San Diego Comic Con returns to the San Diego Convention Center and surrounding area. Thursday’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.
82 Years of Superhero Cereal Boxes – 10:00am – 11:00am – Grand 10 & 11, Marriott Marquis San Diego Marina
Three cerealologists will take you on a sugary cereal box tour, starting with the first 1942 Superman box and leading to the coolest superhero cereal box ever made from 2022. Know: How to collect cereal boxes flat, collapsed, or full. Learn: Where these priceless pieces of cardboard hide. View: The first boxes of Spider-Man, Batman, Hulk, TNT, Iron Man, Supergirl, Wonder Woman, and more. Hear: Cereal bites of information (not on the web). See: Beautiful graphic art. You will be exposed to videos, webpages, books, and articles relating to and about superhero cereal boxes. Featuring Mike Becker (founder, Funko; artist, actor, musician, creator/maker/distributor of over 70 cereal boxes), Mikal Vollmer (artist, author/creator of Free Inside, first cereal box collecting fanzine on YouTube), and host Duane Dimock (owner of 10,000 cereal boxes, nude model, lifeguard, Grand Coulee Dam tour guide, engineer, artist).
Buy Part of a Complete Breakfast Cereal: Characters of the Baby Boom Era bookDo you even know me? Have you read my blog ever? Do you remember 2016 when I did 100 cereals for my project of the year? What you might not know is my extensive collection of Count Chocula and other Monster Cereal boxes.
The History of Peanuts in Animation -10:00am – 11:00am – Room 5AB
Rob (Boots) Boutilier (Camp Snoopy showrunner), Paige Braddock (chief creative officer, creative arts; an EP on new Apple TV+ Peanuts content), Stephanie Betts (EVP, content creation, Wildbrain; an EP on new Apple TV+ Peanuts content), Caleb Bellavance (voice of Franklin in Welcome Home Franklin), Jason Mendelson (Lee Mendelson Film Productions), and Todd Barbee (voice of Charlie Brown in A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving) discuss Peanuts’ evolution from comic strip to 2D animated TV specials to 3D animation to today’s computer-animated original content that captures the classic feel of Charles Schulz’s Peanuts.
Buy The Peanuts Book: A Visual History of the Iconic Comic Strip bookWhy do I have my first Sophie’s Choice on the first hour of the first morning of the Con? Cereal Boxes or Peanuts. I might lean more towards cereal because I’ve seen most of this group before. But seriously, I love seeing this group get some love.
Comics, Cats . . . and Turtle Bread with Kim-Joy – 11:00am – 12:00pm – Room 25ABC
Celebrity baker and cookbook writer Kim-Joy (Turtle Bread, Bake Me a Cat), acclaimed writer Pornsak Pichetshote (Man’s Best, The Good Asian), award-winning manga translator and writer Zack Davisson (Kaibyo: The Supernatural Cats of Japan, Cat & Gamer) and other panelists discuss comics, pastries, and their affection for felines with Barbra Dillon of Fanbase Press.
Buy Baking with Kim-Joy: Cute and Creative Bakes to Make You Smile bookI loved Kim-Joy and the Great British Baking Show and she’s a good follow on Instagram. Add to that some cats and this could be a fun hour.
Hard Case Crime: From Stephen King to Gun Honey—Celebrating 20 Years of Pulp Publishing! – 2:00pm – 3:00pm – Room 5AB
Charles Ardai, Edgar Award–winning writer and founder/publisher of Hard Case Crime, discusses 20 years of the best crime fiction and comics, including a behind-the-scenes look at the new installment of Titan Comics’ bestselling comics thriller Gun Honey. Comic-Con special guest Charles weaves a story like no other, bringing vigor and excitement to this panel, just as he does to the pages of his Golden Age crime novels. Charles will reveal the inner workings of creating record-breaking pulp fiction with such legendary writers as Stephen King, Max Allan Collins, and Lawrence Block and iconic artists Robert McGuinness, Stanley “Artgerm” Lau, Adam Hughes, and Bill Sienkiewicz. Moderating Charles through his thrilling and unique tales of two-fisted storytelling will be a man who walks these mean streets but is not himself mean: Titan Comics/Forbidden Planet TV’s Andrew Sumner—the self-proclaimed #1 Hard Case Crime fan in the world.
Buy The Colorado Kid bookI have loved every book I’ve read from Hard Case Crime, and I’m always looking for something new in the genre.
1984: Greatest Geek Year Too: Big Brother Was Watching You! – 3:00pm – 4:00pm – Room 5AB
Celebrate the 40th anniversary of one of the great genre movie-going years of all time with such films as The Terminator, Dune, Ghostbusters, The Last Starfighter, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Starman, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, Red Dawn, Buckaroo Banzai, Splash, Cloak & Dagger, Repo Man, Night of the Comet, and, of course, 1984, Featuring Ashley E. Miller (co-host, The 4:30 Movie podcast), Robert Meyer Burnett (host, The Burnettwork), Mark A. Altman (co-host, The 4:30 Movie podcast), and Isaac Altman and Caden Miller (co-hosts, The Kids Stay In The Podcast).
Buy 1982: Greatest Geek Year Ever! Blu-rayI have attended these almost every year that they’ve been doing them. This isn’t the first time that they’ve done 1984 (I was here in 2014) but there’s enough material from this year to do multiple hours on it.
Thursday is a wrap.
