Comic-Con International… the largest event of its type in all of North America. Held in lovely downtown San Diego, California as it has been since 1970, “large” doesn’t even begin to approach the sheer scale of this massive gathering of pop culture under but a single roof. Imagine 460,000 square feet of exhibition and meeting space spread out over two floors of a state-of-the-art convention center which even includes a converted 6,500 seat theater! Now consider that space jam-packed with people shuffling between exhibits and demonstrations that covered every genre from major film companies, computer games, multimedia entertainment firms, trading card companies, toy manufacturers, music labels, and of course, comic books and their designers, writers, and artists. Entire pavillions dedicated to autograph sessions, awards ceremonies, masquerade balls, artistic exhibits, movie showings, game tournaments, collectibles displays, and more hoped to captivate and dazzle a crowd reportedly approaching over 200,000 fans… and that doesn’t count the thousands of exhibitors and staff! Quite a far cry from the first Comic-Con which was held in the basement of a hotel that “bulged” with a staggering 300 attendees, huh?
Well, if you’ve ever attended a Comic-Con or any such convention, all this you know. And there will be dozens upon dozens of reports on what all could be found at the convention, so I won’t bother trying to rehash any of that in great detail. But, for those of you who are wondering what it might be like to attend such an incredible gathering, I’ll do my best to give you the impressions of a first-timer’s experience and perhaps even prepare you for a visit next year! This may have been my first ever Comic-Con - even though I live here in San Diego - but I can guarantee you that after this incomparable experience, it will be far from my last.
As I mentioned, I live here in San Diego, but don’t be fooled into thinking it was in any way easier for a native to navigate his way to the convention center. Despite the 2000-space parking lot at the convention center and the presence of over 50 different nearby parking structures with countless spaces in downtown San Diego, parking was a nightmare! I overheard one visitor remarking that he had spent over two hours driving around searching for a spot before finally giving up and catching a cab from a few miles away. Fortunately, San Diego boasts a fantastic trolley system which, for the $5 cost of an all day trip ticket, could pick you up from most anywhere in town and drop you off right at the entrance of the convention center. There are plenty of trolley stations all along the route at which you can find heaps of free parking. Even the Comic-Con website highly recommended mass transit, as traffic from all over the county plugged up the freeways for most of the weekend.
Immediately after stepping from the air conditioned trolley, I found myself plunged into a whirling sea of wide-eyed, multicolored, fuzzy, feathered, dragon-scaled, metal-clad, weapon-wielding, costumed convention-goers all stampeding for the entrances. Holding aloft my entrance badge like a tiny laminated shield, I muscled my way through the crowd and into one of the doorways… and promptly stopped dead in my tracks. The enormous building stretched away in a twisted sort of horizontal vertigo of color and sound, a technicolor doppler effect if you will. It wasn’t easy standing there frozen like the proverbial rock in the whitewater river of people, but it took me a minute or two to
wrap my mind around what I was seeing. It took being jostled by a few teenagers armored in cardboard replica costumes of Transformer characters to snap me out of my awed reverie. I took my first few hesitant steps with the crowd and was immediately accosted by a rather disturbingly attractive zombie. Well, attractive in that living dead sort of way… Dirty blond hair, pale milky eyes, green skin with chunks of decayed flesh missing, you know. She lurched at me, splaying her ragged and chipped nails, baring her yellowed and bloodstained teeth and groaned, “Graaaaaagh… Want to take a picture?” Oh my. One of those booth babes I had heard so much about. What a fantastic day this was shaping up to be!
After politely declining the offer and insisting that she not feed on my brains, I picked a direction and began to roam randomly through the exhibits. My initial plan was to work my way systematically through the aisles in an effort to see absolutely everything. That lasted all of 30 seconds before I began to bounce around like a pinball from booth to booth. My attention span quickly dwindled down to that of a gnat and shiny objects began to fascinate me like never before. “OMG a full-sized replica of the original Batmobile! OMG a life-sized statue of Jabba the Hutt! OMG a rap battle!” Yes, folks. A rap battle waged on a stage between hopeful gangstas of every ilk and hailing from every corner of the galaxy. My vote was for Boba Fizzle’s “Spice, Spice Baby”, though in my mind, he only narrowly beat out DJ Frodo’s “Goin’ Back to Mordor.” Ahhh… only at Comic-Con.
I never ceased to be amazed by the immeasurable variety of costumes. I saw everything from Pokemon to Harry Potter, mythical medusas and superheros in tights, wrapped mummies and even a ninja or two skulking about. When asked why I wasn’t in costume, I insisted that I had come dressed as my character from Second Life, but that only earned a smattering of smiles and nods. Tough crowd.
Danger lurked around every corner and it behooved me to keep on my toes. At one point, I nearly found myself in the midst of a battlefield, alerted to the danger only at the last minute by the nearby chatter of fake machinegun fire. No less than five times did I witness impromptu sword duels fought to a horribly mimed death and I even caught sight of the odd lightsaber showdown or two. But what caught my attention and tickled my funny bone the most were the few occasions where I observed two attendees dressed as the same character encountering one another amid the hustle and bustle. I loved seeing their brows furrowed in confusion, the momentary surprise soon erased by scrutinizing eyes which flitted quickly over the mirror image before them. No one breathed as they silently judged one another’s interpretation of their favorite character, committing the flaws and accessories to memory. Often, these encounters ended with a smart nod or murmured praise, a begrudging or bemused respect having been met. On one occasion, two scantily clad versions of Barbarella met in the middle of an aisle. Like a scene out of West Side Story, the crowd around them formed a Catfight Circle, fingers snapping to the beat of some distant war drum. Much to our mutual dismay, however, the confrontation ended when their respective menfolk ushered them down separate aisles. Humbug.
The Comic-Con has a reputation for getting bigger and better with each successful event… I can’t wait to see how they outdo themselves next year! Despite amassing at least 8 hours of wandering the convention over two separate days, I still managed to only see but a fraction of all there was to see. I found myself wistfully skipping over entire sections and aisles, drawn toward other more promising areas or even being carried away in the current created by the crowds of people. Should you find yourself at next year’s convention, I would recommend a better plan of attack than I had. Wandering aimlessly was loads of fun, mind you, but I missed out on a good chunk of what I would have loved to see by being distracted almost constantly. I had a great time nonetheless and if you can at all find some time to make your way out to San Diego for next year’s Comic-Con, do it! Words cannot express how much there was to see and do nor how there undoubtedly was something for absolutely everyone to enjoy. Just be sure to mind the photogenic zombies and roving gangs of superhero rappers…
-Sheridan
