Nerd Events Now Covered by Satellite Radio

Sirius Satellite Radio announces coverage of the upcoming Star Wars nerd fest known as Star Wars Celebration V.

A pretty cool idea really and one that could definitely be applied to coverage of panels and interviews for a more interesting fan event such as The San Diego Comic-con. Let's hope the staff at Comic-con International take notice of this idea. You could be sitting at home or walking the floor of the event and listening to the next big Hollywood panel in Hall H while it was happening.

Here are the offcial details for Sirius' plans for SWC5:


STAR WARS CELEBRATION RADIO
It’s four days of everything Star Wars™. This special limited-run channel takes over SIRIUS XM Stars Too from August 12-15, broadcasting from the official Lucasfilm convention.

The limited-run channel will feature interviews with stars from the Star Wars movies, as well as behind-the-scenes talent and celebrity fans. And that’s not to mention the droid races, costume pageants and more.

Star Wars Celebration Radio is hosted by Raw Dog Comedy’s Mark Says Hi and Cinemagic’s Dave Ziemer. Tune in from Thursday, August 12 through Sunday, August 15.

SDCC '10 and the Hyatt Hotel mess continues

Pretty damn funny to learn today via the San Diego Comic-con's twitter feed that one of the hotels next door is onto many of the attendees who thought they were being sly by registering at the hotel via another event that same week.

This Hyatt has historically been one of the main places to stay during Comic-con, primarily filled up by professionals and creators. This year they took themselves off the list as they are hosting a completely different event involving professionals in the health care industry. The event includes such speakers as Al Gore. Many con attendees thought they were being smart by registering for rooms during the con via the health event's website.

The San Diego Manchester Hyatt and the con's organization basically put everyone on alert today that they are onto the scammers and those reservations will be canceled.

Only smart nerds could see that action coming a mile away.

Also on this topic and as a public service announcement, the last day available of the con, Sunday July 25th, is just about sold out. Last check confirmed about 94% of the passes for the day are sold. Very last chance for anyone to get in this year.

Snooze you loose fanboys

The 4-DAY PASSES FOR THE 2010 SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON ARE NOW SOLD OUT!

Holy Shit!

No one even really knows what's going on during next year's event. You are going to see record scalper prices for these passes next summer on ebay.

Single day passes will likely go on sale very soon but look for those to now sell twice as fast. Especially the Friday and Saturday badges first.

Thankfully the Bitter Geeks obtained their badges!

SDCC 2010 4 Day Passes Almost Sold Out...IN NOVEMBER!

The calendar says November 3rd, 2009. Comic-con begins July 22nd and apparently the geek world is abuzz over the news that all available four day passes (not single day passes) for the event are nearly sold.

WTF?

Can we say now officially this show is no longer for or about the comic nerds? Comic fans have never been that hardcore about purchasing passes to any related event this far in advance.

This is now a total Hollywood love festival. When you have thousands of teenage GIRLS spending several nights sleeping in front of the San Diego Convention Center to get into a COMIC BOOK CONVENTION so they can wet themselves attending a 45 minute Twilight cast panel then you have a completely new event.

The Twilight sequels are planned one a year back to back which means another cast panel at the event in 2010 and 2011. No matter if New Moon completely sucks or is the biggest film of the year, you can bet all those girls that attended the con in 2009 are already buying up passes and planning their invasion for 2010.

The Twilight army is not the sole reason the con is selling out so fast for 2010 but they are a prime example of what is now the inevitable evolution of the San Diego Comic-con.

Prediction: If Comic-con International remains in the San Diego Convention Center for years to come, the show will need to split into two separate events. One for Comic Book publishers, creators, dealers and fans and one for everything else the show is evolving into. The pressure to raise exhibition rates will be too much for the average comic dealer and publisher to bear. There are many pop culture, Hollywood, mass retail, tech based would be participants with fistfuls of cash pounding on the convention center door dying to set up.

If you plan to attend the show next year for the full four days, buy ‘em soon or you’ll be crying in yer long box if you wait to buy your tickets in 2010.

SDCC 2009 Screw ups - Runner Up, Mattel

By our reckoning, Mattel Comic-con exclusives were the second most in demand of the event behind DC Direct’s Green Lantern 5-figure set (which also suffered major foul ups).

To their credit, at least Mattel learned a valuable lesson from last year’s show and moved the sale of their exclusives out of their show booth and over to a separate sale booth. However, they greatly underestimated the crush of the crowds everyday that wanted to buy their merchandise. The booth and the aisles all around it were a zoo from the moment the door opened on preview night. From the start, every Mattel employee told everyone that was turned away daily the same lie…”not to worry, we have rationed out new inventory to arrive everyday of the show. So you’ll have plenty of opportunity to come back and try again.”

It was complete bullshit or they simply changed their minds on Friday and decided to sell through everything they had. By Thursday morning they had sold out of the He-Man artbook. By the end of Friday, they had completely sold out of several of the most in demand figure exclusives including Wonder Twins sets with Gleek, from the Masters of the Universe they had sold the ’09 He-Ro exclusive along with He-Man, Beast Man and Skeletor. Aside from their purchasing limit of two copies per customer of the He-Man book, they never limited the number of toy exclusives one could buy.

We know the Mattel staff couldn’t give a rip but how about some consideration for the poor bastards that could only purchase single day tickets to the con? If one could only attend the show on a Saturday or Sunday and Mattel kept telling people stock would be there but lied about it, that’s a screw job. We call the Mattel Toy Shop or Matty Shop or whatever the hell they call themselves, the second biggest f*ck ups of the 2009 Comic-con.

Hey Mattel, next year, shop limit should be 2 figures per person, per day. Weeds out the scalpers in line loading up. Second, figure out how to reprint the He-Man book. Comic Book companies do this all the time. Add new content, change the cover, add a figure as a bonus, whatever, but figure it out.

And by the way, as we write this post, we noticed MattyCollector.com still has not listed any of the Mattel SDCC exclusives (left over) on it's site as promised. In comparison, the Hasbro Toy Shop has had it's con exclusives up for sale since the Monday after the show ended.

San Diego Comic-con 2009- The Costumes.

A few of the nerds in cosplay around the show. While there were plenty of costumes to be seen on the floor of the event, there were noticeably less of them compared to last year. Especially in the first couple of days of the show. I also recognized many of the same geeks in the same outfits worn last year walking around.

Look...if you are a gal that wants to show up at this event every year as a Princess Leia in her metal bikini from 'Return of the Jedi', it's not cool, you are screaming to the world that you have serious issues. And what's the deal with all the Pirates walking around every day? There are more pirates than Stormtroopers now roaming the con. Deadpool costumes were everywhere this year. By far, he was the number one choice of super-wannabe costumes for the geeks.

San Diego Comic-con 2009- The Crowds.

The San Diego convention center is packed with all walks of humanity both in and around it nearly 24 hours a day for five straight days. If you don't like crowds or waiting in lines, brother this con ain't for you.

Here's some examples, photos we took during the course of the event this year.

Dan Didumdum survives Comic-con but DC is in trouble.

DC had zip for the fans this year at Comic-con. The San Diego Comic-con is where the major comic publishers make all their big announcements to get the fanboys excited about the line's future. This typically includes surprise creator deals, new character or series launches, big crossover series events, licensing news, etc.

The only thing Dan Didio preached repeatedly during the show was 'Blackest Night'. The big, hit 2009 DC event already in progress. Sure DC had editorial plans they touted during the show but it's hard to find evidence any of it will quickly save the sinking ship. 'Blackest Night' is the only hit Dano has for the foreseeable future to keep him employed so that's the tune he kept singing all weekend.

We've never seen a Comic-con where a publisher wasn't placing marketing emphasis on the future. Our Didio firing watch continues. And after this show, we're feeling pretty good about it.

Back from Comic-Con...holy shit.

The Bitter Geeks endured five days of fun, celebrities, nerds, bad food, strange smells, plenty of pain and now, our wallets are completely empty. While there was a lot of great stuff to see and do at the show, there were also plenty of screw ups daily. Major ones by a few big vendors. We'll get to those details one by one later.

For an event themed on comic books, there was barely any comic news announcements to get excited about. Over 6000 New Moon fans overran the show inside and out for the first couple of days until the panel was over. Then the film cast ran out of town as fast as they could trying to escape from 12 to 17 year old girls and their mothers. There were noticeably less costumed freaks roaming the floor looking for attention over the weekend. Perhaps the recession is making it harder for the cosplayers to buy duct tape, cardboard and paint.

Out of control TV and film marketing swallowed the Gaslamp District. Ice Cream trucks handing out free popsicles and copies of Playboy (with ID shown!) alongside NBC trucks promoting the next lame sitcoms and dramas.

More to come as we recover. Attending this show is like running a five day marathon...right now we feel like these poor bastards...

SDCC09...Oh Sideshow, how you disappoint...

What the hell happened to this company?

On the eve of Comic-con Sideshow released a bunch of announcements and sneak peeks. No doubt we'll see more at the show.


Three count 'em three more Iron Man sculpted pieces in various scales and at various retails. I don't know how many Iron Man pieces SS has come up with to date but besides the X-Men's White Queen, it's clear SS thinks these two are the most popular characters in the Marvel Universe. Oh there's also a new Venom statue despite the fact Venom hasn't been cool since the third Spider-Man film ruined him.

Also new in the SS Marvel lineup is the Scarlet Witch's chest. May or may not be a new Adam Hughes designed Comiquette.


Then we have a new or should I say old Indiana Jones from the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull 1/6th scale figure. Likely coming sometime in 2010...only nearly two years after the fourth Indy film was in theaters. Nice timing SS! Finger on the pulse baby!

We also see more overpriced figure environments listed. Anyone buying these at full price is a class 'A' sucker. Then to round it off, we still have yet more overpriced Lord of the Rings statues and the schlepping for Hot Toys superior products.

Oh Sideshow...you're going to have to work much harder than this during Comic-con to impress anybody. Get your shit together. Look around the con at your competition...everyone else is improving while you hammer out the same old crap or overpriced lameness.

COMIC KHAAAAAAAANNN!!!!!

It's finally here!!

The Bitter Geeks are off to the San Diego Comic-Con!

Let the madness begin!

SDCC Programing Leaks

Here's a handy dandy blog link that lists all the San Diego Comic-Con programing as it is either officially announced or just plain leaked:

San Diego Comic Con 2009 Announcements & Rumors

Maybe it's just us but it sure looks like a lot more TV and Film promotion take over this event every year. Case in point, here is a look at this year's street banners already going up around town for the con. The banners this year promote the upcoming James Cameron Avatar film.


Courtesy of SDCC's own twitter page.

Comicon is ONE MONTH away from today!

And it will bring us much pleasure...

and oh so much pain....

Still, we can't wait!

Countdown to Nerd Prom

The 2009 San Diego Comic-Con will soon be upon us and the Bitter Geeks will be braving the masses.

Of course there will be plenty of fine websites out there that will cover every new announcement and panel up to the minute along with posting thousands of pics of toys, comics and smiling nerds in homemade costumes.

You will find cool stuff like this:


But then there's the ugly side and plenty of crap like this:

And this is a dude...WTF, right? Some things should just stay in Mom's basement and never see the light of day.

We can't wait.