Sunday at San Diego Comic-Con 2017 has a stronger emphasis on kids, wraps at 5pm, and is a great opportunity to find deals on the show floor as the shop keepers want to reduce what they take back.
Gordon S. Miller’s picks:
1. SPOTLIGHT ON PAUL DINI (10:00am – 11:00am, Room 7AB) – I am as much interested in Dini as I am the panel’s moderator, Veep showrunner David Mandel.
2. MARVEL’S SPIDER-MAN WORLD PREMIERE (10:15am – 11:15am, Room 6A) – Getting to see new episodes before they debut is always a great treat at Comic Con and I am curious to see how this new series is set up.
3. DOCTOR WHO: BBC AMERICA OFFICIAL PANEL (2:00pm – 3:00pm, Hall H) – It may be my first time into the Hall this weekend, but I really hope to get in for Peter Capaldi’s send-off. The scripts haven’t always been great, but I have really enjoyed his version of the Doctor, the best of the modern bunch.
4. STARSHIP SMACKDOWN: THE REVENGE (2:15pm – 4:15pm, Room 6A) – These guys argue about things like, “Can the Starship Enterprise defeat an Imperial Star Destroyer?” Something many attendees will doing the entire weekend with their friends and strangers.
5. COMIC-CON TALK BACK (3:30pm – 4:30pm, Room 23ABC) – I am fascinated by this panel as people take their time to let President of the Comic-Con board of directors John Rogers their complaints, and they don’t always offer them in the most diplomatic way.
Shawn Bourdo’s picks:
1. THE ANNUAL JACK KIRBY TRIBUTE PANEL (10am, Room 5AB) – Call him “the reason for the season” or The King or if anyone has earned just a last name, it’s Kirby. I feel like every year we get another part of a generation away from people who remember why we are gathered here. Any Mt. Rushmore of Comics starts with Jack. People finishing High School this year weren’t even alive when the man was still holding a pencil. I like to pay my tributes with at least a panel a year to honor our heroes.
2. LEGO SCOOBY-DOO! BLOWOUT BEACH BASH (10:30am, Room 6BCF) – Combining two of my interests is always something that sounds good on paper and rarely does either subject justice. I love the recent developments of the LEGO universe in film and TV and I’ve always had a love for a good Scooby-Doo! mystery. This mashup makes some sense and the two types of humor would seem more compatible than mixing them with WWE or KISS. I’ve seen the previews for this DVD but I want to hear some feedback from the voice actors.
3. SCIENCE FICTION, SCIENCE FUTURE (11:15am, Room 6DE) – My favorite book of the past couple years is The Martian for the way it seamlessly worked complex science concepts accurately into this Robinson Crusoe story. The author, Andy Weir and Mike Johnson who writes fun Star Trek comics will talk about Space X and the very real possibilities of science that authors are already incorporating into today’s fiction. You don’t know how excited this gets me.
4. BIZARRE STATES (1pm, Room 6A) – Jessica Chobot hosts a panel on just plain “weird news”. Part of me wants to just say – isn’t the “regular news” weird enough for y’all? But I find that some great creative ideas are born from the offbeat and just plain crazy stories out there. I appreciate the intelligence that Jessica brings to the panels I’ve attended with her before.
5. HANNA-BARBERA 60th ANNIVERSARY (2pm, Room 7AB) – Jerry Beck hosts this panel. I will usually attend anything hosted by Jerry Beck or Leonard Maltin because of their deep knowledge of classical animation. I don’t give Hanna-Barbera enough love for what they meant to me when I was younger. I have drifted away from them over the past decade but when I revisit The Flintstones, Wacky Races, or Johnny Quest, I remember the way they felt more like adult sitcoms that were animated. I will spend an hour paying tribute to them here.
The Con will end and I’ll be tired and ready to sleep in my own bed. But refreshed mentally that I’m part of tribe that values variety and all manners of interests equally. I’ll wish that the mundane world will be the same.
