“Reavers!”

Comic-Con.
Holy crap, there’s just so much to say.
I’m so very glad I went (and I’m also really glad Dave went along, and that his friend Mary put us up, and that the people I know in life (Madeline, I’m looking your way) are so genuinely cool.
The Con is amazing. The space is amazing. I spent way too much money on stuff, and there’s so much more I wanted or am now looking forward to. I saw this trailer down on the dealer floor, as well as one for Audition (Odishon). I did not buy stuff from Kindergoth (Tattooed, body-pierced kindergarteners saving the world from an alien invasion), Alcatraz High, GameSkins, or gettosake, but that’s just to budget out my purchases over time; my money on the first day there went towards Red Star t-shirts and trades, Geeksoap, getting Courtney Crumrin stuff signed by Ted Naifeh (and talking with him about what Fox might do with their CC option). I mostly avoided the DC Comics pavilion, but did stop by long enough to hear about “Death” coming out from from New Line. I bought stuff from Stikfas, which are just cool, and got a freebie one commemorating the con.
I spent some time at Stan Sakai’s booth on both Sunday and Saturday and bought a bunch of Usagi Yojimbo stuff, which he signed for both me and Justin. He’s a great guy.
I didn’t go to many panels the first day — I did want to check out Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, but I know it’s 98% green screen with no sets and I know it’s cool (and big auditorium it was in was really hard to get into), and I’ve been reading about The Grudge for months now (which, like The Ring, is a adaptation of a Japanese horror film and, like the Ring, looks creepy as HELL), so there was no draw there — (also, like alot of Whedon fans, I’m sorta pissed that Gellar refused to visit Comic-Con (et cetera) for the entire seven years of Buffy but immediately showed up when it came time to promote her new movie. Anyway.
(Also, fans ask some pretty damn stupid questions at these panels, and that’s not really a draw for me.)
I gave blood on Saturday at the Con (Robert A. Heinlein memorial blood drive) and to protect myself from too many woozy-judgement purchases played the new Red Star Video Game for PS/2 and read about Green Ronin doing a “d20 Future Rules” Red Star book.
I saw Amber Benson promoting the comic she’s doing with Christopher Golden and the movie she wrote and directed and starred in last year and after reading some comments tonight I’m starting to think I was stupid to not get in line and meet her. Dang.
Then there was Sunday. Right.

The Serenity Panel was at 1 pm. I got there early (in time to catch a lot of the Shawn of the Dead panel, which was pretty cool) and ran into Madeline, who had driven down (allegedly inspired by the fact that if I was flying to the Con on short notice, she was a wuss if she didn’t at least show up in a car :). That was cool.
Anyway… the panel.
Joss came out. The whole place erupted.
He couldn’t stand at the podium because… I don’t know, he was overwhelmed. Joss clearly loves doing this and he was great with the crowd (I imagine it’s a nice counter medicine for all the corporate bullshit he has to deal with.)
He finally said something about never seeing so many people all at once like that before, and wishing he’d actually thought to write something to say this time.
Then he leaned into the mic and said he had something to show us.
Fucking. Place. Melted.
The trailer played. Here are the quick impressions (I may try to summarize it later):
– It will never be an official trailer — it’s the perfect fan trailer, filled with stuff the fans of the show will love and get jazzed about, and probably not relevant to anyone else. That said, it’s brilliant.
– Visually, it looks so goddamn good that it makes the show look bad. Seriously. It makes the show look cheap and under-developed and washed-out and faded. The colors, the sets, the shots, the SFX.
– Reavers. Sweet jumping jimminy jesus on a pogo stick. REAVERS.
My mouth, my eyes, my ears… every sensory organ I had was gaping open just to let it all soak in.
It ended. Joss was grinning like a loon. He said he had something else to share, too.
No… he had nine something elses to share.
The cast walked out.
Fucking. Place. Melted. Then it erupted. Then the lava went gaseous, rained down, solidified, and melted again.
Now, the panel was in a twelve-hundred-person hall that I had stopped in on for parts of three other panels earlier in the Con (Smallville, Farscape, and Shawn of the Dead (coming to the U.S. in September!)). I hadn’t seen the place full except for the Masquerade competition the night before (which, you’ll forgive me, didn’t remotely warrant that kind of turnout).
For this panel, the place was wall-to-wall. And when the cast came out, everyone was on their feet. Everyone. Summer Glau looked like she was going to run back off the stage. Jewel and Morena’s mouths were hanging open. Nathan was grinning and had his hands over his head as much as the fans did. Adam Baldwin was taking pictures of people taking pictures of them. This “Firefly gig” is the best thing for him in his 25 years working, I think.
There were questions. Nathan was damn funny. Adam was damn funny. Jewel was sweet. Ron Glass was deep. Everyone picked on Morena. Joss talked about the very high chance of a Firefly Comic book.
Some of my favorite moments:
Crowd Question: What nicknames do you guys have for each other beside the Captain Tightpants thing?
Nathan: We call Adam “Monty Stinkypants.”
Moreena: They all call me ‘whore’, but that’s it.
Gina: We call Moreena Whore will a great deal of love and affection.
Adam: (in Jayne voice) a GREAT deal of Affection. Heh.
* Gina has two indie movies coming out in the fall and is working with her hubby on a project.
* Alan Tudyk has got a part in a Western mini-series on TBS after Serenity, which he thanked his exposure to Serenity’s dialogue to… it enabled him to adlib during the audition, which he needed, because he hadn’t learned the lines very well.
Joss had brought all these folks down with him from L.A., though, and most of the questions were still for him (and, annoyingly, really didn’t focus on Serenity as much as dumbasses asking things like ‘When will you bring Buffy/Angel back on the air? Please? Do it for me?’)
So Joss started asking the cast questions, which was really smart. One of the questions was what the actors each liked most about their characters (and what they each secretly hated the most about Jewel :)
* Gina Torres: “I love my gun. It’s a damn sexy gun. And I love theher spandex inserts for my pants, cuz I can move and sit like a normal… — ladies, can we just talk about spandex for a minute? Isn’t it great!?!”
*Alan Tudyk: The fact that Wash is always trying to steer people away from guns and violence as a Solution.
*Adam Baldwin: Jayne’s straightforwardness
This prompted Joss to comment that, although he’d never mentioned it before, Jayne was really Firefly’s Cordelia.
Adam: “Oh…..yeah…..I can see that.” (everyone laughs)
Adam: “*quietly into the mike* uh….who’s Cordelia.” (more laughter)
Nathan: (deadpan brilliant) He taps Adam on the shoulder, makes the curvy woman-sign, then the “she’s cuckoo” sign to his head, then opens an invisible magazine, flips through it, turns it sideways and (beautifully mimed) opens the extra centerfold page, all the while with a completely quiet and serious face. Can’t remember when I laughed so hard. Joss just doubled over.
* Nathan Fillion: “What I love about Mal is that, no matter what kind of situation or problem presents itself, no matter how bad or how dark or difficult it gets, you can always look to The Captain and know… just KNOW… he’s got the legs of a dancer.”
* Jewel Staite: Kaylee’s warmth.
* Morena Baccarin: Inara’s intelligence and that fact that every day shows her something new that Inara knows or knows how to do.
* Summer Glau: River gets to be barefoot a lot, Summer doesn’t like shoes. This is good.
* Sean Maher: Simon’s love for his sister.
* Ron Glass: Three things: Book’s humor, conviction and unpredictability
It was all over too fast. It was amazing. It was all over too fast. Did I mention the too fast? 45 minutes, I think.
When the last question was done, Joss said “I have one more question to ask, and it’s for everyone out in this room.” He leaned into the mike.
“Yah wanna see it again?”
Fucking. Place. Melted.
There’s a bit at the end (which Nathan told everyone to shut up and listen for the second time though) when River is having a seizure on the deck of the ship, then suddenly gasps, staring up at the ceiling with wide, blank eyes and whispers “Reavers!”…
Oh baby. I Can. Not. Wait.
Tiny downsides:
* No swag. No shirts, no pins, so buttons, no hats, no Serenity Trading Cards. I held back a big chunk of change to spend on such things and there was nothing to get.
* They cut off the line for getting stuff signed about six or seven people in front of where we were in the line. Gaaarrgh. I still kind of twitch when I think about that, but I’m getting over it.
Want more? There’s a bunch of con reports over here — warning, though — some of them summarize the spoileriffic trailer, so avoid that if you wish to to avoid that.
That’s all I’ve got for now. Later, there are pictures and other things that I think off from stuff I saw, but right now there’s just too much. Talking to the Del Rey guys was cool, and something should be said about my complete lack of willpower vs. author-sold books.
I had a great time. I know I want to go back because I’m disappointed that it’s over.