Comic-Con starts tomorrow.
I've been to Comicon, but it's always been a feeling of incredible, stunning disconnect for me. Seldom is my ignorance made so brutally clear, with such dire consequences.
I'm not saying that I have no interest in comics.
I talked about Penny-Arcade yesterday, and I'm a huge fan of Warren Ellis. I like Jhonen Vasquez. I've read almost all of Neil Gaiman's output. I read a bunch of webcomics with devout fervor.
But despite that, there's practically nothing at Comic-Con that I have any interest in. Friends are posting their planned schedules, and I've never heard of this stuff, or most of these people. What is
Burn Notice? Who is Gail Simone? (Please don't tell me. I can search the web if I need to know.)
My canonical anecdote about Comic-Con dates back to one year, when I saw this enormous room, with this incredible line, and I asked what the line was for. Someone said, "Kevin Smith" and I said "Who?" immediately destroying my geek credibility. (I've since watched a few of his films.) One would suppose that I'd be able to enjoy some of the work on display, but it's always seemed somehow just out of sight, moved aside in favor of something brighter and flashier.
Ridiculous, I know, but that's the way it's always seemed to me. Despite the name, it's not about comics -- it's about the peripheral stuff that's more profitable than comics. Whenever I've gone, the comic authors and artists have seemed kind of marginalized, sitting at their booths and disappearing off to their own social events at night. (At which I'm sure they have a great deal of fun.)
That's life, I suppose. Everyone else seems to have fun, so I just shake my head and resign myself to a weekend of complete dislocation.
words from chris, 2009-07-23 02:27:12, los angeles
