WIRED SDCC 2013

All I want from my gender binary is Count Chocula.

OH in the aftermath.

After the bustle of the con, the relative quiet is almost eerie. People cross streets in twos and threes; the sidewalk along Harbor belongs to dog walkers. Occasionally, we pass someone still in costume—usually trailing a piece or two, wig or hat or shoes in hand. The outdoor exhibits are ghost towns, half-disassembled, “do not touch" signs piled against stripped plywood walls.

I think this is my favorite part of Comic Con.

As I got into the cab for the airport, it finally started to rain here in San Diego. It felt like a sign, like it was time to leave. But, as this sign in a storefront just up the road from the convention center shows, it's never too early to start thinking about next year's show.

...Okay, maybe it's just a little early.

Thanks for reading, all.

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As far as I'm concerned, the Daft Punk cosplayers may have been the greatest cosplayers of the con. Not only were their outfits spot on, but by remaining silent and aloof as they wandered around the show, they managed to perfectly capture the persona and behavior of their idols. Good job being harder, better, faster and stronger, Con Punk.

"Feels just like the old days."

That’s what I overheard as a couple of, shall we say, advanced years — at least in Comic-Con terms — walked past me on the con floor just now. And it’s true, in a way: Sunday has become the day most like the mythical Comic-Cons of yore, when there was more attention paid to comic books as opposed to movies, television shows, or just how long you’ve waited to get into Hall H.

The publishers’ area of the con feels busier today, at least to me. Maybe it’s the sales — The last day of Comic-Con is when retailers and publishers start discounting stuff so that they don’t have to ship it home with them — or, perhaps, the core comics audience has stayed away from here until now, either lured by the more celebrity-fuelled panels and events or fearful of the scale of Comic-Con these days in general and hiding until the traditionally “quiet" day.

It is more quiet, overall, although that translates as “Amazingly busy" as opposed to “Overwhelmingly busy" in real terms. There’s less freneticism around, as well, with everyone milling around the con floor or to panels with a calmer (more exhausted, perhaps) air.

You get the idea that, just maybe, this is what Comic-Con was like, once upon a simpler, more innocent, time: A bunch of geeks and nerds and social ne’er-do-wells surrounded by their own kind without a particular agenda, just wandering around a little aimlessly, a little reservedly, as surprised by their number as they are thrilled by it.

The San Diego Southwest Airlines employees know how to get in on the fun… Or maybe they’ve been cosplaying all year and we haven’t noticed? Either way, props to you for taking flak from disgruntled customers while in costume.

#azambelich

Braiiiiiins

M. Night Shymalan’s career is THE BIGGEST TWIST OF ALL!

Overheard at SDCC

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Jakob Lokum, 2, of Los Angeles was totally entranced with everything about the LEGO booth at SDCC.

Parenting: YOU ARE DOING IT RIGHT.

I suppose a 300 meets Van Wilder mashup was inevitable.

Some very grumpy Cosplay. Check out more of Erika Jensen’s costume work on her facebook page.

Andrew Rader, self-proclaimed "Canada's Greatest Know-It-All," is wandering the streets around Comic-Con to gather support to be sent into space for science. He wants your vote (literally), and he has a website to explain why: www.voteandrewtospace.com.

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Doctor Who Panel: The End of the Matt Smith Era

This year is the 50th anniversary of the television show Doctor Who. That means a big TV special with both Matt Smith, the current actor in the role, but also David Tennant, the last guy to play him. BBC is making a TV movie about the making of the first episode of the series back in 1963, starring the many who presided over the Red Wedding on Game of Thrones, David Bradley, as the first man to play the Doctor, William Hartnell. How unqualified am I to write about all this? Super-unqualified. Because for more than 30 of those 50 years, I have been watching Doctor Who. I watched it when I couldn't imagine anyone else knowing about it, on the second TV in the house where I grew up while my parents were watching something normal. The theme song makes me cry. So I'm the last guy to tell anyone what's good or bad about it. I'm in too deep, is my point. Matt Smith was on the panel. So was the current companion, Jenna Coleman. Steven Moffat was there, and Mark Gatiss, and Bradley. They showed clips--a trailer for the making-of movie, a trailer for the 50th anniversary Two Doctors show. I'm still sorry that Christopher Eccleston, the first Doctor of the new era, isn't in it. But so it goes. They make the shows and I watch them, even when I don't think it's going the way I want it to. That's what 50 years of shows teaches you: patience. Don't like this season? Don't panic. They're never not going to make it. It'll change. Moffat was more articulate about the Doctor than I've ever heard him today, maybe because he's about to recast. Smith is leaving; time for a new guy. Again. "There's only one Doctor. He has lots of different faces, but he's always the same," Moffat said. "He lives in the moment all the time. He never really looks back because if he did, he'd be staring all day." The TV host Craig Ferguson moderated the panel, and at the end showed the clip of the song he performed about Doctor Who when Smith guested on his show. It's an utterly insane dance number with weird costumes, sung to the tune of the theme song. But the refrain captures why an often silly science fiction show with few rules and little world-building could survive for so long. The show, says Ferguson, is fundamentally about the triumph of intellect and romance over brute force and cynicism. Seems right to me.

#jetjocko

Following the show's Hall H panel, a group of Doctor Who fans gather to create a cosplay family photograph.