Samuel L. Jackson was a major presence at two panels this year at Comic-Con. He appeared on the Afro Samurai: Resurrection panel and on the panel for Frank Miller's adaptation of Will Eisner's The Spirit. If you haven't checked out Afro Samurai --the American made, anime style SPIKE TV series -- make an effort. It is awesome. Jackson is a popular celebrity at the Con because he seems to enjoy the fan interaction, and the characters he's played have become such iconic figures in pop culture. Someone at The Spirit panel asked him about all the action figures that have been made of his characters -- Shaft, Mace Windu, Afro Samurai and maybe upcoming ones for Nick Fury and the Octopus (the villain he plays in The Spirit). Jackson voiced preference for Mace as an action figure (because of all the various figures available) but says he has all his figures displayed. Jackson went on to discuss the comic book characters he has played, even though some of them began as white characters in the original comics.

Thanks to Comic-Con for video clips of the panel for our news coverage.

Hasbro has figured me out. I used to buy all of the Star Wars action figures. As I spent more and more money, I had a moment of clarity. I realized I don’t need or particularly care about most of these figures. I decided I would only buy the figures I really like, which are generally droids and stormtroopers. There’s usually one droid in every wave of figures. Half of the time, it's just a new version of R2-D2. There’s usually some sort of armored bad guy too, but I don’t buy every variation of trooper: snow troopers, clone officers, shadow troopers, etc.  I do buy every astromech (R2 unit) I can get my hands on.