Zob's Adventures at Salt Lake City ComicCon (Day 1 of 3)

[Zobovor]

So one of my Christmas gifts from my wife was a pair of tickets to the ComicCon "Fan Xperience" convention this weekend in Salt Lake City, Utah. I don't do a lot of traveling but I loved that this one was local, so of course I was very excited to go. She got us the VIP tickets, which means we were able to skip a lot of the queue lines and got into the convention about an hour before most other folks.

I am not going to write a preposterously long and rambling BotCon-style report documenting in detail all the places I went, the things I ate, etc. but I do want to share some highlights. We'll be going for all three days so I may be doing a couple more of these.

The first thing we did was hit the dealer tables. Naturally, a lot of stuff was ridiculously overpriced, and I didn't want to buy stuff just for the sake of buying stuff. (If I knew I could get it cheaper online somewhere, I skipped it. What's funny is I saw a lot of stuff that we carry in the Walmart toy department, so I know exactly how much these guys are buying stuff for and how much they're marking it up.) I did get a TMNT loose Creepy Crawlin' Splinter for $3, a loose Foot Soldier for $6, a Star Wars carded Mon Calamari Officer for $3 and a carded Gungan Warrior for $3, and a Star Wars Metal Earth model kit of R2-D2 for $12 (it's made of sheet metal!).

I also saw Generations Rhinox and Whirl for $30 a pop, and at first I balked at the price but later I realized that this is probably what I would end up paying if I got them online somewhere, so I had to retrace my steps and find them again. They also had Doubledealer for $35 but I really don't have a strong desire to own him.

There were lots of panels and events going on at the same time so we kind of had to pick and choose based on which ones looked the most interesting. There was a panel about Who Framed Roger Rabbit? that included a visit by Charles Fleischer (the voice of Roger). He was an absolute laugh riot. He's a very clever guy with a cutting wit.

As an aspiring writer and self-published e-book author my interests naturally focused on many of the panels having to do with the writing industry. One of them was hosted by Adam Sidwell, an author who was also the technical director of CGI on a lot of recent films (I Robot, King Kong, Revenge of the Fallen, etc). He basically came right out and confirmed that the transformations for the robot characters are totally cheatsy and that parts will phase into one another because they figure nobody will notice. Like a total fan geek, I stayed after the panel and asked more Transformers questions even though it was a panel on writing. He said that there were actually three separate and distinct models used for the Transformers characters--a robot model, a vehicle model, and a third model designed specifically to transform. In other words, Optimus Prime, as a vehicle, does not have a head, hands, feet, etc. tucked away in there somewhere. So, I thought that was pretty interesting.

There was a panel with Daniel Logan (who played young Boba Fett in the Star Wars prequels and Clone Wars) and Jeremy Bulloch (the original Boba Fett) that was a lot of fun, too. I had always assumed mistakenly that Boba Fett was played by multiple actors the same way Darth Vader was (one guy in the costume, another guy doing the voice) but he did some Boba Fett lines for us at the panel (including one that he explained he flubbed during filming: "Put Captain Cargo in the solo hold.") Daniel Logan was crazy and scatterbrained but really funny (and he totally made fun of his own performance in Attack of the Clones, which gets points in my book).

All in all, it was fun day. There were plenty of people in costume (I considered bringing my Soundwave costume, but it's in a state of disrepair, and plus we went up there by train so I really didn't want to have to transport it and then walk around in it all day). I was really happy about finding Rhinox and Whirl, too. I opened up Whirl and applied his stickers while waiting for our train connection. I happen to *love* the stickers and you guys are all crazy for not appreciating them.

Like I said, there might be a couple more of these posts in the next two days. Hope you're able to sift through all the newsgroup traffic to find 'em!


Zob

[Steve L.K. Macrocranios]

On Friday, April 18, 2014 12:39:41 AM UTC-4, Zobovor wrote:

> As an aspiring writer and self-published e-book author my interests naturally focused on many of the
> panels having to do with the writing industry. One of them was hosted by Adam Sidwell, an author
> who was also the technical director of CGI on a lot of recent films (I Robot, King Kong, Revenge of the
> Fallen, etc). He basically came right out and confirmed that the transformations for the robot
> characters are totally cheatsy and that parts will phase into one another because they figure nobody
> will notice. Like a total fan geek, I stayed after the panel and asked more Transformers questions
> even though it was a panel on writing. He said that there were actually three separate and distinct
> models used for the Transformers characters--a robot model, a vehicle model, and a third model
> designed specifically to transform. In other words, Optimus Prime, as a vehicle, does not have a
> head, hands, feet, etc. tucked away in there somewhere. So, I thought that was pretty interesting.

I find exchanges like this infinitely more interesting than what it said at voice actor panels at Botcon. I know VAs are the big draw at cons but I find the vast majority uninteresting no matter who they voiced, (if they even remember who they voiced). I've found the best Transformer guests don't go to Transformer conventions. It takes a little bit of looking but there's lots of creative talent like commercial artists and writers that have done lots of TF work and they're hiding away in the artist alleys and guest lineups of comic book cons.