Outlander Day at SDCC 2015! The Panel! The Signing! The Men in Kilts!
Outlander was back in San Diego for Comic Con and there’s no way that Erica and Alicia (The Novel Strumpet) would miss it!
Last year, Starz came out with a grand Outlander booth, a huge red carpet premiere and a fabulous signing. Although Outlander’s second season is around 9 months away (more or less, we still don’t have a date yet), Starz still brought the cast in for a panel and Random House hosted a limited signing. Oh, and there were men in kilts wandering about!
Saturday dawned and Erica was off to the exhibit hall to grab one of the coveted signing tickets which Random House gave out first thing in the morning. Fortunately she had a sister to drag with her so she could grab a signing ticket for Alicia who was off to interview Ronald D. Moore, Diana Gabaldon, Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe (lucky girl!). That will get posted soon and, yes, there are some secrets about season 2 to share!
Alicia brought a couple of friends along since #PocketJaime wanted to rest this year:
We met up to get into the line for Ballroom 20. Thankfully Comic Con moved the Outlander panel into the second biggest stage at the con — roughly 4x as many people could attend this year! We followed Erica’s plan to get in line during the Seth MacFarlane animation block – about an hour and a half before the Outlander panel was to begin. Clearly we weren’t the only ones headed for the Outlander panel as Wedding Dress Claire was also in line.
She hand embroidered that guys! (!!!!)
Erica: Also, I was happily wearing my Outlander shirt and tote bag from last year and I kept getting stopped with “Where did you get that?” all week long. Answer: “Travel through the stones and go back a year to the Outlander booth!”
Flashback photo (ah, good times!):
Back to the present! (We’re used to time traveling, aren’t we?) When the Seth MacFarlane panel finished, about a third of the audience left so around 1200 people could enter. Success!!! We settled in for the Grimm panel and started to count down the final hour until Outlander would begin. We took the obligatory selfies with our friends and we could tell that we weren’t the only ones waiting for the next panel!
When Grimm ended, there was a mad scramble as the room filled to capacity. The energy level was electric as clearly, most of the audience was here for Outlander.
Starz has the panel available for viewing online so you can watch it for yourself.
Erica live tweeted while Alicia took pics. You can find the tweets over at @Cambear on Twitter.
Erica: Boy I wish I had a keyboard! It’s harder than you think to live tweet on a tiny phone…
The panel included Ron Moore, Diana Gabaldon, Caitriona Balfe, Sam Heughan and, making her first panel appearance, Maril Davis!
They kicked off the panel with a quick look at what’s known as a sizzle reel for season 2. Ron promised we could see it twice, which is a good thing since the sound speed was off and the few lines of dialogue made Claire and Jamie sound like chipmunks!
The reel showed a series of quick cuts from different scenes which showed our favorite couple in gorgeous Parisian court finery. With Claire and Jamie trying to stop a revolution, the focus this season will be on conspiracy and court intrigue so the clips were very Dangerous Liaisons. Of course, we did get a quick flash of Jamie shirtless and then a quick flash of him covered in blood and shirtless – this is Outlander after all!
Alicia: Kristen Dos Santos was the moderator and I was interested to see what shenanigans she had in store after the Paley Fest panel she did. This time her trick was to give them all quotes and they had to try and not laugh while reading them. Otherwise they had to drink.
Erica: Caitriona and Maril couldn’t make it through their lines. Sam had a micro smile as he delivered Dougal’s infamous corn grinding line.
After that round ended, they played another where they had to read quotes and guess if they were from Fifty Shades of Grey or not. If they identified it correctly they could make everyone take a drink.
Erica: It was pretty clear what was and wasn’t a quote…
Although they didn’t talk about it, the Outlander Pop Vinyls sat on the end of the table…notice how Sam and Caitriona signed theirs? We wonder who got to take those home…
Ron also announced that the season 1, Volume 2 DVD will be out September 29th. The set will include a blooper reel, deleted scenes and an alternate cut of episode 109, the mid-season premiere which was told from Jamie’s point of view. The original edit of the episode wasn’t entirely from Jamie’s point of view, but it wasn’t working right. We’ll get to see the original edit and judge for ourselves.
Here’s a link to the blooper reel if you just can’t wait until September 29th!
The second season picks up where we left off in season 1 – Ron’s emphasized that he’s following the book, but that some things may be moved around a bit. (See book spoiler discussion for more on this!)
The other big news is….DIANA IS WRITING AN EPISODE!!!!!
Erica: OMG!!!! This is fantastic news! She’s writing one of the later ones so it’s going to be pretty intense.
Diana also reassured folks that book 9 won’t be the last. She knows what the last scene of the last book will be. She’s actually written it and showed it to Ron and Sam who are the only ones to have seen it.
Alicia: Had I known this during the interview I would’ve worded a question to try and get them to spill the beans!
Erica: I’m guessing we will re-visit the highlander with the stag brooch who stood outside in the rain, watching Claire comb her hair in 1940’s Inverness.
Alicia: Also, during the interview Cait spilled that wee Fergus seemed a bit too heavy for Jamie. Evidently Sam had issues trying to pick him up, LOL!
Erica: Lol! Then Fergus must be bigger than I thought! Can’t wait to read this interview, Alicia!
—–BOOK READERS DISCUSSION – (Spoiler Alert!!)———————————
Erica: Ron’s gut feeling is that the episode where they go from France back to Scotland and the finale will be the big episodes of the season. Sam’s also looking forward to the build-up of the second half which also includes Diana’s episode. I think the latter part of the season is going to be explosive!
Alicia: I know! Will we meet Lord John Grey? The Battle of Culloden…SO MANY THINGS!
Erica: Oh wow. That will definitely be a major casting announcement when that happens. I can’t wait to meet Lord John! And the battle is going to be so massive! And so, so sad…must stock up on tissues…
Alicia: Will we see Geillis go through the stones in 1968 or will that be the beginning of next season?
Erica: I think next season. The second season will probably conclude in the 1960’s where we’ll get our first glimpse of Brianna.
Alicia: I’m guessing we’ll see Claire travel back through, if Brianna appears, but will we see Bree as an adult and or a baby/child?
Erica: Good point! Ron has said Bree has a cameo this season, but I think she’ll be an adult.
Alicia: Hints are Frank appears but is that in “his” time while Claire is still in the past or is that after she jumps?
Erica: So many options!! We have to get a reunion between Frank and a shell-shocked Claire. Then, I think, we’ll get a time jump to 1960’s. I know some folks want to see Brianna and Roger at the start of the season, but I think this makes sense to keep it sequential. This way, non-book readers have no idea where the season is heading. In Ron We Trust!
—–END OF BOOK READER DISCUSSION ——————————————————
Alicia: Later, Kristin Dos Santos called Sam out on a bet he made as the winner versus Colin O’Donoghue from Once Upon A Time. Whoever won had to dress up as the other’s character. Sam won so he was supposed to dress up like a pirate and had not done so yet. Kristen took care of that.
Erica: He was a very good sport about this. Also, Caitriona has a deft hand for drawing interesting facial hair.
Erica: It was a bit hard to take him seriously in his pirate look as he was answering questions about filming the final two episodes.
Erica: I’ve never seen a 45 minute panel go by so fast!
Alicia: There was also the highlight of the Con for me, when Kristen jokingly said we should cancel the next panel and keep going. There were a lot of unhappy shouts at that. Guess what the next panel was…”Hannibal”…OOOOOPS!
Erica: The people with the antlers and flower crowns in the audience were not happy with that comment. Whoops!
Afterward we sprinted down to the Random House booth for the signing. There was an honor guard of sorts with the men in kilts and lady bagpipers. The guys were out on the streets of San Diego having fun with the crowds earlier in the day …so sorry we missed this!
The signing moved swiftly, but we each got a quick moment with everyone.
Diana was kind enough to sign a trade paperback from Random House and she also signed the lovely postcard Starz provided.
The team did leave their mark behind since they doodled on the table top during the signing. We asked the RH booth how many people had asked for those and they said quite a few…lol.
While we weren’t able to rip off the tablecloth (drat!), we are willing to share! To pass the time during this long Droutlander, we’ll be giving away SIGNED copies of Outlander! We also may have a souvenir or two from last year to also give away as well!
Although there wasn’t an Outlander booth this year, Factory Entertainment had some samples of upcoming products on display around the con.
All in all, it was a fabulous Outlander day! Special thanks to Starz and Random House for making it happen! Also, it was great to meet up with the SoCal Outlanders, Jenny from VA and other like-minded Outlander fans!
We’ve more photos to share in the gallery below! Also, stay tuned for Alicia’s interviews and our upcoming Outlander giveaway!
Comment below or email us at Erica@MikeTheFanboy.com or thenovelstrumpet@gmail.com
For more adventures, follow us on Twitter: @Cambear and @NovelStrumpet
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Fantastic review. I was there at the panel. I don’t know how you got autograph bands. I was there and they told me they gave them out the day before. Someone is lying working at the event or didn’t know what they were talking about. Same went for the Vampire Diaries autographs and the Walking Dead. I’m distraught over getting to do nothing I wanted. My dream was signatures from those three and seeing the Star Wars panel. At least I did get to the Grimm and Outlander panel. I also missed Diana twice! She signed earlier and I had just missed that. The travesty???? I had an original signed signature from the first edition paperback years ago…and I gave it as a gift to someone who didn’t appreciate it like I did! I’m so sad I just didn’t buy a sweater instead. And here I am MANY years later with angst, regret and I’ll probably never have another chance… ;( Ok, just bummed myself out! LOL
PS Great photos too…
Hi Dahoov2! There were not a lot of signing tickets and you had to line up really early to be one of the first at the Random House booth. Make sure you line up upstairs since those lines go in first.
The good news is that Diana signs often and you can get signed bookplates from her through the mail. No, it’s not the same as meeting her, but it’s great that she does it. I think Outlander will be back next year so there is always another chance!
Also, we are giving away signed copies of Outlander so stay tuned!
Alicia did a great job with the panel pictures, right? I love the look on Diana’s face…