(no subject)
I tried to get amped for Comic-Con this year, but I'm just not feeling the geek love. Let me tell about last year.
The crowds. Oh dear god the crowds. It was oversold, and took a full hour to shuffle your way from one end of the convention to the other. Not walk. Shuffle. If that. I literally could not move, there were so many people. I got three feet away from Freak in the sea of people and couldn't find him for an hour, which would have been fine if he hadn't been holding my cell phone. Not that you could hear a cell phone. I was one of the only biological females in a sea of adolescent males, and this was on Sunday, the "slow day". I ended the day dehydrated, claustrophobic, and with an eye-stabbing headache since I never could get near the $4 soft drinks. I was also a little frazzled from trying not to think about what would happen if, god forbid, an earthquake hit. This year is supposed to be the same, if not worse.
Oh, but you don’t have to spend all your time with the hordes, Kar3n, you can go to a panel. Hope you got there early and camped. You didn't? Ah. There's a three hour wait for the Lost panel, where a marketing hack will read from the press kit created by ABC specifically for the Comic-con demographic, give vague answers to a handful of questions and present an interview with JJ Abrams that will be a Comic-con exclusive for eight hours until it's uploaded to Youtube tomorrow. Oh wow. Hold me back. Woo.
My #1 biggest peeve, though, was the marketing, and the way the con seems to have been taken over by huge media companies.
The biggest draw isn't the comics anymore, it's the movie and television booths set up by the studios to flog whatever their latest show is.
The artists-- you know, the people that are drawing all this badass stuff, the people creating things and not solely there to sell stuff-- were stuck in the Small Press area, or in Artist's Alley, waaaay down at the end of the hall between the $9 pizza and the guys selling 20-sided dice.
The remaining 75% of the space was dominated by major comic publishers (DC is a Time-Warner company. Huh.), video game makers, toy makers and the aforementioned studios hyping fellating targeting fanboys for next summer's blockbusters. "Iron Man" I understand, although if you're already at Comic-con, you're probably going to be first in line anyway. Last year, though, there was a "Get Smart" booth, which as far as I know is not comic-based, it was just sort of there. Likewise, "Golden Compass". Why? Every major and minor studio has a booth which sells nothing, and contributes nothing but an endless stream of what are, essentially, commercials, playing to a rapt audience of fanboys gushing over every frame.
And then I got pissed. Maybe it's just because I work for the hype machine, but I'm not interested *. I want to see some fucking art, not watch commercials. And if I need a Card Captor Sakura T-shirt or an ultra-limited edition action figure, I'll go on eBay. There's no need to go all the way to San Diego just to watch commercials and collect a bunch of plastic junk.
Oh yeah.. the buying. Collectibles. There is an endless buffet of pop-culture-related "stuff" that probably wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the fact that they sell big at Comic-cons. Watching the hordes and hordes of people gazing lovingly at a display of fucking Transformers, I started thinking of saint's relics, where people in the Middle Ages would try to literally buy a piece of their heroes, hoping it would reflect some kind of virtue back on them.
Say, is there a phone booth around? I need to change into my alter-ego, Captain Buzzkill, socialist heroine, party downer, and bringer of perspective. Excuse me a minute.
*shuffleshufflethunk* A-ha!
Citizen! I see that you are purchasing a ultra-limited-edition Iron Man Movie Fine Art Statue in it's original factory sealed box! This one action figure toy maquette of Iron Man that's not actually made of iron will cost you dearly-- at least 150 of the dollars that you (or your parents) have exchanged for your labor at the behest of your capitalist masters. But I will use my Mind-Expanding Ray to make you consider this! $150 will also purchase:
Behold! Thanks to the powers of Mind Expander, you now perceive that an entire classroom can get amped up on sugar and caffeine and make their own comics all day long until the paint runs out for the cost of one of your mere Iron Men. The importance of art education versus yet another "thing" to affirm your status as a consumer and take up space in your already cluttered cubicle-- I leave the choice to you, comrade!
And now, to the hybrid Buzzkill-Mobile! There are social consciences to raise!
*Ahem* I really want to be excited about Comic-con. I should be stoked, and I'm a little sad that I'm not. I know I sound like an old fart, but yes, it was cooler back in the day before Hollywood moved in and it became a giant mall. And I'm really tired of seeing everything cool turn into something that can be bought and sold. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had something to sell.
I don’t know how you'd fix it, either. Pull an E3 and start limiting it to actual comic professionals with a limited number of public tickets? What do you think? And for those of you that are amped about it, why do you go to Comic-Con?
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*making movies is like making sausage. Once you know how it's made, you don't particularly want to eat it.
The crowds. Oh dear god the crowds. It was oversold, and took a full hour to shuffle your way from one end of the convention to the other. Not walk. Shuffle. If that. I literally could not move, there were so many people. I got three feet away from Freak in the sea of people and couldn't find him for an hour, which would have been fine if he hadn't been holding my cell phone. Not that you could hear a cell phone. I was one of the only biological females in a sea of adolescent males, and this was on Sunday, the "slow day". I ended the day dehydrated, claustrophobic, and with an eye-stabbing headache since I never could get near the $4 soft drinks. I was also a little frazzled from trying not to think about what would happen if, god forbid, an earthquake hit. This year is supposed to be the same, if not worse.
Oh, but you don’t have to spend all your time with the hordes, Kar3n, you can go to a panel. Hope you got there early and camped. You didn't? Ah. There's a three hour wait for the Lost panel, where a marketing hack will read from the press kit created by ABC specifically for the Comic-con demographic, give vague answers to a handful of questions and present an interview with JJ Abrams that will be a Comic-con exclusive for eight hours until it's uploaded to Youtube tomorrow. Oh wow. Hold me back. Woo.
My #1 biggest peeve, though, was the marketing, and the way the con seems to have been taken over by huge media companies.
The biggest draw isn't the comics anymore, it's the movie and television booths set up by the studios to flog whatever their latest show is.
The artists-- you know, the people that are drawing all this badass stuff, the people creating things and not solely there to sell stuff-- were stuck in the Small Press area, or in Artist's Alley, waaaay down at the end of the hall between the $9 pizza and the guys selling 20-sided dice.
The remaining 75% of the space was dominated by major comic publishers (DC is a Time-Warner company. Huh.), video game makers, toy makers and the aforementioned studios hyping fellating targeting fanboys for next summer's blockbusters. "Iron Man" I understand, although if you're already at Comic-con, you're probably going to be first in line anyway. Last year, though, there was a "Get Smart" booth, which as far as I know is not comic-based, it was just sort of there. Likewise, "Golden Compass". Why? Every major and minor studio has a booth which sells nothing, and contributes nothing but an endless stream of what are, essentially, commercials, playing to a rapt audience of fanboys gushing over every frame.
And then I got pissed. Maybe it's just because I work for the hype machine, but I'm not interested *. I want to see some fucking art, not watch commercials. And if I need a Card Captor Sakura T-shirt or an ultra-limited edition action figure, I'll go on eBay. There's no need to go all the way to San Diego just to watch commercials and collect a bunch of plastic junk.
Oh yeah.. the buying. Collectibles. There is an endless buffet of pop-culture-related "stuff" that probably wouldn't even exist if it weren't for the fact that they sell big at Comic-cons. Watching the hordes and hordes of people gazing lovingly at a display of fucking Transformers, I started thinking of saint's relics, where people in the Middle Ages would try to literally buy a piece of their heroes, hoping it would reflect some kind of virtue back on them.
Say, is there a phone booth around? I need to change into my alter-ego, Captain Buzzkill, socialist heroine, party downer, and bringer of perspective. Excuse me a minute.
*shuffleshufflethunk* A-ha!
Citizen! I see that you are purchasing a ultra-limited-edition Iron Man Movie Fine Art Statue in it's original factory sealed box! This one action figure toy maquette of Iron Man that's not actually made of iron will cost you dearly-- at least 150 of the dollars that you (or your parents) have exchanged for your labor at the behest of your capitalist masters. But I will use my Mind-Expanding Ray to make you consider this! $150 will also purchase:
- 30 beginner paint sets *and*
- a box of black felt pens *and*
- a 1000' roll of butcher paper *and*
- a couple 2-liters of Mountain Dew
Behold! Thanks to the powers of Mind Expander, you now perceive that an entire classroom can get amped up on sugar and caffeine and make their own comics all day long until the paint runs out for the cost of one of your mere Iron Men. The importance of art education versus yet another "thing" to affirm your status as a consumer and take up space in your already cluttered cubicle-- I leave the choice to you, comrade!
And now, to the hybrid Buzzkill-Mobile! There are social consciences to raise!
*Ahem* I really want to be excited about Comic-con. I should be stoked, and I'm a little sad that I'm not. I know I sound like an old fart, but yes, it was cooler back in the day before Hollywood moved in and it became a giant mall. And I'm really tired of seeing everything cool turn into something that can be bought and sold. Maybe I'd feel differently if I had something to sell.
I don’t know how you'd fix it, either. Pull an E3 and start limiting it to actual comic professionals with a limited number of public tickets? What do you think? And for those of you that are amped about it, why do you go to Comic-Con?
-------------
*making movies is like making sausage. Once you know how it's made, you don't particularly want to eat it.