Day 3-
We woke at 5am, snarled at each other for a while, and trucked it down to the convention center about 6 o’clock. The crowd was already immense. Everyone wanted to see the Main Event. We only had to wait in line for about an hour and we didn’t get into the main theater. We weren’t expecting it anyway and we got great seats in the first simulcast stage.

Jon Stewart is either a closet geek or was well-coached for this interview. I realize he’s a professional and could have easily faked his nerdishness but I choose to think he actually has his own passion for the saga. The primary questions for George were submitted by fans but Jon had some good follow ups that didn’t seem pre-planned. Some of the segments obviously were planned, such as GL’s presentation of the Stewart Trooper action figure with swappable heads. Even if Stewart knew about this ahead of time there is no mistaking the honor with which he received it. Anyone given a personal action figure of themselves by a functioning Artoo unit will automatically grin like a drunken three year old. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4910628259/in/photostream/

Two pieces of “news” came from this interview. The first was some teasers about season three of The Clone Wars along with the fact that they have written episodes through season five. The bigger news was that the blu-ray will be released in 2011 along with never before seen footage. A clip of the footage was introduced by Mark Hamill; it was his original entrance to Return of the Jedi – a clip long thought lost or perhaps not even filmed. It was unclear at the time whether this release is just the original trilogy or the entire saga. I’m sure this has been clarified through various outlets since.

An interesting side note here is that immediately after the Main event ended all of toilets in the entire wing of the convention center could not flush. Our theory was the volume of people using them actually killed the water pressure so badly they couldn’t operate. The urinal I used not only didn’t flush, but the upper pipe burst.

As we left the Main Event Jon went to do some crowd control work as Sara and I slipped into the line for Charlie Ross’ One-Man Star Wars Trilogy. This show is hilarious and almost worth the price of admission to the Celebration by itself. I saw the show twice at CIII, once in Salt Lake when he was touring, once at CIV and now a fifth time at CV. The best part this time was that he actually incorporated the blu-ray news into his show – less than an hour after it actually happened. This guy is so good he even knew how long of a pause to give after that addition to accept the applause. He also ended up with an impromptu Q&A mid-show that he took in stride, both answering the question and making fun of the asker in one quick move.

We wasted the rest of day 3 getting lunch (my fortune cookie was empty, is that bad), buying some extra souvenirs and catching a piece of the adult fashion show. The fashion show was kind of dumb. I was expecting home-made clothing in homage to the fans favorite movies. Instead it was Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka Tano) hosting an actual fashion show featuring licensed goods from Lucasfilm and her own clothing line, Her Universe (which is awesome).

We also tried to view the TK project in the 501st room but were unable because of the 501st muster in the main hall. The TK project was an art show of things people did with stormtrooper helmets. I liked the similar Vader project at CIV and thought this would be good. The problem with this show is that the room was locked because the entire 501st was busy doing this gigantic photo shoot in the main hall. I’ve developed a bit of a grudge against both the 501st and their “good guy” counterparts, The Rebel Legion. Individual members of these costuming clubs are generally good people. I also like their charity work and their help with children’s hospitals. Unfortunately, by and large, they’re elitist dicks. They also get so caught up in being a part of their own show they forget that others aren’t there to see them. Nothing makes that more clear than their muster at each Celebration. This massive squad of people in costume took it upon themselves to clog up the entire main entrance lobby and kill all movement in our out these doors, as well as lateral movement to access the crew room or other areas, just so they could show off. In the future I feel this group would be better to hold their muster at a nearby park where they can show off marching in unison or performing drills. Disrupting everyone else’s event is just rude. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4911231146/in/photostream/

The Live Feed has got it’s hands on the four-plus minute trailer that AMC debuted at Comic-Con for their upcoming series, based on the acclaimed on-going comic series, The Walking Dead.

The Walking Dead is set to premiere on October 31 (yes, Halloween) with a 90 minute premiere! So, until then, enjoy the trailer all you zombie lovers!

Day 2-
Sara and I accidentally slept in a bit on Friday. We woke about 9:50 and rushed to get ready. We caught a shuttle to the convention center where we saw Jon handling crowd control on the third floor. We got some pictures of a set of creative costumes – Mario, Luigi and Toad as Jedi. This is one of the things I love about Star Wars fandom. We get to make up our own rules as we go along, regardless of whether it makes sense. We would see another example of this later the same day.

My wife was a bellydancer until her school schedule forced her to drop it, hopefully temporarily. Because of this we made it a point to see the Slave Leia bellydancing performance. This was something I kept missing by a few minutes at Celebration IV but had really wanted to see. The performance was enjoyable, but it made Sara a little sad because she hadn’t danced with her troupe in so long. She did get into the crowd interaction portion. I liked the performance because it wasn’t just the Star Wars music, which would have been good enough, but it also incorporated dialogue and other characters. There was a good Darth Vader costume on stage with her and a guy I think was her husband as Han Solo. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4910627569/in/photostream/

We had a little bit of down time that I used to check email and Sara updated her friends and co-workers about the goings-on via email. This was my first time at a con with the netbook (nicknamed Bean) and having free wi-fi in the convention center was a treat. We had no idea how important this little bit of downtime would be once we started the Bounty Hunt.

Jon and I participated in the Bounty Hunt at Celebration IV and it went miserably. We were not prepared for the difficulty or the style of the event. We also did not allot ourselves enough time to participate fully. This time we were determined to be more successful. The set up was different and allowed for a lot more strategy, as well as playing to the strengths of our teammates. Ninety-eight teams joined the hunt that included 12 clues with varying credit values based on difficulty. We called our team Sithilis. This might need some explaining. Sara maintains she was not a geek until she met me. Her association with Star Wars is an STD she calls Sithilis.

Phase 1 involved seven clues ranging in value from 2,500 to I think 10,000 credits. Jon took over the lightsaber identification task. My borderline autism was helpful with word search and pattern puzzles. Sara took over the tasks that required less knowledge of Star Wars, like a “connect the dots” puzzle with a twist. Our strategy was to solve all of the clues first, then plan a route to hit all the “characters” throughout the convention center that matched the answers. A second piece of strategy was that we needed four clues solved and stamped in order to get the second pack of three clues. The third pack of two clues was available only after completing six total stamps. Rather than make extra trips back to the muster room we decided we needed to get at least six of the first seven, then get packs two and three at the same time. We solved six of the clues; the seventh required being in a specific location to start the steps. We decided to save that one for later.

Our plan went off without a hitch, including the extra tasks of drawing a bounty hunter (Sara did Greedo – Jon’s stick figure IG-88 was not accepted), winning a bean bag toss (me), and shooting a stormtrooper a couple times with suction cup gun (again Sara, because she’s a sniper but won’t admit it). We took the six stamps on the passport back to muster and got our second and third packs of clues. These clues ranged from 10,000 to 20,000 credits a piece I think. They were much more difficult and we relied heavily on Bean’s internet capability to look up answers. Again, we relied on our team’s individual strengths. Jon took the hardcore trivia sections. I handled a worksheet involving the books; it involved sorting books into publication date and in-universe date then using that order to break a code. Sara took over a task none of us knew. Strange but it worked. She used her test taking and fact-finding skills and was way more successful than we would have been by trying to trivia our way through it.

We solved the last five clues, got our passport stamped and returned to the muster room with 15 minutes to spare. Some teams were just getting their second or third packets. We had solved 11 of the 12 clues. Somehow we had forgotten that the clue we skipped from the first packet had only been skipped because it required us to stay in the main exhibit hall and follow banners based on trivia we already knew. We got into our heads that it was just too difficult and that’s why we had passed on it. As we were waiting for the last teams to finish we kept reading the clue and realized that 15 minutes would have been plenty of time to finish it had we tried. That would have given us the perfect score of 100,000 credits. Without it we only had 90,000. We were counting on our extra 15 minutes to break any ties with people who got the same score. We didn’t need to worry.

The top five teams were awarded prizes. They explained during the awards presentation that Friday’s competition was much more competitive than Thursday’s. The first place team on Day 1 had scored only 55,000 credits. Fifth place in our race scored 60,000. Hmm, 60,000 for fifth? We definitely placed, and we outscored them by a ton, but what about the other three podium teams? It turned out second place only made it to 75,000. We had completely dominated. The fact that our prizes were paltry was irrelevant. We each won a Rebel Blueprints book and a model kit. We were on top of the world. We were also exhausted. We had run completely around the convention center at least twice through massive crowds carrying backpacks (or in my case, a large messenger bag). Jon was wearing his Jedi robes, which include horribly uncomfortable boots. My wife was cursing us both for making her run. I still don’t think she’s forgiven me. http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4911230396/in/photostream/

We wanted to go see the panel Swank was moderating, “Why We Love the Prequels,” with Kyle Newman (Fanboys), Dave Filoni and others. But we were just too beat and hungry. We went back to the hotel where Jon changed out of his robes and then to Miller’s Ale House. The food was good and the beer was cheap. I saw Bryan later and he told me the panel went extremely well and was very crowded; we might not have gotten in the door anyway.

There was a free mixer going on in the upstairs ballroom. We were a little early so we stopped at the Hoth Ice Bar for a couple drinks. The sitting area was pretty crowded so we introduced ourselves to a nice couple that had a table and joined them. This was the second time that day we saw someone taking their own unique fandom and making something fun with it. The Jedi Mario Bros. were fun. Brandy was different. She had used some old Star Wars curtains as base fabric and made a Victorian style dress from it, complete with bustle. I’ve seen similar ideas done – but this was the best I’d seen yet. Plenty of people wanted pictures with her, including some others that had also used SW material to make their own unique items.
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We spent a couple hours at the party with Brandy and Scott. It wasn’t a great party, but there was booze and we were still amped about our bounty hunt win, even if we were physically beat. We did cut out a little early only because we knew the morning would come too soon. People were already camping out for the Main Event Saturday morning. We weren’t going that extreme but we were planning on getting there early for seats.

—A sneak peak at Wolverine: The Best There Is #1

Marvel is pleased to present your first look at the most violent Wolverine ongoing series you’ll ever lay eyes upon, Wolverine: The Best There Is #1! The creative team of award-winning writer Charlie Huston and rising star artist Juan Jose Ryp introduce a bold new addition to Wolverine’s rogues gallery in the form of Contagion – a villain who gets more dangerous if he’s killed by Logan.  But before Wolverine can find a permanent solution for his brand new foe, he must combat Contagion’s league of guards aptly named, the Unkillables. Featuring covers from a cavalcade of superstar artists like Bryan Hitch, Phil Jimenez, Gabriele Dell’Otto and Marko Djurdjevic, no Wolverine fan can miss this epic debut!

Can Wolverine be the best there is, if he won’t be able to kill? Find out this December in Wolverine: The Best There Is #1!

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—Superman/Batman hits #75!

These images were posted on The Source earlier today.

Consider this an engraved invitation to a spectacular anniversary celebration, as writer Paul Levitz brings the World’s Finest face-to-face with the Legion of Super-Heroes. Lex Luthor has unleashed a threat so powerful it’s garnered the Legion’s attention in the distant future. But they can’t take him down without a trip to the past to recruit Batman and Superboy.

And there’s more – Joe Kelly and an A-list roster of writers and artists chronicle the history of the Man of Steel and Dark Knight in stories that jump from yesterday to the distant future. Adam Hughes writes and draws a tale starring Supergirl and Batgirl, J.T. Krul and Francis Manipul deliver a tale of Superboy and Red Robin seeking advice from their mentors, Ace and Krypto get leashed by Duncan Rouleau, David Finch writes and illustrates a story for the first time, and Joe Kelly, Steven T. Seagle, Billy Tucci and many more surprises help commemorate this anniversary extravaganza.

Here’s a look at the first story. SUPERMAN/BATMAN #75 hits 8/25.

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—A first look at Scott Kolin’s pages from JSA

The Source also gave us a peek at some of Scott Kolin’s pages from JSA coming up in October.

Marc Guggenheim isn’t the only big name signing up for the Justice Society. Come October, artist Scott Kolins will be stepping aboard the series for a spell, and, well, that begs for a peek at some art, no?

Before we show off the goods, we checked in with JSA editor Mike Carlin for a little background on what makes Kolins such a great fit for the Justice Society:

“Scott Kolins is a classic artist— not just a comics artist, but an artist who is always striving to create something new… Something vital that hasn’t existed before. Scott first did this on his acclaimed run of FLASH with Geoff Johns… And he’s doing it again with his current work on JSA! This is a Scott Kolins for the future— for the Justice Society of the future! Remarkable and new.”

And here’s that art we promised…

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—Brightest Day Variants Form Giant Picture

Over the last few weeks there have been “White Lantern” variants to some of the Brightest Day tie-ins. They all connect to make one big mural drawn by Ryan Sook, Fernando Pasarin and Joel Gomez. Are there Brightest Day clues in this picture? Is this a look at things to come?

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As of late is seems as if there has been an endless string of castin news regarding X-Men: First Class. I, for one, am already getting that sick pit in my stomach from flashbacks about an over-crowded X3, but have tried to stay cautiously optimistic. For reasons I’m not sure about, Bryan Singer felt compelled to call up AICN and give some important plot points to this up coming film – it was after reading this article I got an even worse feeling about this film and a feeling they should probably have called the movie X-Men Origins: Professor Xavier (or, Kill-Tacular-Tron’s movie title suggestion, Boner.)

Here are some of the major plot points (spoilers):

The film takes place in the 1960’s. John F Kennedy is the President of the United States. Martin Luther King and Malcolm X are on TV doing marches.

We will see how Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr met . . .they’re going to be in their late twenties. Xavier . . . will not be in his wheelchair to begin the film – but we will see how he wound up in a wheelchair. . .We’re going to see Professor X when he still had hair.

The costumes will be far more comic bookish than we’ve seen before – and while Scott and Jean aren’t here – Cyclops’ brother Alex Summers aka Havoc will be, as played by Lucas Till.

With January Jones and Kevin Bacon playing Emma Frost and Sebastian Shaw – we will be getting the HELLFIRE CLUB.

. . . the film is going to have a much more international feel than the prior X-MEN movies.

We will get our first look at what some of the costumes will look like in a month or less.

It seems to me that continuity (both comic book AND film) is being thrown out the window in an effort to salvage a struggling franchise. This is probably the most random mix of characters I have heard of for a film adaptation of a comic book and it has me concerned. Honestly, I am trying my hardest not to sound like an angry fan boy, because frankly, I’m not angry. My expectations for another X-Movie from FOX are so low, these details are about on par. I’m all about the time period, I can see the Hellfire Club working as the main antagonist, but the cast is causing me to be very skeptical. I could be proven wrong and this new take and fresh beginning could really get the X-Franchise rolling again, just because a film doesn’t align with my preconceived notions of what a “First Class” film would be about, doesn’t mean it’s going to be terrible. But, until I see the finished product on screen and can make a final decision I am going to remain cautiously optimistic – eally heavy on the caution.

Come share your thoughts about these new details on X-Men: First Class over at the BSR Forum!

This originally appeared on the Huffington Post.

It’s hard to believe that five years have gone by since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast and it’s even harder to believe that there are still displaced residents living in trailers and the damage is still being repaired. For some, those five years have flown by, but that seems like an appropriate amount of time to see fictional stories told in that setting. Timed for release to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the hurricane, DC’s Vertigo Comics will be releasing a graphic novel called Dark Rain.

Written by Mat Johnson and drawn by Simon Gane, Dark Rain tells a story of opportunists trying to exploit the plight of New Orleans in the days after the hurricane. At times it’s alternately funny and moving, but it’s always focused on a very sharp but simple story.

It tells the tale of a man desperate for money who wants to rob a bank in the chaos of the flood and enlists the help of a reluctant ex-con who could use the money to help with his child support. Things go from bad to worse when they realize they’re racing against an evil Blackwater type outfit of mercenaries to the bank. Very reminiscent of a Third Man type story set in New Orleans, this is a book very much worth checking out.

The book doesn’t just tackle the heist story, though, it captures a taste of the horror and confusion of the days after the hurricane and the immense sense of depression and loss that must have been present in the Superdome while residents waited far too long for aid. In fact, there were more than a couple of moments in the book set in the Superdome that almost brought tears to my eyes.

In the end the book is very optimistic, offering hope to those who choose to do the right thing.

For those interested, the book hits streets August 24th, 2010 (you can order it on Amazon here, or you can go to your local comic book retailers). Vertigo has also been kind enough to provide us with an exclusive preview of the book below.

Enjoy:

Bryan Young is the editor of Big Shiny Robot!, a geek news site.

Regular BSR! Friend and Forumer, “Baldassbat”, was at Star Wars Celebration V. He has written a pretty in-depth summary of his time there and was kind enough to share it with us here at BSR! So, if you have been looking for a good day-by-day break down of a first-hand experience at Celebration V, here you go!

Be sure to check back throughout the rest of the week for a new day’s summary!

Arrival-
Florida in August is stupid hot and even more stupid humid. I’ve been to the south in summer before but this was insane. Every time you walk out of a building, which is freezing ass cold because of the full power a/c constantly blasting, you feel like you’re being punched in the stomach by the heat and humidity. It takes a second to get your breath. My wife’s glasses would fog up whenever we were outside.

The three of us all bought 4-day badges which we swapped for crew badges because we were working with Official Pix (Sara and I) and Reed Exhibitions (Jon). These badges proved to not be quite as handy at this event as they were at CIV but they were still useful.

Day 1-
Nothing major happened on the first morning. It was a good opportunity to explore the main exhibition hall and talk to lots of people. We took a lot of pictures. In the afternoon Sara and I had shifts with Official Pix. Sara started as a guest escort for Matt Lanter (The Clone Wars voice of Anakin Skywalker) but ended up working crowd control and escort for James Arnold Taylor (TCW voice of Obi-Wan Kenobi). In the meantime I was guest escort for Tom Kane (TCW voice of Yoda, Yularen and news reel narrator). http://www.flickr.com/photos/28216824@N07/4905035757/in/photostream/

The time I spent with Tom Kane was entertaining and enlightening. Obviously it wasn’t a formal interview since I was supposed to be assisting him but I did my best to get some stories from him and I’ve retained some of the information. He started voice acting at 15 years old. He is an anomaly because he started in voice over work. Most people start as actors or radio DJs and move into voice work. He is very prolific – juggling 300-400 clients a year while working from the studio in his home. Outside of The Clone Wars he has had many recognizable TV movie roles: Morgan Freeman and others on Robot Chicken, Professor Utonium and Him on Powerpuff Girls, Magneto in Wolverine and the X-Men, the voice of JFK in Forrest Gump, and Iron Man and Ultron in Next Avengers. He’s also done some video game work, notably Commissioner Gordon in Batman: Arkham Asylum, the announcer for Fat Princess, Professor X and the Grey Gargoyle in Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, and many, many roles in plenty of LucasArts video games. Because of his role as Yoda in the Disney Jedi Training Academy attraction he may be getting involved in the new Star Tours ride.

Tom said his favorite character he has voiced is Yoda. Maybe that’s just catering to his crowd but it seemed genuine. Interestingly enough, he said of his character Him on Powerpuff Girls “Him is not only the creepiest character I’ve done, but is probably one of the creepiest characters on television.” Another weird thing he said was about how he does black voices. Someone asked him to do the Morgan Freeman voice (he’s incredible at dropping in and out of voices at will). After doing the line, which I didn’t recognize, the fan asked him about where the voice comes from, physically. Watching Tom you can actually see that his voices come from different parts of his mouth and throat –to the extent that he sometimes has to completely change his posture to push the voice. He explained that Morgan Freeman’s voice, and really all black voices he does, comes from the back of the mouth. He explained that this is not unique to him and can be seen and heard in conversation with African-Americans. He’s not sure why this is and postulated it could be cultural or it could be due to physical characteristics.

We also spoke about personal lives outside of voice work and Star Wars conventions. Tom has eight kids, five of them are adopted. He explained that he has two “groups” of kids. The older kids are in college or late teens. The younger group is elementary age. Not sure how we got on the topic of OCD but he told a funny story about ironing his money as a kid. Somehow that all started when he was ironing his dad’s shirt and an old, wrinkled dollar bill fell out of the pocket.

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After the shift with OPX I had a drink with my wife at the Hoth Ice Bar. We met back up with Jon and headed to the Wyndham resort for a party thrown by TheForce.Net. The party was pretty dumb, just a loud band and some raffles prizes. We did see “Swank-Mo-Tron” Bryan and caught up on each other’s events and plans for the weekend. Our group decided to leave early since the party sucked. As we were leaving we ran into a lot of the cast from TCW: Tom Kane (Yoda), Matt Lanter (Anakin), Catherine Taber (Padme), Dee Bradley Baker (Clones), James Arnold Taylor (Obi-Wan) and Dave Filoni (director). They almost decided to skip the party because they saw us leaving but we convinced them to stay for the sake of the other fans – after we monopolized their conversation in the hall for a few minutes, of course.

NY Mag is reporting that FOX has narrowed down their choices of director for the sequel to X-Men Origins: Wolverine to two men: David Slade (Eclipse, 30 Days of Night), and Robert Schwentke (RED). Apparently, Hugh Jackman who is also a producer on the film get the final say of who will take the helm and all signs point to that he will be selecting the former.

Slade doesn’t have a terribly long resume, and looks pretty hit and miss. I quite enjoyed 30 Days of Night for the most part, but then The Twilight Saga: Eclipse just stares at me right in the face as a giant negative. As most of you already know, the script takes Logan to Japan and supposedly is based on the Miller/Claremont story line, but, if history has taught us anything it’s that FOX will most likely deviate quite a bit from the source material – for the worse. In all honesty, I didn’t HATE the Wolverine prequel as much as most, but I certainly didn’t like it and I don’t feel that it’s deserving of a sequel. But, there are a lot of fan boys out there right now that have been wanting to see the Wolverine-in-Japan story line in movie form for a long time, and it looks like they are about to get their wish – for better or worse.

In any case, you know we will all go see it if nothing else out of morbid curiosity.

Come share your thoughts on an X-Men Origins: Wolverine sequel over at the forum!

Teresa Palmer

Heat Vision Blog is reporting that the narrowing down of the female lead for Mark Webb’s Spider-Man reboot is underway and they are also stating that the role is not going to be Mary Jane.

Starting today and heading into the weekend, select actresses are meeting with Webb and new Spidey actor Andrew Garfield. In a departure from the Tobey Maguire-Kirsten Dunst movies, the love-interest character is not Mary Jane. What isn’t clear is whether the actresses are auditioning to play Gwen Stacy, Parker’s other love interest in the comics (played by Bryce Dallas Howard in 2007’s “Spider-Man 3”) or some other new character. The script pages being given to the actresses have no name listed for the character.

I actually really like the idea of them going with Gwen Stacy as opposed to Mary Jane. I love the Gwen Stacy/Peter Parker romance in the comics and I think it’s one of Peter’s defining relationships (along with Uncle Ben) that propel him into the man/superhero that he becomes. That being said, I also really hope they don’t just make up some love interest character for the film – especially when Peter has so many love interests giving the writers so many existing avenues to go down.

As far as Heat Vision’s list of actresses up for the part, you can visit their story for the full break down, but some highlights are Lily Collins (The Blind Side), Teresa Palmer (The Sorcerer’s Apprentice), and Imogen Poots (HAA! (The upcoming Fright Night remake)).

Come chat about Peter Parker, his love interests, and the Spider-Man reboot over in the BSR! Forum!

As most of you may know, we have a weekly column in the Salt Lake City alt-weekly IN Magazine that’s usually about comic books and other geeky topics.

This week, on top of the regular Comics column (you can read the online version here), I was also asked to write up a recap of Star Wars Celebration and a big scoop about the possible location of Star Wars Celebration VI! (you can read the online version of that story here.) (Special thanks to Eric Geller from TheForce.Net for his pictures of The Main Event, since I didn’t have mine ready before deadline.)

If you live in the greater Salt Lake area, you can pick a copy up off the stands, or you can read the laid out versions below.