Last weekend I attended the Comicpalooza convention at the George R. Brown Convention Center in Houston, TX. The con was took up most of the third floor of the spacious convention center. Immediately upon getting off the escalator I was greeted by representatives from a company called Soy Joy giving out free samples of their soy based fruit bars. They even had a canopy setup with a DJ. Right away I knew this con was going to be quite a different experience than the other cons I’ve been to in Texas.

There was almost a carnival atmosphere to this show. In the main lobby there were “street performers” with juggling, sword swallowing, bed of nails, etc. Migrating over to the main arena area there was a miniature wrestling ring, martial arts demonstration and sword fighting demonstrations. If that were not enough they actually sectioned off a roller derby rink and had Quitich matches going on. I’ve never seen anything like this at a con before and I’ve been to San Diego, Dallas, the Comic Geek Speak Super Shows, Wizard World Austin and Dallas, and a few other smaller shows.

In addition to spectator events there were many panel discussions going on. I attended several in my two days at the convention.

The first panel was Clone Wars voice actor Tom Kane and Jeremy “Boba Fett” Bulloch. They took audience questions for a full hour. Tom has a real affinity for the Yoda character; he’s been doing the voice since before The Clone Wars in other media. Tom’s also a really tall guy. He stands at about 6’6”, which I found really ironic since he plays the smallest character in the show. Jeremy related a couple of stories while filming Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He mentioned that even though he only had a few lines in ESB, he flubbed his first line of dialogue. He was really worried about it but given the fact that he had the helmet on they had to re-record it anyway. A question was asked about him doing his own stunts. And he said that he was wise enough to not do them. Apparently there were 5 stuntmen for Boba Fett on ROTJ. Tom gave us quite a sampling as he answered audience questions about his wide body of work.

Edward James Olmos, his son Michael Olmos, and comic great Bob Layton announced a movie project called “Mettle” in ballroom A. Their goal is to do for the super hero genre what Edward did for Sci-Fi with Battlestar Galactica. The project is in the early stages but sounds very interesting. The premise is a about an aging super-hero (Edward James Olmos) who lost his powers after severe trauma during a fight 20 years ago. The menace that caused the power loss comes back to haunt him in the present and he must now deal with it sans powers. According to Michael Olmos, the writer/director of the project, the story will be told in a non-linear style across 30 years. The plan is to have Edward play the hero part in all eras. All three seemed really excited about the project. I hope they are able to obtain funding and get this off the ground. At the end of the panel the group stuck around to shake hands and say hello to fans. I was really impressed with this move. Many times at cons actors are rushed away and don’t get a chance to mingle.

The third panel was with comic writer Chris Roberson and writer/artist Phil Hester. The panel was to discuss their work on Superman and Wonder Woman respectively. This panel was held in a smaller room that held about 20 people. The discussion was really loose and it was Chris and Phil taking questions about the two iconic DC characters that they are writing. The two talked about trying to hone in on the essence of what they feel each character is about and putting that in their stories. Both have taken over for J. Michael Straczynski, who left each book shortly into his run to focus on other content such as Superman: Earth One (part 2). Each writer is tasked with having their respective stories finished by the time Flashpoint is complete. The inevitable question was asked if they could say or speculate on DC’s plans for the DCU post Flashpoint. Chris said that he was not under an NDA so he could say if he knew but was completely out of the loop on any plans. Phil Hester said that he did sign an NDA but said he honestly did not know what DC’s plans where. I asked Chris and Phil if there were any dream characters or projects they would like to work on. Phil said that if he had his choice he would love to do creator owned work. Chris mentioned that writing Superman is fulfilling a lifelong dream but creator owned work is a passion for him as well. It was great to listen to these two professionals for an hour, I’ve been a big fan of Phil Hester for many years and Chris is one of the writers that I’ve really started paying attention to. I was able to say hello to Chris after the panel and thank him again for the interview he granted us on the podcast.

The last panel I attended on Sunday morning was back in ballroom A and it was Edward James Olmos doing a solo panel to discuss his career. He talked mostly about Blade Runner and BSG. He told the story of meeting with Ridley Scott and discussing the Gaff character and how he created the “city-speak” language as a combination of several languages including Chinese and Hungarian. On BSG he said that the hanger scene in the mini-series where they honor the dead was the first thing they shot. He completely improved the “So Say We All” portion which became a hallmark of the show. His favorite episode was “33”. Edward related some funny moments with Katee Sackhoff and some direction he gave her for “Tigh me up, Tgh me down”. Edward didn’t feel that he could do BSG when he was approached, he felt the original series was well outside what he wanted to do as an actor. But after reading the script and seeing the realism he started to come around. The other thing that sealed the deal for him was that he had full character control, and non-exclusivity. This gave him the freedom to work on other projects at the same time. One other item he had written into his contract is no crazy space aliens. There was a humorous anecdote he related about what he told Ron Moore and David Eick he would do as a final scene if they introduced a four eyed, twin lipped alien into the story. He really felt that BSG was something special and something that is going to be really hard to duplicate. After over an hour into the one hour panel, Bob Layton showed up. It appeared that his panel had only a couple of people there because everyone was still listening to Edward. Edward asked Bob to join him on the panel and they continued on to fill the second hour. Bob talked about his experience with Iron Man, his hopes for Demon in a Bottle to make it into a third movie. He said he’s had discussions with Robert Downey but has not talked to Shane Black. He wasn’t a fan of bringing War Machine into Iron Man 2. He said that it diluted the Iron Man character. It was a great two-hour long panel and the audience was really into it. The whole thing ended with Edward James Olmos yelling out “So Say We All” louder and louder until the crowd was roaring.

On both days of the con I hit the dealer area. I was impressed with the layout of artist alley. At some cons I’ve noticed that some of the artists can get short shrifted on placement. Wizard World Austin was the worst example of this. At Comicpalooza in order to get to the main dealer area you had to wind through artist alley. This allowed the con guests to view all of the art that was available. There was a large number of folks selling commissions, prints, models, sculptures, jewelry, comics, etc. Most at really reasonable rates and some of the art was breathtaking. My gripe at all cons I attend is that I wish I had more money to spend on art. The main dealer area had your usual selection of dollar bins, fifty cent bins and even one vendor with quarter bins. There were also a few dealers that had higher grade back issues for ½ price. There were also folks selling DVD and material of independent films that they created, toy vendors, makeup artists and much more. The number and quality of vendors was similar to the Dallas Convention the week before, in fact some of the vendors were the same. I’m not sure if it’s a soft economy but I didn’t see as many trade paperback and hard cover comic sellers as I’ve seen in cons past. Also there weren’t many true high grade vendors at this con either, which given the family nature of this con doesn’t surprise me that much. High grade back issues is a hard core game. I’m hoping at future iterations of Comicpalooza they might be able to add vendors selling original comic art pages. This also is something that is lacking at Texas cons in general. Overall I was pleased with the selection and quality of vendors attending.

One of the most welcoming aspects of Comicpalooza were places to sit and rest. Because the George R. Brown is such a huge place, there were plenty of places to grab a table and sit down for a bit. You could people watch, plan out your day, go through your loot and relax a bit. This is something that I really wish more conventions would try and incorporate. Usually the space to sit is so limited that it’s virtually non-existent. The cosplayers were in full effect at Comicpalooza, much more than I saw at the Dallas Convention the week before. Some standouts were a really good Silk Spectre II from Watchmen, a group of Green Lanterns, tons of Steampunk influenced folks, Black Widow, and a couple of Slave Leia’s. I think Houston has scored a hit with Comicpalooza and my hats off to John Simons for bringing together such a wide mix of genres to a convention. Because of the diversity of talent and content it truly is a multi-day event. A few things I think that they can work on for next year is maybe tightening up the panels a bit, there might have been too many. Another change I’d like to see is to have more of the panels with moderators. This would help with getting things started, focusing a narrative and make sure that the panels are paced and timed well. I would also like to see a wider array of vendors. I think there were some opportunities to sell cheaper items geared towards smaller children since there were a lot in attendance. The con appeared to be pretty well attended and I hope there are many more to come. For more pictures of the con go to the pictures and video section of the web site, under Legion of Dudes look for the Comicpalooza 2011 section.