Friday:

Day two and most likely I’ll already be ready to sleep for a week. Plus, I’ll barely have room to sleep on my bed with all the collectibles I’ll likely buy. Seriously, seriously need a "Venture Brothers" pencil sharpener and Warren Ellis’s Nextwave lunchbox this year or I’m going to have a total spaz attack. But assuming I manage to catch the required amount of sober winks (ha), here’s what the ‘in a perfect world’ Friday plan at San Diego Comic Con will be…


-Arrrgh, it’ll mean missing my chance to see Neil Gaiman in person for the first time (I wasn’t as big a fan of "Coraline" as everyone else), and I’ll miss the cast of "Farscape" (I STILL haven’t finished the fourth season), but it looks like my first event of the day will be the Warner Brothers panel where they will be previewing all their new genre films including “Where the Wild Things Are”, “A Nightmare on Elm Street”, “The Book of Eli”, “The Box”, “Jonah Hex”, and “Sherlock Holmes”. Okay, I’m mainly showing up for Jonah Hex. I love that ugly cowboy.

-I seem to have been informed through emails that I am attending the Disney Animation panel today with new footage from the fancy shmancy new 3d versions of “Toy Story” and “Toy Story 2”, the totally new “Toy Story 3”, “Prep and Landing”, “The Princess and the Frog” and most importantly, “Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea”. I guess I would have picked this one anyway, what with HAYAO FREAKIN MIYAZAKI attending the panel. Between him, John Lasseter as host and Patton Oswalt moderating, this is a must-see.

-Despite my excitement, I am going to sneak out a bit early in the hopes of getting into the “Marvel Cup o’ Joe” where my nemesis Joe Quesada will be appearing to answer all questions (oh no you didn’t), makes big announcements and has lots of surprise guests. Just imagine the angry, pointed remarks I’d like to make. In truth though, I’ll probably wimp out and just keep my head down. Anyone who DOES bring him to task for you-know-what will have my full applause support though.

-Oh, I suppose I’ll have to miss the “DC Nation” panel next (but who will heckle Dan Didio?) and the “Dollhouse” panel (I’ll get someone to put my Cyrus Tracer on Joss Whedon so I can stalk him later) in order to catch the Sony Pictures previews of “Legion” and “District 9”. I’m not real sure about how “Legion” is gonna do (outside of "The Exorcist", Christian themed horror movies aren't really my thing), but “District 9” looks to be amazing. Peter Jackson is producing the crap outta this thing and will be there to promote it and take questions. The word behind the scenes is that Pete wants this director Neill Blomkamp to be the guy the studio okays to direct the “Halo” movie, thus all the hullabaloo about this one. We’ll see. It looks like a grittier “Alien Nation” to me and hey...that's not a bad thing.

-But wait…turns out I can still see the post-“Dollhouse” discussion q&a with Whedon where he discusses the Dark Horse Comics projects (IE: Buffy Season 8, Angel Season 6, Firefly…season two? Maybe). Perhaps I can kiss his ring.

-You think my Whedon-love is geeky, wait till you hear how excited I am for “Rifftrax Live”. I grew up with a slot of time reserved every weekend for “Mystery Science Theater 3000” and not much has changed. Now, the Mike Nelson crew have dumped the personas and do their commentary on big release films that slay even harder than the old show. They’ll do a live Rifftrax on a classic short and will be interviewed. There are the folks you want an autograph from, the folks you want an interview with…these are the folks I want to have a beer with. You hear me, Mike, Kevin and Bill? First round is on me.

-Even though they sent me the DVD to watch at home, I might just have to slip into the “Angel of Death” premiere screening. Normally, I’d skip something like a direct-to-DVD premiere of a web based series, but this is the first film project written by recent comics god, the only man who could turn Bucky into Captain America and make it work, Ed Brubaker, who I’d love to shake hands with. He’s the only guy I’d trust to helm some of the crappy ideas from Marvel’s “House of…” and make them work.

Day two….down. Coming up, day three and likely either a hospitalization of Cyrus for alcohol poisoning or incarceration for being found hiding in Joss Whedon’s hotel room. What? I just know we’ll be best friends forever once we meet and he discovers how much we’re alike. Soon, we’ll be pen pals and he’ll fly me out to his palatial Hollywood estate where Alyson Hannigan will give me a foot massage while we hurl invective at a caged Sarah Michelle Gellar. Yeah. That’ll be great.