As Comic-Con came to a close yesterday, Joshua Jackson hijacked some attention away from sci-fi/comic book geekery and redirected it towards late-’90s precocious teen schmaltz.

A small group of people were gathered on the lawn a distance from the convention center. They were standing around Joshua Jackson from ‘Fringe’, he was staging his own “Pacey-Con”, giving out fan fiction he wrote and getting pictures with the women, all while the “Dawson’s Creek” theme music played on a boom box. [Non-Sport Update via shimmery shine]

I have to say, I’m impressed that Jackson was willing to embrace the fact that everyone still calls him Pacey, especially since everyone else from that show is now a shell of their former self: Katie Holmes is a prisoner of Scientology, Michelle Williams is raising Heath Ledger’s orphan, and James Van Der Beek works for the U.S. government at the El Paso-Ciudad Juárez border, where his forehead serves as a barrier to prospective illegal immigrants.

Tom Kapinos, the writer and executive producer for “Californication” who cut his teeth as a show runner on “Dawson’s Creek” a decade ago, opened up about the horrible experience of working on the hit that propelled Joshua Jackson, Katie Holmes, and Michelle Williams to stardom and James Van Der Beek to one role in a movie by MTV Films.

“The experience was miserable,” he continued about Dawson’s. “But it was a four-year boot camp. It was like going to TV grad school and learning how to run a television show. Anybody on that show who could make a decision was allowed to run it at some point. I inherited the very awkward college years, and I almost ran the show into the ground. But I learned everything that I needed to know about how to run a show.”

When the panel moderator asked, “What was it specifically that made it such a challenge?” Tom dropped this bomb: “It was the four monstrous actors at the core of it.”  The audience erupted in laughter as Tom continued, saying: “They were very young, and they got very famous, and they made life miserable for any writer or producer on the show.” [E Online]

I’ll tell you what the real monster is.  Van Der Beek’s forehead.  ZING.  Or should I go with Katie’s husband?  What’s more likely to devour an American city?  Tom Cruise or that glacial cranium?  I can’t decide.