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Angelina Jolie At Comic-Con
2003-07-29 23:34:03

Jamie Ralph Gardner writes:

When Angelina Jolie was at the Comic-Con
(San Diego's international comic book convention),
she answered questions from her fans. There was a
huge line up to get in to the panel. When I got in
the room, Angelina was already speaking. There were
2 different women that said they had HIV. The first
woman was crying as she told Angelina how much
that she appreciated her. Angelina had a very
emotional reaction reaction and she was crying as
well. Later on, another woman said that she had HIV
for 22 years. Someone else asked Angelina about
her involvement with Cambodia. Angelina, who is a
Good Will Ambassador for the United Nations, said
that she loves Cambodia and the people there.
Angelina said that it surprised her that the people in
Cambodia would not be despondent about the
horrible things that had happened to them. Angelina
said that people are upbeat despite the fact that they
have gone through the killing fields and the
occupation of their country. There were some women
expressing their attraction to Angelina Jolie. When
I got in to the room, Angelina was already answering
questions. I don't remember any questions about
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life. The
movie was probably talked about before I entered the
room.

Earlier in the morning, Angelina was doing a
signing in the autograph area. I got in the freebie and
autograph area about 9 am. Angelina was originally
scheduled to sign at 10 am. There were people
hanging around AA3 (where she was supposed to
be signing) and the information booth. The people
at the information booth said that she would
probably sign at 1 pm (a different time then
originally planned). They said that people could find
out more information at 10 am. After this conversation,
I hung out with people close to the information booth.
As I was talking to people, a big group headed to
AA3. I rushed down to where Angelina was
supposed to be signing. There were no ropes and no
organization to the line up. The line was about 10 to
15 people wide and I was about half way from the front
of the line. After the crowd had waited a long time,
Elite Security announced that Angelina Jolie was
done signing. I wasn't even aware that she had been
signing! An Elite security guard said to the crowd
that only people with wristbands got her autograph. A
guy in the crowd yelled out "Who had wristbands?!. I
don't see any wristbands!" The crowd was ordered to
leave and people in the crowd were booing. There were
many people that were refusing to leave. After about a
minute, people moved out of the autograph area. I saw
a guy being escourted out by an Elite security guard.
Later on, I heard that the guy already had Angelina's
autograph and that he was trying to reuse his
wristband. He wanted her autograph a second time!

Joey, who had a wristband but didn't get
Angelina's autograph, said that he got knocked down
by women that wanted Angelina's autograph. When
the women realized that Joey and a woman were going
to be the last 2 people to get Angelina's autograph,
they rushed up and knocked down a barrier. An Elite
security guard got injured while this was going on.
Before this happened, people were trying to hand
things to Joey and the woman. People tried to hand
them pieces of paper with their name and phone
number. Joey had 3 posters thrown at him by
people, in the crowd. They wanted Angelina's
signature. These were strangers that wanted the
posters to be signed. There were people who were
making motions to throw cameras at Joey. They
wanted him to take photos of Angelina. Joey
turned his back on them. There were people
yelling out "100 dollars!" They wanted to buy Joey's
wristband.

One of the exhibitors, who was in line for
Angelina's autograph, told me that Paramount
Pictures (without Angelina's knowledge) passed out
wristbands to the first 75 people in line for Angelina's
panel. People were not informed ahead of time that
this was going to be done. I also heard that
wristbands were randomly handed out to people
walking around. The wristbands were not handed out
to people in the autograph line! I heard that Angelina
was willing to sign for 2 to 3 hours. I heard that it was
Paramount Pictures that wanted to limit her signing
to a lot less time then that. I haven't talked to
Paramount Pictures about what happened at the
signing, so I don't know who's responsible for the
inept handling of the way signing was conducted.
There were many people who were blaming the
Comic-Con for the Angelina Jolie fiasco but they
may deserve only some of the blame for what
happened.

Devinn Lane, Sydnee Steele and Stephanie
Swift were scheduled to sign at the Plastic Fantasy
booth. The Plastic Fantasy booth was promoting
dolls based on x-rated actresses. When I was in the
line up, there were 75 people waiting for them to show
up at the convention. It turned out that Stephanie
showed up but not Devinn Lane and Sydnee Steele.
While I was waiting, I was talking to someone who told
me about another incident involving Angelina Jolie.
The man said that he was in line to get in to
Angelina's panel. He said that he went to go get
something and that the security guard would not let
him back where he was. He said that there were
people who told the security guard that he was with
them. The security guard made him go to the back of
the line. The man said that the security guard was
letting people cut in front of him and other people.
In response to this, people picked up the security
guard and moved him aside. The security guard hit
one of them. The crowd moved in the room, the
security guard was not able to stop them. I heard
that the man was a small guy and therefore was not
intimidating to the crowd.

There were other x-rated actresses at the
Comic-Con. Taylor Wayne was signing in the
dealer's room. Years ago, Carnal Comics did an
authorized comic book about her. The comic book is
available at www.demicomix.com. Cheyenne Silver
was in the autograph area signing photos, magazines,
etc.. She was at the Comic-Con to promote The
Villikon Chronicles (a graphic novel comic book).
Cheyenne is part of the cast for This Girl's Life
(a movie with actors such as James Woods,
Michael Rapaport, etc.). Kiki Daire and Felecia
were at the Hippy Comix booth. Felecia already
has a comic book about her. The comic book is
available at www.hippycomix.com and
www.demicomix.com. In the future, Hippy Comix is
coming out with comic books about Kiki Daire and
Inari Vachs. On the last day of the Comic-Con,
Stephanie Swift visited the Hippy Comix booth
and talked with Dan Fogel (the publisher of Hippy
Comix) and Steve Crompton (the publisher of
Carnal Comix).