A Fangirl’s Inside Look at Comic-Con 2014 A.K.A. Geek Christmas

Every year, I loving refer to Comic-Con as Geek Christmas. And for me, it truly is. I get to interview the people responsible for the shows and films geek out over, see my friends and hang out in San Diego – my favorite city in the country. This year was no exception. I experienced the highlight of my career, and what will probably be one of the top ten moments of my life – I interviewed William Shatner and Betty White… at the same time (Interview coming soon!). That’s right, you read that right! I might as well retire now, because this job doesn’t get any better than that.

Let’s start at the beginning of Comic-Con 2014 experience though. My partner in crime, Jenn Steele, and I flew out to California on Monday night. We meet up with our core con-going group: Robert Prentice and Tom Gardiner (Three If By Space), Meredith (Examiner) and Aaron Sagers (Blastr). For the next two days, we geeked out in the company of good friends, some Top Gun BBQ and con-preparation.

Comic-Con 2014 Preview Night

When Wedneday (Preview Night) rolled around, we picked up our passes early, and were ready for what I affectionately refer to as “Run of the Nerds” at 6pm. When Comic-Con opens the doors for Preview Night, it’s everyone man/woman for their selves. While Jenn books it for books, I immediately hit up all the TV and film booths – looking for rad giveaways that I can pass along to FanBolt readers! However, this year was light on truly awesome Con swag from the floor (Our best upcoming giveaways came directly from FX networks – not from the floor). I did pick up some posters, Chapstick (you can really never have too much), the TV guides over at the WB booth among the never ending flow of Mike Tyson bags…. which I predicted would happen before I even left for Con.

Once Preview Night concluded, we retreated and retweeted to our rooms in preparation for Day 1.

Comic-Con 2014 Day 1

Day 1 included the pressrooms for Penguins of Madagascar (where sadly Benedict Cumberbatch did not show – talk about a room of unhappy press) and CW’s Reign (Adelaide Kane is beyond stunning and charming). That night we headed out to mtvU’s Fandom Awards and the Batman: Arkham Knight Party. We ended the night at The Witches of East End Party with our crew!

Comic-Con 2014 Day 2

Day 2 was insane. This was the day of overlapping pressrooms, and me needing to clone myself. Jenn and I started out the day with a visit to the Power Rangers Press Lounge, where we got to check out some cool upcoming toys.

Next, it was off to the press rooms! First we had Bates Motel which I had to leave early for Horns (Daniel Radcliff’s new flick which comes out on Halloween), Dhalyn had Teen Wolf and The Originals, Jenn had iZombie, and then I booked it to Falling Skies – which I had to leave early for Archer, and then Jenn finished up the day in Sleepy Hollow. A crazy day of pressrooms though it was, we worked hard – so we play hard that night. We went to The Flash/Buzzfeed party that night followed by Geeknation (we’re going to be writing a piece soon about this clothing line) where we called it a night.

Buzzfeed/CW Party

Comic-Con 2014 Day 3

Day 3 had a rough start. Gotham was running late, so I only managed to grab some amazing photos of Jada Pinkett-Smith before I had to book it to The Vampire Diaries

Let’s talk about The Vampire Diaries for a moment. I had a rather interesting experience with fandom shippers (a shipper is a fan of a certain relationship or potential relationship on a show or film) that should really be an article all of its own. I tweeted out the following on the morning of Day 1.

I kind of adore that 95% of the Q’s I was submitted by fans for #TVD are #Delena Q’s. #Bamon fans need to get on this! haha

— Emma Loggins (@emmaloggins) July 24, 2014

Seems like a harmless statement right? It stirred over 2,000 tweets in 24 hours. We’re going to go a tangent here that needs to happen. First, let me say this – FanBolt is “by the fans, for the fans,” so saying I can’t have opinions is an invalid argument. I am a fan. I get to be a fan of whatever pairing of characters I want to be. That being said, I’m not against any shippers, and we always ask questions for all of them. However, fans of Stelena (Stefan and Elena on The Vampire Diaries) took the above tweet to mean that I support abusive relationships, because I do enjoy the pairing of those characters – specifically Delena. Say what???!!! I actually got death threats from those shippers because of that tweet. I still can’t not really process all the ways it was vastly misinterpreted…. Can’t we all just say we love the show at the end of the day – and it’s cool you like it for whatever reason you like it? Because THAT is what keeps it on the air – All of the shipper fandoms that tune in. I love when fans are passionate, but again my tweet was just a statement. Not me saying I support abusive relationships or that I was only going to ask certain questions in the press room. In fact, we asked about all of potential pairings – and the only one they would talk about was Bamon (We have more videos coming!). We can’t help that – and we don’t mind it, because we love Bamon too. I love that these fans are passionate, but let’s all be nice and just enjoy the series.

But I digress.

While I finished up Vampire Diaries, Jenn was in Defiance, we meet up in the Once Upon a Time press room before I jetted off to Constantine – we ended the day at the NBC Party. This is our 5th year attending the NBC Party, which every year manages to outdo itself from the year before. This year was a new location that by far surpassed the Hard Rock Hotel.

After NBC wrapped, I headed off in the Gaslamp district to a rather awesome event for my current favorite series – FX’s The Strain. The event held a screening of the first two episodes from the series along with a number of cool relics from set. Check them out below.

NBC Party Photos

The Strain Screening Event

Comic-Con 2014 Day 4

Day 4 – It’s always a bittersweet feeling on the last day of Con. You can barely make it out of bed in the morning because of exhaustion, but you have to because you need to pack and get to your first press room. So we packed, weeding out pieces of swag that would push our suitcases over the 50 pound mark – thus causing the insanely inflated overweight luggage fee.

All in all, it was another great Comic-Con. I’m so thankful and appreciative of all the work the convention, publicists, talent and sponsors put into this event every year. And of course, super grateful for my dream team this year – Jenn and Dhalyn!

Geek Christmas may be over for 2014, but what we like to call “Nerdi Gras” is right around the corner with Atlanta’s Dragon Con the end of this month- and FanBolt will be there in full swing! Hope you enjoyed our inside look at Comic-Con 2014!

More coverage from Comic-Con 2014 to come as we post our interviews!