Magic: The Gathering Drive to Work Podcast - #575: SDCC 2018

Episode Date: September 28, 2018

Every year, I attend San Diego Comic-Con where I run a Magic panel among other responsibilities. Upon my return, I always record a podcast about it. This is that podcast.

I'm pulling out of the parking lot. We all know what that means. It's time for the drive to work. Dropped my son off at camp again. Okay, so this last week I was at San Diego Comic-Con. I think this was the eighth year that we've had a Magic Panel. And it's like the twelfth year in a row that I've attended. So real quickly, a quick history of me and San Diego Comic-Con. So I used to live in Los Angeles, for those that might know my back history. And the years I lived in Los Angeles, a lot of them I drove down to Comic-Con. That was my first experience getting to see San Diego Comic-Con. Then when

I got the job at Wizards, the first few years that I was at Wizards, I went to Comic-Con. Then, when I got the job at Wizards, the first few years that I was at Wizards, I went to Comic-Con with Wizards. And then I stopped going to Comic-Con. And then, 12 years ago, my friend Michael, Michael Ryan, the one I co-created the Woodlight Saga with, was going down for work. And he said, if I wanted to come, he had a hotel room. You know, the hotel room he had had two beds. If I wanted a hotel room, you know, I could come. And Laura was like, yeah, you should go. And so I went down.

And I had a great time. Like, it all came back. And Comic-Con, in between when I first started going there and now, you know, 20 years later, or not 20, 15 years later, whatever, had really gone through a big metamorphosis. That when I used to go, it was much more about comics and geeky things, and it just become a little broader and bigger.

You know, movies had started getting involved, and it just became a lot. It had really grown in size to a much bigger convention than what I'd been when I'd been there before. So anyway, what happened was Michael and I went for a couple years, and then one year Michael couldn't go, but I'm like, oh, I had such fun, I'll just go. I'll just go by myself.

And I had a great time. And then I think after that year, I asked Elaine Chase, I don't know if she was a VP at the time, but she's now a VP of Magic. And I said to her, I'd like to run a panel at Comic-Con. Is that okay? Can I do that? And she's like, oh, sure.

And then she said, oh, maybe we should send more people to that one. Let's make a bigger deal of it. Um, and then, um, she said, oh, maybe we should send more people down. Let's make a bigger deal of it. And so, um, we, for a bunch of years, had like a big panel of a magic panel. And it was me and usually three or four other people. Um, and then, I don't know, three, four years ago, um, the decision was made. We were cutting back a little bit on our conventions.

And so we decided to not go to San Diego Comic-Con. And so I went to Elaine again. I said, well, Elaine, I'm planning to go to Comic-Con. And I'm more than happy to run a panel by myself. I mean, I've done it before. I've done it many times. I go, do you mind if I just run a solo panel? And Elaine said, sure, no problem.

And then it turned out while I was there, I was like, well, as long as you're going to be there, can you do a signing and do some interviews? And so I said, sure. So the latest phase of my Comic-Con experience has been a solo panel, which I call Blogatog Live. Blogatog being my blog. And so mostly it's a Q&A. Normally I do a little bit of information beforehand, depending on what it is.

I'll get to that this year. Sometimes I'm previewing stuff, sometimes I'm not. It sort of depends on what I have available to me. But anyway, so this was my 12th year in a row, I think, eighth with the panel. Anyway, okay, so I show up on Wednesday. The reason I show up on Wednesday is Wednesday night is preview night. And for those that don't know much about San Diego Comic-Con, so one of the things about it is there's a giant exhibition hall. And I mean, it is like the length of, I mean, it goes from one end of the convention hall to the other. It's the full, like normally

when people come to the convention hall, they rent a part of the convention hall. Like, oh, well, our group is just using this piece of it. And normally at, I mean, the San Diego Convention Center is pretty big. Like normally,, like, we've run pro tours there. And when we run a pro tour, we're just a section of it. You know, we might be of the, I don't know how many sections there are, of the eight sections, maybe we're one or two sections of it. But Comic-Con is huge. It's just the whole thing.

It just uses up the entire convention hall. And not only that, it's gotten so big that it's spilling out into other hotels. So, like, not even all the programming is in the convention center. There's a bunch of different hotels and stuff that host some of the material. So, anyway, I mean, it's pretty big. So, the exhibition hall is open Wednesday night, and one of the nice things about that is, one of the tricks, as you learn having done this for a while, is people bring stuff, and then when they sell out of it, it's gone. And so one of the nice things about Wednesday is Wednesday they have everything.

It's the first night. It's preview night. So Wednesday is probably the best shopping time, just because everybody has the stuff. And one of the traditions I always do is I always bring back some gifts for my kids. And one of the traditions I always do is I always bring back some gifts for my kids. And the challenge for me is my son Adam is like his interest and the interest of Comic-Con, like the Venn diagram almost overlaps. So he is super easy to buy gifts for.

My older daughter Rachel, she has some geeky sensibilities, and there's definitely some stuff she enjoys. So she's harder than Adam, but easier than my youngest daughter, Sarah. Sarah, the Venn diagram, is not over that much. She's not really into all that many geeky things. And so finding her gifts is always a challenge. So I'll get to that. I had a fun...

I finally got one of the best gifts I ever got for Sarah at a Comic Con, so I'll get there in a second. Okay, so Wednesday night, oh, so let's talk about the booth. So way back when, if you go back to my earlier days, there was a period in time where wizards used to have a booth at Comic-Con. We have our own booth. And we demo or do various things. Right now, what we do is

Hasbro has a booth, because we're owned by Hasbro, and we have a wall in Hasbro. There's a magic wall. And so this year's magic wall had Nicole Bolas on it, because Core 2019 was out. He's a big part of that. He's a big part. And so this year's magic wall had Nicole Bolas on it because Core 2019 was out. He's a big part of that.

He's a big part of the story right now. And his eyes glowed and his fists had a little magical energy and that glowed. So one of the schticks about the wall this year is that the different walls had the components that have glowing pieces to it. And anyway, also there was cool lighting and stuff. The booth had a lot of drama and appeal. Although, one of the side effects, by the way, is because of the way... There's a lot of walls up because we're trying to show a lot of stuff off.

You need the walls to show it off. And because of all the lights, because there's a lot of lights, and like a dark carpet, it's just really hot. I did not work at the booth all that much. I was there a little bit. I was mostly doing interviews. But it was very hot. Also at our booth, so there was Nicole Ballas, and then there was, we had a little case that showed off all the Core 2019 products. So that's Core 2019, the Welcome Decks, the Deck Builder's Toolkit, the Planeswalker

packs, and then we also had an art book for Dominaria that was, that had recently come out. And the one other thing we showed off was the exclusives. We always have an exclusive for San Diego Comic-Con. So this year's exclusive were five Planeswalker cards,

the Gatewatch, basically. Or old-school Gatewatch, I guess. So it was Gideon, Jace, Liliana, Chandra, and Nissa. Each one of them was standing in front of a stained glass that was a picture of a character that was somewhat thematically connected to them. That was color-aligned, but also had some larger sort of connection to the character.

So, for example, Gideon was standing in front of Sarah, because both of them are very much protectors of their people. Jace is standing in front of Urza, who was very much someone who studied history and very much into knowledge himself. Liliana was in front of Nicol Bolas. Both of them have a dark side, if you will. Chandra was in front of Jaya Bowerd, a fellow pyromancer. And Nyssa was in front of Fralise, another elf. And all the art was done by Therese Nielsen. It was beautiful.

And anyway, you could get that at the store. Also, well, by the time you hear this, it will have happened already, but also it's sold online. At a certain date online, it's sold online as well. Um, but anyway, um, we had that at the booth, although you had to go to the, the, the, the way Hasbro works is there's two different Hasbro sections. One is kind of like the area where we're showing off all the products, and the other was the store where you can buy exclusives at Comic-Con. Anyway, all the Magic exclusives sold out, and it

was, I signed a bunch of them during the weekend. Okay, so Wednesday night was preview night, and so to start the story. So I'm looking for, uh, basically I want to find some cool gift for each of my kids. Um, normally I get them one major gift and sometimes they get a shirt or something, but, um, and so the challenge was, um, Adam was super easy. Um, I found a Foam Infinity gauntlet. And Adam's a big Marvel hero fan. And he and I saw the movie together. And I knew he would like it. So I got that for Adam on, I think I got that from him pretty early.

The girls would take a little longer to find their gifts. Okay, we'll come back to that. So Thursday, so we had a new PR firm. So the way it works is we have internal PR people, and then we have different groups we work with external, and probably more detailed than you need. But anyway, the end result was I got a lot of interviews this year. We had a new team setting them up. Normally in the past, I'd have three, maybe four interviews. And this year, I think I had nine. So a little team setting them up. Normally in the past, I'd have three, maybe four interviews. And this year, I think I had nine.

So a little more interviews this year. So I showed up. And what they did is they scheduled them back to back. So I had like on Thursday, I had five interviews on Thursday, I think. I think most of my interviews were on Thursday. So anyway, I talked all about magic and Court 2019. And it depended a lot. A lot of my interviews vary upon who I'm being interviewed by and what is being interviewed for.

Sometimes it's more niche-y things where, you know, it's like a gaming site or something where, like, okay, people know magic. And it's more about what is magic doing in this particular thing. Sometimes it's a little more general where, you know, they report on geeky things. And magic is not something that their audience is necessarily familiar with. Maybe they've heard of it, but they don't necessarily play. And so those, I'm talking a little more broader in what I'm talking about. So you have to sort of adapt your interview to the interviewer. But I did that.

And then I also had a signing. Oh, actually, the first thing I did, sorry, on Thursday, the first then I also had a signing. Oh, actually, the first thing I did, sorry, on Thursday, the first thing I did was a signing. Then I did my interviews. So there was a room set up on the Marriott, which is the hotel next to the convention center, and we had a whole ballroom that was for magic events. And a guy named Tim Shields runs it. I think Cascade Games is his company. Anyway,

they always do an awesome job and they had lots of, if you wanted to play whatever, they had drafts and different formats and you could play magic during the course of the weekend. So once a day, I would go there and I would do signings.

Usually my signings there, look, you're not in the room or most likely you're not in the room unless you're a Magic player because why are you in the room when you're playing Magic? Most likely you're a Magic player. So a lot of those signings were people who wanted me to sign specific cards and

knew exactly who I was and that was much more like, oh, it's Mark, hey, sign this. As you will see, I'll talk about the signing at the booth, which is a little bit different. And then I did the interviews. And then the cool part of this is when I'm not doing, my work is signings, interviews and the panel. So every day I had a little bit of, I had a signing every day and I had some interviews every day. But the rest of the time was mine and I could do as I wished and I had some interviews every day. But the rest of the time was mine and I could do as I wished

and I could go see panels or walk the floor or do whatever I want. So I continued by the way on my quest to find my gift for my girls. So Rachel I finally found her. She really likes

the Disney villains for some reason. I'm not sure what that says about my daughter. Uh, and I found a purse that was like a patterned Disney villain purse. Anyway, she liked that. Uh, Sarah still the challenge. So one of the things was, oh, I'll go back to Sarah. So anyway, Sarah was still the challenge. Okay, so, um, Friday, um, uh, the first thing I did were the interviews.

And, um, and one of the fun things is there's some people that I interview that I see every year that like, um, uh, there's a guy named Kyle, for example, that interviews me every year. Um, and so like I, it's always a routine to sort of get the interview with Kyle and he's a magic player and we always talk magic and stuff. So Kyle's fun to do the interview with. Um, anyway, I did some more interviews. Oh, the other thing that I did is when I was at the booth,

we were giving away starter decks, welcome decks, which are the way the new welcome decks work is there are two 30-card decks in a box, one of one color, one of a second color. And the first color is the outside of the box shows you a Planeswalker. They're the five Planeswalkers from Core 2019. So white is a Johnny, blue is Tezzeret, black is Liliana, red is Sarkin, and green is Vivian. So we get the box, you're guaranteed of having that color inside, and then a surprise second color.

And the idea is you can play them against each other. So we made, and for those that don't know, these are the first welcome decks that were made rather than as an afterthought, they were made early in the process of making Core 2019, so that Core 2019 had the cards it needed to make those the best welcome decks. And the feedback we've been getting is these are the best welcome decks we've ever made. They're very cool. Welcome decks are what we give away for free.

We give them to stores to give away for free. It's kind of the introductory way to get people to sort of learn about magic. At Comic-Con, there's not a lot of giveaways. It is not something where there's all that many just free items given away. There's a little bit, but not tons. So people were very excited. We were giving stuff away. And we gave away a crazy number.

Like, I think we ran through our allotment and ended up shipping more because we were giving so many away. And even then, we would run out for the day because we had allotments per day. And we'd run out and have to, like, not give it away for a while. But the fun thing about it was, and I did this a little bit just because it's fun to do, where you explain to people what the colors are and sort of this is what the colors represent. Anyway, I love talking color pie and it's fun talking to people that don't know the color pie. And then they get to pick a deck and they get a deck and it's fun. So I did a little of that. I also,

we had a new person that was someone who was learning how to demo. So I did a little of that. Also, we had a new person that was someone who was learning how to demo. So I was teaching her all about the colors. And I also taught her how to play. Someone had taught her before, but she wasn't very confident. So she and I played. We had some downtime, and she and I played. And she beat me. Okay, so I did more.

Friday was more interviews and more signings. Um, but the busiest day was Saturday. Oh, before we get to the Saturday. Um, so I was having trouble finding stuff for my daughter. My daughter really likes Bob's Burgers. There's one geeky thing she likes. But previous years I've gotten like a Bob's Burger shirt already. And, um, I went to the, there's a Bob's Burger stand, but none of the things they had quite fit her.

And so I ended up, even though I stood in line, I didn't get anything there. And so Laura said to me, well, you know, one of the things she really likes are these things called squishies, which are out of Japan. And they look like food and various things. And you can squish them. And then they retake their form, is the idea. And Sarah really likes squishies. So I had mentioned to Laura that there were a bunch of, like, sort of Japanese booths.

And she was like, okay, well, why don't you just find her a squishy or two? She likes squishies. And so I found an 8-inch Bob's Burger squishy with a Koopa Koochie. There's a little doll that the youngest daughter has. And it was that, but it was a giant squishy. So it was a giant squishy that was Bob's Burgers, which is like all the things my daughter likes in one. So it was a giant squishy that was Bob's Burgers, which is like all the things my daughter likes in one. So it was like a glorious moment of finding if my daughter liked it. Okay, so Saturday, first thing I did on Saturday was I did some interviews. Oh, no, no, actually, I didn't do

the interview. Oh, no, I'm sorry. I did one interview in the morning, then I had a break, and then my interview got delayed. So the next thing I did was an in-the-booth signing. So most of my signings had been in the Marriott, in the Magic Room, but this was a signing at the Hasbro booth. They have a stage at the Hasbro booth, and there's just various things they do there. So Magic likes to have some signings, so I'm there. And they had given out slips inviting people to the signings, telling them what was going to happen. So what we had done is we had gotten

postcards of Therese Nielsen's art from the SDCC exclusive. And then I had a whole bunch of pens for signing and people could come up and I'd sign their cards. If they didn't have a card, they could get a postcard, which I'd sign. And then I'd take a picture with them or answer questions.

And one of the dynamics of doing it at the booth is when people see a line and see people getting autographs, they'll just get in the line. Now, there's three types of people. Type number one are magic players. And usually I could spot the magic players because they'll say something that's like, oh, they know magic. Like, for example, we had the five postcards. And I say, oh, you can pick a postcard. Some people are like, oh,

you know, oh, this, this goth chick looks cool. But other people are like, oh, it's Liliana. Well, if they say Liliana, no, they know magic. And then second were people that didn't play magic but had a friend or family member that did play magic and they were coming to get something for them. Like, well, I don't play magic, but I know my magic-playing friend or family would like this. Third was people that had no idea what was going on, just saw people get in line. They got in

line. Um, I think of that third group, a good chunk of them thought I was the artist that thought I was Therese Nielsen that I'd drawn, I'd drawn the art. Um, and, uh, anyway, so I, I, for a full hour, um, in the past when I've done an hour signing at the booth, usually about 40, 45 minutes in, it starts slowing down. This one, we had to cut it off in an hour. And I was just signing, taking pictures, just nonstop for an hour. A lot of fun. Like, I always like meeting fans and stuff.

And anyway, so we did that. Then I had a quick interview I had to do. And then I had to go do the other signing. I had to go to the Marriott to do the signing in the Magic Room. Oh, and while I was there, there's a story that really, really touched my heart. So I was signing, and an older woman came over over and she said, I just want to thank you. She was like, my family, I recently got married. My husband had kids.

I had kids. It's sort of a Brady Bunch thing going on. And she said that the kids, you know, weren't quite clicking. Just, you know, it was sort of, it was a little bit awkward. But his kids played magic. So they decided to teach her and her kids how to play magic. And it really had been a wonderful experience. And it bonded them and got them all together. And really it was the thing that kind of broke the ice and got the family to start gelling. And so she came to me and said, thank you. I don't know if you know how much this

impacted me in my life. And I just want to say thank you. Um, and stuff like that always touches me and it's really, really, I don't know, it hits me in the heart. Um, anyway, so I signed there and then it was time for the magic panel. So, um, it's the 25th anniversary of magic. I didn't really have new stuff to talk about. So I decided that I would use my time before I did the answer to questions and answers to talk about Magic history a little bit. So what I did is, and I'm going to do, my next podcast is going to be that talk, but stretched a little bit.

I spent about 10, 15 minutes going through all of Magic, talking about a lot of the first. And there's a lot of things that people sort of assume Magic always did, and it didn't. So the talk was kind of like, here's what Magic did, and here's this, and the first time we did this, the first time we did that. So anyway, I decided that I'm going to adapt that to a podcast. So my next podcast is going to be that talk.

It's stretched a little bit because that talk was, I don't know, 10, 15 minutes, and I have a half-hour car ride. But that talk was a little more little bit because that talk was, I don't know, 10-15 minutes and I have a half hour car ride. But that talk was a little more me adding some other pieces in. So I did that and people got really into it. It was very funny. What I did is I would show different logos as I walked through the history of magic and every time a logo would come up, the fans

of that set would cheer. So it was a lot of fun. So then I did a Q&A. I answered questions. So my favorite of the Q&A is Dana Fisher, who is, I guess she just turned eight. But anyway, if you ever see the little girl that, she's really good at magic. And they did Enter the Battlefield on her. Anyway, she likes to dress up as Nyssa.

Often when I see her, she'll be dressed as Nyssa. And so, she gets up and, you know, she's tiny, so we point the mic down so she can talk.

So her first question, she goes, I have a three-part question. First question is, why do we introduce Vivian? So I explained that. Second question was, who will we see more of

in the future, Nissa or Vivian? And I explained that we'll see them both. And then the third question was, who would win in a fight, Nissa or Vivian? And I explained it depends on home advantage. I believe if Nissa is bonded to the plane where she's fighting, Nissa's probably going to win that. So, like, if you're fighting on Zandacar, it goes to Nissa. I think if it's a neutral plane that she's not really bonded with, I give the edge to Vivian. That's what I said. Okay.

And I got all sorts of questions asking about really a wide variety of questions. A very good bunch of questions. I mean, everything from, there were some flavorful questions, a lot of mechanical questions, and just people sort of asking across the board.

One of the things that's different from a blog talk live from blog talk is on, on my, on my blog, I get asked hundreds of questions every day. So I can go through them and find the questions I want to answer. And, and, uh, live is I'm going to answer the questions people ask of me. And so, you know, it definitely is. I ask them stuff that maybe I wouldn't answer on my blog.

The other thing about Blogger Talk Live is since I'm talking, I can go in greater detail. When you're writing, it just takes a lot longer when you're going in depth. And I don't, sometimes I do lengthy answers. I do them occasionally. But most don't, sometimes I do lengthy answers. I do them occasionally. Um, but most of my answers are quick, fast answers, not slow, you know, longer answers. And when I go live, I get to do the longer answers. Um, so anyway, I answered

questions for the rest of the time about, if my talk was like 10 to 15 minutes, uh, it's a 50 minute thing. So the rest would be, um, be, so it'd be 35 to 40 minutes. I answered questions. And then after, at the end, after I answer questions, I go outside and then I sign autographs. I take pictures. I answer any smaller questions people have. autographs, I take pictures, I answer any smaller questions people have. And so I probably,

of the audience, a good maybe 50 or so came out and I signed things and took pictures and stuff. Another really nice moment was I had a woman who explained to me that she, I had inspired her to become

a game designer and that she had all during her childhood and youth had read all my different material and stuff that I talked about game design and that she had gotten into game design and now works at a game design as a game designer and that she really

that I had had a huge impact on her and she asked for a hug, it was very nice and so I had a bunch of touching sort of like, here's what magic means to me. In this case, also what I personally, stuff I had done meant to her. So that was very nice. Anyway, and then the way we end all of our Comic Cons is we have a staff dinner on Saturday in which we go to a seafood place that I really like. And I

get, for those that don't know, on my birthday, I have a tradition on my birthday that I get Alaskan king crab legs, which stemmed from, in my youth, my family had been on like a skiing vacation and we went to some fancy buffet and they had Alaskan king crab legs and I really liked them. So I said to my parents, we should have these more. And they're like, those are expensive. But on my birthday, there was a the way my birthday worked

was I was allowed to pick any restaurant I wanted to go to for my birthday. And so since I couldn't get Alaskan King Crab Legs, I would always pick a seafood restaurant on my birthday to get Alaskan King Crab Legs. And it became a tradition. So much so now, on my birthday, I always have Alaskan King Crab Legs, for those who don't know that.

Anyway, I managed many years ago to convince them to do our staff dinner at the seafood place so that I could get Alaskan King crab legs. They are expensive. I still don't get them all that often. And anyway, it's just become a tradition. So every year we have seafood. And I got my crab legs. Anyway, it was really good.

It's fun hanging out with all the Watsi folk and talking business and games and stuff. And anyway, so we did that and then it was time to return home.

I will say, for those since I set the story up, all three of my gifts went over well. Adam, to this day, has been running around with his Infinity Gauntlet. Rachel very much likes her purse.

And Sarah loved her giant squishy. She really, like I said, it's Comic-Con. One of my big challenges every year is trying to find a good gift for my daughter at Comic-Con. So I was, this year was a home run for me. Not something I get to do all the time. So anyway, that was my trip to Comic-Con, so I was, this year was a home run for me, not something I get to do all the time, so, um, anyway, that was my trip to Comic-Con, um, it was a lot of fun, there were a lot of, um, cool things to see there, and a lot, you know, the Comic-Con definitely keeps expanding on the kind of stuff it does, um, like, a couple years back, they, they, they started getting a really big video game, anyway, there's a lot of different things that are there.

So it was a lot of fun. I met a lot of Magic players. I shook a lot of hands. I took a lot of pictures. I signed a lot of cards and boxes and things. I answered lots of questions. So I had a great time. It was fun meeting everybody that I met and all the people that shared stories with me.

That really does mean a lot, by the way. When I can hear the impact of the work I and my coworkers do that really can affect people's lives, that really is one of the things that makes this job so awesome is being able to do something that just makes people happy or can help people and bring people together. That's always awesome. So anyway, guys, that was my trip to San Diego Comic Con

2018. So I hope you guys enjoyed this little tale of SDCC, but I'm now parked. So we all know what that means. It means it's the end of my drive to work. So instead of talking magic, it's time for me to be making magic. I'll see you guys next time.