The Day I Started to Believe

(Sorry about the dripping nostalgia, I'm in need of that high again)

San Diego Comic Con International has been built up by the nerd media into some sort of life changing religious event. While it didn't cause me to speak in tongues, I did see the faces of Dennis O'Neil, Gail Simone, Michael Dante DiMartino, Bryan Konietzko, and Glen Keane. It was an indescribable amount of fun to meet so many people behind some of my favorite things, but the biggest impact that it had was to make me rethink Tangled.

Before Comic Con I was quite hostile towards Tangled. I wasn't planning to see it in theaters. The only reason I went to its panel was because Glen Keane was listed as a guest and they were sneaky by naming it, "Walt Disney Animation Studios: Character Creation!" They sold me on the film by spending, as you may guess from the panel's title, the whole hour talking about characters. Not just from a design perspective, but also how they think, motivations, and how they interact. Glen Keane spent the first 15 minutes or so talking about how every detail from the magic hair to how Rapunzel doesn't wear shoes all serves to show her irrepressible spirit and desire to seek the new. At the time this seemed like the most amazing thing ever. Wasn't this supposed to be a generally sarcastic movie? How did such a sincere character fit in? The Flynn, Pascal, and Max bits were a little worrying, but it didn't matter at that point because Rapunzel had hooked me. Now look where we are 11 months later. Thanks Comic Con.

It ended up being my second favorite piece of swag.

(Shout out to the petite brunet who was in line with me. I hope you went ahead with that Belle cosplay that you talked about.)