Dr. Horrible panel at Comic-Con

July 31st, 2008 by

As someone stuck up here in Minnesota rather than in California for San Diego’s Comic-Con, I basically just have to sit back and watch the news roll in from everybody else. But this report about the panel on Dr. Horrible is just too good not to share. Neil Patrick Harris, Nathan Fillion, Felicia Day, Simon Helberg and of course Joss Whedon himself were all present.

There was much banter — repartee even! — at the expense of scoopage. After an audience member playfully accused Whedon of liking to kill off his female characters, Harris deadpanned, “You do kill a lot of chicks.” Retorted Whedon, “I have two tricks. You’re either out, or your dead.” Fillion, meanwhile, cracked some choice phallic “Captain Hammer” jokes, then claimed that Harris, vis-a-vis Doogie Howser, invented the blog. And Harris? He claimed he didn’t recall said show, referring to that time in his life as his “heroin years.”

But there were a few revelations among the revelry. On the ever-enduring Buffy front, we learned:
• Joyce Summers had Whedon’s favorite death on Buffy. Said Whedon: It was “the most time I got to spend with something that close to me.” Awww.
• Oz will return to Dark Horse’s most-excellent Buffy comic(!).
• Willow was basically outed only because Oz left the show.
• And, no, Whedon was never going make Xander gay.

And in Dr. Horrible news:
• Harris did some of his own MTV Cribs-like choreography in the musical, including that beloved shoulder shimmy in the second act.
• While filming, Whedon sang as Hammer to Felicia’s character. And cowriter Maurissa Tancharoen has it on tape.
• They’re hosting a contest for “Evil League of Evil” video submissions that are no longer than three minutes. The top 10 will be on the Dr. Horrible DVD.
• The Dr. Horrible soundtrack will be available for download in a couple of weeks.
• Lastly, if you want to be an agent of doom, and rock an iPhone, you too can log onto the very same interface Doc Horrible used in the film at www.thesoftwire.com/horrible_remote.html.

Pretty cool, huh? Here is more coverage of the panel including a video, and confirmation that Whedon said there will be more Dr. Horrible.

More comic-con news: EW’s Popwatch, Wizard’s SDCC news central, and finally Newsarama’s coverage guide. There’s tons more where that came from, but who has time to read it all?

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