All this week you're going to be seeing news stories about how great Comic-Con is. So before all that starts I just have to say something.
Comic-Con is not great. Comic-Con is awful.
(More on Techland: A Guide to Having a Good Time at Comic-Con)
No, I mean, God knows, there are good things at Comic-Con. You can walk up to a booth at Comic-Con and there will be the Penny Arcade guys, separated from you by nought but a vinyl banner and a particle-board table. If your arms were long enough, and it weren't creepy, you could touch them.
And there will be Scott Kurtz. There will be MC Frontalot. And so on. I'm not going to tell you that these things are bad. They are good. They're especially good when you see them somewhere else, like PAX.
I'm not even talking about the fact that Comic-Con is physically unpleasant, although it is. It's hot and exhausting and insanely overcrowded, and it smells bad. Water costs $4. Last year 126,000 people went to Comic-Con. Anything even remotely cool will automatically have an hour-long line if not a three-hour line.
But I want to make something clear before I head to San Diego: what you can't see from a distance is that Comic-Con is spiritually toxic.
Many, many small-market TV news anchors with plastic hair will tell you this week that Comic-Con is "Mecca for nerds." They may even opine that it is "nerd Woodstock!" They will try to tell you that Comic-Con is a part of your culture, and not just a part of it but the best part.
Have small-market TV news anchors ever lied to you before? No. Not until now.
(More on Techland: Comic-Con 2010: What to Get in Line for Early)
There was once a culturally authentic part of Comic-Con which consisted of enthusiastic people celebrating the culture of comics with the people who create that culture. That part still exists, probably. But you can't see it because it has been engulfed in a tumorous growth so massive that the original tissue is all but obscured. At some point four or five years ago the major TV and movie studios realized that there was a large captive audience at Comic-Con to be marketed to. And they realized that with a few minutes of a few celebrities' time and a few minutes of advance footage (both of which you're supposed to act hysterically grateful for), that audience could be whipped into such a froth that they -- and their counterparts in the media -- would begin repeating the studio hype.
Now that is most of what goes on at Comic-Con. I grant you, there are quality panels and excellent discussions too, but they're buried beneath plastic, animatronic advertisements for big-budget rip-offs of intellectual properties that you once loved. If you ever felt that you had a special, important connection to your favorite comics, shows, movies and characters, Comic-Con will do its best to soil those things and that connection.
This is not nerd Woodstock. It is nerd Altamont. You will go expecting to recognize every person you see as your spiritual nerd-kin. You will leave hating your own kind.
They did it to me. They're about to do it again. I am complicit in the desecration. I'll be reporting from the dark side of the con all this week.
See you there.
Want more? See: The Guy Who Hates Comic-Con, Part II: Hope Kills
More on Techland:
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That's an epic costume.
tereglith
Jul. 20, 2010 18:18pm
Why are you complicit in the desecration? Come on Lev you got some pull bring it down! Or better yet, if you don't like it, don't go. We really don't need those true blood updates anyways.
You could start your own comic panel and invite only those pre-approved nerds. Add AC, free water, and if the press show up to make a story, punch them in the face for making up a 2 minute story on the evening news! That will show them!
anubus
Jul. 20, 2010 18:28pm
Pshaw. That's just SD Comic-Con. There are others, you know. They're pretty much the same only without Front and the Penny Arcade guys.
So, suddenly SDCC is looking good, amirite?
Church
Jul. 20, 2010 19:45pm
@anubus there is much truth to what you say. we are TOTALLY doing that next year. better than this half-assed bad-faith stuff.
Lev Grossman
Jul. 20, 2010 19:46pm
Nerd Altamont- Ha! But who plays the part of the Nerd Hell's Angels, the stars brought in to bludgeon unsuspecting nerds with their brightness, or the dastardly local reporters?
Actually, the suckage you describe is similar to how I feel about Techland vs. Nerd World- the latter was an intimate affair which nicely conformed to my considered opinion on what it was like to be a nerd (with the obvious huge omission of BSG). This place does have good bits, but overall there's just too much going on for the casual web browser to parse wheat from chaff.
anon76
Jul. 21, 2010 04:16am
This article came at just the right time--as I've been increasingly dissatisfied with my inability to attend Comic-Con, especially with all the excited updates from my Twitter feed, including from some folks involved with Techland. I was sure I was missing out on the best week ever! Thanks for bringing it back down to earth, Lev--that's why I love you!
Now, re: the above comment: I have to heartily second @anon76's comparison of Techland vs. Nerd World! I don't want to hijack the thread, but I've kept silent for too long, thinking it was just me. I get it's inevitable--Lev's too busy, money, blah blah...The fact of the matter is I obsessively refreshed the browser for NerdWorld & felt connected even when the topic was some piece of tech I had no interest in. Now, I barely glance at Techland, and usually only for Lev's contributions. OK, I better stop, because complaining is a waste of time.
mimsysnark
Jul. 21, 2010 11:40am
Maybe I'm missing something. San Diego Comic-Con is the single largest Comic Book Culture convention in the United States. The New York Comic Con coming in second. I've been to NYCC every year since it's inception and I have watched it grow more and more every passing year. I've never been to San Diego, although regardless of the "elite geek" perspective I see, I am not going into SDCC with any misguided notions that SDCC is anything more than the highest expression of Comic Book Culture. This means I must be subjected to Twilight fanaticism, bear the brunt of the assault of the quivering nerd-flesh, subject myself to hours of waiting for something I may be interested in.
To me, it doesn't seem like people with similar opinions hate Comic-Con. It seems like they hate themselves for being sucked into the frenzy and pulled into the media-pushed events. I believe in evolving beyond elitist nerdom to let in the wash of cultural acceptance. Hold onto the things you treasure and take solace that you were a nerd when being a nerd wasn't the big thing.
I always look at it this way, like NYCC, like any indie, punk or metal band that releases a fifth LP that suddenly sounds "different", like SDCC as compared to any other cultural phenomenon. SDCC is growing and changing and as such our culture is maturing into something bigger and better. I can't hate that. I don't know who genuinely could.
bgarthwaite
Jul. 27, 2010 15:29pm