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 Comic-Con International 2003 July 17, 19th
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 This being my second year at Comic-Con, I thought I would be well-prepared for the frenzied crowds and hectic flow of the show. I was quite wrong. Keep in mind that I only attended Comic-Con, much as I did last year, for the Lord of the Rings side of things. So my experience here only concerns LOTR events. The rest of the show seemed to run much the same as last year, a haven of signings, panels and freebies for the most fanatical of comic book fanatics. You would be hard-pressed to walk two steps without running into any combination of elves, hobbits, people who dress up to look like Kevin Smith or people who look like Kevin Smith dressed up as Jedi's. |
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On the signing side of things, New Line dropped the ball big time. By having 'surprise' signings, they alienated alot of fans. The big surprise signing with Elijah Wood, Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan, Andy Serkis after the New Line panel was just that. A big surprise. I of course missed this. How do you line up for something you don't know about? Even many of those fortunate enough to be in the right place at the right time were left out in the cold as security capped the line almost immediately.
As you can imagine, this quickly produced a huge disgruntled mob. New Line needs to learn to have their star's appearances scheduled and announced to avoid this type of mess in the future. While it was nice to have the stars do some signing why only have them around for such a short time? If you're gonna do it at all, don't do a half-assed job of it. The resulting effect of all this is that it produced far more disappointed fans than it did happy ones. Was this what New Line had in mind? Being that I missed this 'surprise' signing, and the 'surprise' Andy Serkis signing on the day I took off from the convention. I was growing less pleased with surprises by the minute. Last year's major signing featuring Dominic Monaghan was a huge success. Their neatly announced and scheduled signing sessions made everyone happy. One can only hope Decipher will host the signing duties once again next year. Now, with most of the ranting aside, I did have some great moments this year. Chatting it up with Mr. Richard Taylor again was great. I spoke with him about the upcoming lineup of Sideshow statues, and inquired if there might be one of the Fell Beast. He was surprised at this question and revealed that indeed they will be releasing one. As a matter of fact they even have one in the back, but they were not revealing it to the public at this time. |
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I told him that I purchased the Balrog statue after seeing it on display last year, and he seemed very pleased to hear that.
Sideshow WETA's booth was again one of the jewels of the exhibit hall this year, with the Ringwraith and Uruk-Hai again flanking the gigantic Cave Troll. Even with all this, the attention of the booth belonged solely to the life-sized Gollum display. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the single most photographed item of the show, and it's of little mystery why. Remarkably, the closer you examine the piece, the more authentic the details become. One can appreciate with ease in this statue, the stunning craftsmanship of the WETA crew. Merely through photographs some might be fooled into
thinking that Gollum is constructed entirely out of stone or plastic, but the skin is actually soft with just the right type of texture. Individual strands of hair and those convincing eyes complete the effect that had many a convention-goer proclaiming "creepy!" Job well done WETA.
As saturday was winding down, and the convention coming to a close I finally did spot Andy Serkis hanging out in the Sideshow WETA booth! As he was doing a bit of signing and mingling, I presented him with my Gollum drawing and book. "This is beautiful" he said, examining the piece before signing. A great compliment! Sadly he had head off somewhere shortly thereafter and I didn't get much of a chance to chat with him but this encounter made my day! This ends my relatively short write-up. Until next year! |
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