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There are many rooms at the San Diego Convention Center in which one can conduct a panel. The biggest room on the West Terrace of the Upper Level is Room 6 and it has movable walls so it can be carved up into various shapes and sizes. Wide open, it can accommodate 4,000 people for theater-style seating but these days, it's sliced into three rooms for Comic-Con: 6A, 6BCF and 6DE.
The 2003 panel this article is about was in 6A but it was a different 6A — smaller as I recall it — than the 6A in which I've moderated panels in recent years. The previous year, when I did the panel with just Bradbury and Schwartz, we were in a configuration labelled 6BDEF and I think it sat around 2500 people.
I arrived at 6A on Saturday, July 19, 2003, fresh from a Groo panel. The first thing I noticed was that 6A was probably too small for the event I was about to host…and it was. Every seat was quickly filled and I was told we turned away hundreds who wanted in. I also noticed that it did not have an elevator lift to its raised stage. If what some convention staffer told me was correct, I had the only panel all day that had panelists in wheelchairs and it was in the only meeting room that had a raised stage but no wheelchair lift. Lovely.
Forrest Ackerman, Julius Schwartz and Ray Bradbury all arrived in wheelchairs. Ackerman (age 86 and a half) and Schwartz (one month past 88) were able to climb the stairs but Mr. Bradbury (just shy of 83) was not. There was a brief discussion with several concerned audience members chiming in as to what to do. Several folks volunteered to carry Ray up the stairs and Ray was willing to try that but I wasn't. I decided I didn't want to be the moderator of a panel in which someone, however well-meaning or strong they were, dropped Ray Bradbury.
I insisted Ray remain in his wheelchair and be positioned in front of the stage along with a chair for me. Forry and Julie would answer from the microphones placed in front of them on the stage. I would ask my questions from a microphone I'd hold add then I'd hold it in front of Ray to catch what he said when he spoke.
Here's a photo from that panel so you can see how it was set up. Forrest Ackerman is at upper left on the stage, Julius Schwartz is at upper right, Ray Bradbury is…well, you can figure out which one is Ray Bradbury, can't you? And I guess I should say that the lovely/talented Jackie Estrada took this photo and that I now weigh 135 pounds less than I did then…
And there was one other microphone there but it's not in this photo. A microphone on a tall stand was placed in the center aisle of the audience. It was there so that if/when I decided to open the floor to questions from the audience, the questioners could line up there to ask whatever they wanted to ask. I don't do that very often for reasons we'll get to but it's a nice option to have.
I didn't pay much attention to him at the time but a guy we'll call Putz was already hovering at the mike, awaiting the moment when he could ask the first — and if he'd had his way, only — question of the panel. I have no idea what the guy's actual name was but I'm calling him Putz for reasons that will become too, too obvious around Part 6 of this serialized story. But first, we have to get through Part 5…