San Diego Comic Con (SDCC) is a major multifandom event taking place each July; this year it’s July 18-21. For the first time, the OTW will be covering SDCC, from the convention floor to Hall H lines, from the fan panels to tv, movie and author press rooms. Legal Committee staffer Heidi Tandy will be focusing on legal aspects of fandom, fannish interaction with content creators and other issues of interest to all fans, including fanfic writers, fanartists and vidders.
In addition, the OTW is hosting a party on Wednesday, July 17, 8:00-9:30 p.m. PDT at the Tequila Bar & Grille at the San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina (333 West Harbor Drive, San Diego, CA 92101 map and directions here. There will be complimentary margaritas, sodas, chips & salsa, a few rounds of Cards Against Humanity, giveaways and other meet & greet moments designed to welcome everyone to San Diego and Comic Con.
We’re requesting a voluntary donation of $5 to attend. You don’t need to be attending Comic Con to join us, although the Marriott is adjacent to the Convention Center so anyone coming from the off-site SDCC hotels via Con Bus can reach it easily.
We’d also like to know what SDCC participants you would like Heidi to speak to and what questions you would like her to ask? The ComicCon schedule will become available around July 4, and we will send out another reminder after it is posted.
Let us hear from you! Just keep in mind that Heidi can only be in one place at one time, and that she can speak with only so many people in a single day. She is also scheduled to appear on two panels during the con. The first is a panel for the forthcoming SmartPop book Fic: Why Fanfiction Is Taking Over the World, for which she and other current or former OTW staffers have contributed. Heidi will also be moderating a Harry Potter panel on Sunday afternoon. However, we would like to include as many of your suggestions as possible.
Some planned questions currently include:
- Have you heard of or planned anything for your property to be part of Amazon’s Kindle Worlds project?
- How involved are you with tie-in creations generally, and do you see fan work to be different?
- How would you have answered this question 3 years ago? What about 8?
- How much regular contact do you have with legal staff in your work regarding fan creations or other things besides your own content?
- For fans: Have you ever received a C&D? What did you do? What would you do if you got one now?
We will be publishing stories from her SDCC visit in the week after the event (starting after July 25) in both print and video form – and she’ll liveTweet as much as possible from the halls of the San Diego Convention Center through the OTW News twitter account.