Comic-Con 2009

*This is an account of my trip to Comic-Con in 2009 with my friend Drew. I wrote it shortly after the trip and this is the first time it's available to a general audience.*

It is said that, upon one's death bed, one does not regret the things one did, but the things one didn't do. So it is in this sense that I do not regret going to Comic-Con. I learned a lot of things about cons, myself, and the wider United States outside of the Ozarks. Was it fun learning these things? Well, that's another question, isn't it?

Airline travel can be the worst part of a trip, and has been so for me on some occasions. Not this time though. Sure, I got locked into using first class tickets by my credit card's rewards program, meaning round trip for Drew and me cost nearly 2,000 dollars, and booking a hotel was a painful goatfuck of a process that meant I paid nearly another 2,000 dollars for Drew and myself to stay five days in the luxurious US Grant Hotel, but that's all money issues. While the trip overall set me back five grand, the actual process of getting there and staying in the hotel was quite pleasant. I got what I paid for, even if I only paid for it because I was in over my head.

When we arrived at Preview Night, it was easy to be awestruck. So very many people were milling about in so very many costumes. Someone at the cigar shop I frequent asked me if I would see any girls dressed up as Wonder Woman. I could not count on two hands how many of that exact character I saw. After proceeding through all the lines to get registered, Drew and I walked around the place to get a sense of what we were in for. We finally sat down along a wall outside a large room I would come to realize later was called Ballroom 20 and was where much of the big deal stuff was to be located. Naively as all fuck, I made my schedule up. Every day but Sunday, I had planned eight different events. Reality was about to smack me in the face like a wrench in the Dodgeball movie.

Drew and I discovered a nice little Irish pub on the route to the convention center. It would become our most frequently dined at location, though I must say I preferred their standard fare to their breakfast fare. My first scheduled event was a panel on the new The Hobbit movies and I failed to get in. That was a bit disappointing, but I knew that might happen thanks to some guides to Comic-Con I'd read online before the trip. So I just moseyed on over to another panel on a new concept called Motion Comics, which was well worth it, followed by a panel on Superman which was fine, but nothing to write home about. So I left to go to Ballroom 20 where a panel on strong women in genre fare was about to begin. Looking for a decent open seat, I spotted one on the end of one row finally. Very slowly, I moseyed on over to the seat and cautiously sat down, all the while looking for body language or facial expressions that might warn me it was someone else's seat. Having not gotten any reaction from anyone, I settled in...for about a nanosecond. Before I knew it, a very large and hairy man was physically lifting me up out of the seat and throwing me on the ground, accompanied, bizarrely, by the phrase, "Please get out of my seat." After getting up and dusting myself off, I slinked away to a much inferior seat towards the back that I was sure no one would fight me for. After this, I intentionally sought terrible seats in every room I was in to avoid similar confrontations. Any concept of geeks comprising a brotherhood or an egalitarian loose society even were washed away pretty thoroughly by this encounter.

Foolishly, I went to the bathroom after the strong women panel. Burn Notice was next in the same room, and was highly popular, and I failed to get a bathroom pass, which basically would've allowed me easy guaranteed reentry. So I wait in two large lines to get in, don't ask me why there were two, and failed to reenter both times. One con worker told me I couldn't get in and so I finally gave up and said I would leave. Then he told me I couldn't go back the way I'd came, the only way out. So I asked if he wanted me to stand there. He said I couldn't do that because I would be in people's way. So I wondered if he wanted me to stab myself and keel over dead, since that was about the only option he'd left me with, but I did the mature thing and just turned to leave, at which point he grabbed my shoulder and tried to arrest my departure. Annoyed, I wrestled free of him and ran off.

At this point, I was having flashbacks to my childhood in Harrison, Arkansas and much of my enthusiasm and awe was depleted. So I did what I always did when people were mean to me as a kid. I left them alone and freed them of my presence. For about the next five hours, I just sat on a bench in the convention center, missing everything I'd planned for the rest of that day. Every now and again, someone would sit down next to me, sometimes with helpful advice, more often just speaking with their own small group in some sort of anime pidgen.

The next day, I tried to get into Ballroom 20 for something again. They told me the correct entrance was a different one than I was at. When I arrived at the entrance indicated, they told me the original entrance was the correct one. Not wanting to get involved in a game of con worker incompetence pong, I finally gave up on Ballroom 20 completely and edited my schedule to no longer feature it at all, which basically meant that I would be going to fewer events with people in them I wanted to see less. I also had to give up on certain events taking place in a particular hallway where the lines had no beginning and no ending, just because I could not figure out how to get in line without being accused of cutting by someone. A general theme of being in constant conflict and competition with fellow geeks was emerging and it was pissing me off. Some old friends came onto Drew and mine's radar and I got to visit with them some, so that was good.

Saturday, I had basically figured out the rules for getting around what I would and would not be able to get into. Standing in line for two hours in the hot sun for Kevin Smith did the trick, but this day I was really more interested in going to a panel that was a combination of a preview for the videogame Batman: Gotham Knight and a showing of Watchmen: The Director's Cut with live commentary from Zack Snyder. Mostly, I was excited about this panel because Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy were doing the voices in the video game and were there. Nobody will ever be The Joker and Batman to quite the degree these two are. Kudos to Drew for giving up his bathroom pass to this event so I was able to go.

Sunday was a day I mainly dedicated to my shopping. The exhibition floor with all the booths was an environment I had only tentatively ventured into before. Really, I had two goals. At least physically see my favorite webcomic authors, if not chat with them, and buy me a bunch of XL t-shirts of my various favorite things in fandom. While I was not able to chat with Jerry and Mike from Penny-Arcade or R.K. Milholland from Something Positive, I was able to see them. Aeire was there as well, and it was also cool to see her in person, even if I don't follow Punch N' Pie the way I do the others or did Queen of Wands. Meeting Shinga of Head Trip or O of Commissioned would've been cool, but impossible to accomplish via Comic-Con. If I ever feel the need to do so, I can go to A-Kon and Conneticon respectively. Merchandise wise, I was able to pick up a couple of Penny-Arcade shirts, because Drew and I came up to the booth when they were taking a break, so it was easy access. Something Positive had a pretty constant line and it was one of those that I couldn't figure out where the end was. Throwing money over the head whoever was standing in front of Randy and yelling "XL Choo-Choo Shirt Please You Glorious Bastard!" not seeming a graceful option, I just promised myself I'd buy stuff off the website later. Otherwise, I got a variety of t-shirts featuring He-Man, Batman, Green Lantern, Link, and a Punisher cap that I have decided is my official DM hat.

So that's the basics of what going to Comic-Con was life for me. While I don't regret going, I think I couldn't put up with another large con. There's way too much fighting and competing with geeks that goes on for my taste. Visioncon in Springfield is still on the table, as it is small and I'd probably just game with people at it rather than try and do any of the main con stuff. If I do get talked into it again at some point, I want a guide who's willing to stay with me more often than not to go along. Drew had very good reasons why we needed to not be together most of the time, but my natural weaknesses manifested themselves in ways that should be obvious after you've read this note. Every geek has to do it once in their life just so they know what it's like. Once was enough for me. Pushing my comfort zone is probably something that's not going to happen again for a long, long, time.

-Frank