Panels Part 1: Soska Twins, Bones, and SHIELD

I went to tons of panels this year, mostly due to the fact that my boyfriend and I got 4 day tickets with preview night. Before, the time seemed much too precious to waste standing for hours in line just to get into a panel. I still like to stick with the smaller panels, but I did get into one or two popular ones.

1) The Soska Twins

The Soska Sisters, twin directors extraordinaire, were in 2 panels. The first was on Warp Comics, an indie company actually called First Comics that published comics from 1983 to 1991. They are reopening and publishing new material. The majority of the panel was Ken F. Levin talking about the history of the company. While interesting, no one else on the panel really got to say anything. The time could have been used more effectively and even having the audience ask some questions would have been nice too. It was just kind of dull and sad.

The other panel was called Horror on the Panelled Page. In this one, all of the panelists, which included Mark L. Miller, the Soska sisters, Tim Seeley, Brandon Seifert, Matt Pizzolo, Mark Miller, and Adam Egypt Mortimer, were asked questions about their opinions on horror and there was time for questions from the audience. The most memorable question was one from a woman asking how they felt about violence in the real world, heavily implying that it was at least partly their fault for creating horror fiction. Some said that making horror helped them cope with horror in the real world. It allows the viewer to get close to something they normally would not be able to walk away from and leaves them unscathed afterwards. I really enjoyed the panel and I want to read more of some of the panelists' work, such as the Hellraiser graphic novel and the Witch Doctor comic books.

2) Bones

I waited in line for Ballroom 20 for about 2 hours to see Agents of SHIELD and got in just in time to see the Bones panel. I don't watch the show, but I'm a fan of David Boreanaz ever since he was Angel in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, so I figured it would be cool anyway. It turned out to be a blast. The two stars started out by reading scenes from the last season finale, but reading as the opposite character. Deschanel as Booth had a deep, surfer dude kind of voice and Boreanaz as Bones was super high and squeaky. There were spoilers galore. Booth and Bones will finally get married and Boreanaz showed what a proper proposal to Bones would look like. Most of the fan questions were directed at Boreanaz and mentioned his previous Whedon work like what kind of character would Deschanel be. The panel was awesome and hilarious even though I have never once seen the show.

3) Agents of SHIELD

I purposefully avoided any sort of spoilers involving this show so I would be surprised if I somehow made it into the panel. So the panel started with a Q&A, which I thought was odd since they hadn't talked about the show at all yet beyond introducing those on the panel, which were Joss Whedon, Jed Whedon, Clark Gregg, Ming Na Wen, Iain DeCaestecker, Elizabeth Henstridge, Chloe Bennett, Brett Dalton, Jeffrey Bell, and Maurissa Tancharoen. The last question asked about a clip. Joss Whedon mentioned some legal difficulties with Disney, but said we would then watch the whole first episode. It was amazing! There were lots of Whedon alums, such as J. August Richards, Ron Glass, and Colbie Smulders. The writing makes the characters come alive. Each of them has their own flaws and fully realized personalities. Of course there is the trademark Whedon humor and rapidfire dialog. The episode introduces SHIELD outside of the Avengers, some sort of nefarious and unscrupulous organization, and a conspiracy theorist that lives out of her van. I can't wait to see the rest of the show, which premiers September 24 on ABC. Because it isn't FOX, maybe the show will last more than a season or two.

More panels to come!