A Comic Con Clayface surprise with bonus vampires

In my Comic Con preview, I mentioned that DC Studios is not doing a big Hall H presentation, but they still snuck in a San Diego surprise on day one of Comic Con. Tom Rhys Harries, the star of Clayface, dropped into the “DC’s Jim Lee and Friends” panel (Jim Lee is the Chief Creative Officer of DC Comics) to talk about Clayface and his character, Matt Hagen.

Harries’ appearance follows a new trailer for Clayface that arrived this week.

Director James Watkins, who also turned up at the Jim Lee panel, said in a Q&A with Deadline that Clayface is “going to give people a lot of ick and a lot of gore”. Buddy, I believe you. That shot in the trailer of Hagen going in on his eye with the tiny scissors made my stomach clench. I do not like Eye Stuff, so I am already squicked out to the max. Still, Clayface looks awesome and I’m glad Harries popped up at Comic Con to promote it a little.

Also happening early at Comic Con was the “Bite Me – Calling All Vampires” panel with the K-pop group ENHYPHEN, Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke, and Twilight B-team Peter Facinelli and Ashley Greene. (On a side note, it remains amazing to me that Catherine Hardwicke directed a hugely financially successful film, and it didn’t translate into more mainstream opportunities. She has directed some features since Twilight, most notably Miss Bala in 2019, but she has worked primarily in TV since Twilight. I know TV isn’t stigmatized by the industry like it was 20-30 years ago, but it still feels like Hardwicke made Twilight, it was a huge hit, and then she got demoted.)

The purpose of the panel was to talk about vampire lore across cultures and media, and highlight ENHYPHEN’s vampiric “Dark Moon universe”, which included an event at the House of Blues, too. I am always intrigued by vampires because vampires, like dragons, are a universal folkloric relic, every culture has a bloodsucker, just like every culture has a dragon. I would love to visit the point in time when these ideas were imprinted so deeply into our shared cultural memory that they transcend continents and eras.

Anyway, in two more years it will be the 20^th anniversary of Twilight, and you know Comic Con will do something huge about it. The question is whether or not they can get Robert Pattinson and/or Kristen Stewart to show up for it. It’s one thing to speak kindly about their breakout roles now, when they’re well established as actors with thriving careers beyond their teen phenom phase. It’s something else entirely to go back to Comic Con for it. We shall see.