DAY ONE... cont'd
Our strategy has always been to plan out our days in advance, while figuring in a day where the majority of the time would be spent in Hall H.
This time, however, I decided I would skip Hall H and Room 20 in favor of more upstairs panels. Although the movie and TV presentations are always entertaining, the fact remains that, if I’m interested in the movie or TV show being touted, I’m eventually going to see it when it’s released; and the excitement I get out of seeing a live celebrity is… well, about as much excitement as they get out of seeing me. On the other hand, there were a lot of old-timer comics creators being featured in the upstairs panels this year that were responsible for some of the stuff I grew up with and frankly, who knows if I’ll have another opportunity to hear what they have to say. So I built my schedule around those panels, with the Exhibition Hall and other stuff filling in the gaps.
Sam and Ben had their own scheduling problems. For those of you who only check out the news for the best place to see Halley’s Comet, there’s been a series of novels for young adults called Twilight, about a teenage girl who moves to the Pacific Northwest and falls for a brooding teen-heartthrob vampire. No worries, though; this vampire, and the other vampires in his “family”, don’t bite humans… they lay off the hard stuff and get their blood from other animals, so they’re pretty people-friendly (except for PETA, I suppose). This series of novels is enormously popular, especially among the female demographic, and of course, has resulted in an enormously popular movie that was released last year, with enormously popular sequels planned for future release. In Hall H on this particular Thursday at 1:45, there was a Twilight panel scheduled that would include information and cast members from the next sequel.
A friend of ours who is a card-carrying member of the above-mentioned female demographic heard about this panel, and asked Ben and Sam to attend and get a picture of the various and sundry heartthrobs that would be appearing. So Sam and Ben had to decide when would be the best time to venture near Hall H and gain admittance to this very special estrogen-fest. It soon became apparent, though, that the coffin-lid had long closed on the opportunity to participate in Twilight-mania. The prospect of seeing Twilight stars live (so to speak) had resulted in a flood of young girls and their mothers buying Con tickets just so they could attend this one event, and they had started lining up for Hall H on the previous Wednesday evening. Ben and Sam never stood a chance of getting into Hall H today, and lost both the photo opportunity and possibly a chance to discover how to become heartthrobs themselves.
As we wandered the Exhibition Hall floor, we could overhear various conversations (it’s not really eavesdropping when you’re all sardines in the same can) and noted many of the “average” Comic-Con attendees expressing disdain for these Twilight groupies that had descended on the Con. I suppose it’s understandable, but still a bit mind-boggling. The Con population is huge and frightening when gathered together at San Diego, but it represents a sub-culture of avid enthusiasts that’s still generally perceived as geeks or nerds by the average citizen. Away from the Con, in real life, these folks are used to having their passion treated with a mixture of amusement, curiosity, ridicule, caution, and condescension… but not much respect. One of the reasons they come to the Con is to get that respect… from the fellow attendees who share their passion, and, albeit artificially, from the companies who are courting their patronage. In a nutshell, I think the Con is really a big support group for dodge-ball survivors.
So it’s a bit ironic that many Comic-Con folks who’ve experienced various degrees of social ostracism would decide that the Twilighters were crashing their party. It’s also a bit surprising… here’s an event causing a sudden influx of young women into a venue comprised mostly of either physically or mentally adolescent males, and they’re complaining? Since when did the Convention Center become the Little Rascals clubhouse?
But back to the matter at hand: to celebrate the 40th year of the Con there were panels throughout the four days looking back on the previous four decades. Even I’m not immune to nostalgia (when I can remember it), so I decided to attend the panel today focusing on the 70’s, since I had attended many of those early conventions. Sam decided to tag along, because he had heard my stories of the days when attendees sat on the floor at panels and you were as likely to run into creators in the bar or restrooms as on the Convention floor, and wanted to see some pictures of what it was actually like.
Big disappointment. The panel consisted of folks who had indeed worked with the Con in those earlier years, but they spent the hour mostly reminiscing about the camaraderie they shared as they manually typed membership badges and collated programs. I’m sure it was nice for these folks to see each other again, but the audience felt like the husband who tags along to his wife’s high school reunion.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton