What’s it actually like to be a Hypable writer at SDCC? Read our daily diary. Friday included some amazing conversations with the Captain America: Civil War screenwriters and the launch party for Starz’s American Gods.

In addition to exhaustive San Diego Comic-Con coverage of all your favorite fandoms, this year Hypable is also bringing you a blow-by-blow blog from each day of SDCC from the perspective of one of our writers. Get a personal, insider’s point of view of how we at Hypable pull off the craziest week of our year and what we do in all the moments that we’re not bringing you breaking news. Spoiler alert: it’s a lot of lining up.

SDCC Day Two: Friday 22 July

On Friday, despite there being many awesome panels that I would have loved to attend including a discussion of Marvel’s Civil War II comic, a live reading of the next Preacher episode, the premiere of DC’s The Killing Joke and even a Nerd HQ event with my beloved Teen Wolf cast, I had binocular tunnel vision for two things and two things only – one eye focused on the presence of Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely, screenwriters of all three Captain America movies and the upcoming Avengers: Infinity War, and the other on the presentation by Starz for their upcoming adaptation of American Gods.

Markus and McFeely were taking part an in intimate Q&A at the Horton Grand Theatre. Horton Grand panels are still officially part of SDCC programming, but unlike events inside the convention center, places at the theater are assigned by lottery, which is drawn in the Sails Pavilion along with all the convention’s limited signing tickets each morning. Drawing for the lottery is quite a process — we got up early and lined up outside of Sails, as they don’t bring that queue in until they clear the queue waiting to get onto the show floor. Certain networks and brands like Fox, WB and, of course, the ever-elusive Funko have their own separate lines, but all of the SDCC-managed limited signings and panels go into one giant queue that gets divided up by specific event once you finally enter the Sails Pavilion. Maybe my own eagerness to get close to the Cap writers was making me paranoid, because despite a very long wait outside before they started divvying up the line, the crowd actually aiming to draw in the lottery for that panel was way smaller than I expected. Once we reached the specified line, I pulled a winner on my first try and the staff allowed anyone who didn’t succeed to immediately loop back around through the short line to try again — I feel like anyone who was really determined to attend this event ended up getting in, but I’m surprised there wasn’t more demand.

By this point it was like, 10:30am, and I should probably mention that I rolled out of bed and headed to the lottery line while still wearing my Gumby pyjamas, so my next order of business was to go back to my hotel, write, eat, prepare my gear and wash my hair (a rare opportunity during SDCC) before lining up for the Markus and McFeely panel at 1pm – it helps that we were staying in the Horton Grand Hotel, attached to the theater itself! Our seats were in the second row and there were plenty of empty spaces – including the entire first row — so I feel like that a lot of people had no idea what they were missing because it was an hour of absolute solid gold for anyone who gives a damn about Steven Grant Rogers. Moderated by Jeff Goldsmith of The Q&A Podcast — an incredibly passionate and invested host, who scored Brownie points with me immediately by opening up with a question about Bucky — the screenwriting team delved deep into exactly what I most care about when it comes to the MCU franchise – the rich character moments which make these movies into so much more than your standard action-driven popcorn flick.

They touched on the original Civil War storyline and whether it was ever in the cards that Steve would die in their version – something I’ve wondered about for a while – and what it meant to introduce Tony and Peter with a parallel to Steve meeting Erskine. They told us about a cut confrontation between Steve and Natasha, in which he throws her off a building. But the majority of the discussion centered around the dynamic between Steve, Bucky and Tony, and what every beat of their actions meant – down to an argument about when the characters should take their helmets off in the final fight, because of the implication of seeing someone’s face versus their costume. For a rabid consumer of meta, this kind of talk is complete candy – I adore the actors, I adore the Russos, but if you want to get into the nitty-gritty heart of Captain America, these are the guys you need to listen to. From day one, they’ve spent hours in the same headspace as fans do, they care in the same way, they analyse in the same way — this was an environment in which characters were constantly referred to by first names only, which is one of my ways of measuring the investment of the speaker. If you’re now mad you missed it, you’re in luck – Goldsmith was able to upload the event as an audio podcast. By the way, I’m the person who asked the final question, about the differences between their Steve and Joss Whedon’s.

After hanging out with Markus and McFeely on the street for a little while and continuing the conversation – the gentlemen seemed more than happy to talk with fans who cared about these movies on the same character-driven level that they work on, even expressing uncertainty about whether the audience cares about such things rather than the explosions – I headed back into the convention center to pick up my reserved seating pass from a Starz rep in order to attend the American Gods panel. We were extremely lucky to get this opportunity, as the room was filled to over capacity, and journalists competed with guests and staff from Starz and Fremantle Media for seats or even a place to stand along the walls. I’ve already recapped the panel in full, but I’ll reiterate here that the footage shown was chillingly beautiful, highlighting famous moments from the book with the careful and colorful cinematography characteristic of a Bryan Fuller show. The crowd was so supportive of the cast – many of whom were newcomers to the SDCC environment — and in awe of the novel’s author Neil Gaiman, welcoming him to the stage with a standing ovation as star Ricky Whittle lead a table-top drumroll. Gaiman is a cultural phenomenon and his obvious support and close involvement with the project offered an immediate assurance to fans wary of adaptations that this one was going to be worth it. My personal investment in American Gods is at an all-time high – until I saw the footage, I didn’t really process that it was actually a thing that was happening in the world or how huge it was going to be, but wow. It’s going to be everything. We’ll have to wait and see how the episodes actually turn out, but I’m calling it now – this will be the most satisfying book-to-screen transformation ever made. Gaiman is also someone I’ve had a personal connection to for around eight years — one of the weirdest aspects of my admittedly rather weird life – so watching him in that environment was a little overwhelming, albeit in a nice, loving way.

Once again, I misjudged the popularity of MarkFeely (as I call them as a collective) – one of the reasons I’d been so keen to get into their Horton Grand panel is because their other appearance at SDCC, a panel called “Are Heroes Born or Made,” took place fifteen minutes after the end of American Gods in one of the convention center’s smaller rooms, and I assumed that it would be popular enough to fill up before I got there. Discussion panels without a particular celebrity draw can be really hit or miss at SDCC – sometimes things you’d never expect to fill up have long lines that leave many fans disappointed — this is particularly common with things like Harry Potter or Avatar: The Last Airbender fan legacy panels. However, this room wasn’t full at all, and was an easy walk-in. It event featured Markus, McFeely, veteran comics writer Christoper James Priest (who Ta-Nehisi Coates credits as the reason a Black Panther movie is on the way) and Christian Alzmann, the Industrial Light and Magic concept artist who, amidst his other work on Star Wars, undertook the tiny little task of designing BB-8.

The question posed by moderator Christian Blauvelt, of BBC.com, was whether greater heroes came from having powers given at birth or gained through circumstance. A fair amount of the discussion was Civil War-based — the screenwriters agree that Steve was born a superhero, that his inherent power is in his heart and attitude and that his body just had to catch up – but the panelists debated characters like Batman, Spider-Man and Iron Man – whom everyone agreed was not, in fact, to this day, someone they consider a superhero at all — as well as how the arcs of Luke Skywalker and Han Solo fit into the concept. Much to my delight, we got to carry on this conversation with Stephen McFeely in the hall after the panel finished, specifically focusing on the Winter Soldier (hi, have you met me) and how his circumstance, of being forced into powers beyond his control and being left with no other options, fits into the topic at hand – we even touched on the concept of Bucky being conscripted to the army back in the day rather than eagerly enlisting like Steve, a concept that’s very dear to me.

Choosing to attend the Heroes panel left me with only half an hour to change from sweaty shorts-and-sneakers-wearing con-goer into a Nice Respectable Industry Professional, but somehow I managed it and made my way over to the rooftop venue where Starz was hosting a private party dubbed “Deadites and Deities,” themed around their properties at the convention — American Gods and Ash Vs. Evil Dead. One of the perks of being an accredited member of the press is invites to events put on by networks or publishing houses we do coverage for — Scholastic is another SDCC party the Hypable staff usually attend — but Starz really know how to throw a celebration. From the ice-sculpture logo at the entrance to the hyper-colored canopy of balloons that roofed the outdoor deck, this was a Party with a capital P, emphasized by the adorable servers in colored wigs who delivered endless sprinkle-topped champagne jello shots, mini-margaritas, tiny serves of tomato soup and grilled cheese, pretzel bites, some chocolate thing I can’t even identify… this is, in addition, of course, to the open bar which also featured an ice sculpture and themed cocktails. There was a 3D photo booth which created a moving GIF picture that you could email to yourself, which the Hypable staff were coerced into trying out due to the photographer being, well, extremely attractive.

Alongside a standard swag table that offered guests the same promotional merchandise that was given out on the con floor, there was also a very cool silk-screen press onsite where we could create our own Ash or American Gods shirts, in a selection of colors and styles, and, just for fun, a variety of free sunglasses littered on the tables to try on and take home. And, of course, all the Starz stars were in attendance — including Lucy Lawless and Bruce Campbell from Ash vs Evil Dead, and the entire line-up of American Gods, plus Bryan Fuller and Neil Gaiman. As American Gods was not doing an official press room at the con, this was an opportunity for the Starz reps to circulate the cast to some of the reporters that may be interested in speaking with them in future, and get to know each other. Fuller, Bruce Langley and Yetide Badaki both welcomed me to the event with big hugs and were happy to chat about their experience so far, and I hope to bring you more from them sometime very soon. A couple of Hypable staffers plucked up their courage to approach Xena, and I was thrilled to catch up with Neil — I can’t keep calling him Gaiman in this context — and introduce him to my friends, who I’m not sure quite believed that we truly did know each other until that point. Kudos to Starz for putting on a party with a genuinely joyful and welcoming atmosphere — I certainly hope for an invite next year.

Of course, life isn’t all play, even at Comic-Con so at about 8:30pm I had to exit the bash in order to actually write about the American Gods panel — fair’s fair, after all.

“A Day In The Life at SDCC” will be published for each day of the convention on Hypable, in addition to our usual SDCC coverage.
Wednesday — Preview Night
Thursday — Day One
Friday — Day Two
Saturday — Day Three
Sunday — Day Four