San Diego Comic Con returns to the San Diego Convention Center and surrounding area. Sunday’s programming schedule has been revealed and a couple Sentries who are attending will be sharing their thoughts on the panels they hope to attend at the convention. But will they? Only time and their post-convention posts will tell. You can follow them on X: Gordon S. Miller and Shawn Bourdo.
Who Was Steve Ditko? – 11:15am – 12:15pm – Room 5AB
Everyone should know that Steve Ditko was the co-creator of Spider-Man and the creator of Dr. Strange and Mr. A. and many others. But most people do not know who he was, let alone know anything about him. Who was he as a person? Did he have a family? What type of person was he? What was he like to work with? Mark Ditko (Ditkoverse; Steve’s nephew) and Jack C. Harris (Working With Ditko; The Ray), and others dispel those strange rumors about Ditko and provide more information about him than you’ve ever believed possible. Moderated by Lenny Schwartz (Ditko: The Play; filmmaker, The Haunted and The Hunted).
Buy Working With Ditko bookAm a huge fan of Ditko’s art for Spider-Man and Dr. Strange but I don’t know who Mr. A is so I clearly need to attend.
The Return of Toonstock! – 12:15pm – 1:15pm – Room 5AB
Toonstock, the glorious celebration of music in animation, returns with its 15th edition featuring a bevy of tuneful toons and the beloved Batman: The Brave and the Bold sing-along to the landmark “Mayhem of the Music Meister” episode! Join hosts Matt Patterson and D.W. Ferranti, and moderator Gary Miereanu for a melodious salute with some possible surprise guests and interactive performances.
Buy Batman Brave The Bold: Season 1 Blu-rayIf someone is showing cartoons, good chance I am attending, and I have enjoyed previous panels by these gentlemen.
Needful Things: Collecting Stephen King – 1:00pm – 2:00pm – Room 29AB
Hans-Åke Lilja (author/owner, Lilja’s Library: The World of Stephen King), Robert Wiener (president, Donald M. Grant Publisher), David Williamson (owner, Betts Books online S. King resale store), Tomas Krynsky (owner, SKCollector.com), Jerome Smith (owner, TheDarkTower.org) and Jesse Lankford (fanboy/moderator) share their passions for collecting rare and limited edition books by the world’s number-one-selling horror author, Stephen King.
Buy The Complete Stephen King Universe: A Guide to the Worlds of Stephen King bookAlthough I am not a collector of King books and paraphernalia, panels with obsessive fans like this are ones I typically find fascinating.
Jellystone Screening and Panel – 1:45pm – 2:45pm – Room 6DE
It’s the crossover event of the year when The Powerpuff Girls, Dexter, Samurai Jack, Billy, Mojo Jojo, and more of your favorite Cartoon Network characters cross an interdimensional portal into Jellystone. Catch all the multiversal shenanigans with a special episode screening followed by a Q&A with executive producer C. H. Greenblatt, director Maxwell Atoms, and Richard Steven Horvitz and other members of the voice cast.
I like a lot of those characters so am intrigued but also cautious about why they are bring brought together.
Starship Smackdown XXXV: Grups vs. The Next Generation – 2:45pm – 4:45pm – Room 6A
Get ready as the ultimate cosmic conflagration returns to San Diego—with a twist, as Gen X faces off against Gen Z when a band of veteran spaceship-ologists (“The Grups”) faces off against The Next Generation. Don’t miss the final countdown as the U.S.S. Enterprise confronts the Serenity, an Imperial Star Destroyer defends its title against the Battlestar Galactica and the Jefferson Starship wrecks this City. Get ready for the ancient combat with Daniel Vebber (The Simpsons, Futurama), Robert Meyer Burnett (The Burnettwork, Free Enterprise), Ashley E. Miller (Thor, X-Men: First Class), Isaac Altman and Caden Miller (The Kids Stay in the Podcast), Deric Hughes (The Flash, Quantum Leap), and the Richard Dawson of the stars himself, Mark A. Altman (Pandora, Deathlands, The Librarians). And »zis battle is to the death.
Always a fun discussion with this knowledgeable group of nerds, although which one of them wrote this synopsis and mistakenly credited Jefferson Starship with singing “We Built This City”? Lucky for them they aren’t challenging the Sentries.
