Comic-Con 2007 Observations
Folks,
Well, Comic-Con 2007 is now part of history.
I had a good enough time. Not as good as I'd hoped but good enough. Last year there were several panels which I really wanted to get to. This year there really wasn't a single panel in the entire Convention program that got my that excited. There were a couple set up for late Saturday afternoon which I thought moderately interesting so that's where my focus was.
With my Registration in hand and with nothing going on at the start which was of that interest, I took my time in getting to the event. In fact, I showed up in the early afternoon. That would've been the kiss of death to have even thought about attempting in years past. This time 'round, no problem. The only fly in the ointment was trying to find parking at the Old Town Transit Center. That lot was full. Gee, what a surprise that was - mid-day on a Saturday with a major convention going on downtown and I fail to find a spot at that locale. Oh well, I simply drove to another nearby stop, Fashion Valley, and quickly found a parking spot and had but a couple of moments to wait up on the platform for the next Trolley. This one was a Green Line machine that ran all that way past the Convention Center so there wasn't even the need to change trains. There were plenty of Con attendees also up on the platform waiting for their ride.
Among them were some Goth /Gen X kids, some rather obvious Fans, a very curvaceous and sexy young black woman in a green corset outfit and boots. She had much to show, showed it quite well, and wasn't considered out of place there on the Fashion Valley Trolley platform as there were too many Con-goers around here. Also there was an Asian couple doing some Cos-Play as they were dressed like their favorite Anime characters. He looked like the "hero" from the Pokemon game/video and she looked like one of the many "pretty little girlie" characters which abound in Japanese anime. An odd assembly that fit right in with each other.
As expected, there was the usual crowd at the Trolley stops around the Convention Center and it got pretty thick crossing Harbor Drive. But then it got pretty thin in front of the Center itself. Normally, even that late on a Saturday afternoon, there'd still be lines out in front of the Con. One line of folks waiting to get upstairs to buy their way in to the day's events and another long line of folks out front waiting to get upstairs to pick up their pre-registrations. Neither was there at that time. In fact, the Registration Area itself was closed and empty. Comic-Con had already sold itself out. Not just sold out of Full Registrations, those went away early on Friday, not just of Saturday Day Passes but of any and all levels of Passes and Registrations. Sold out by mid-day on Saturday. That was really odd. Appreciated, but odd.
Anyway, I got in to the event and took out my map of the vendor area. I'd gone through the programming and souvenir booklets that morning to chart my day. I'd highlighted the vendor booths I wanted to make sure I'd hit and also which panels I wanted to be at during the day. That made getting around easier and more direct for me.
After I got all that done I made my way upstairs to take in the "two Rays" panel. This was where That was where Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen were brought together to hold forth. Those were two guys I really wanted to at least hear speak and see with my own eyes. So, I got down to where the panel was to take place whilst the one preceding it still had about forty five minutes to go. Luckily, I had some good reading material to keep me occupied. When it let out I zipped to the front and found a seemingly empty spot.
It was at about this point that I got reminded why so many mundanes really look askance at Con attendees - even at the ones who don't dress up like Klingons or Stormtroopers. A row behind me to my right was a woman who was just bursting about her latest purchase. It was a large black T-shirt which she'd bought - right off the back of the guy wearing it. I didn't catch all of it but from the context of what I did get and from the size of the shirt I think it might've been Silent Bob's T-shirt. It would be like Smith to pull such a stunt. And it would be like some of the fans there to have paid for such a stunt to be pulled. The woman was gushing about it and proclaimed that the shirt "even still smelled like him!" Oh joy.
Of course, the woman one seat over to my left simply had to get involved. Not only did she take a picture with her cellphone's camera of the other woman holding up her freshly scented acquisition, she also asked if she to could breathe in its wondrous aroma. So, the thing wound up being held directly above me as they reached over to "share the joy." Yup, that's Fans for you.
At least though, I had some empty seats between them and me. But even that didn't last long. As the panel started to get underway, the seat to my left which was being held for a friend by the woman on my left got filled by that friend. Very filled. To say this girl was Rubenesque would be to put it mildly. Just by her ownself she could've easily filled two of the tightly packed chairs setup there in the room. And here I was wedged in next to her. Yeah, lucky me.
Such luck was not just for me at that panel.
The good Mr. Bradbury is getting on in years and those years have been kinder to Mr. Harryhausen. As such, Ray B came to the panel in a wheelchair. Instead of a ramp to get him up on the dais, the techno-geeks at Comic-Con had set up one of those "wheelchair lift" mini-elevators. They got Ray B. onto it easily enough and the thing lifted up to the dais easily enough. But that was when the easy enough ran out. They couldn't get the door open to wheel him out onto the dais. Stuck up in the air and almost on stage in front of the whole audience. I think the Comic-Con crew in the room were suddenly trying to sink into the spaces between the weave in the carpet! Ray B was a good sport about it and everyone cheered when they finally got the thing open and Ray was able to wheel out to his place on the panel.
After a bit of discussion by the two Rays - who not only knew of each other but also turned out to be good friends throughout their careers - I decided to cut out. It was about dinner time and I had need to feed. I also didn't want to spend the rest of the hour squished next to Ms. Rubenesque.
I ate up the sandwich I'd purchased earlier in the day for just this moment. Trying to purchase your meals at an event like Comic-Con brings with it the problem of long lines, very expensive grub, and grub that isn't worth even half of what you pay for it. I saved cash, time, and quality by bringing my own dinner to the party. I ate that out on the Sail Deck and watched some of the Con world go by. That's always entertaining.
Then I took in the art show area before I headed off to the "NBM at 30" panel. NBM is a publishing house which has been bringing graphic novels to market since the 70's and has done a very wide range of subjects. No few of which have caught my eye over the years. So, I thought I'd drop by their panel to see what their history was and what they had in store to make more of their history with.
There was much I found interesting at that panel. I'd no idea that NBM had been around that long and had achieved such success in getting comics for adults into the mainstream. Their history got me all the more interested in their business in general. With the history lesson done they let the authors and artists there on the panel discuss their current and upcoming projects they were doing for NBM. One of those artists was Bryan Talbot. He did "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" graphic novel back in the 70's and early 80's which I found out about when it was picked up by Dark Horse Comics here in the US in the late 80's. I was pleased to put the face to the artwork and storytelling which I enjoyed so much.
Also on the panel was Ted Rall. Yes, that Ted Rall. He was putting out an autobiographical tale of his early days in New York city and of how tough he had it then. He apparently found success so elusive back then that he wound up homeless there for a time and actually slept in a janitor's closet. His humor about this was of a somewhat sneering self-deprecating nature. He wasn't going to be drawing this graphic novel, an other artist will do that. A fact he said "which no doubt will please many people." The primary reason he won't be drawing it is that it will involve lots of sex and "no one wants to see me drawing sex scenes" he snickered. I found his presentation and humor to be of the "ha, ha, look at how I'm able to laugh despite being so persecuted" nature.
I don't much care for Mr. Rall. The guy is a racist bigot, has a truly loathsome and contemptible view of the military (he views all our troops as equivalent to Nazis and / or as being just like suicide bombers,) and he's one of those classic stereotypical sneering elitists hypocritical leftists which have done so much damage to the Left in America and to the Democrat party. The contrast at day's end with him there and what I found at day's start was striking.
That morning I was at Von's stocking up on meals for the day. I noticed a car parked in the lot which had a hand applied bit of lettering on its trunk: "Member Torpedo 8 Midway" was what it said. That struck a chord. As I started to drive away I saw a guy who looked about the right age to have been there and done that walking toward that car. I swung 'round and rolled down my window when I pulled up behind him. I asked him "Torpedo 8, is that you?" The guy, clearly in his 80's piped right up "Yup, that's me. Or at least that was me."
Oddly, I really couldn't say much at that point. But I made damn sure though to shake that man's hand. Damn sure. He, in turn, thanked me for noticing.
So, here was this guy who fought in a war, faced truly lethal hardships, was in a unit which suffered 100% loss of all its aircraft trying to stop the Japanese from landing on Midway, and he was getting on with his life in his senior years. And there was Ted, about to publish a graphic novel to make money about how "rough" he had it back in the 80's in New York.
At that point I was reminded of just how true P.J. O'Rourke's quote about Liberals really is: "At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child- miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats." The good Mr. Rall was getting more attention by sniveling how bad he had it when he was younger. The guy in the parking that morning wasn't sniveling about how bad he had it back when he was younger. No, sniveling wasn't it at all. The man served. He did his duty, he did his job. In doing so, he put his life at risk and got to endure losing his companions and friends and friends in those battles. He had something to be proud of and something which we are still benefiting from today. Mr. Rall? He'll just make a few more bucks with his sniveling and whining. Quite a contrast indeed.
I didn't stay to long through the rest of that panel. No, Ted's sniveling didn't leave so bad a taste in my mouth that I left. In fact, I found it rather morbidly fascinating to see who self-centered he was and how he was continuing that by making money off of it. Instead, I was getting pretty well tuckered out by then and soon called it a night.
Considering the how much more sane and low stress it was getting into the Con by purchasing my Registration in advance, I'll definitely be doing that again for next year's gig. I will, however, try and go through their program listing to see if it makes more sense to purchase but a single day pass and not the full weekend thing. Then again, maybe I'll have more cash on hand to do more shopping throughout the event and maybe I'll take in more of the Con's activities outside of the vendor area and panels. In any event, I will be back for more Comic-Cons. I enjoyed even this year's event that much.
Madoc
Well, Comic-Con 2007 is now part of history.
I had a good enough time. Not as good as I'd hoped but good enough. Last year there were several panels which I really wanted to get to. This year there really wasn't a single panel in the entire Convention program that got my that excited. There were a couple set up for late Saturday afternoon which I thought moderately interesting so that's where my focus was.
With my Registration in hand and with nothing going on at the start which was of that interest, I took my time in getting to the event. In fact, I showed up in the early afternoon. That would've been the kiss of death to have even thought about attempting in years past. This time 'round, no problem. The only fly in the ointment was trying to find parking at the Old Town Transit Center. That lot was full. Gee, what a surprise that was - mid-day on a Saturday with a major convention going on downtown and I fail to find a spot at that locale. Oh well, I simply drove to another nearby stop, Fashion Valley, and quickly found a parking spot and had but a couple of moments to wait up on the platform for the next Trolley. This one was a Green Line machine that ran all that way past the Convention Center so there wasn't even the need to change trains. There were plenty of Con attendees also up on the platform waiting for their ride.
Among them were some Goth /Gen X kids, some rather obvious Fans, a very curvaceous and sexy young black woman in a green corset outfit and boots. She had much to show, showed it quite well, and wasn't considered out of place there on the Fashion Valley Trolley platform as there were too many Con-goers around here. Also there was an Asian couple doing some Cos-Play as they were dressed like their favorite Anime characters. He looked like the "hero" from the Pokemon game/video and she looked like one of the many "pretty little girlie" characters which abound in Japanese anime. An odd assembly that fit right in with each other.
As expected, there was the usual crowd at the Trolley stops around the Convention Center and it got pretty thick crossing Harbor Drive. But then it got pretty thin in front of the Center itself. Normally, even that late on a Saturday afternoon, there'd still be lines out in front of the Con. One line of folks waiting to get upstairs to buy their way in to the day's events and another long line of folks out front waiting to get upstairs to pick up their pre-registrations. Neither was there at that time. In fact, the Registration Area itself was closed and empty. Comic-Con had already sold itself out. Not just sold out of Full Registrations, those went away early on Friday, not just of Saturday Day Passes but of any and all levels of Passes and Registrations. Sold out by mid-day on Saturday. That was really odd. Appreciated, but odd.
Anyway, I got in to the event and took out my map of the vendor area. I'd gone through the programming and souvenir booklets that morning to chart my day. I'd highlighted the vendor booths I wanted to make sure I'd hit and also which panels I wanted to be at during the day. That made getting around easier and more direct for me.
After I got all that done I made my way upstairs to take in the "two Rays" panel. This was where That was where Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen were brought together to hold forth. Those were two guys I really wanted to at least hear speak and see with my own eyes. So, I got down to where the panel was to take place whilst the one preceding it still had about forty five minutes to go. Luckily, I had some good reading material to keep me occupied. When it let out I zipped to the front and found a seemingly empty spot.
It was at about this point that I got reminded why so many mundanes really look askance at Con attendees - even at the ones who don't dress up like Klingons or Stormtroopers. A row behind me to my right was a woman who was just bursting about her latest purchase. It was a large black T-shirt which she'd bought - right off the back of the guy wearing it. I didn't catch all of it but from the context of what I did get and from the size of the shirt I think it might've been Silent Bob's T-shirt. It would be like Smith to pull such a stunt. And it would be like some of the fans there to have paid for such a stunt to be pulled. The woman was gushing about it and proclaimed that the shirt "even still smelled like him!" Oh joy.
Of course, the woman one seat over to my left simply had to get involved. Not only did she take a picture with her cellphone's camera of the other woman holding up her freshly scented acquisition, she also asked if she to could breathe in its wondrous aroma. So, the thing wound up being held directly above me as they reached over to "share the joy." Yup, that's Fans for you.
At least though, I had some empty seats between them and me. But even that didn't last long. As the panel started to get underway, the seat to my left which was being held for a friend by the woman on my left got filled by that friend. Very filled. To say this girl was Rubenesque would be to put it mildly. Just by her ownself she could've easily filled two of the tightly packed chairs setup there in the room. And here I was wedged in next to her. Yeah, lucky me.
Such luck was not just for me at that panel.
The good Mr. Bradbury is getting on in years and those years have been kinder to Mr. Harryhausen. As such, Ray B came to the panel in a wheelchair. Instead of a ramp to get him up on the dais, the techno-geeks at Comic-Con had set up one of those "wheelchair lift" mini-elevators. They got Ray B. onto it easily enough and the thing lifted up to the dais easily enough. But that was when the easy enough ran out. They couldn't get the door open to wheel him out onto the dais. Stuck up in the air and almost on stage in front of the whole audience. I think the Comic-Con crew in the room were suddenly trying to sink into the spaces between the weave in the carpet! Ray B was a good sport about it and everyone cheered when they finally got the thing open and Ray was able to wheel out to his place on the panel.
After a bit of discussion by the two Rays - who not only knew of each other but also turned out to be good friends throughout their careers - I decided to cut out. It was about dinner time and I had need to feed. I also didn't want to spend the rest of the hour squished next to Ms. Rubenesque.
I ate up the sandwich I'd purchased earlier in the day for just this moment. Trying to purchase your meals at an event like Comic-Con brings with it the problem of long lines, very expensive grub, and grub that isn't worth even half of what you pay for it. I saved cash, time, and quality by bringing my own dinner to the party. I ate that out on the Sail Deck and watched some of the Con world go by. That's always entertaining.
Then I took in the art show area before I headed off to the "NBM at 30" panel. NBM is a publishing house which has been bringing graphic novels to market since the 70's and has done a very wide range of subjects. No few of which have caught my eye over the years. So, I thought I'd drop by their panel to see what their history was and what they had in store to make more of their history with.
There was much I found interesting at that panel. I'd no idea that NBM had been around that long and had achieved such success in getting comics for adults into the mainstream. Their history got me all the more interested in their business in general. With the history lesson done they let the authors and artists there on the panel discuss their current and upcoming projects they were doing for NBM. One of those artists was Bryan Talbot. He did "The Adventures of Luther Arkwright" graphic novel back in the 70's and early 80's which I found out about when it was picked up by Dark Horse Comics here in the US in the late 80's. I was pleased to put the face to the artwork and storytelling which I enjoyed so much.
Also on the panel was Ted Rall. Yes, that Ted Rall. He was putting out an autobiographical tale of his early days in New York city and of how tough he had it then. He apparently found success so elusive back then that he wound up homeless there for a time and actually slept in a janitor's closet. His humor about this was of a somewhat sneering self-deprecating nature. He wasn't going to be drawing this graphic novel, an other artist will do that. A fact he said "which no doubt will please many people." The primary reason he won't be drawing it is that it will involve lots of sex and "no one wants to see me drawing sex scenes" he snickered. I found his presentation and humor to be of the "ha, ha, look at how I'm able to laugh despite being so persecuted" nature.
I don't much care for Mr. Rall. The guy is a racist bigot, has a truly loathsome and contemptible view of the military (he views all our troops as equivalent to Nazis and / or as being just like suicide bombers,) and he's one of those classic stereotypical sneering elitists hypocritical leftists which have done so much damage to the Left in America and to the Democrat party. The contrast at day's end with him there and what I found at day's start was striking.
That morning I was at Von's stocking up on meals for the day. I noticed a car parked in the lot which had a hand applied bit of lettering on its trunk: "Member Torpedo 8 Midway" was what it said. That struck a chord. As I started to drive away I saw a guy who looked about the right age to have been there and done that walking toward that car. I swung 'round and rolled down my window when I pulled up behind him. I asked him "Torpedo 8, is that you?" The guy, clearly in his 80's piped right up "Yup, that's me. Or at least that was me."
Oddly, I really couldn't say much at that point. But I made damn sure though to shake that man's hand. Damn sure. He, in turn, thanked me for noticing.
So, here was this guy who fought in a war, faced truly lethal hardships, was in a unit which suffered 100% loss of all its aircraft trying to stop the Japanese from landing on Midway, and he was getting on with his life in his senior years. And there was Ted, about to publish a graphic novel to make money about how "rough" he had it back in the 80's in New York.
At that point I was reminded of just how true P.J. O'Rourke's quote about Liberals really is: "At the core of liberalism is the spoiled child- miserable, as all spoiled children are, unsatisfied, demanding, ill-disciplined, despotic and useless. Liberalism is a philosophy of sniveling brats." The good Mr. Rall was getting more attention by sniveling how bad he had it when he was younger. The guy in the parking that morning wasn't sniveling about how bad he had it back when he was younger. No, sniveling wasn't it at all. The man served. He did his duty, he did his job. In doing so, he put his life at risk and got to endure losing his companions and friends and friends in those battles. He had something to be proud of and something which we are still benefiting from today. Mr. Rall? He'll just make a few more bucks with his sniveling and whining. Quite a contrast indeed.
I didn't stay to long through the rest of that panel. No, Ted's sniveling didn't leave so bad a taste in my mouth that I left. In fact, I found it rather morbidly fascinating to see who self-centered he was and how he was continuing that by making money off of it. Instead, I was getting pretty well tuckered out by then and soon called it a night.
Considering the how much more sane and low stress it was getting into the Con by purchasing my Registration in advance, I'll definitely be doing that again for next year's gig. I will, however, try and go through their program listing to see if it makes more sense to purchase but a single day pass and not the full weekend thing. Then again, maybe I'll have more cash on hand to do more shopping throughout the event and maybe I'll take in more of the Con's activities outside of the vendor area and panels. In any event, I will be back for more Comic-Cons. I enjoyed even this year's event that much.
Madoc