Another year and another Comic Con in San Diego. Since I moved to San Diego, it has become part of my yearly calendar. Wednesday night is preview night… only open for a few hours, and only to the hardest core nerds with 4 day passes. Having friends in the industry, they hook me up with a Professional Guest badge and I’m in. As I mentioned previously, I’m not much of a comic reader. I didn’t read my first comic book until just a few years ago. Square frames were a bit of a drag, but rolled and smoked it was a spiritual experience. Where I once was a tag along, now I’m almost an attendee.
As we walk towards the convention center, every light post has a pair of rectangular banners touting the convention (or The Con, as it is known). One side says,”Celebrating the Popular Arts”. Parallel, on the opposite side is a banner for Avatar, the quarter billion plus (yes, with a B) James Cameron movie coming out later this year. Cabs around town sport Dexter placards. Everything is about The Con.
I start to wonder about ‘Comic’ Con. Maybe they should rebrand it as simply “The Con”. They are already stepping away, on their 40th anniversary no less, with their tag line promoting pop culture. It is true. This morning’s LA Times coverage is about the panel for Twilight. A motion picture based on a novel. No comics in there. The line started forming around midnight, and that’s not all. The major movie and TV studios are all there promoting their wares, few of which are based on comics, and even some that aren’t even related to sub-culture genres (SciFi, Fantasy, Horror, etc…).
As I’m waiting in a huge crowd to cross the train tracks and get to the other side, I eaves drop around me. Two Con-goers seem particularly boisterous.
“Look at all these fucking people. They must make a shitload of money. They’re always talking about moving to Vegas, but San Diego would never let them go.”
“I know. Plus, it’s warm here, but it is fucking hot in Vegas.”
The Police wave the cynics, fanboys, bashers, and nerds across the street. It is the cynics that pique my interest. How can these grown men carry such a world weary attitude into a comic convention, and why did this all start with comic books? Comic Books. Think about it.
I have really enjoyed some of the comics I’ve read, and felt unmoved by others. I generally wait until enough issues have been published so a ‘trade’ comes out. A trade, is simply a collection of issues bound up that you can buy on amazon. They are a fairly new invention. For many decades, comics existed solely as flimsy pamphlets traded in dingy comics shops or spinning displays at grocery stores and soda pop shops.
Today, however, those flimsy packets are still the oeuvre before being scooped up and stacked under the bright light of the Barnes and Noble.
Almost all of the coverage of The Con focuses on the Zoo of shows and celebrities cramming mass entertainment, but I wanted to take a look at the elephant in the convention center. The Comics. And not the canonized cast of great stories packed and wrapped in trade paperbacks, but where it started. First run stories that are out there right now. Is there still some magic there?
With guidance from our resident mixologist, I gather a cocktail of stories still unfolding, or at least where the press is still hot. Amazon, be damned. Batman and Robin. Phonogram. Umbrella Academy. Wizard of Oz. Show me what you’ workin’ with!
I huff and I puff and I blow the house down. Everything is spinning. The soft white wisps turn brown, then black. Whipping faster and faster, I clutch those shiny pages. It seems like days and I might just fall asleep, but as I awaken, I find I’m in Oz. A galaxy away from adulthood, and even further from MGM and the studio bosses, I see no lollipop guild. It is a story you almost know, but facilitated with such craft, juvenile joy grabs hold of the corners of your mouth and stretches it ear to ear.
Is this purity of childhood the magnet for the cynics? Do they long to be opiated back to former times when doe-eyed idealism held so much promise? Maybe, let’s try the next one.
Batman and Robin. The only Fruit of the Loom superhero comic I ever read was the sublime ‘Watchmen’. Out of deference to 70 years of readers, I decided to try the brand new Batman and Robin series. Already cynical, I was primed for disappointment. And there it came. Right at the beginning. Not from me, but from the writer. Bruce Wayne is dead. In a twist of self awareness, Grant Morrison, the writer, knows my mind. That mind meld places a superhero drip right into the IV. Vitamins for a deficiency I never knew I had. As I turned the page, it hit me. A beat went from my spine straight through my chest and out of my heart. It was the end of the issue, and the next one isn’t out yet. Maybe not for a month.
My imagination is stirred and, even now, that anticipation is building. I hit the realization. This is why they publish single issues. That visceral feeling of a living story. It is hearing Homer recite the Iliad. As the story builds, suddenly he stops. It is time to rest, but if you bring him a bed and feed him, tomorrow he will tell you more.
Itching for something more familiar I pull out The Singles Club. It is the second series from the Phonogram universe. I read Rue Britannia, the first series, as a trade and absolutely loved it. Having the opportunity to feel those pounding beats felt imperative. By now I was twisting and turning and blazed beyond reason. I picked up issue 4, the latest, and dove in. Crack. I could barely make out the words over the almost painfully loud music. Counting out an even rhythm in hypnotizing prose, comic becomes music, but then, pulling at the four walls, the dj’s bend away reality and propel me into magic. Music, by far, pairs best with the high point of view. In Phonogram that affinity tears asunder the nature of the self and of human expression. Realizing I’ve begun in the middle, I circle back to issue one. It is the SAME!. The same story, but from a different point of view. (Where have I heard that before?)
Spinning the light of fantasy right back into our eyes, Non-Fiction crumbles to dust and reality is revealed. Reality only visible through some cabalistic fusion. Alchemy, horticulture and sorcery. The writer, Kieron Gillen, says it best,”Sorry, it just came apart in my hands… but look at this exciting brain-splatter I’ve made.”
Batting 3 for 3, I head into the top of the ninth inning. This time, I stick in right in the middle. The second series of The Umbrella Academy. Having no prior knowledge, how will this one stand up? It starts enigmatically enough,”17 years ago”. We are in JFK’s Oval Office. So what year is now? This teasing, off-kilter sensibility brings back flashes. The slightly subversive notes in Wizard of Oz. The age defying, ergo timeless, tropes in the new Batman and Robin. Most importantly, the schizophrenic spell casting, reality bending in The Singles Club. It is a tease. The Umbrella Academy is setup like a Cartoon Network super group. Fun for all ages. By the time they start sawing off peoples appendages you reach the horrifying realization that this comic was written for you. Solitary, stoned and hunting for truth, beauty and, above all, love. It seems I’m not the only cat on the block that digs cheetos.
As I packed up the Funions and headed off to bed, there were others back at the convention center lining up for a chance to see the Twilight, New Moon panel. I wonder how many have read a comic book? I don’t know. As you read the Hollywood dispatches from San Diego this year, stop and ask yourself,”Why is it called Comic Con?” Give the universe a leap of faith and pickup a comic and some sticky icky. You just might find the answer.
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