As I approach the mythical age of 40, I realized i’ve been doing these cons since 1996, with my first one being San Diego Comic-Con. A weird con, I got to see a lot of cool things and got to meet a rookie Guillermo Del Toro promoting one of his earlier movies Mimic. Over the years, i’ve gotten the reputation of being the G4 guy that said “I’M AT COMIC-CON!” that got repeated every time G4 went to Comic-Con. That was 2004, nearly 20 years later next year. Over the last few years of con going, my enthusiasm for San Diego Comic-Con waned from the over exposure of Hollywood, in no huge part, my fault being the face and voice of nerd FOMO since 2005-ish.
But this year was my first year back after 2012. I’d do people seeing from time to time and do sometimes the outdoor stuff, but never stepped foot at the con since, and for the first time, and maybe the only time in the Hollywood-fication of SDCC, Hollywood was absent. With the current WAG and SAG strikes taking front stage in Hollywood, the studios had no choice but to go empty handed this year. Big hall H panels where empty as staffers where desperate to fill seats, and for the first time in a VERY long time: Comics and fandom where the central focus.
I didn’t go all days, I went Saturday and Sunday. If there’s still a constant with SDCC, is that they underestimate their audiences. First panel of the day was for the Voltes V live-action, which didn’t surprise me that the room filled up as quickly as it did, I was more shocked that prolific artist and creator of Bishop from X-Men Whilce Portacio had problems getting in. As things change, things say the same. My next stop was to hit up the G.I. Joe Classified panel, but only to see it get filled up hours before hand; it turns out that the panel room was also going to host a My Neighbor Totoro panel and people where staying for that, so again, good job underestimating your audience. especially in a year or time where that panel should of been held at a bigger venue to accommodate the fans. It left me with a sour taste in my mouth, but the day improved drastically with the next panel.
The panel I got to sit on was for Skybound’s new Energon Universe, a shared universe that brings Transformers and G.I. Joe together, while not unheard of, it’s the first time that a new company starts off the bat doing this and doing it in this style, in that it kept the information secret from everyone except to retailers; no leaks, no big hype, just release this comic that has nothing to do with ether Transformers or G.I. Joe and hit the reader with the surprise at the end. That’s how Void Rivals came to be, from the creator of the Walking Dead Robert Kirkman, it told of two feuding aliens who took their battle across the cosmos, only in their fight on an unknown planet, they find Jetfire, who was re-awakened from the two aliens fighting.
After many successful years at IDW, and before at Dreamwave and Devil’s Due, and of course Marvel, it’s a hard to top those years of storytelling and characters we grew to love, especially all the strides the IDW runs had to bring in inclusion and LGBTQ+ to the Transformers books, but the genuine excitement from everyone in that room, from myself, From the panelist like Robert Kirkman and his team doing the books like Daniel Warren Johnson, to the people sitting near me, to J and Scarlet, to Gekinetic and Komi, it was INCREDIBLE. And I felt something in my stomach soon after… it was hunger, but it was something else:
I was excited again for SDCC. I was excited for Comics again.
Usually I stick my lane and read the 80’s toy comics, but after the disaster that was the Revolution event to roll in G.I. Joe, MASK, Action Man, and Visionaries to the Transformers universe, it left me with a sour taste with the IDW books, so to be excited for something again, to see something that I had to make a note to myself to look for the books at the con (which was a failed mission, sadly) and wanting to learn more, see more, read more, and demand more is something I never though i’d feel, especially from something coming from SDCC. It truly brought me back to the old days of the convention to experience things to look forward again.
And soon after, I felt good.
It was that experience I needed to have again. It brought the once in a lifetime experience that carried over to the rest of the weekend. Helping Scarlet and J at their panel was also a HUGE joy as it finally let me live a dream I wanted to do for years: Host a panel at SDCC, and for that panel to stick to land so well like it did was amazing. Meeting some of the creators doing stuff for the English version of Saint Seiya Time Odyssey was a huge thrill and for them too be as enthusiastic as I and the Saint Seiya fandom is for the series was exhilarating, learning and understanding more about disabled people in the fandom was touching experience. Also buying more stuff for my model kit streams is always a huge plus in my mind.
So if you where to ask me what I thought of SDCC? i’d say it was a well needed back to form. While issues still persisted early on in the day that unfortunately a con of this size cannot really fix, save for better room management, the rest of the days ended well and it made me like I was back in 1996 again, just with no Rookie Guillermo Del Toro. It’s sad that this may not happen again, as we’ll be back to that grind next year, but for at least one year, I got to see the comic-con I knew and love back in modern form.
You can find Ramses talking into a mic about Saint Seiya on the Saint Seiya Cosmocast, about fandom on the Saturday Morning Squadron, and putting his digital hand up a digital puppet up on his twitch stream where he makes model kits and plays games.
Written by Ramses
Twitch: elramses84
Twitter: @ProfessorRamses
TikTok: @professorramses