Comic Con 2011: Sunday Report & Summation!
There are a bunch of internet acronyms that I'm tempted to use here about my general mood now, but they're not quite encapsulating of how I feel about the Con and this Sunday's experience.
OMG: So. Much. Fun! (I had a great time this year, even though it was tempered by having a small child at home who needed attention immediately when we got back and insisted on waking up early every morning of the Con. This experience made for a great "stay-cation".)
OMG: So. Many. People! (OMG OMG OMG. I don't mind crowds, and as usual, this was a fairly benign group of people, but it was intimidating to get stuck in the middle of scrums on the Exhibit Hall floor, and I did get antsy towards the end of the whole affair, but this always happens. I couldn't get near many of the really big booths and I did witness a fairly unpleasant frenzy over Conan the Barbarian t-shirts at the Lionsgate booth, which could have been easily avoided with some line management.)
OMGWTFBBQ: So many people in costumes this year wearing very uncomfortable looking shoes. I saw some heels that I just couldn't believe; walking around the floor in 6-inchers? Really? For how long?
WTF: The tickets for next year thing. The lines. I passed one line of people at the Star Wars booth today and asked what they were waiting for. The last guy answered me: "The new "Old Republic" game demo. We're waiting two hours for three minutes of gameplay." I tried to be polite and not gape at them, but I think I gaped a little. I understand loving games and geeky things, but there's a real problem with his statement.
o_0/Slightly annoying: Amongst the freebies, there are a ton of totes and bags that turn out to be enormously useful the rest of the year for moving, grocery shopping, etc. However, this year, the great majority of these bags were poorly/cheaply made and I saw a lot of them falling apart with even just a little use on the floor. I understand we're in a recession and some companies didn't want to go for broke, but there's being generous, and there's being cheap, and this fell squarely into the "cheap" camp. Likewise, the annoying trend for free downloads of book samplers, instead of the physical samplers themselves. I count on the book samplers for reading in lines for panels, and I was hard pressed this year to find any at all! (Penguin Group came through in the end with not one, but FOUR samplers that I heartily enjoyed.)
OMGYAY: Getting to meet new talent (Tori Davis, who did an excellent commission sketch for me--she is so talented and her work is just amazing!) and seeing old acquaintances (like Tammy Stellanova & Ryan Clayton).
-_-;;/Sad Things: There was a genuine air of desperation for many people on the industry end of things. I heard a lot of talk about being unemployed or partially employed for long periods of time; everyone was concerned about the general state of the industry and its chances. I was also saddened at some of the unpleasantness that I overheard on the floor. More people were rude to one another than in previous years, and there was a lot of talking back to authority figures, who I thought were mostly pretty relaxed, considering the challenges they were faced with. I was also a little lonely for old, personal friends who couldn't make it for one reason or another.
But there were so many awesome things to counteract the sad ones, and the experience was excellent overall. I had a really fun time observing children today. One kid, at the XBox Kinect Star Wars booth, was just itching to get his turn at the game and went through all the motions himself before he even got into the demonstration. There was another very funny moment a few days ago, too, when I was about to go back into the Exhibit Hall and was passed by a man and a boy of about seven. I got the impression that the man was trying to be a Cool Uncle. The kid declared, "Let's go back and buy MORE TOYS!" and the wannabe Cool Uncle's face lost a bit of its color. In other kid-related developments, yebisu9 commented that he was really happy to see so many girls and young women dressing up as Jedi, and I liked that, too: there's a lot of power in those characters and I think a lot of young women really respond to that well. It was a nice balance to the Sucker Punch sailor-suited girls who were wandering around the hall.
In the end, though, what really makes me the happiest about this whole experience, is that it boils down to a celebration of reading, and the reasons reading makes everyone's lives better. Even though some people are there for JUST the movies or the vinyl toys, there are many more who aren't, and every kid who goes home with a free comic book or sampler is going to go home and *read* it, and that's a gateway. And I can't think of many other occasions where reading is as celebrated and valued. :)
Pictures are updated and annotated here. Thanks for reading!
OMG: So. Much. Fun! (I had a great time this year, even though it was tempered by having a small child at home who needed attention immediately when we got back and insisted on waking up early every morning of the Con. This experience made for a great "stay-cation".)
OMG: So. Many. People! (OMG OMG OMG. I don't mind crowds, and as usual, this was a fairly benign group of people, but it was intimidating to get stuck in the middle of scrums on the Exhibit Hall floor, and I did get antsy towards the end of the whole affair, but this always happens. I couldn't get near many of the really big booths and I did witness a fairly unpleasant frenzy over Conan the Barbarian t-shirts at the Lionsgate booth, which could have been easily avoided with some line management.)
OMGWTFBBQ: So many people in costumes this year wearing very uncomfortable looking shoes. I saw some heels that I just couldn't believe; walking around the floor in 6-inchers? Really? For how long?
WTF: The tickets for next year thing. The lines. I passed one line of people at the Star Wars booth today and asked what they were waiting for. The last guy answered me: "The new "Old Republic" game demo. We're waiting two hours for three minutes of gameplay." I tried to be polite and not gape at them, but I think I gaped a little. I understand loving games and geeky things, but there's a real problem with his statement.
o_0/Slightly annoying: Amongst the freebies, there are a ton of totes and bags that turn out to be enormously useful the rest of the year for moving, grocery shopping, etc. However, this year, the great majority of these bags were poorly/cheaply made and I saw a lot of them falling apart with even just a little use on the floor. I understand we're in a recession and some companies didn't want to go for broke, but there's being generous, and there's being cheap, and this fell squarely into the "cheap" camp. Likewise, the annoying trend for free downloads of book samplers, instead of the physical samplers themselves. I count on the book samplers for reading in lines for panels, and I was hard pressed this year to find any at all! (Penguin Group came through in the end with not one, but FOUR samplers that I heartily enjoyed.)
OMGYAY: Getting to meet new talent (Tori Davis, who did an excellent commission sketch for me--she is so talented and her work is just amazing!) and seeing old acquaintances (like Tammy Stellanova & Ryan Clayton).
-_-;;/Sad Things: There was a genuine air of desperation for many people on the industry end of things. I heard a lot of talk about being unemployed or partially employed for long periods of time; everyone was concerned about the general state of the industry and its chances. I was also saddened at some of the unpleasantness that I overheard on the floor. More people were rude to one another than in previous years, and there was a lot of talking back to authority figures, who I thought were mostly pretty relaxed, considering the challenges they were faced with. I was also a little lonely for old, personal friends who couldn't make it for one reason or another.
But there were so many awesome things to counteract the sad ones, and the experience was excellent overall. I had a really fun time observing children today. One kid, at the XBox Kinect Star Wars booth, was just itching to get his turn at the game and went through all the motions himself before he even got into the demonstration. There was another very funny moment a few days ago, too, when I was about to go back into the Exhibit Hall and was passed by a man and a boy of about seven. I got the impression that the man was trying to be a Cool Uncle. The kid declared, "Let's go back and buy MORE TOYS!" and the wannabe Cool Uncle's face lost a bit of its color. In other kid-related developments, yebisu9 commented that he was really happy to see so many girls and young women dressing up as Jedi, and I liked that, too: there's a lot of power in those characters and I think a lot of young women really respond to that well. It was a nice balance to the Sucker Punch sailor-suited girls who were wandering around the hall.
In the end, though, what really makes me the happiest about this whole experience, is that it boils down to a celebration of reading, and the reasons reading makes everyone's lives better. Even though some people are there for JUST the movies or the vinyl toys, there are many more who aren't, and every kid who goes home with a free comic book or sampler is going to go home and *read* it, and that's a gateway. And I can't think of many other occasions where reading is as celebrated and valued. :)
Pictures are updated and annotated here. Thanks for reading!