Aniventure Comic Con 2024

The queue for the Bulgarian Comic Con this year is several times bigger than last year. I thought all the crowds back then were because of the post-covid years, but now it's something huge, half a kilometer long. How will everyone fit?

at least they put the horns back on)

They gave out the new sugar-free Fanta for free - at least some compensation for not being allowed to bring in more than 0.5 l of drinks)

Many chose to leave their Fanta before the entrance)

Aniventure Comic Con has begun

You can watch it live here: https://www.youtube.com/live/psWMV5Yx5Ig

Kevin James Anderson

Got a photo together with Kevin James Anderson

They started asking questions. Kevin J. Anderson had always dreamed of visiting Eastern Europe - he was interested in its history. Before this he had only been to Czechia.

When he started writing, there were no conventions, there was no such connection with fans and interaction.

He started writing at age 8, and published his first story at 12. This month he'll publish the first story he wrote at age 8)

He's not satisfied with what he knows, he wants to constantly learn new things and encounter new things, which is why he loves to travel and to create worlds, characters. When he started writing, he didn't know anyone back then who was interested in comics or science fiction.

It was scary becoming responsible for "Star Wars," he was more of a "Star Trek" fan, before that he had written around 8 books and there were no other "Star Wars" books, and here they asked him to write sequel-books to the films.

He tries to understand the fans and what they want, so when he writes a book, he wants it to be perceived and replayed in your head like another film in the series.

14 books about young Jedi came out every 3 months and he never missed a deadline once. The sequel-books had to be published before Episode I came out in cinemas, because after that, per the contract, they had to publish books tied to the prequel films.

To prepare for writing the books about The X-Files they sent boxes of cassettes with all the episodes that had come out, and they sent versions of episodes that hadn't come out yet and were without special effects. Writing the books didn't have the same constraint as the episode scripts, which had to be released every week.

For the third book they reviewed 38 writers and didn't find a suitable one and came back to KJA again. The third book had to be rewritten twice, because first they had to add a dog that appeared in the show, and then remove it, because the dog got eaten by an alligator before the book came out)

After the release of the last Dune book by Frank Herbert, which ended on a cliffhanger, he waited 10 years for a continuation after the author's death. He waited for the writer's son to continue the series, then he himself wrote to him and asked whether he'd continue the series, or maybe he could help with it. Since then they've been writing books in the series, they've written dozens of books. The world of Dune is very rich, one you can keep discovering and expanding.

Before meeting Brian Herbert he had already read absolutely all of Frank Herbert's books - they immediately started speaking the same language and there were no creative disputes. They rewrite each other's chapters many times and as a result you can no longer say who wrote what.

In the third comic about The X-Files they couldn't show the faces of Mulder and Scully, because the studio had disputes with the actors. It was hard to make a comic where you can't show the characters' faces.

The comics "House Atreides" and "House Harkonnen" won many awards and came out wonderful. The Bulgarian publisher bought the rights to "House Atreides" when it learned that the author would come to Bulgaria. In three months they did the translation and published the first volume of the series, which came out three days ago.

When he wrote the StarCraft book, they sent him a lot of materials about the game, he doesn't play games himself, but his brother-in-law is a fan of the series' games, so he talked with him and pitched ideas, the outline, to convey everything authentically. When he was dictating the book, he himself didn't understand all the terms he was saying. It came out the best StarCraft book and the fans thanked him for understanding and conveying the world.

It's funny how show creators, both then and now, don't realize that using an animal in a show increases the cost and duration of filming several times over. Because the animal might not want to be filmed or might run away and there's nothing you can do about it. For this reason they killed off the cat in the show Mr. and Mrs. Smith.

I went overboard and got, with the author's autograph, three different volumes of three different graphic novel series. Now, for the sake of completeness of the collection, I'll have to order the missing parts online from other countries, since in Bulgaria, I see, they're not available.

By the way, Kevin James Anderson is planning to visit Ukraine after the war ends - his Ukrainian publisher has already invited him.

Overall, this year's Comic Con is turning out more packed than last year's, I think this is connected to the fact that last year Christopher Lambert didn't come at the last moment and there was a window, there was time to have lunch. Today, though, there was no time for lunch, good thing the hotel has a buffet and at breakfast I ate enough for the day ahead.

I didn't attend the Star Wars cosplayers' panel, but there, as I understand it, it's the same as last year, maybe the costumes are different.

The fact that they put the Asia stage near the exit makes it more convenient to get to it from the main stage, but on the other hand the sun from the exit lights up the projector images and you can see them worse, and there they even showed "The Boy and the Heron" in full

Anna Shaffer

When I got back to the hotel, while still in the mood and the atmosphere, I watched the recording of the streamed panel with Anna Shaffer, since at home I'm unlikely to be in the mood.

In places the conversation is interesting, like how she first auditioned for the role of Yennefer, failing the audition spectacularly, and then half a year later successfully passed the audition for the role of Triss, while not knowing for which role and where she was auditioning)

It was only later that she started getting acquainted with the source material to better understand the character and become her. The questions about the hair slipped by quickly)

She's also not interested in fantasy, and considering that the creators of the Witcher series hate the source material, she probably worked well with them)

Overall, I'm not familiar with the Witcher books, but as I understand it, the main complaints about the actress were because of her appearance, not because of how she expresses the character. And by the second season they worked on the appearance better to calm the fans.

The next season of the series is being filmed right now, she flew to Comic Con right in the middle of filming and will then return to it. With the planes there was black magic - she missed the first one, was several hours late for the second, she thought she wouldn't make it to this Comic Con)

For her it was a new thing to act in something that gets such great fan attention and so much feedback. In Harry Potter the character was less important and the times were different in terms of social media.

And in Harry Potter the filming felt like a real school, because by law you had to spend 6 hours on studies regardless of taking part in the filming.

Second day

On the second day there was no longer a queue - I came a bit later, I came half an hour later than yesterday, but got in at the same time. This morning there are fewer events and fewer interested people

Stream of the second day of Aniventure ComicCon 2024: https://www.youtube.com/live/F1WUveKuEbk

Ross Marquand

Ross Marquand immediately started answering fans' questions, the host didn't have time to ask a question. He said that although the role in "The Walking Dead" saved his life, he liked the role of Red Skull most, because since childhood he's been a fan of Marvel, the X-Men.

He really enjoyed voicing Ultron in "What If...?" because he destroyed not just one universe but countless ones and threatened the entire multiverse, but he enjoyed most of all playing Professor X in "X-Men '97," because it's a character from his childhood.

His favorite comic book character is Wolverine. His favorite shows are Fallout and The Boys. And his favorite episode of Invincible is the pilot because of the ending.

He's shocked that he lasted so long in "The Walking Dead," he thought they'd kill him off after the first season, because in the show a lot of main characters died.

Every actor's path is very different and there's no universal path to achieving success. You should focus on what makes you unique, what's unique in you, and bet on that. Keep trying constantly, try everything, train.

He'd like to play Red Omega, because he's similar to Wolverine, but Wolverine has already been played perfectly by Hugh Jackman and now no one else should play Wolverine.

They wanted to make a musical episode of "The Walking Dead," but the TV channel wouldn't let them) His favorite season is the 4th, and the hardest thing was the arc with Negan: it was very hard to constantly reproduce and play the emotion of fearing you could die next.

His favorite book is "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut, but he doesn't want to play anyone from it.

The zombies in the Dead ate tofu in cherry or mint syrup, some were allergic to cherry, so they ate tofu in mint syrup and had to pretend they liked it. The most disgusting thing he saw was when Negan killed a character and during the break between takes the actor walked around with a knocked-out eye that hung and dangled when he nodded his head during conversations)

His favorite battle in Invincible is the fight in the subway at the end of the first season, he also likes the fight with the Viltrumites in the second season and the fight in the finale of the pilot episode. The battles where he dies he doesn't like, he dies too often in the show)