Tuesday, July 22, 2008

A Whale's Vagina

Comic Con is upon us again. The time of the year when the comic book industry stands up and shouts "We still exist! Pay us monies for our shit so you can make movies out of it and we can feel somewhat legitimate as an art form!" or at least that's how I see it, over-exaggeratedly of course.

Apparently this show is the Mecca as they want to call it, the be all end all of comic book shows, but I dunno. The more I've paid attention to it these past couple years, and the more it has garnered steam what with it being the place all the big new summer movies get debuted now that Comic Book franchises are dominating the Box Office or new shows get trailered and so on, it just doesn't really seem to me like comics are actually the main focus of this monstrosity even though they're at its core, if you get me.

Now, I've never been to one of these, so obviously I could just be talking out of my ass but I really don't have much enthusiasm to actually go to it anytime really. Like I was just saying up above, sure there will be comics, and there'll be vendors and writers signing books and artists doing sketchwork, Marvel and DC I'm sure will make some over-hyped announcements that fanboys will wig out over but really don't mean dick all said and done while "lesser" books get completely overlooked and forgotten. Fuck, I mean, does Vertigo even do a panel at this thing anymore? Anyways. And yes, there will be cosplayers en mass in their quaint little PVC creations or, god bless 'em, furries. And there will be sets and posters and replicas, apparently the Owl ship from Watchmen is set up and ready to go.

There's just so much going on, and so many distractions, it just really doesn't seem to me like there's more than just a phantom presence of comics themselves there. It more seems like SDCC is the place to go if you have some little creation of yours that you think some Hollywood scout might hit you up on for some cool licensing cash than anything. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I don't want that to sound harsh, but I don't think it's too far off the mark.

We're even getting to the point where they're calling it the "Pop Culture" event of the year. Were they calling it that before Spider-Man made almost half a billion dollars not so long ago? As I type this I'm looking around and it looks as thought two Matt Fraction and a Rob Liefeld creation have been opted already, and we're not even on day one. Good for them of course, but I think this is what I'm jibing at. Again, I guess I'll never know until I go, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think my hatred of large crowds will probably ever stop me from doing so. Well, that and having to spend probably around $600 just to get to and stay there the weekend. I just like the smaller scale really. Chicago was always perfect when I went for having a good sized crowd but not overwhelmingly big and it gave you lots of options for the weekend but you could always remember your way around and to all the cool stuff you picked out as you paraded around in whatever your hearts' desired.

Maybe I'll go someday, but for now I think I'm fine with watching coverage of the highlights on G4. Hell, I don't even know if I'm going to be returning to Chicago in the future, it's starting to feel a little played out to me. Mostly I liked going just to hang out with Bendis Boarders and the Chitown contingent from AICN, but now I want to start getting excited about the con I'm going to itself, not just who I'm going to be rooming with there. HeroesCon may be the way to go for the next couple summers as I try and find that con that feels "just right". My Goldilocks con, the one with the perfect sized crowd, more emphasis on just having guests and artists than making "Internet breaking" announcements, and that I don't have to pawn off family heirlooms to afford... or sell bodily fluids.

Ah well. This is me easing back into talking about comics and other geeky stuff here. No more personal rants about my sorry lack of love life. Soon I think I'm going to start doing something I always wanted to do for the AICN site but didn't think anyone would interest anyone there, re-reading and acclimating myself to more "neglected" books with a decent length to their lives and recapping/reviewing them, stuff like WASTELAND or FEAR AGENT or SCALPED and so on. Those consistently good to great books that tend to fall under the radar you know? Because they're just that: consistent. Apparently people only pay real attention if you slap a SECRET INVASION banner on it. Fuck that, I want to talk about real comics.

Anyways, time to go off and finally get to watch SPACED for the first time. I've waiting bloody ages to get to see this thing.

Also, in case no one has noticed, I decided to join in with some of the trendy kids and Twitter up. Catch it here.

Cheers...

1 comment:

chris!! said...

emerald city comicon, sir.

i'll get you out to seattle one way or another...