Well I am back from my first Comic Con and glad to say I survived and suitably un-scarred to actually consider going again. Consider being the key word and definitely not next year being another set of key words!

I had a fantastic time with plenty to talk about but I think if I venture into talking about everything very little will make sense. Here’s a brief run down of what I got up to:

Thursday – Middleman Cast Table Reading and Signing
The first official Comic Con event for me was the full cast reading of the final episode of The Middleman. A most excellent and severely underrated series from Javier Grillo Marxauch, based on his comic book. Full cast meant full cast with Matt Keeslar, Natalie Morales, Mary Pat Gleason, Brit Morgan, Jake Smollett, Brendan Hines, Mark Sheppard and Javier all in attendance. Definitely the highlight of my Comic Con being such a big fan, so it was hard for anything to top this!

The panel afterwards was a quick affair, but still very awesome meeting the entire cast at what was probably the one and only chance it’ll ever happen.

And here are some images from the panel: (More on my flickr)

Friday
Friday was a day for me to sit in Ballroom 20 and do very little else. Main reason for sitting there from the first panel, which was Stargate Universe, all the way to the end of Bones. Yes I’m full aware that Joss was there and there was a Dollhouse panel and episode viewing and all that. Sadly I had somewhere more exciting to be that evening.

Before I get to that all the panels. Firstly Stargate Universe (Panel photos here):

Long time Stargate fan. As long as I can remember. Sadly I’m now fairly jaded over the franchise. Atlantis left me cold and the constant crossovers left my eyes rolled permanently in the back of my head. SGU’s clearly trying to be the edgier older brother, but I’m not sure if it’ll work. I wasn’t sure I was going to give it a try but the panel convinced me otherwise.

Next up was the Battlestar Galactica: The Plan/Caprica panel featuring Ron Moore, David Eick, Jane Espenson, Esai Morales, Eddie Olmos and special appearance by Grace Park. I love the BSG guys so very much! Eddie’s fantastic and he’s just got a knack for geeing the crowd up, which he did very impressively. They had a trailer and some footage from The Plan, which I can not wait for.

Photos from the panel:

Third panel up was The Big Bang Theory, of which I have absolutely no interest in. I don’t find it funny at all. It annoys me mostly! However the panel was actually quite amusing. Clearly got none of the in-jokes from the series, but the actors were very entertaining and the panel moved along pretty quickly.

Then came one of the main draws of Ballroom 20 for that day – 24 panel! 24 panel with Kiefer Sutherland that is! Along with Mary Lynn Rajskub, Anil Kapoor, Freddie Prinze Jr., Katee Sackhoff, Sean Callery, David Fury, Manny Coto, Brannon Braga and more, I think!

They showed some footage of the upcoming season with Katee, Freddie, Mary and Kiefer in which looked awesome. Poor Freddie was reminded by the attendees that his wife had probably a lot more fans than him (awww!) and Katee and Mary looked absolutely stunning as if they were off to an awards ceremony!

Photos of the panel (More photos on flickr):

One of the last full panels for me for the day was the Bones panel. Here we were expecting Emily Deschanel, David Boreanaz and Hart Hanson. Unfortunately David wasn’t able to attend because he didn’t want to leave his wife, who’s very near her due date! Still, there was an amusing video from him which they showed to the attendees. I’m not a massive Bones fan, but it was a good panel. Emily is crazy in the best kind of way!

Photos of the panel (More photos on flickr):

Now onto the more exciting thing for the night – the Battlestar Orchestra concert at the House of Blues! Bear McCreary conducts and plays in his orchestra a host of BSG tunes taken from all four seasons and some new things from Caprica and The Plan.

As an official ’score whore’ and someone who’s a massive fan of Bear’s work on Battlestar this night was amazing. The music live was nothing near what I had imagined it – it was fucktonnes better! A phrase said by Brendan McCreary, Bear’s brother and music man himself with his own band – Brendan’s band.

The night was hosted by Eddie Olmos and Grace Park but a host of other BSG alums also turned up including Michael Hogan, Michelle Forbes, Richard Hatch, David Eick, Nicki Clyne, Michael Trucco, Michael Nankin and probably someone else I’ve forgotten. Photos of the cast here.

The live music’s going to be released on CD and DVD, both of which I’ll be purchasing. If you want to know more about the live shows that Bear does visit his blog for videos, photos and more.

Saturday – Chuck and Jeffster!
Saturday had one goal for me – Chuck panel with the entire cast – pretty much! The cast in attendance were Zachary Levi, Yvonne Strahovski, Adam Baldwin, Joshua Gomez, Ryan McPartlin, Sarah Lancaster, Mark Christopher Lawrence, Vik Sahay and Scott Krinsky.

I knew there was going to be something special about it and there was – JEFFSTER!

There was a great video before the panel started and then there was a live performance by Jeffster themselves! They sang Fat Bottom Girls and I’ve never seen a con crowd as hyped up as that got us! It was absolutely amazing.

The panel itself was full of hijinks and hilarity with a beard war clearly going on between Joshua Gomez and Zachary Levi. Joshua’s probably winning with the pure size of it – it was huge!

There was lots of love for Adam, of course, from the Whedon fans. Zachary did his best to poo poo Firefly – funny stuff!

See the photos (And of course more Chuck panel photos on flickr):

That was then m done in terms of panels. The rest of the time was spent mooching around the main exhibit hall and just taking it all in.

Comic Con is sheer madness.