The drive from Los Angeles to San Diego is normally a relaxing journey. Though I can tell you now from experience that a tar spill on the 5 freeway can ruin your trip in a hurry, especially if you’re trying to get to a convention at a reasonable hour.
I suppose there are worse places to be stuck in a car that moves about a feet a minute-- the views of the Pacific were very pleasant as are the lovely Californian foliage and dragonflies adorning the scenery. The lack of exits on this L.A. to S.D. artery though,
made it incredibly claustrophobic and caused many people to get on to the shoulder lane and proceed to drive in reverse. So that’s how this adventure begins, dragonflies and reversing automobiles.
Thurday, the first of my two days at Comic-Con International. Due to the delay brought on by the tar spill, I was afraid I had missed the opportunity to catch Lawrence Makoare. My trip down here was purely motivated by Lord of the Rings and WETA,
since I have close to zero interest regarding comics. We arrived very late at around 2pm (doors open around 10 I believe). We being me and my friends who were good enough to drive and get me in for free as their guest. Of course I dashed for the Decipher booth as soon as my feet entered the convention floor.
To my pleasant surprise, the place was not nearly as crowded as I thought it would be. Having never been to Comic-Con before, I had imagined the halls would be un-walkable with people, some donning costumes, and some you think are donning costumes but actually wear that in normal life.
This, for the most part, was not true Thursday, although it definitely became the reality by Saturday.
There was hardly a line by the time I got to the booth, and Sala Baker was there as well!
- Lawrence Makoare and Sala Baker- Lawrence (Lurtz) and Sala (Sauron) looked like they were having a good time. They dressed very casually and looked like they were on vacation really. Very agreeable lads, despite their fearsome size. I had Lawrence sign my drawing
of Lurtz I had done the night before in preparation for Comic-Con. Immediately he exclaimed, “Whoa, who did that?” I get that question a lot when I meet these stars, and I suppose it’s a logical one. After I told him I was the artist, he examined it for a few more moments while giving me a lot of nice compliments.
He quickly signaled Sala over to have a look at it and created a bit of a commotion and attracted a lot of attention which brought over the Decipher booth people to see if anything was wrong. He also told me to show it to Gino Acevedo of WETA (who was on my agenda of people to meet), with the instruction “Tell him LURTZ sent ya”. Who was I to argue? I had them both
sign my book as well, as I told Sala I didn’t prepare a Sauron drawing because I didn’t know I was going to get to meet him!
- Richard Taylor
- I spent some hours after meeting Lawrence and Sala walking around with my friends enjoying the convention as a normal non LOTR obsessed person. That pretty much flew right out the window when I spotted Richard Taylor at the corner of the Sideshow Weta booth conversing with two other
WETA gentlemen. I quickly got out my book and asked for his signature on my book (seen below), on the banner right above the one where I had Peter Jackson sign. Like banners flying over the Lord of the Rings film trilogy- yeah I have silly ideas. Richard seemed a little bewildered at first, maybe not expecting anyone to bug him
for an autograph, perhaps not so soon in the convention anyway. The man was beyond nice, signing “Richard Taylor WETA” without any hesitation. He obliged my request for a photo with him as well, and he suggested that we go in front of the Lurtz statue at the WETA booth. To which I replied “YEAH!”. He flexed a pose
and had one of those classic goofy Richard Taylor facial expressions. We shook hands and he said “it was a pleasure meeting you”. This man rocks.
The Lord of the Rings area itself was very impressive, consisting of Sideshow WETA, New Line and Decipher. TheOneRing.net was there as well representing the fans, encompassed within the Sideshow area I believe. The WETA booth was a very high traffic zone, due to, in no small part, to their amazing displays. In addition to the life sized Lurtz statue mentioned earlier, they had a Ringwraith
statue there as well, complete with steed, weaponry and armor. Every display set up at the Sideshow booth was painstakingly detailed-- this was no cheap, quick toss off folks. The WETA people wanted to put their best face forward, and they did just that- attracting hoards of people, LOTR fans or not. Also on exhibit were genuine weaponry from the films behind a framed glass case, which according to a WETA rep is from Richard Taylor’s private collection.
Included in the display were Glamdring, shards of Narsil, the hobbit swords, and various axes. Finally, displayed at that booth were I believe just about every LOTR related statue and bust produced by Sideshow, including prototypes, all presented
in an excellent manner- underneath the embrace of a nearly life sized cave troll. It all looked truly extraordinary, right down to the cave troll’s “drool” which I couldn’t resist examining (for a good view of the troll click on the pictures link below). I’ve read somewhere that Richard Taylor himself oversaw the installation of the booth. I wouldn't doubt it for a second.
I took Friday off from because I was absolutely exhausted, but I did return on Saturday in time to catch the last autograph session of Dominic Monaghan Continue to day 2 --->
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Comic-Con International 2002 Thursday, August 1st
