Fischer: Comic Con-undrum

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

As this newspaper rolls off the press, I will be on my way back to sunny San Diego for Comic-Con International.

I’ve been regularly attending Comic-Con for 20 years now and have seen it grow and change and grow and grow and grow some more with countless people now vying to be one of the lucky 130,000 or so to secure tickets every year.

Comic-Con has been filling the San Diego Convention Center to capacity and beyond for more than a decade now. Its immense growth has been fueled by the ever increasing presence of Hollywood studios using the venue to promote their upcoming film and television projects.

Most of this happens in the convention’s infamous Hall H, a cavernous carve-out of the exhibit hall made to accommodate 6,500 people. Once upon a time you could secure great seats in Hall H simply by getting to the convention center early enough in the morning. Nowadays, the process requires a full day of waiting in line for a wrist band and camping out overnight.

The idea of randomly walking into Hall H on a whim has been a distant memory for some time now.

But, this year may be an exception.

As the programming schedule for this year’s convention trickled out, it has not gone unnoticed that the Hall H schedule is looking pretty thin.

Marvel Studios, which last year dropped an outline for the next several years’ worth of movies, is not presenting this year. Neither is Warner Bros, which is in the midst of rebuilding the DC Cinematic Universe under the helm of James Gunn.

Even Sony, hot on the heels of the massively successful “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse,” isn’t showing up to do a victory lap or tease upcoming sequel.

The only two studios showing up for Hall H this year are Paramount, showcasing upcoming Star Trek projects and the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and Legendary Entertainment, who have a Saturday panel scheduled with “to be determined” in the description.

Instead, the Hall H schedule is filled out with a scattering of panels that would have traditionally been in much smaller rooms. And Sunday programming is completely non-existent for the first time that I can remember.

The reason, of course, is that this is a result of the disruption that the writers strike is having on the industry. It’s really difficult to promote upcoming movies when their production is at a standstill.

And now, as of last week, things become even more chaotic with the Screen Actors Guild going on strike as well. Going on strike doesn’t just mean they stop working on set. It also means actors don’t do promotion either, which will obviously have an impact on Comic-Con programming both in Hall H and beyond.

Without actors or writers in the mix, the few movies and television panels that are scheduled may be limited to just having producers and directors on stage. Or they may just cancel their panels entirely (as Legendary Entertainment did shortly after I wrote this column). With this happening just days before the convention, there’s no telling how it will play out.

Already there seem to be creative alternatives in the works. As I’m writing this, news has broken that the Marvel booth will feature a very special guest signing for a prominent actor from “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3.” Namely, the dog that portrayed Cosmo, who is presumably not under a union contract, will be available for a “paw-tograph” signing.

Not gonna lie, I’m kinda here for it.

After 20 years, I’ve seen plenty of Hollywood stars, and special sneak peeks, and all of that other stuff. But I’ve never gotten in line for an autograph signing with a dog before. That’s a new one.

Beyond that, there is more than enough programming at Comic-Con to find things to do that don’t involve movies and television. There are video game panels, pop-culture philosophy discussions, and I hear there are even a few panels about comic books scattered around.

– Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and mostly goes to Comic-Con to spend time with his friends. Everything else is just a bonus.