Tag: SDCC 2022

SDCC 2022: Captain Kirks Unite In Unique Comic-Con Handprint Ceremony

by Derek Kraneveldt

This is exactly the type of amazing experience that you can only have at San Diego Comic-Con.

Kicking off the first full day of SDCC 2022, Legion M commemorated the era-spanning journey of William Shatner (who actually sits on Legion M’s board of advisors), and united old and new with a special handprint ceremony tied to their upcoming (as yet untitled) William Shatner documentary (which is set to be directed by Alexandre Phillipe, who also directed the Geekscape co-produced Doc of the Dead).

I was fortunate enough to be able to attend the event in person, which was hosted at the Theatre Box in San Diego and featured a unique meeting of the generations between Shatner and Paul Wesley, the Captain Kirk featured in the lauded new series Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Things kicked off with Legion M’s co-founder and CEO, Paul Scanlan, thanking everyone in attendance, and dialing in on how important it is that Legion M is a ‘for the fans’ company. Paul Wesley thanked Shatner for all of his advice on taking the helm of Captain Kirk, and even handed things over to Shatner with a ”You have the conn.”

Shatner seemed in high spirits throughout the ceremony, and cracked jokes about his “puffy hands” getting stuck in the concrete (too many shellfish), sticking his face in the concrete (he didn’t), and more. Following the actual handprinting, Legion M pulled in all cosplay-laden attendees for a photo op with Shatner, and the pure elation on most of their faces is really what SDCC is all about.

The upcoming Shatner documentary itself will be funded entirely by fans, who will also be able to earn ownership (and thus, even revenues) on the project. This is a pretty neat sounding spin on the standard crowdfunding platforms — if you’re interested, you can learn more right here!

I only had my iPhone in hand for the ceremony, so things aren’t as clear as they could be, but take a browse below to see just how much fun and experience this was. A huge thanks to Legion M for hosting us at the ceremony!


Derek’s SDCC 2022 Recap: Friday

by Derek Kraneveldt

Check out my Preview Night recap here, and my Thursday recap right here!

Though I was out fairly late last night, I was feeling a bit better this morning than when I woke up on Thursday. My morning schedule was pretty light, so I took some time to work on write-ups and just… not move for awhile.

Around 10AM, I met Katie (and her partner Mark) in real life for the first time, which was very exciting! They were set to accompany me through a round of the House of the Dragon offsite. I was lucky enough to head through on Friday, but wanted to grab some better resolution photos than I was able to capture that night (the last few years of SDCC I’ve packed light, and have been equipped with only an iPhone, so this wasn’t entirely successful, but i’ll take what I can get).

With a bit of time until our reserved slot at the Dungeons & Dragons Tavern, I decided to just sit outside and soak up the energy for a bit. There’s so much joy and positivity throughout the massive crowds, and it’s absolutely something that we all needed after the past few years.

The tavern itself was very impressive — whatever bar or restaurant or whatever was underneath this transformation was completely unrecognizable. As you enter the tavern, small doorways show off classic D&D monsters such as the Mimic and… others (I’m not a big D&D guy) and at the end of a small hallway the tavern opens up to a massive space.

The experience takes about 15 minutes, includes a beverage (alcoholic or non), and finishes off in a big way. We’ll be sure to link our full write-up once published, but for now, take a look at a few photos below!

Katie, Mark, and I split up, and I hopped over to the IMDBoat for a quick snack before heading to Ballroom 20. I was sad to just miss the Paper Girls panel (but was excited to be headed to the premiere later that night).

This would mark For All Mankind’s first year at SDCC, and just as with the Severance panel on Thursday, the room was almost packed. I slipped in at just the right time, and somehow managed to make it in the first five rows of the room.

Featuring a huge group of panelists, including stars Joel Kinnaman, Jodi Balfour, Shantel VanSanten, Sonya Walger, Casey Johnson, Krys Marshall, Cynthy Wu, Coral Peña, Wrenn Schmidt, and Edi Gathegi, and executive producers Ronald D. Moore, Ben Nedivi, Matt Wolpert, and Maril Davis, I was pretty stoked to get an inside look at the series. The questions the moderator asked in the panel felt a little less organic than I would have liked, but with powerful answers surrounding the ’Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ aspects of the series from Krys Marshall, and some of the original cast discussing just how much the characters that they play change between each season’s time jump (and how entirely realistic that change is as one ages) was absolutely fascinating stuff.

Krys notes the time jump is like opening a surprise box — with the jump in time being so long, it’s hard to have any expectations or ideas of just where their characters may be when the new season begins. This makes it incredibly hard to prepare for a new season, as the chances that you get your character right are almost zero. The creators also touched on just how important it was when creating this ’alternate timeline’, that the series’ female characters take their rightful place in society — this was echoed in the cast featured in the panel, which hosted just three male actors, and seven female.

Just like Severance, I firmly believe that For All Mankind is one of the best shows currently on television. The panel had lots of reveals and discussions about huge, spoilery moments that have occurred over the series’ three seasons. These moments are big and exciting and I won’t discuss them here as this is another series that it feels as though almost nobody is watching. Please watch it — you won’t regret it, and I’d like it to run for as long as possible. On that note, towards the end of the panel the team revealed that the show had officially been renewed for a fourth season (and iterated that the current arc has been planned for seven). The crowd, understandably, went wild.

There was also a dude in a For All Mankind cosplay, and he got a ”Hi, Bob” from the cast. Excellent stuff.

With a bit of time until the rooftop screening of the Paper Girls premiere, I thought that it was finally time to take a walk across the show floor. As always, exhibit halls A through G are filled with millions of feet of publishers, movie/television studios, vendors, towers of t-shirts, artists, and more, and taking a long walk through makes for a super fun (albeit often overwhelming) way to spend a couple of hours (and maybe pick up a new hobby).

The hall starts at row 100, and adds 100 incrementally all the way up to 5-thousand something. I made it to ~1500 before deciding I needed to take a break, and felt slightly sad that I didn’t have the convention stamina that I once did.

There’s a 14 foot tall, moving, LEGO Bowser on the floor, and its amazing.

I dumped my stuff at the hotel, and walked over to the Grand Hyatt to check out Paper Girls. The rooftop was decked out with 80’s flair like rainbow slinky’s, cassette-shaped branded cookies, neon signs, and more.

This was a super cool press line to be a part of — Paper Girls marks the first major starring roles for much of its young cast, so to see the sheer joy and excitement of the family members as Camryn, Riley, Sofia, and Fina walked the red (purple?) carpet was just so damned sweet. Creators Brian K Vaughan and Cliff Chiang were also in attendance, and mostly, as a huge fan of Vaughan’s work… I just hope that Paper Girls fares better than Y: The Last Man did.

I hung around for the screening afterwards, as industry and some fans were treated to the first three episodes of the series (which begins on Prime Video on July 29). Of the three episodes that we saw, the third was definitely my favourite — the series kicks off fast and furious and features a super interesting tone, but I think that it works best when it slows down and really gives its characters, their thoughts and beliefs, and their fears, time to shine. I’m often made fun of for so thoroughly enjoying ’teenage drama’ (Life is Strange / Before the Storm is one of my favourite video games, and I’ll always have a soft spot in my heart for The OC), so it makes a lot of sense why these pieces are my favourite.

I’m not sure if it’s just me, but Sofia Rosinsky’s Mac gave me major Edward Furlong in Terminator 2 vibes.

Screening attendees were also treated to swag bags (naturally, Paper Girls branded paper delivery bags) filled with 80’s candies, a box of popcorn, a genius rolled-newspaper looking poster tube with a Paper Girls poster inside, one of the aforementioned cookies, and more. It was a fabulous event, and I was so happy to have taken part in it.

I haven’t watched the show for several years, but just in case this is the last one, following Paper Girls I popped by the Walking Dead Fan Celebration, which offered dancing zombies in incredible makeup, themed cocktails, numerous props from the show, photo ops, and even a t-shirt screen-printing station. Attendees looked like they were having a blast, and I heard so many incredibly in-depth The Walking Dead conversations taking place.

After this, I popped over to the IGN / The Callisto Protocol party at the Hard Rock Hotel. Here they had more themed drinks, a massive dance space with a great DJ, photo ops, and more. Here, I ran into Geekscape Games co-host Carlos!

Once the IGN event ended, it was time to head back to the hotel and wonder how much I would regret my choices when I had to wake up a few hours later…

That’s it for today! Check back tomorrow for more of the action from SDCC 2022!

Derek’s SDCC 2022 Recap: Thursday

by Derek Kraneveldt

For my Pre-Con and Preview Night recap, head here!

I forgot just how exhausting SDCC can be. Maybe it’s just been awhile, or maybe I’m just really not as young as I was the last time I was in town (I wasn’t even in my 30’s then), but I feel dead tired already, and today (Thursday) is only the first full day of the convention!

But… I can sleep when I get back to Canada!

After turning in at about midnight (and naturally, rolling around for a bit), the alarm was set for 5:55AM this morning so I could head to the Welcome to Lumon website to attempt to snag a slot for the TV+ Severance offsite (press timing hasn’t quite worked out so far, and as a huge fan of the show I didn’t want to leave it up to chance). The website initially had some CAPTCHA issues (not just for me, as complaints echoed across twitter), but the CAPTCHA segment was quickly removed, and I just happened to refresh at the right moment and snagged a slot for 12PM. If you’re lucky enough to be on site in San Diego, more slots will open up at 6AM each day and will go very quickly — after booking my slot, I refreshed again to see what was still available, and every slot was already booked up. From the look of the Welcome to Lumon website to the confirmation email that I received, it was clear that this was going to be a high-quality experience.

I pretty much completely cut out caffeine eight or nine months ago, but needed something this morning to give me a bit of a kickstart. Luckily enough, the Hilton Bayfront hotel that we’re staying in has a Starbucks in it, and they even decked it out with some light decorations for Comic-Con!

Once I grabbed a beverage, it was time to head over to The Theatre Box for the William Shatner handprint ceremony (featuring new Captain Kirk, Paul Wesley) hosted by Legion M. This was a super neat experience, and seeing the joy on the faces of all of the Star Trek cosplayers and fans in attendance is sure to be a convention highlight. You can catch a couple of photos of the event below, and we’ll link a dedicated piece about the experience once it’s been published!

This was a fantastic way to start the day, and I couldn’t have been more excited for the Lumon Orientation experience that was coming up next. Severance is an absolutely phenomenal drama, and one that I (unfortunately) didn’t jump on until the insane word of mouth about the series was too much to ignore. It’s completely unique, and unlike anything I’ve really seen before — I cannot wait for Season Two.

As TV+ launched in November of 2019, this year’s SDCC really marks their first major appearance at the convention. The brand really came out in full force, with huge wraps on the outside of the Gaslamp Hard Rock Hotel, gigantic banners inside of the convention center, numerous panels, including dedicated panels for Severance, For All Mankind, Mythic Quest, and more (along with, of course, the Severance offsite itself).

my slot was for 12PM, and at that point, things were running decently behind. It was after 1PM by the time my ”orientation” finally began, but as a major fan of the show it was well worth the wait. The offsite itself was simply breathtaking — just yesterday I noted that this year’s House of the Dragon experience may have been second only to 2013’s Godzilla Encounter, but Severance’s ’Lumon Orientation” has to take the cake You can take a look at a couple of photos from the experience below, and we’ll be sure to link our full write up once it goes live! If you’re lucky enough to be in San Diego, you can try your luck for a reservation at 6AM each morning right here.

Eventually, I’m sure that I’ll make it to the expo hall floor — but not yet, as after Severance, it was time to check out the Audible Beach!

At SDCC 2019, Audible featured a huge offsite for the intriguing Stan Lee’s ‘Alliances: A Trick of Light’ offsite in 2019 (reminisce with Mikaela’s write-up of that experience right here). This year’s presence is much smaller, featuring a few expertly crafted sand sculptures themed for some of Audible’s biggest new releases like Moriarty: The Devil’s Game and Impact Winter, and a ”beach” where attendees can relax and recharge (their phones). Here are a couple of shots of the impressive designs, and a few more in our dedicated piece right here.

Severance was hosting a massive panel in Ballroom 20 at 4PM which may have been the programming that I was most excited for at this year’s SDCC. Prior to heading for the long Ballroom 20 line, I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything yet for the day, nor had I had any liquids for hours — so… I paid $20USD for two cookies and two drinks before heading in the ballroom.

Patton Oswalt hosted the panel, noting that as a major fan of the show it felt as though he‘d won some sort of lottery. Panelists included series creator Dan Erickson (it was actually Dan’s first time at SDCC), series director Ben Stiller (also, somehow his first time at SDCC), Britt Lower (Helly, also first time, and she looked like she was going to cry at the audience’s reaction when she entered), Adam Scott (Mark), along with with Dichen Lachman (Ms. Casey), Jen Tullock (Devon), and Tramell Tillman (Milchick). The ballroom looked packed, which was super exciting (and a little surprising, as TV+ is an absolutely underrated service that almost nobody I know seems to subscribe to).

Erickson began the panel noting that when having a terrible office job, he simply wished that he could just fast forward eight hours and be done with it — this is how the idea of Severance was originally born.

Several neat tidbits were revealed during the panel — Mark, for instance, was originally the character that would have woken up at the beginning of the pilot rather than Helly; at one point, a detached pair of legs was set to run down a hallway (this was deemed a bit too weird); Erickson wrote the pilot over ten years ago, and Stiller read it over five years ago. Possibly the panel’s best reveal was that none of the cast was aware of the multicolored dance party lights that were installed in the Macrodata Refinement office until the scene was actually shot.

Mr. Milchick himself looked suspicious when asked if we’d see further into his character’s life, so I’m pretty sure (and pretty hopeful) that this will happen.

Interestingly enough, series director Ben Stiller noted that the Severance activation at the Hard Rock Hotel (look for our write-up on that soon) was built up from about 75% real props from the show — including the computers used for Macrodata Refinement.

The panelists dug pretty deep into the show, the thought behind it, and its many twists and turns, and it was just plain exciting to hear from some of the incredible minds that made it all happen. I won’t say too much as I don’t want to risk any spoilers, but let this serve as your reminder that Severance is one or the best dramas in recent memory, and it should absolutely be on your radar.

I was feeling pretty beat by this point, and wanted to head back to our hotel for a bit to work on some write-ups. I stopped by the Geekscape booth (again, #3919) to say hello, and then walked back over to the Hilton Bayfront. Once I arrived… I realized that there was a panel, Attack of the Show: Who Let Us In?, starting shortly that I’d really been looking forward to.

I weighed the pros and cons for a bit (fun panel vs. getting a jump-start on articles and resting a bit), and ultimately (thankfully) decided to go. The panel ended up being essentially a live (uncensored) episode of the show, made a lot of fun of Kevin Pereira, and was overall a total blast. I’m not sure if G4 has been as much of hit they were hoping for since its return last year, but I’m super glad that it again exists.

Matt and I grabbed a quick dinner (there was zero wait for a two person table at Spaghetti Factory, which was super surprising as it’s one of the closest restaurants to the convention center, not to mention most affordable). Throughout the dinner, I talked about how I was glad to not be going out that night as I was so damned tired, and because the next day had a Paper Girls screening that I was excited to attend. Once we returned to the hotel, I sat down and wrote for a few minutes… and then went against everything that I said at dinner and walked over to the IMDBoat.

I ran into Shaun again while there, met some of his friends, and had some delicious themed cocktails. It was a great way to cap the night, and I’m only 14% regretting it this morning.

That’s it for now — be sure to check back for more tomorrow!

SDCC 2022: “The Audible Beach” Lets Con Goers Relax and Recharge (Their Phones)

by Derek Kraneveldt

Audible’s presence at SDCC 2022 is decidedly smaller than the Stan Lee’s ‘Alliances: A Trick of Light’ offsite in 2019 (reminisce with Mikaela’s write-up of that experience right here), but the audiobook giant is sure to catch your eye with a fast, impressive, and super-visible activation located just off of 1st Avenue + Martin Luther King Promenade.

Audible is celebrating two brand new (fantastic sounding) Audible originals, Moriarty: The Devil’s Game, and Impact Winter, and of course, they’re showing off the bonafide Audible hit (and upcoming Netflix original series) Sandman.

The beach features three giant sand sculptures (one of them was receiving some additional accents during my visit, and the artist told me that he’d been working on the sculpture for eight hours a day over the past fives days), a literal small beach complete with parasols and beach chairs for patrons to lounge on, and a number of cell phone chargers to help attendees ’recharge’. The company is also giving participants the chance to win Audible memberships along with other prizes.

If you’re on the ground in San Diego, the sculptures are absolutely worth checking out. If you’re not (sorry), here are some photos!

When The Sandman, also known as Lord Morpheus – the immortal king of dreams, stories and the imagination – is pulled from his realm and imprisoned on Earth by a nefarious cult, he languishes for decades before finally escaping. Once free, he must retrieve the three “tools” that will restore his power and help him to rebuild his dominion, which has deteriorated in his absence. As the multi-threaded story unspools, The Sandman descends into Hell to confront Lucifer (Michael Sheen), chases rogue nightmares who have escaped his realm, and crosses paths with an array of characters from DC comic books, ancient myths, and real-world history, including: Inmates of Gotham City’s Arkham Asylum, Doctor Destiny, the muse Calliope, the three Fates, William Shakespeare (Arthur Darvill), and many more. 

Check out The Sandman on Audible here.

Moriarty finds the professor on the heels of an earth-shattering mathematical breakthrough–a formula so powerful, it can predict the future–and at the scene of a gruesome murder he must solve to prove his innocence. With London’s sprawling underworld as their battleground, Moriarty and Holmes match their peerless intellects to gain the ever-shifting upper hand. But as their duel escalates, so does the deadly cost of pursuing the truth. “What will it take to get your justice?” Dr. Watson asks an utterly ensnared Moriarty, “And if you do get it… what will you become?”

Moriarty: The Devil’s Game is available on Audible now.

In the British countryside, a band of survivors forms a resistance in the fallout shelter of a medieval castle. Darcy is a battle-tested vampire hunter who is at the front line leading the charge to save humanity. Meanwhile, her younger sister Hope wants life to return normal so she can go above ground and know what it’s like to live again. And she just might be willing to risk it all. 

A story of apocalypse, horror, and adventure, Impact Winter is a wholly original new saga created just for Audible with immersive 3D audio that dares you to pop in your earbuds and listen in the dark. Venture into an eternally sunless world of swords and crossbows; primal hunters and shape-shifters; leaders and lovers. Hear how a brave few fight to survive the impact winter. 

Impact Winter (from Geekscape pal Travis Beacham) is available on Audible now.