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DAY TWO - PAGE 1
Because I wanted to try to catch Bruce Timm in time to book a sketch, we started a bit earlier this morning. I went down to the lobby by myself to enjoy the complimentary breakfast and USA Today. The paper had some Comic-Con coverage, but nothing about me, so I skipped it, figuring I could read my own journal later and catch any news of personal interest. Then I went back up to the room to wake up Sam (I had packed a vial of adrenalin and a cardiac needle for just such an occasion).
After scoping out the approach yesterday, it didn't take us quite as long this morning to arrive at the Convention Center, and we made it well before the doors opened. We stood in a line on the front sidewalk, and although there were quite a few folks in front of us, I was confident that the odds were pretty slim that there were 20 folks ahead of us looking for a Bruce Timm sketch. Still, I thought about doing a quick survey of all the folks in front of us, just to set my mind at ease, but Sam said that if I became an embarrassment to him, he wouldn't save my place in line or resist any urge to strangle me.
While we were standing there, some guy was strolling along the length of the line, asking loudly, "Any Lost fans here?"
When he got to me, I said, "You bet!" and he handed me a postcard-style flyer promoting a book he had written about how the folks behind Lost had totally betrayed the audience's trust with the series finale.
Sam and I felt gratified: This was the kind of classic Comic-Con style stuff that keeps us coming back. There were many levels to reflect on:
This man was not alone in his dissatisfaction with the way Lost was concluded. There's quite a few folks who followed the show through its six seasons of twists, turns, and mysteries and felt let down by its conclusion. Those folks griped about it to reporters and on blogs and to co-workers and family members. But this guy... he wrote a book! And he wants me, a perfect stranger, to buy it. It elevates disgruntlement to a whole new level.
This was a good example of the kind of investment that many Con attendees have in their particular passion. It's why we suspect that some of the folks in costume may have a closet full of spares at home, and why a lot of the audience questions at panels involve why Spock had his belt buckle fastened wrong in episode #53. Our feelings were mixed. We felt a bit sorry for this man, whose emotions are still at the mercy of a TV show, even after it's over. But we had to admit a kind of back-handed admiration for a guy who could develop and sustain that kind of outrage (I mean, the man wrote a book!). And we felt some sympathy for the people behind Lost who have to shoulder the responsibility that, no matter how they chose to end the show, they were turning someone's life upside-down.
We couldn't help but feel that, if you're trying to market your poison-pen letter to the makers of Lost, you don't find your target audience by yelling, "Any Lost fans here?"
I threw the guy's postcard away... any time I spent reading his book would be time away from my manifesto on the absurdity of the Harlem Globetrotters finding Gilligan's Island.
All material copyright 2009 Chuck Thornton