Brace yourselves, ComicCon is coming.

Yes. Yes it is. I’m not going to the preview night on Wednesday, but I am DETERMINED to get into a few good panels and do a little fangirl gawking at famous people. I’m more interested in the seminars and the panels that include authors and writing techniques, but there are one or two (like Stan Lee’s panel that will have Mark Hamill on it!) that I may try to get to if I can. I started up the schedule I’ll be following, but ComicCon’s website lags my poor work computer so badly, I have to wait til I get home to put it together, at which time I will post it here.

I’m sorry. My entries for the next four or five days are going to be mainly about ComicCon, as this is the first year I’ll be going where I’ve actually planned ahead what I’m going to do, instead of just wandering around the merchandise area for hours on end.

Here is a rough idea of what I am looking to do for Thursday and Friday. I haven’t worked out any sort of schedule for Saturday or Sunday yet.

These are the options I’ve chosen for Thursday:

10:15-11:15: "The Truth About The Hobbit" A TheOneRing.net panel talking about the upcoming release of the first part in the two part film based on the book. I want to see this, obviously, because it’s about The Hobbit and I love the Hobbit!

10:30-11:30: "Battlestar" hosted by Richard Hatch (Tom Zarek in the new series, Apollo in the old one). I wanted to see this because I love the new Battlestar Galactica series, but it’s probably not going to happen because it overlaps with other panels that are more interesting to me.

11:00-12:00: Comic-Con How-To: "Creating a Character Driven Story". I have to look into this one more, but ComicCon is hosting a lot of how-tos this year that involve writing actual novels, which is really exciting for me. I’m not super big into comic books, so these kinds of panels are very interesting. This one is first contender, even over The Hobbit, as the one I will probably pick over the first two.

11:45-12:45: "Stan Lee’s World of Heroes" Presented by Stan Lee himself, I understand that it will be highlighting his new Youtube channel about heroes and villains and the roles they play. Mildly interesting to me in and of itself, but made MORE INTERESTING because MARK HAMILL is going to be on this panel! Again, it will probably not win out over the How-To because I saw Mark Hamill last year and nearly died of happiness, but still something to consider.

12:00-1:00: "Dreamworks Dragons: Riders of Berk" This is an advanced look at How to Train Your Dragon and events that take place after the movie. I thought the movie was very cute and so this looked appealing, but the How-To does not end until Noon and so I will probably not be able to secure a place to sit at this panel.

3:45-4:45: "The Walking Dead". Most likely I will not see this one, but I’ve read a few of the comics and the first season was epic, so I put in on here just in case I end up being able to make it. Slim chance though.

4:00-5:00: "Time Travel: Science Fact or Science Fiction?" Presented by Josh and Chuck from Stuff You Should Know. This just sounded interesting.

4:40-5:45: "Cracking the Case with Sherlock Holmes" about the new CBS series "Elementary" which I haven’t seen yet but would be interested in learning about.

6:00-7:00: "The Science of Science Fiction: Canon Fodder" My understanding of this panel is that it will looking into the roles of characters in science fiction from robots to aliens. I will go to this one, if I can stand to stay at the convention until that late. I’ll be so tired by then I am not sure if I’ll make it.

I will be looking into the schedule options more when I get home.

And here are the options I picked for Friday:

10:00-11:00: "Comic-Con How-To: Creating a More Realisitc Fictitious World" My understanding of this panel is that it talking about writing the environment, which of course, YES I WILL GO! The environment, when I’m writing, is the thing that distracts me the most. I LOVE writing about the world and drawing maps and giving names to mountains and cities and forests. This is one of my top choices for Friday.

10:00-11:00: "Art of the Thrill Kill" this panel, from my understanding, mostly highlights psychopaths in writing. Really well written evil characters. Probably will not outstrip the How-To, but we’ll see once I’ve read more about it.

11:00-12:00: "Comic-Con How-To: Don’t tell your story, show it!" This one high lights how your personal writing style is the most important factor in writing a story, even more so than character developement or environment. I would be really interested to go to this one, but it starts at 11 and I probably wouldn’t be able to get into it since the first How-To ends at 11. There just isn’t enough time.

12:30-1:30: "Firefly Anniversary Reunion!" Now, this is where my schedule choices start to get me really, really frustrated. I loooove Firelfy. I would love to see all the major cast members together! That would be one of the most amazing things ever! But….

1:00-2:00: Brandon Sanderson panel. It’s a serious toss up. Brandon Sanderson is a very good fantasy author who took over The Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan passed away. The Wheel of Time series is one of the biggest stories in the Fantasy genre as far as I’m concerned, and Brandon Sanderson took over the stories so spectacularly that a lot of people say he’s better at it than Robert Jordan was. I would love to hear him talk about his career! So this panel, or the Firefly Anniversary….Oh no, what to do!

2:45-3:45: "Game of Thrones panel and Q&A!" *hyperventilates* Every one of the major cast members PLUS George R.R. Martin, the author of the books, is going to be there answering questions and sharing their experiences! I get really fangirly when I think about this, it’s embarrassing. But really? My favoritest show ever on the face of the planet and a set of some of the best books I’ve ever read. BUT….!

3:30-4:30!: "Epic Fantasy Wars". Making this decision is going to be so hard! This panel will include not only Brandon Sanderson, but Christopher Paolini as well! (he’s the author of the Inheritance series, Eragon, if you arent’ familiar with it), as well as several other fantasy authors who will be talking about how they write pitched battles in their stories, the techniques they use, where they get their inspiration, etc. I really, really, really want to be at this panel because they are two authors that I have a lot of respect for, but it overlaps Game of Thrones!

Seriously, how to they expect people to choose! This is ridiculous. I haven’t even looked at Saturday and Sunday, but picking the final panels I want to go to is going to be such a painful experience. So many good things to see! SO MANY PICTURES TO TAKE!

Good god, I might just max out my sd card. I can easily see myself taking four thousand pictures. What a nightmare that’s going to be to sort through.

It’s really too bad that the panels that are right after each other (12:00 to 1:00, then 1:00 to 2:00) make it impossible to choose both. Comic-Con is aways packed as tight as a sardine can and so many people want to get into the panels, you basically have to wait in line for hours if you want to get into one. So really, there’s going to be maybe one or two that I see every day. I’ll be hard pressed to see more than that just because the lines are so stupidly long. I sort of wish there would be some bigger, better place for them to hold it, but I fear if they do that, I’ll be forced to buy plane tickets to get there. I like having it in San Diego, even if it is very like being shoved into a tin can with a bunch of other fish.

Again, I will post my finished schedule either tonight or sometime tomorrow.