the same outfit he wore during the march to Selma.

(I have March, books one and two, but haven’t gotten around to reading them yet. Looking forward to it though.)

I haven’t been paying too much attention to SDCC news, but I did spend some time today looking at CBR, Newsarama, and Comics Alliance. In looking at the list of Eisner winners, I see a number of creators and books that I’m familiar with, of course, but I haven’t actually read any of the stuff that was published in the last year. I’m definitely interested in some of them, though. Meanwhile, there’s a live stream of a Doctor Who panel that should be starting up in a few minutes, so I should get ready for that!

I feel like I need to write a short “not at SDCC” post, since today is the first full day of the con. As usual, I’ll keep an eye on news coming out of the con over the next few days. The LA Daily News has a good article listing some of the big panels, mostly TV and movie stuff.

There’s also plenty of actual comic book news coming out already, including the news that Jim Starlin is working on a new Dreadstar mini-series, just to pick something at random.

Once again, I’ve failed to secure a badge for SDCC. Badges sold out in record time this year, so that’s not unexpected. I can probably still get a badge for WonderCon, and I may do that. I’ve been to WonderCon several times, back when it was in San Francisco. I’m not nearly as excited about Anaheim in April as I would have been for San Francisco in February (which is when they usually had the con before it moved). But it might be worth doing, just for the sake of getting out of the NY/NJ area for a few days.

I’m really not following any new comics right now, and I have pretty much no idea what’s going on in the Marvel and DC universes. And I’ve just given away most of my collection, so I’m not at all motivated to pick up any new back issues. So I’m not sure what stuff at the con would even be of interest to me, though I suspect I’d manage to enjoy myself regardless.

Of course, if the con wasn’t interesting, I could always go to Disneyland and get measles. That would be exciting!

I didn’t manage to get to San Diego this year. I tried, but just didn’t manage to win the “ticket lottery.” I’m holding out hope for next year! As usual, though, I’m following the news on Twitter, The Beat, and other sources.

I haven’t seen any really amazing news yet, but it’s only Thursday. And there have been a few interesting things, such as Comixology announcing DRM-free backups, which is quite nice (though it doesn’t cover Marvel or DC books, predictably).

So I didn’t get to SDCC this year, nor have I really been following the news out of the con. I’ve caught a few things via Twitter, but haven’t really seen anything that’s caught my attention. Usually, there would be a handful of interesting tidbits coming out of the con that I could link to in a post like this, but there’s really nothing that seemed all that interesting to me. I’m sure there’s some really cool stuff going on, but either it’s not my kind of cool stuff, or I just haven’t stumbled across it. There’s been a good bit of coverage of the con on The Beat. (That link should show all posts tagged SDCC 2013.)

Still, I really wish I had gone to the con. This past week, the weather in NJ/NY has been brutal, while San Diego has been quite nice, apparently. Even just for that, I would have rather been in San Diego for the past week! If I don’t get a ticket next year, I may just go anyway, and enjoy the weather and some of the related events that don’t require a ticket.

Meanwhile, at home, I’ve been catching up on Fables. I’ve read volumes 6 to 9 of the trade paperback collections over the last few days, and I’m reading “1001 Nights of Snowfall” right now. Fables continues to be a really good series, and I’m glad to see that it’s still being published. I still have a ways to go before I’m all caught up on the collections, and after that, I could probably read Jack of Fables, and some of the other spin-off series. So, I can look forward to enjoying this series for some time.