Days 2 and 3

What a crazy couple of days. Yesterday the PCB crew (and by crew I mean 2 of us) decided to take a chance and skip the WB panel and instead joined about 100 other people in the Jokers Army as requested by whysoserious.com. The Joker was looking for someone to join his crew and we all wanted the job.

As instructed, we arrived at the small part across from the convention center and awaited our instructions. Sure enough, just a moment or so after 10AM we notice planes above writing out a telephone number and then "Ha Ha Ha" across the sky. We all dial the number and here a recording of a man being forced to read jokes and clues and eventually is killed. A small matter because we were on the hunt. We spent about 2 hours running around downtown San Diego following clues, painting our faces to look like the Joker, stealing cookies from a Gotham girl scout and finally making it back where we started to get our rewards. One of us was taken away in a black truck, beaten and eventually killed by the joker. The rest of us were given replica clown masks from the movie, The Dark Knight. Those people helping at home were rewarded with the first official teaser trailer for the film.

Great fun. Very cool event and well put together.

After the scavenger hunt, we made our way to the Dimension Films panel where we were treated to Rob Zombie talking about Halloween and taking questions from the audience. They showed off the new trailer which you should be able to see online any minute now.

After the Rob Zombie fans were finished professing their love for him we moved on to the next panel. The cast and director of The Mist, the adaptation of the Stephen King novella about a group of people trapped in a supermarket after a monster-filled fog envelopes the town. The film is directed by Frank Darabont (Shawshank Redemption) and stars Marcia Gay Harden and Thomas Jane, who insists this is the best work of his career.

They showed a couple clips and I think we might have ourselves a great great movie on our hands. Darabont assured us this is a hard R rated horror movie.

After that we milled around for a while and then went to see The Simpsons Movie. I'll have a review of that in a couple days.

Saturday brought my most anticipated panel: Joss Whedon. I was in geek glory as he is exactly what I want to be in this business. Writing Movies, TV, Comics. If I ever had to say who my idol was, it is most assuredly him. Anyway, on to his big announcements:

-Ripper, a new chapter in the buffy-verse, is almost assuredly happening in the form of a 90 minute movie for the BBC for next year.

-He has no plans to take on any new popular comics like his recent X-Men and Runaways stints.

-There will be new Angel and Firefly comic series coming.

-He has written "The horror movie to end all horror movies" with Dru Goddard.

-Odds for a true Buffy or Angel movie are slim to none.

-He plans on bringing us a lot of stuff in the next year. So Joss fans can be excited to know he is determined to bring us some entertainment in the coming months.

Other news worthy items include Marvel Comics announcing Ultimates 3 written by Jeph Loeb as well as a major Ultimate universe cross over event called "Ultimatum" which they revealed exactly nothing beyond the fact that it will be crossed over between Ultimate FF and Ultimate X-Men.

Tomorrow brings Marvel's X-Men panel so hopefully we'll get some Endangered Species and Messiah Complex info.

Again no pictures until I get back to LA. I do have pics of the Joker event, Rob Zombies Halloween panel, and some pictures of a bus displaying character art for Spaceballs: The Animated Series which I have yet to see online anywhere so hopefully I'll get that up first.