Going to the San Diego Comic-Con is like getting fisted by the beefy, greased-up hand of Kirstie Alley.  At first it’s kind of pleasant and you’re mildly star-struck, but eventually the pain sets in and you’re overcome with an overwhelming sense of shame. And after the whole miserable affair is over, you’re left shaking underneath the shower nozzle, trying to scrub yourself clean.

With that lovely image in mind, here’s my Thursday Comic-Con report:

First things first, if you’re expecting some earth-shattering info about new films, games, comics or television shows, then you’re shit-out-of-luck. Why?  Well, I didn’t make it into any of the panels this year.  And why is that?  It’s because Comic-Con lines have become more bloated than Marlon Brando’s corpse.

And I learned something very important this trip.  I learned that the panels need some serious restructuring.  On Thursday my girlfriend and I valiantly tried to get into the Alice In Wonderland panel, but after contemplating standing in the massive line, I decided it would be more pleasurable to perform seppuku on my sweaty testicles.  And do you know why the line was so atrocious?  Because the Twilight panel was scheduled directly after the Alice In Wonderland panel.  Every pre-pubescent girl, lonely housewife and middle-aged virgin had camped out the night before; all to get a glimpse of Robert Pattinson’s flowing, unkempt locks.  And trust me, I have no real problem with Twilight fans (even though I give them enough grief…but fuck, my girlfriend has devoured all the books and has seen the movie about 40 times, so I have witnessed the damage the series has done on a personal level.  Plus, I’m a raging dork too, so I have nothing to brag about.  However, I have had sex at least once in my lifetime, so I guess I have that on these rabid fans.  But I kid…)

Anyway, having Twilight scheduled after Alice In Wonderland was genius on Disney’s part (if they even had anything to do with it), since they were guaranteed a packed house.  However, this pretty much cock-blocked most of the Tim Burton fans.  As a friend of mine has suggested, the Comic-Con should really take a look into making separate lines for different panels, so that every fan has the opportunity to get into whatever panel they want to.  I’m sure there’s flaws to this system (like crowd control problems and problems with shuffling everybody out of finished presentations); but at least I’m offering up a solution.  As it is now, people can get into Hall H early and stay in there all day.

So, since this proved to be a bust, we decided to hit up the Masters of the Web panel (featuring folks from various sites like CHUD, AICN, IESB and Bloody-Disgusting, to name a few) and plowed through the doors about ten minutes into the Q & A session.  Without any room to sit (unless we wanted to climb over audience members), we opted to stand in the back of the room.  This was perfectly fine…until two stampeding Goths moped in and parked themselves directly in front of us. One was a very large woman and the other was a very large man.  The man had these nasty-ass dreadlocks that kept stabbing me in the eye and jamming into my nostrils.  At one point, his stinky hair momentarily rested on my lips.  It smelled like patchouli and had a faint, tangy and salty taste.  Like a barbeque Lay’s potato chip.

If this wasn’t bad enough, a dude with a video camera the size of Lou Ferrigno’s ego squeezed himself between us and the Rastafarian Marilyn Manson look-alike (if Marilyn Manson decided to move to Jamaica and live off a steady diet of Mallomars and Moon Pies).  So, in between getting a mouthful of Lay’s-flavored dreadlocks and dealing with the overwhelming desire to punch myself in the face, I now how to contend with a large camera lens jabbing into my right temple.

Thankfully, just before I was about to weep, the cameraman took off and I only had to deal with the gigantic Predator/King Diamond hybrid that perched in front of me.  By this time, Kevin Munroe (the director of the upcoming film Dead of Night) introduced clips of the movie and then brought out stars Anita Briem, Sam Worthington and Brandon Routh.

And I’m not too sure about this one folks.  I’m not familiar with the source material of this adaptation (based on an Italian comic called Dylan Dog), so I have no idea how faithful the film looks, but the clips came off as a bit cheesy and extremely B-movie-ish.  Also, Brandon Routh came off very stiff (and this is coming from someone who actually liked Superman Returns and Routh’s performance in the film).  Then again, I shall reserve judgment until the movie is released, but I can say that I wasn’t too impressed with the footage I saw.  This is unfortunate too, since I like everybody in the cast.

And, much like last years panel, trivia questions were then thrown the audience’s way.  These were geek-centric and the prize of answering correctly was a pair of tickets to the Wrath of Con party Friday night at the Hard Rock hotel.  Being the raging dork that I am, I figured it would be a cake-walk to answer these questions.  However, my cockiness soon subsided once the questions were lobbed towards us.  I might as well been asked to do complex Geometric theorems or to do calculations on how long my boner would last after sucking down ten Rum and Cokes.  Anyway, I thought all hope was lost until a question about Twilight was posed (specifically, “What kind of car does Edward drive?”).

Knowing damn well that this was right up my girlfriend’s alley, I turned to her and asked, “Do you know this?”  With a confident nod of the head, she smiled and raised her hand.  I did a quick scan of the room to size up our chances and spotted a couple of girls struggling to extract this information from their minds.

We had this is the bag.

Since we were obscured by the pair of meaty Goths, I grabbed my girlfriend’s arm and raised it to the heavens, screaming “Right here!  Right here!”  The room collectively shifted their gaze our way, which prompted my now-skittish girlfriend to yank her arm away from my grip and shake her head like a protesting deaf-mute.

Her confidence had vanished.  Along with our tickets.

Mere seconds later, another girl had a Twilight epiphany and quickly shouted out a serviceable answer.  This led us to hang our heads in defeat.  With this opportunity gone, we bolted out of the room and decided to soak our sorrows in alcohol.  But before we did this, we strolled through the autograph area; where (much like last year) I again caught a glimpse of Thomas Jane.  Now, I don’t know the man, but from what I’ve witnessed, he seems to embrace the throngs of waiting nerds with humble enthusiasm and seems to be a nice guy.  Trust me, I have seen actors and actresses treat their fans as though they were riddled with syphilis.  Anyway, Thomas Jane is okay in my book, which will probably warm his heart if he ever reads this.

Another thing I learned from Comic-Con was that, in the future, I should never order the “cheese platter” at the Marriott Hotel adjacent to the Convention Center.  And let me preface this by saying I think the Marriott is a great Hotel (we had an awesome view of the city and a spacious balcony in our room), but when I think of a “cheese platter,” visions of assorted cheeses dance through my head; not a warm plate full of stale crackers, some kind of gelatinous fig loaf, three cubes of heinous-tasting cheeses and three globs of jellies and jams that look like they were violently extracted out of a newborn baby’s ass.  And the worst part?  This stomach-churning concoction cost over ten dollars!  Ten dollars!

After a self-induced vomit and a thorough tongue-scraping, we headed back to the lower Exhibitor Hall, where we were blindsided by stenches that reeked worse than the aromas of the cheese platter festering in my sore guts.  Dizzy and discombobulated, we shambled through the hall in an alcohol and bad-cheese stupor.  Overall, I was fairly unimpressed by the booths this year.  In the past, there have been a couple of standout displays and cool freebies, but this time nothing really grabbed our attention.

Without any incentive to stay, we headed back to the Hotel and drank some more, while taking in an episode of the Tyra Banks show dealing with straight men who performed in gay porn.  Once again, I could feel that cheese platter working its way up my esophagus

After cleaning up, we made our way to a party at the Hard Rock Hotel.  Since I’m not sure if I can comment on the party (if I get the okay, I’ll inform you guys later), I will say that I met quite a few interesting people and ingested enough free booze to knock out a Shetland pony.  Concerned about making it to a screening of the long-in-purgatory horror film Trick R Treat, we exited the party and headed back to the Con, where we encountered yet another long-ass line.

Soon, we were herded into Ballroom 20, where Aint It Cool News guru Harry Knowles moderated a panel featuring director Michael Dougherty and stars Brian Cox and Lauren Lee Smith.  Since actress Anna Paquin didn’t show up (it was her birthday), Michael Dougherty called her cellphone and, while putting it on speaker, had the audience sing “Happy Birthday” to her voice mail.  Then the movie started.

Now, for those of you who have been waiting for Trick R Treat to be released, I can honestly say that the movie is fun, humorous and suspenseful.  It reminded me of Creepshow (the theme music seemed similar and the credit sequence was set-up with panels from a comic book).  I had a blast with it and look forward to catching it again when it comes out on DVD in October.  However, I had the worst group of annoying bastards sitting behind me during the screening, which really tainted the experience.  For one thing, there was a group of guys sitting behind my girlfriend who felt the compelling need to talk about what chicks they banged the previous night and how tasty the pizza they just ate was.  Punctuated in between this fascinating conversation was loud laughter (not related to the movie they were “watching”) and catcalls directed towards the girls onscreen.  To make matters worse, I had two insufferable girls behind me who rhythmically kicked the back of my seat during the duration of the film (despite the fact that I repeatedly whipped around, flashing them the “stink-eye”) and who were nibbling on some unknown foodstuffs that made their lips smack together as if they were gnawing on moist towelettes.

CHOMP!  CHOMP!  SMACK!  SMACK!

And every goddamn thing that happened in the movie was commented on.  I’m all for audience participation, but when every detail of every scene is spoken about, it really destroys the enjoyment factor.  Here’s a sampling of what I heard:

“What kind of shoes is she wearin’?”

“Uh-uh!  Don’t touch that guy!”

“Sookie is so cute.  Sookie, don’t touch that guy!”

“Awwwww.  I want those shoes!”

This went on during the whole film.  Ninety fucking minutes.  Still, Trick R Treat was compelling enough to help ease me through the pain and suffering.

After the film, my girlfriend and I headed back to the Hotel (where we spotted the same two passed-out guys on the chairs next to the bar area…they had been asleep for about four hours) and quickly launched ourselves into bed.  We were sore, sunburned and our livers hurt.

Stay tuned for DAY TWO OF MY COMIC-CON ADVENTURE!