SAM at Comic-Con Museum: Storytelling Isn’t Dead. It Just Got Juiced
Saturday Morning Cereal | Press Notes from SAM: Storytelling Across Media (November 8, 2025)
By Mark Escarcida
On a sunny Saturday in Balboa Park, Comic-Con was not about Hugh Jackman sightings or limited-edition Funko drops. This was something quieter and more intentional: SAM: Storytelling Across Media, a one-day symposium at the Comic-Con Museum devoted to the craft of story itself.
From music composition to science communication to tabletop games, SAM explored why stories still matter and how they are built, piece by piece and layer by layer. Unlike the typical Comic-Con hurricane of flash and frenzy, SAM is a place to breathe in the mechanics of narrativity rather than simply feast on spectacle.
Held on Saturday, November 8, 2025, from 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM at the Comic-Con Museum in San Diego’s Balboa Park, this year’s SAM offered five panels spanning wrestling, audio drama, and tabletop gaming. For Saturday Morning Cereal, three stood out most. What follows is the full story of why they hit so hard.
What Is SAM? The Big Picture
Before diving into the panels, it is worth setting the stage. SAM is a one-day symposium presented by Comic-Con International that centers not on fandom spectacle, but on the makeup of stories across media. Attendees ranged from aspiring writers and comic artists to professional creators and educators interested in the architecture of narrative itself.
There is no exhibit hall. No industry booth blitz. Instead, SAM offers panels and signings that go deep into the craft of storytelling across comics, books, gaming, film, sports entertainment and television.
12:30–1:30 PM | Storytelling, Sound and Music
Panelists and Moderator
George Streicher, Composer (Music for Halloween Night)
James Burkholder, Composer (Shelby Oaks)
Matthew Feder, Co-composer (Asteroid)
Michelle Lewis, Songwriter, Co-creator and Executive Producer (Kindergarten: The Musical)
Youssef Guezoum, Composer (Power Rangers, Deep State, Monsters, The Board, Promise)
Moderator: Sabeen Faheem, entertainment host, creator, and press
This panel was not about what music does. It was about why it does it.
Moderated by Sabeen Faheem, the conversation peeled back how sound shapes emotional architecture across everything from horror films to animated children’s shows. At its core, the message was simple: music is not background. It is narrative.
Faheem set the tone early:
“Music brings people together. It doesn’t matter where we’re from. Music speaks to everyone.”
Across the discussion, several creative truths emerged:
- Silence in horror can be as powerful as any score.
- Music must serve the psychology of the story, not just the visuals.
- Instrumentation choices are storytelling decisions, not aesthetic flourishes.
One panelist described resisting the urge to score “the obvious,” letting silence and tension breathe. Another noted that because visuals already convey cosmic wonder in science fiction, music should not double down on awe, but instead layer deeper emotional meaning underneath.
The panel also delighted in the idiosyncratic: sampling a shaking Halloween ghost toy to shape a nostalgic melodic motif; introducing a guitar viol, part guitar and part cello, as a shadow theme in a horror score; and wielding an Aztec death whistle to create eerie textures in a video game soundtrack. These were not novelty tricks. They were story tools.
By the end, it was clear: music does not simply accompany story. It is story.
2:30–3:30 PM | Science in Storytelling
Panelists
Clifford Johnson, theoretical physicist and science advisor on major film and television projects
Gabriel-Philip Santos, paleontologist, co-founder of Cosplay for Science, cohost of PBS Eons
Moderator: Deb Bright, San Diego Science Writers Association
This panel asked a deceptively simple question: When does scientific accuracy matter in fiction, and when is it okay to go “timey-wimey wibbly-wobbly?”
Clifford Johnson explained that science advising spans a wide range, from last-minute buzzword checks to deep collaboration that shapes story at a foundational level.
“It can be everything from a phone call asking for buzzwords to a really deep dive. ‘What’s the story you want to tell, and how can I help?’”
The broader theme was not policing realism. It was about trust. Audiences stay immersed when fictional worlds feel consistent, even when they are wildly fantastical.
Gabriel-Philip Santos expanded the conversation by tying play directly to learning.
“For most of us, the way we first learned is through play. We create our own stories.”
Play, he argued, is not childhood whimsy. It is a cognitive engine. People learn science through stories they can inhabit, whether that means Star Wars action figures or Pokémon-based biology analogies. By using fandom and cosplay, educators can build emotional bridges to real scientific concepts that might otherwise feel inaccessible.
In a moment that felt deeply coded in Saturday Morning Cereal DNA, the panel landed on a powerful truth: fictional worlds spark real understanding not by pretending they are true, but by making us care enough to ask real questions.
3:30–4:30 PM | Storytelling in Games: Tabletop Dungeon Masters and Storytellers
The Theater, Comic-Con Museum
If the earlier panels explored how stories are scored and scientifically grounded, this one explored how stories are shared.
The panel was facilitated by Weston Gardner, known online as Arcane Anthems, a music producer who creates soundscapes specifically for tabletop role-playing games. Gardner grounded the room with a simple idea: tabletop RPGs are storytelling systems, not just games.
You follow rules.
You inhabit characters.
You roll dice.
And together, you create a story.
Panelists
Ashlyn Lowenberg
Known online as Dollar Store DM, Lowenberg is a professional Dungeon Master celebrated for turning everyday materials into imaginative terrain and miniatures. She leads workshops at conventions and hosts The Art of Adventure, focusing on accessible, creative storytelling. (She/her)
Fish Finley
A tabletop character artist, TTRPG actual-play performer, and tabletop awards board member, Finley is also a convention panelist and advocate for underrepresented communities in the tabletop gaming space. (They/them)
Keyon Story
An award-winning storyteller and tabletop RPG actual-play performer, Story hosts Roll Detox on the Roll D5 Network and is a current player on Winter’s Tales: Wild Magic West. (He/they)
Ryan Omega
A self-described “community legend” (not a joke), Omega is an accomplished show runner, experience and event creator, and the host of Taskmaster LA, with deep roots in live-action role play and actual-play storytelling. (He/him)
Together, this group represented a cross-section of what modern tabletop storytelling looks like: collaborative, inclusive, improvisational, and deeply human.
Why Tabletop? Why Now?
When Gardner asked why they chose tabletop RPGs as their storytelling medium, the answers circled the same truth from different angles: accessibility.
Unlike film or television, industries guarded by budgets, gatekeepers, and infrastructure, tabletop storytelling begins with friends, imagination, and a willingness to play.
One panelist spoke powerfully about representation. When you do not see yourself reflected in media, tabletop allows you to become the representation. Another framed tabletop as a rejection of the idea that adulthood means abandoning play.
That theme kept resurfacing: play is not childish. It is essential.
“To be cringe is to be free.”
The line landed like a thesis statement for the entire day.
The Dungeon Master Myth
Much of the discussion dismantled the idea that Dungeon Masters must be all-knowing architects carrying the full weight of the story. In reality, tabletop storytelling is radically collaborative.
Players derail plans.
Players invent details.
Players steal boats.
That is not failure. That is the story coming alive.
Panelists stressed that it does not matter whether an idea was planned for months or invented on the spot. If the table is engaged, the story is working. One storyteller described shifting narrative responsibility by asking players to describe elements of the world themselves.
The result is a shared story where no one carries the burden alone.
Why This Panel Hit So Hard
What made this session feel especially Saturday Morning Cereal was not just the nostalgia of rolling dice. It was the philosophy underneath it.
Tabletop storytelling is communal instead of hierarchical, improvisational instead of rigid, and inclusive instead of exclusionary.
It remembers where most of us started, on the floor with toys, inventing worlds, and says: you are allowed to keep doing this.
In a symposium about storytelling across media, this panel quietly argued that some of the purest storytelling happening today does not require screens at all. It only requires trust, imagination, and a group of people willing to ask, “Okay… what happens next?”
And honestly, that might be the most Comic-Con thing of all.
Why SAM Matters, and Why You Should Care
In a culture obsessed with big reveals, splashy trailers, and the next big thing, SAM felt like a Zen counterpoint. It was a reminder that stories do not start with spectacle. They start with intention.
At SAM, creators did not just talk about what they do. They shared how and why they do it.
Music does not simply accompany emotion. It shapes it.
Science in fiction is not just about accuracy. It is about trust and curiosity.
Games are not escapes. They are collective storytelling engines.
Across film scores, wormholes, dinosaur bones, dice rolls, and shared tables, one truth emerged: stories are the architecture of meaning.
Comic-Con may always be biggest when its Hall H moments go viral. But at SAM, I walked away thinking that the craft behind pop culture is still alive and still worth learning from.
Why the Comic-Con Museum Is the Perfect Home for SAM
There could not be a better place for SAM than the Comic-Con Museum.
This is not just a venue. It is the only museum of its kind in the world, a year-round, living extension of Comic-Con International dedicated to the history, craft, and cultural impact of popular arts: comics, film, television, gaming, animation, and the stories that bind them all together.
Located in Balboa Park, the Comic-Con Museum exists to do something Comic-Con itself does not always have time for during the summer chaos: slow down and examine why these stories matter.
One of the museum’s defining features is its rotating main exhibition, ensuring that no two visits feel the same. At the time of SAM, the headline exhibit was Doctor Who, a sprawling and immersive exploration of how science fiction, imagination, and identity collide across decades of storytelling. Previous major exhibitions have focused on icons like Spider-Man, along with deep dives into animation, pop art, lucha libre, and the global language of fandom.
What makes the Comic-Con Museum special is not just nostalgia. It is context.
You do not simply see artifacts. You learn how characters were created, why they resonated, and what they say about the eras that produced them. That mission mirrors SAM perfectly. SAM is not about selling the next thing. It is about understanding the machinery behind the stories we already love.
In that sense, the museum acts as both archive and laboratory:
a place where pop culture is preserved with the same seriousness as traditional art;
a space where fans become students of storytelling;
and a bridge between the emotional pull of fandom and intellectual curiosity.
If Comic-Con is the annual celebration, loud and overwhelming, the Comic-Con Museum is its permanent heartbeat. SAM feels like a natural extension of that purpose, a day devoted not to spectacle, but to craft, curiosity, and connection.
For anyone who loves stories, not just consuming them but understanding them, the Comic-Con Museum is not optional. It is essential.
And SAM proved exactly why.
Quick SAM Fact Sheet
What: SAM: Storytelling Across Media, a one-day Comic-Con symposium on storytelling craft
When: Saturday, November 8, 2025, 11:30 AM to 4:30 PM
Where: Comic-Con Museum, Balboa Park, San Diego, California
Panels Covered:
Storytelling, Sound and Music (12:30–1:30 PM)
Science in Storytelling (2:30–3:30 PM)
Storytelling in Games (3:30–4:30 PM)
Why It Matters: Because narrative craft still drives culture, even in a media landscape that often prioritizes spectacle over substance
