Comic Con Avatar Update from Holic

Avatar panel: So after I finally get into this giant (and crowded) room I had to sit through the ending part of the Prisoner's panel. I didn't really pay attention. The Avatar panel starts with Nickelodeon rep talking about the series, and how unexpectantly large the fan base is, and how they're going to be releasing Avatar: Legends of the Arena, a MMORPG game in September. You can make your own character and have it duke it out with other players. (Meaning, new crack!) Then he finally introduces Mike and Bryon who appear on screen as black and white sketched out chibi characters... lol They talked about the finale. How it was Mike fault that they didn't show Zuko finding and meeting his mom and how they know that they probably made half of their fan base mad with the final pairings. I'm pretty they sure that they talked about other stuffs that I can't remember. Anyways then they proceeded with the showing of the last hour of the finale. There was much applause for many of the characters as they came on to the screen. Applause for Toph and her metal bending, applause for Fire Lord (excuse me, King of the Losers) Ozai, applause for Iroh and the White Lotus group, you get the general idea... Half of the crowd went wild as Zuko jumped in the path of the lightning to save (stupid) Katara from harm. (Honestly why the hell was she standing there anyways?) And of course when the two now infamous "kissing" scenes came on half the crowd threw a hissy fit. (At least no one set themselves on fire...) Applause for the ending credits.

Chibi Mike and Bryon came back on and talked for a bit (I'm seriously blanking on what the hell they said... T_T Forgive me!) Then the real Mike and Bryon and Aaron Ehasz (who helped write the finale) finally made their grand entrance. (They came out from behind the giant screen.) They talked again, and then started the cosplay contest. Third place: Fire Lord Ozai (Phoenix King robes I believe...) Second place: Iroh (Earth kingdom robes with half balding head and the works lol XD) First place: Chibi Appa (Giant Appa head with cute dot eyes and faux fur pants I think...) Top winners got a bag full of Avatar paraphernalia with DVDs (Even Bryon forgot which ones it was) . I also forgot what was so special about the first place winner other than she got more stuffs.... Then came the fanart contest. Honorable mentions consisted of fanart that amused them such as Zuko in the Foggy Swamp Tribe attire. (I just thought it was kinda disturbing. >_>) The top ten and the results of the contest has been posted at the Nick.com http://www.nick.com/shows/specials/comet/contest/ .

There was some discussion about how "creative" people were with their fanart, then they showed a super-duper special preview of "Book 4: Air"... It consisted of some more fanart...but not just any ordinary fanart no... they were crazy Zutara shipper fanart! So they did some silly voice overs of Katara and Zuko starting some "forbidden secret" relationship (with perverse "lowbrow" Zutara fanart), which then lead the breaking up of Katara and Aang, and Aang hooking up with Azula... Some Toph/Sokka was thrown in there too... Then it progressed to the break up of Katara and Zuko (their "relationship" was purely physical and actually had no substance I suppose... lol) and final fanart of Aang holding Katara with a voice over of them saying that they knew Mike and Bryon would put things in order again. (Igniting a riot from Zutara fans again...)

Then finally came the Q & A! It only lasted 15 mins though... =.= I would have gone up myself except for the fact that I did not want to be run over or possibly mauled to death by other fans. I forget some of the questions but what I know is this: There will be no Book 4. It was always planned to be a trilogy. Aang IS the LAST airbender (despite the fact that this would leave the Avatar world out of balance and no future Air Avatar... No one bothered to point that out and question it...which irked me.) However, there will be a live action film based on Book 1 with some "new twists". Honestly I would have been happier with a 15 minute epilogue... Ok well, this is all I remember of the Q & A.

Oh, and awesome T-shirts with the poster image of the movie finale on it were handed out at the exit doors. Thus concludes the 2008 Comic-Con Avatar panel. Sorry I couldn't get another shirt... >_< Only one per person.