Tag Archives: Stan Lee

Sunday at the 2010 Phoenix Comicon – Super Happy Funtimes, Eureka, Meeting Stan Lee

This is the last of three posts about the 2010 #PHXCC. If you're looking for the other two posts … you know, I'm not going to link them for you, because I think that would insult your intelligence. You know how to find them.

Sunday:

I woke up Sunday feeling like Monty Python lied when they said that 37 wasn't old. I hurt all over the place, especially my legs from dancing on Saturday, and my arms from drumming for close to two hours straight in Rock Band the night before. In fact, two days later, I still feel sore.

I ate breakfast with my friends Amy and Boyan and their friend Brian, and walked over to the convention center.

"Wow, this does not look like a Sunday crowd," Amy said.

"Yeah, this is as crowded as Fridays usually are," I said.

We made our way past the General Lee, KITT, and an amazing Ecto 1 that had the world's littlest Ghostbuster posing in front of it for a picture. I sat down at my table in the vendor's hall for about two hours before John Scalzi and I had Super Happy Fun Times with John And Wil (woah – my fingers just tried to type Whil).

John has a great recap at his blog, which I encourage you to read because it saves me from doing one of those "What Scalzi said" posts. 

… are you still here? John's post has VIDEO of us amusing ourselves and even some of the audience! Go! Go! Come back when it's over.

Okay. Now, aren't you glad you did that?

Anne asked me how that panel went when I got home. She specifically wanted to know how The Thing, which is what we'd all been calling the Unicorn Pegasus Kitten, went over.

"I think it was received pretty much exactly how we'd hoped, with equal parts WTF and FTW."

Hey, I just realized that WTF is just FTW backwards. Think about that for a minute, Internet, and ponder its deeper meaning.

Hey, I just told that to Twitter. The response is about 95%: Mind. Blown. and 5% Hey, stupid, welcome to 2005. To which I reply: "I know, right?" And "So sorry I'm not as on top of things as you are, Mister Internet Guy" as appropriate.

Hey, now let's get back to the post in progress…

I assured Anne that if – if - the Unicorn Pegasus Kitten were to hang in our house in some form, it would be confined to my office (ha! like something this epic can be confined, you foolish mortal woman!) and share space with The Velvet Wesley. 

HA! HA! 'SHARE SPACE' SEE WHAT I DID THERE? HA!

Um. Maybe the second cup of coffee wasn't such a good idea. Let's finish up before this gets too weird:

After John and I finished, I had about 30 minutes to eat food and play HSD Button Men with Boyan (his Cheerleader defeated my Goth Girl 2-1, on account of me not having a d4 in my bag for some reason) before I dropped in on Jaime Paglia's Eureka panel.

Jaime brought a preview from my episode All The Rage with him, and it was the first time the audience or I got to see any of it. I was delighted, and Jaime told all of us that he was really happy with the episode and the way I portrayed Doctor Parrish. He implied that there was a very strong possibility that I'd get to come do more episodes in the back half of the season. I think the audience was almost as excited to learn that as I was.

I stayed on the panel and sort of moderated it until it was over, and then we both had to get to the airport. We went in different cars, because we were going on different airlines, but we ended up in terminals that were connected by corridors and electric walkways. I texted him that if he had time before his flight, I'd buy the beer. He said he only had about 20 minutes, but he was waiting with Felicia Day and Stan Lee, because they were all on the same flight, so why didn't I come over and say hello?

I could have met Stan Lee at Emerald City Comicon this year, but I didn't know if he was awesome or cranky, and I didn't want to chance it. I found out after my window of opportunity had closed that he was awesome, and I've regretted it ever since. I wasn't going to make the same mistake twice.

I did some quick math, figured it would take about 7 minutes for me to get to their gate if I sprinted, and then did that. I felt like I was going to collapse when I got there, but I totally made it.

"Hey! You made it!" Jaime said when I got there, walking the last two gates to get my breathing under control.

"Yeah, I, uh … I did." Well, at least I wasn't gasping.

"This is Stan," Jaime said.

Stan Lee extended his hand, and I shook it. "Thank you for everything you've done," I said.

"What did I do?" He asked.

"You made my childhood awesome," I said. I was totally into Marvel until I discovered DC's New and Prestige format when I was about 14, and decided that Marvel books weren't dark enough for my dark, tortured, totally mature teenage self … but until then, I was all about Hulk and Fantastic Four and Silver Surfer.

"Maybe you should give me some money, then," he said, with a wry grin.

"I did!" I said, "pretty much all of my non-videogame spending was on your comics when I was a kid!"

He laughed a genuine laugh and I forget what happened next because I made Stan Lee smile at me.

Oh, and for all of you "Pics or it didn't happen" people: http://tweetphoto.com/24832844. Seriously.

We all talked for a few minutes, something really awesome happened, and then their flight was called for boarding. I wished them all safe travels, and ran back to my terminal, because I got it into my head that my plane left at 6:45, when it actually boarded at 6:45. I felt pretty stupid, but I had enough time to get a beer after all, which was nice.

The flight home was annoying as hell: loud kids who were old enough to know better with parents who didn't care we were all forced to share a small space together, and a guy next to me who decided that his seat was for him, and my seat was for his elbow … but if that's my biggest complaint of the entire weekend, then I'd say it was a pretty good one.

tl;dr: The con this weekend was great. I had a lot of fun, nothing sucked, and it was wonderful to see so many of my friends. I met a few thousand people, and talked quite a bit with hundreds of my fellow geeks about the stuff that we love. I sold all my books, and most of my pictures, and most importantly, shared some wonderful moments with people I love. I also got to meet Stan Lee, and make him laugh.