THAD at COMIC-CON
July 27th, 2007
So I went to Comic-Con for the first time. The main reason... one of my stop-motion films was going to play there.
That wasn't happening until the end of the night, though. So I explored the giant convention center in the meantime.
Here are a few pictures.
In the rain or in the snow...
If you don't know who the guy on the right is... GO HERE IMMEDIATELY!
I'm wearing the shirt he gave me on the set of Metal By Numbers the year before.
So at 10:30 p.m. it was finally time to see my video on the big screen!
I knew it was going to be the largest crowd to ever view my work, so I was kind of nervous.
Then when I found out what was REALLY happening, I thought I was going to have a heart attack.
Okay, let me explain. What I didn't know about this Sick and Twisted animation screening was that it was more of a competition than just a regular showing. In fact, Spike told the audience to start booing as loud as they could if they didn't like a particular animated short. Like I mentioned, this was a HUGE crowd. This screening took place in the BIGGEST room in the entire convention center, so there were at least 1,000 people there! Now, if the crowd didn't like what they were seeing, Spike was actually going to SKIP that piece and not waste the crowd's time. Pretty intense stuff. This got me thinking... what if out of 1,000 people, someone decides to be a dick and boo my video, then others follow the lead, and it gets skipped before it's over? I mean, this was really the only reason I decided to go to Comic-Con in the first place... to be there for my first major screening. Little did I know that it was going to be such a brutal contest to survive. After about 20 cartoons, half of which were skipped less than half-way through, I felt like my heart was going to explode (The 5 black coffee shots from 7-11 probably had something to do with that too. I needed it though, having had absolutely no sleep for the past 40 hours). Anyway, when a Happy Tree Friends cartoon came on, I was shocked that a lot of the audience actually BOOED during it. I was sure that was going to be one of the main crowd pleasers, but apparently not. FUCK! That didn't exactly boost my confidence level. A few more hit and miss animations came and went, and then SNOWMAN finally popped up with its loud and crazy soundtrack (thanks to Daiquiri). My stop-motion masterpiece played all the way through with no booing. In fact, there was a lot of cheering! Then another animated short came on and I let out a giant sigh of relief. Fuck, I was tense. It felt so good to just sit back and enjoy the rest of the movies without having to worry my ass off anymore.
When I got home from San Diego, it was 4 in the morning and I was ready to SLEEP already...
Until I heard a smashing sound right outside my window. I sat up and looked out my bedroom window, and saw some asshole with a sweater wrapped around his face running down my street with an iPod he took from a neighbor's car. I called the police and didn't get to sleep until well after 5 in the morning. In conclusion... what a crazy fucking night!