The top 5 Comic-Con @ Home panels to check out on Saturday
Comic-Con International may not be drawing the usual 130,000-plus fans to San Diego this year, but that hasn’t stopped the event’s 51st edition from transitioning its fan-filled panels into an at-home version.
Saturday brings a Keanu Reeves double header (“Bill & Ted Face the Music” and the “Constantine” 15th anniversary), Mexican wrestling, panel appearances by Neil deGrasse Tyson, Kristen Wiig, Guillermo del Toro, former NASA astronaut Dr. Mae Jemison, and the stars of “Wynonna Earp,” “Stumptown” and Peacock’s “Brave New World.” There are also numerous chats dealing with race and gender in comics. Here are five panels that we’ll be tuning in for today:
Mexico’s Magnificent Stop-Motion Seven, 2 p.m.
Stop-motion is something of a niche within the broader field of animation, and Mexico’s experimental scene celebrating the exquisitely handcrafted form is below the radar to many in America. This panel will shine a spotlight on some of the country’s award-winning stop-motion animators, including Karla Castañeda, who is collaborating with Guillermo del Toro on his leaps into the medium.
Tune in and get a glimpse at some of the more thoughtful animated shorts in recent years. Castañeda’s “La Noria” has a somber tone and uses the fragility of stop-motion to capture the heartbreak of a family. Luis Téllez’s “Viva el Rey” brings to life the drama of a chess match to look at the toils of a battle. Sofía Carrillo’s “La Casa Triste” looks at our collections of stuff — in this case a family’s knickknacks — and how junk to one is a treasure with a story to tell to someone else. Explore the work of these artists and more and come away with some new things to watch this weekend.
— Todd Martens
For the first time in 51 years, San Diego Comic-Con goes virtual, leaving a lonely landscape in the usually raucous streets of the city’s Gaslamp Quarter.
“Bill and Ted Face the Music,” 3 p.m.
I was sorely tempted to go with “Best and Worst Manga of 2020” in this slot, for those dipping their toes in the whirlpool of Japanese comics and looking for expert advice. Then I figured “Bill and Ted” fans have waited 29 years and counting since 1991’s “Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey” ... they deserve a virtual hang with the Wyld Stallyns! Keanu Reeves, Alex Winter and Death himself (William Sadler) promote the third film in the franchise, “Bill and Ted Face the Music,” along with other major figures from the production. Dean Parisot (“Galaxy Quest”) directs; Kevin Smith moderates. By the way, Samara Weaving (so good in “Ready or Not”) is on the panel as well.
— Michael Ordoña
“Peacock Original: ‘Brave New World,’” 3 p.m.
From Hulu’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” to HBO’s “Westworld” and “Years and Years,” our collective obsession with futuristic dystopias doesn’t seem to be abating anytime soon.
Now NBCUniversal’s new streaming service Peacock enters the fray with “Brave New World,” a drama series based on Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 sci-fi novel, which remains as prescient as ever 88 years after the book was first published.
Like the novel, the series, which began streaming on Peacock last week, is set in a future where peace and stability have been achieved through the prohibition of monogamy, privacy, money, family and history itself. Cast members Alden Ehrenreich, Kylie Bunbury, Jessica Brown Findlay, Harry Lloyd, Hannah John-Kamen, Nina Sosanya, Joseph Morgan and creator and showrunner David Wiener will convene Saturday afternoon for a conversation about the inaugural Peacock series.
— Sonaiya Kelley
HBO’s ‘Lovecraft Country,’ 4 p.m.
“Lovecraft Country” seems to be an amalgam of lots of different shows. Based on the novel by Matt Ruff, one of the first things that stands out is the combination of imagination that producers Jordan Peele (“Get Out” and “Us”) and J.J. Abrams (“Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” and “Star Trek Beyond”) might bring to a horror-tinged HBO series set in 1950s Jim Crow America.
So whether you are a fan of H.P. Lovecraft‘s work and its ability to display the supernatural in seemingly normal settings, or you like shows centering on Black characters battling racist adversaries and supernatural monsters, this series checks all the boxes. Cast members Jurnee Smollett, Jonathan Majors, Michael Kenneth Williams, Aunjanue Ellis, Wunmi Mosaku, Abbey Lee and Courtney B. Vance will gather to discuss the show with moderator Sarah Rodman.
— Jevon Phillips
Season 4 of Syfy’s “Wynonna Earp” has been nearly two years in the making — thanks to financial woes, its passionate fan base and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Wynonna Earp,” 5 p.m.
After two long years, the Season 4 premiere of “Wynonna Earp” is almost here. What better way to celebrate than by tuning into a presentation to see what showrunner Emily Andras and cast members Melanie Scrofano, Tim Rozon, Dominique Provost-Chalkley, Katherine Barrell and Varun Saranga might tease about the new episodes?
As additional incentive, the virtual program also promises a sneak peek of the Season 4 premiere to tide you over until it airs on Sunday.
For the uninitiated, “Wynonna Earp” is a supernatural western about a descendant of Wyatt Earp who takes out demons with her magical gun (there’s a family curse involved). There’s technically still time to binge the first three seasons (available on Netflix) before the new episodes if you’re very ambitious — and don’t believe in breaks.
— Tracy Brown
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