Letters From The Loft
Stuff From The Desk Of Chuck Thornton
DAY FOUR
SUNDAY; JULY 27
As I mentioned, there weren’t any programmed events we were interested
in on this last day. The Con traditionally designates Sunday as “Kid’s
Day” and gears most of the activities toward youngsters, so the subject
matter is more along the line of:
-
The best books to
pretend to read with your comic book hidden inside.
-
Action Figures:
they aren’t dolls, no matter what the other kids say.
-
What to do when
Harry Potter outgrows you.
-
Sneak Preview of
Crayola’s new fall line.
Who knows what kind of indoctrination
really goes on in those rooms,
but the Con attendance grows every year, so it must be working.
So we didn’t feel the need to rush right down to Comicon this morning,
and decided to have a sit-down (as opposed to drive-thru) breakfast. Sam
believes that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and has
signed many a petition to prohibit restaurants from posting hours on
their breakfast menu. So I promised him before we left that we’d have
breakfast at a place we had seen on our way to the Con every day.
Sam was the target demographic:
it was open from early in the morning to 2 pm every day; its menu
consisted solely of breakfast; and it was called The Breakfast House, or
in Sam’s vernacular, Shangri-La. It didn’t seem that special to me, but
it was pretty busy, the waitress who showed us to our table was very
nice and didn’t seem to mind the trail of saliva Sam was leaving, and
the portions were generous, so overall we were satisfied, and the visit
made up for the bitter disappointment Sam had experienced when he rented
The Breakfast Club.
Arriving at the Convention Center, we returned to the exhibit room.
The day before, Sam had noticed that the video-game manufacturer
Activision had a booth in which there was a green screen that allowed
you to be digitally inserted into a picture next to a video-game
character. At my age, the phrase “digital insertion” has a more negative
connotation, but Sam convinced us that it would be great fun to get
pictures of each of us interacting with one of the vast cast of
Activision characters, all of whom engage in only one activity: beating
the snot out of each other. The picture would be subsequently emailed to
us in a forwardable format, so I was hoping to share it with all of you
and possibly start a grass-roots demand for a video-game with me as the
lead character.
Unfortunately, the Activision booth, and every other video game
manufacturer’s booth (they’re all grouped together at the Comicon) were
surrounded by mobs of young people, all clamoring to for a few precious
minutes to do at the Comicon what they do for hours at home: play video
games. On a Sunday morning, this section of the Convention Center was as
crowded as any section had been for the entire four days. I felt like
screaming “WHY DON’T YOU GO OUTSIDE AND PLAY?” but I’m sure that phrase
was the equivalent of white noise to this crowd, and besides, I had paid
to come here, so my credibility was shot.
So we took one last swing around the exhibit room and officially (and
anti-climactically) ended our 2008 Comicon visit at 12:30 that day.
Since we were all taking separate cars (“the Thorntons---proud
supporters of OPEC since 1976”), we made a group stop at the local AM/PM
and then headed back home. Alone in my car, I had a chance to reflect on
this year’s Con. A few random observations:
-
It seems that every
other year, there’s a huge number of highly-anticipated movies being
promoted at the Con; and conversely, every other year there’s a dearth
of projects generating a buzz. Last year, we were getting sneak peeks at
Iron Man; The Dark Knight; The
Hulk; Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull; Get Smart;
and a slew of others. This year,
there wasn’t much beyond Watchmen
and The Spirit. You know
it’s an act of desperation when the Con has a program promoting
The Mummy 3, which is being
released this week. I suppose
this means I should really be looking forward to next year, so to put my
money where my mouth is, I’ve already purchased tickets to next year’s
Comicon.
-
I’ve read some
reports that vendors were disappointed by the sales this year, blaming
it on the general state of the economy. I read the same reports last
year, and the year before; and I’ve now come to a profound realization:
people always wish they had made more money.
-
The exception is
the folks who sell food on the Convention Center premises; they have yet
to determine the price at which a chocolate chip cookie can’t be sold,
and were hard-pressed to find sufficient vault capacity when they
started accepting krugerrands on Friday.
-
In the crowds I
could overhear the same annual complaint from comic book fans that
they’re slowly and ironically being marginalized at the Comicon, which
they view as being overrun by Hollywood, video game producers, and toy
manufacturers. And I’ve got to admit that the crowds get slightly
thinner when you reach that section of the exhibit hall that requires
literacy (remember those poor letterers?) Like it or not, human nature
will always seek out the opportunity to be a snob… readers of classic
literature look down on the best-seller readers, who look down on the
comic-book readers, who look down on the video-game players, who look
down on… well, I haven’t looked that far into the abyss. I think most
attendees at the Comicon are interested in all of its facets--- comics,
toys, movies, TV, video games, art--- but are fanatical about one or
two, and wish the Con was exclusively about their passion. So guys like
me--- passionless--- don’t quite achieve the feeling of camaraderie that
most of the attendees seem to come there for.
That’s why guys like me bring their sons along.
… my sons Sam and Ben (left to right) who were kind enough to come along
with me. They’re burdened with a dad who enjoys hanging around with them
and consequently they have to put up with a lot of my nonsense.
Start ordering your pictures now… $5.00 each; $10 with autograph. $15.00 to be taken off the mailing list.