Soylent Green is PEOPLE!!

San Diego Comic Con 2019 (the 50th anniversary) is once again upon us, and the crowds (limited to around 130,000 now) once again make this glorious, wildly over-the-top celebration of pop culture feel like a curious mix of “The Wizard Of Oz” and “Soylent Green.”

Preview Night.

From Seth MacFarlane’s FOX TV series “The Orville”: The Starship Orville and pulser weapon. I’ve come to love this show, even if it’s a near 1:1 of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.” The characters have really taken root with me.





Just when you thought it was safe to attend Comic Con…. JAWS, the graphic novel! From Factory Entertainment.





Frankenstein’s monster…fresh as a daisy, from the CFX booth.





A Star Wars Imperial stormtrooper takes an admiring glance at fellow denizens of his far, far away home galaxy…





Famous Monsters of Filmland, a magazine first started by the late great Forrest “Uncle Forry” Ackerman. FMOF was my very first magazine subscription as a kid. Nice to see it back in bookstores again…





As evidenced by the IDW booth, there are actual comic books to be sold at Comic Con…





A chilling display for the movie and subsequent AmazonPrime TV series, “Snowpiercer.” Cool…







“One giant leap for fan-kind.”

NASA’s booth for the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11’s landing on the moon (this Saturday, July 20th).





Movie FX powerhouse WETA’s booth includes this imaginative steampunkish fellow.





For the 40th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s classic ALIEN: the commercial towing vehicle USCSS Nostromo, still unable to raise Antarctica traffic control…





The Marine starship USS Sulaco, from James Cameron’s snappy sequel, ALIENS…





The CBS-All Access booth offers a video-virtual tour of the Starship USS Discovery NCC-1031; have to try this one myself sometime this week…





Hesitant conventioneers try to decide whether they want to get beamed up or not…





Cosplay.

My wife’s cosplay of “Good Omens” angel ‘Michael’; in a photo taken for the Orange County Register.

Cosplay is the soul of these conventions. I could very easily imagining attending a convention that was nothing but cosplay, and it’d be every bit as rewarding as if it were crammed full of exclusive panels and celebrities.

A “Green Mile” cosplayer I’d met last year at Ontario California’s Comic Con Revolution. His real name is Sherman (Tank) and is a professional celebrity impersonator; a perfect match for the late Michael Clarke Duncan!





Me in my Fred Flintstone getup (been cosplaying as Fred for 10 years now), posing with the Geico Insurance Gecko.





A strip of IMDB bacon (any relation to Kevin?) interviews cosplayers posing as Steven and Robin in their wonderfully goofy nautical Scoops Ahoy uniforms from “Stranger Things” third season (my own review of which is in this month’s archives).





A family that cosplays together stays together; “Shuri” from Black Panther, “Dorothy” from The Wizard of Oz, and “Superman” himself (loved the trunks!). They’re adorable!





“It” is back to scare the s#!t out of Comic Con attendees….





Brilliant “Stargate” Anubis cosplay!





‘Tom Servo’ crossplay from “Mystery Science Theater 3000”; one of my favorite series from the 1990s that I still enjoy today, especially since Netflix has taken up the gauntlet and revived this hilarious show.





Followed by an amazing “Marge Simpson” crossplay… I just love his stylized recreation of Marge’s trademark blue hair.





The “Ilia-probe” from “Star Trek: The Motion Picture”; I’d seen this cosplayer at the Star Trek Las Vegas convention, and she was a big hit in this year’s “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” 40th anniversary panel as well (details on that one in my next post, I promise…).





A cosplayer does a dead-on recreation of Yaphet Kotto’s surly engineer “Parker” from 1979’s ALIEN.

Coming Soon… Son of San Diego Comic Con Megapost, The Sequel!

There will be another Comic Con Megapost tomorrow (barring any loss of internet at my hotel) which will chronicle Days One and Two, including a tour of the Jean-Luc Picard “First Duty Starfleet Museum”, Marc Zicree’s “Space Command” series, Star Trek Deep Space Nine’s “What We Left Behind” event, 40th anniversary panels for both “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” and “ALIEN”, as well as panels for the late great Stan Lee (part of the reason Comic Con exists) and the Harry Potter stage play, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” (not a big HP fan, but I attended…).

More to come. Stay tuned!