San Diego Bound

As early as April, people begin asking, “Will I see you in San Diego?” This year, the answer was a routine, “Not unless a fairy godmother arrived unexpectedly.”Most years, she passes over my home but this year she made a stop. Over the last few days, the arrangements have been put into place and yesterday, the convention website released their Saturday schedule to include the following panel:10:00-11:00 After Earth— Enter the world of After Earth with an in-depth panel that gives you a behind-the-scenes look at the universe of the upcoming film and comic book. With the film now in post-production and set to hit theaters next June, screenwriter Gary Whitta (Book of Eli) and director of photography Peter Suschitzky (The Empire Strikes Back) will discuss the making of the film. They will be joined by comic book artist Beni Lobel (Spanish horror comic anthology Cthulu; G.I. Joe comic books; Torchwood: Web of Lies motion comic), and writers Robert Greenberger (Iron Man, Batman, and Hellboy novels) and Michael Friedman (Star Trek and X-Men novels) — the creators of the comic book After Earth: Innocence, which will introduce Kitai and Cypher Raige (played by Jaden and Will Smith in the After Earth film). Also joining the panel is Eisner Award winner Peter David (Star Trek novels and comic books; The Incredible Hulk), who is writing the After Earth prequel novel and also created the After Earth bible with Greenberger and Friedman.In After Earth, one thousand years after cataclysmic events forced humanity’s escape from Earth, Nova Prime has become mankind’s new home. Legendary General Cypher Raige (played by Will Smith) returns from an extended tour of duty to his estranged family, ready to be a father to his 13-year-old son, Kitai (played by Jaden Smith). When an asteroid storm damages Cypher and Kitai’s craft, they crash-land on a now unfamiliar and dangerous Earth. As his father lies dying in the cockpit, Kitai must trek across the hostile terrain to recover their rescue beacon. His whole life, Kitai has wanted nothing more than to be a soldier like his father. Today, he gets his chance. Room 6ASo yeah, I’ll be there and look, we’ll be talking about some of the post-film writing that Mike and I have done. This is all terribly exciting since it means I get to happily talk about something I’ve been working on the last year and get to be at the mecca of geekdom. It also affords me a chance to reconnect with old colleagues and friends so that’s a tremendous plus.If you’re attending the con, please put this in your schedule and I hope to (somehow) see you at the show.

#Tags: After Earth, Comics, writing