Caffeinated Clint – 20/7/08

Comic-Con. The lights, the food, the panels, the previews… the 500-pound chick in a Wonder Woman costume teabagging one skinny-ass Ghostbuster in the public toilet. It really is the place to be.

I can’t imagine Comic Con being anywhere other than San Diego either. It’s such a beautiful location – one of my favourite spots on earth in fact. After a day of interviews, watching EPKs in Ballroom 20, and pushing passed pimply kids to shake an extra from ‘Attack of the Clones’ hand, all you wanna do is wind-down – and there’s no better place to do it. The restaurants are awesome (and very affordable! – – I suggest heading down to Little Italy; the food is insanely good there), the beaches are in close proximity, the bars and clubs are always fun (just watch out for Garth Franklin after a couple of drinks), and even the friggin’ supermarket is top shelf (Hi to the gang at Ralphs! Cheapest fuckin’ bananas on Earth!) and most of all, you feel safe doing these things without carrying a revolver or club. San Diego is the ‘Oz’ to Los Angeles’s stormy ‘Kansas’ if you will. Within minutes of leaving the place, you – and Dorothy (there is a Dorothy, he/she can usually be found reading the programme at Subway) – want to go back.

All this begs the question: Why is Comic-Con considering relocating its highly-publicized ass to Las Vegas?

Easy. Comic-Con has got too big for SD.

“We can’t accommodate the people that we need to,” Comic-Con marketing director David Glanzer tells Variety. This year alone, he says, “we had a wait list of exhibitors in excess of 300. We will be sold out before the doors even open.”

Last year’s event attracted 125,000 attendees to the San Diego Convention Center, selling out for the first time. That’s especially impressive considering SDCC kicked off in 1970, where 300 gathered in a hotel basement (the only people hiding in the hotel basement this year will be the cast and crew of “The Love Guru”).

Half of the appeal of going to Comic-Con is getting to spend time in sunny San Diego. Comic Con in Vegas will be like Batman living in Who-Ville… they don’t fit! Can’t the committee just put some pennies together – they’d make enough money from the convention every year, no? – and build an extra wing onto the San Diego Convention Centre? What about relocating a couple of panels to Joe’s Crab Shack on the pier there? There has to be a better solution. Hmmm… maybe Los Angeles.

But I digress, the convention committee is considering an offer to relocate the con to Sin City. As I said, I don’t blame them for considering a relocation offer – after all, they are well over capacity these days – or expanding the con in some respect, but does it have to be in the gambling capital of the world? Can’t it be somewhere where rim-jobs don’t come so easily, and rappers aren’t shot!?

The squeaky-clean image of Comic Con won’t feel so innocent and family-friendly if this move comes off. They might as well combine CC with the annual Porn convention they have out there every year and give both Dildo’s and Lightsabers to patrons as they walk in through the door, if Vegas gets the gig.

Vegas will eat this kid alive!

I can see it now: Two seventeen year old friends, originally in Vegas for Comic Con 2010, catch sight of a sign next door to the convention center that reads “All comic-con attendees get a free lap-dance!”.
The bars will be packed with underage drinkers, whores will be rashing up like there’s no tomorrow (thanks to all those nylon suits and tights), and the money that would otherwise have been spent on a Rainbow Brite T-Shirt or Lou Ferrigno autographed photo will instead go to slot machines.

It’ll be great for Vegas, sure, not so great for Comic Con. I tell ya, I won’t be rushing back to the convention if it’s planted across the road from Circus Circus. And unless Carrie Fisher’s giving BJs in the back-rooms (just so one can brag about having experienced Princess Leia’s technique), might just skip it for good.

The only advantage I can see of Comic Con being held in Vegas – but please, not Vegas – is in the accommodation. It’s friggin’ hard to get a motel or hotel in San Diego around Comic-Con time. Almost impossible. Unless you’ve booked a room 6-8 months before, you’ll be sleeping in a wheelie bin somewhere… or wherever that 500 pound ‘Wonder Woman’ is crashing. Vegas have plenty of hotels, so you can understand that accommodation-wise, Comic Con would be fixed of the roof-over-their-head problem. But it still doesn’t sit well with me.

If San Diego is out, then I say move to Comic-Con to Los Angeles. Not only will that mean plenty of rooms, but because they’ll be staying put in their home city, many of the reporters, publicists and studio heads can simply stay in their own beds – and head down to the convention in the day.

Bottom Line : A lot of us will miss San Diego – especially in terms of food and atmosphere – but L.A mightn’t hurt as much as a move to Vegas would (and Spider-man boy can still get some cheap head just as easily there).

Will all this happen? Who the fuck knows – all I know is blackjack and watchmen don’t mix.

Annoying shit that happened this week

1. Having to listen to the cantankerous old critics walking out of “The Dark Knight”. “Too long”, uttered one. “Too ridiculous. I didn’t believe it” said another. “Preposterous” said another. “My pants are giving me a wedgie” said another. (OK, I made that last one up). Why are these old fucks still in the reviewing game if every thing they see has to be set in our world, and feature real people, in order to be considered a good film? If Dame Judi Dench had played Rachel Dawes, would that’ve been better? What if the Joker spoke in Mandarin – and as a consequence we had to read subtitles? Better? These guys were probably reviewing when Erol Flynn was making movies – did they give his Robin Hood the thumbs up? I dare say they did. Nuff said. Go drown in a bowl of your crouton-infested soup, you Grumpy Old Fucks!

2. Some of my fellow webbies have really got to start appreciating their audience more. I can’t tell you the amount of time I’ve been browsing in a site’s talkback area, or forums, and seen editors/writers of the site flaming the readers… simply for the hell of it. For some reason, some folks in our game seem to think they’re above everyone else and because they/we get to see a film a few days early, or have spoken to a bunch of stars over the years, believe they’re/we’re king shit of the cinematic world. It isn’t true. It isn’t right. And the readers, as I know only too well, are the ones that keep us in business – there’s only so many times you can be rude to them before they move on. We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the people… the readers… even the ones that annoy us. Have a think about that the next time you’re about to reply to an over-excited fan’s email (say, someone asking about the chances of Michael Keaton returning to the role of Batman in the future) with a smart-ass comment like “Get a life, nut-job. I’m a professional. I don’t have time for your emails”. I also try and make time for the people that write to me – and you should too… dude.

3. When I send away a form for a ‘cash-back’ – I expect to get my fuckin’ cash back! Looking at you Samsung… or Sam-Stung…

4. Ordering a copy of “Scream 2” from the states, believing it had an audio commentary on it (that didn’t exist on the local release), and sadly finding out that isn’t true. Seems the version I ordered was the one ‘before’ the ‘Collector’s Series’ edition that came out later. Man… how many times do I have to buy a shitty movie before I get what I want!?

5. Trying to get Vodafone on the line to answer my Blackberry-related queries. Do these guys only work an hour-a-day? Three may be secretly based in India – but at least they were there, when we wanted them to be. (‘Peter’ from Mumbai, er, Melton was always around to answer my questions – – – funny thing is, he could never tell me where Melbourne was, but always had good eating spots to recommend in New Delhi). E.T would have more luck calling home, than anyone on my network would of getting through to customer service.

See you when I return to Naboo, My Queen.