Everything You Never Needed To Know About Con.

(Another Comix Experience Onomatopeia essay, from the start of this year, albeit with store-centric opening and closings deleted to save Carissa Koo some blushes about her secret diet of paper.)

The Origin Of Comic Book Conventions As We Know Them

A little know fact about comic book conventions was that the first one was held in New York in 1939, literally weeks after the first appearance of Batman. Attendance was said to be in the tens, and although back issue trading was said to be slow, the panels were reportedly very lively indeed. Looking back at the one-sheet, hand-written program for the event that remains shows that surprisingly little has changed in the seventy years that have passed:

4:00pm – 5:00pm: IS THE INDUSTRY DYING?

As the market is flooded with “super heroic gentlemen” performing good deeds with magical powers and a stiff upper lip, it’s time to look at the industry of pictorial representational storytelling and ask “Will it survive this influx of new talent and readership?” Room 1A

5:00pm – 6:00pm: WHO WOULD WIN IN A FIGHT? SUPERMAN OR THE BATMAN?

National Periodicals’ Jerry Siegel and Bob Kane discuss which of their new manly heroes would be able to best each other in a fair fight!

Admittedly, things went very quiet on the convention front after that. It wasn’t until the late-1960s, when Marvel Mania was in full swing, that the next comic book convention took place. The brainchild of Stan Lee – at least, according to him – 1968′s Mighty Marvel Revolving Non-Conventional Celebration Of The Comics, Effendi was a grandiosely-planned three day “pop art happening” to be hosted by Lee – dressed as in a circusmaster’s outfit – that would feature not only a relocation of the entire Marvel bullpen to the center of Shea Stadium, but also performances from many of the popular contemporary musicians of the day, such as The Lovin’ Spoonful, Fred Neill and Art Garfunkel (Paul Simon didn’t want to be involved; he was more of a DC fan, as evidenced on his 1973 tribute to Kirby’s New Gods work, There Goes Rhymin’ Himon). Sadly, the actual organization of said event didn’t quite live up to the original plan; Vinnie Colletta was given the task of making sure that all of the musicians would turn up on their appropriate days, but instead just hired a bunch of professional street urchins and dressed them in fake sideburns and told them to sing whatever improvised melodies they could concoct from their memories of the songs of the advertised bands. In one of life’s strange and unusual coincidences, the urchins enjoyed the experience so much they stayed together afterwards, and The Eagles became one of the most popular bands of the 1970s. 

The following year, 1969, was a year that changed history in many ways. The Beatles pretty much broke up, Concorde flew its first flight, men landed on the moon. Appropriately, the year after that, the first San Diego Comic-Con occurred.

The creation of the San Diego Comic-Con was like the creation of the atomic bomb; after the first one, there was no going back to the way things used to be, and both events left Dr. Robert Oppenheimer crying on a mountaintop somewhere. Considered by many to be the one essential comic book convention to attend, SDCC could, at best, be considered as a real-life Crisis On Earth-Holy Crap. Attending even for one afternoon is like getting an expensive day-pass to an alternate reality, and to try and make it through all five days is something that none but the truly insane should consider. While you could definitely make the argument that SDCC is the biggest, and most well attended of all comic book conventions, you could just as easily make the argument that it’s overwhelmingly big and Wondercon is much more fun anyway. 

(A brief history of Wondercon, in case you need it: 23 years ago, SDCC had an illegitimate child and, fearing the responsibilities of parenthood, abandoned said child in the Bay Area. The end.)

It’s hard to underestimate the importance of SDCC to the comic book industry; even back in its infancy, the convention offered comic book professionals the chance to escape the mundanity of their daily routines and instead flee to the sunnier climes of Southern California for a multi-day marathon of adoration from strangers, debauched after-hours partying, and the traditional annual blood sacrifice to the Ancient Ones. Admittedly, that last one isn’t really discussed that much in public, but trust me, it happens. What else could explain the unusual buoyancy of Joe Quesada’s career? Ever since the first SDCC, every other convention has tried to take its place, hoping to gain the magical power it contains… the ability to make or break careers, the lure to entertainment professionals of all types, the baking baking heat that results in at least one fan collapsing from dehydration a day. What none of these convention wannabes have realized is that the only way they could succeed would be by taking place in an even more desirable destination, which is why 2010 will see the birth of my own venture, Hawaii-Con 001: This Time It’s Awesome. Guests TBA.

The Seven Essential Things You Need To Take To Con

1. Water, and lots of it.

2. A sketchbook, in case you run into your favorite artist in the restroom and he has time for a quick sketch.

3. A kit for making a fake “volunteer” pass, just in case you need to sneak into a panel that is otherwise “closed” due to the room being too full.

4. Comfortable shoes, because even in the smallest con, you’ll be doing more walking than you think you will.

5. A lifelike Kurt Busiek mask, so that any and all fights can be avoided when people mistake you for the fan-favorite writer of Marvels, Astro City and Trinity.

6. A Phantom Zone Projector, which serves two purposes. Not only does it deal with unwelcome skirmishes between fans dressed as the various eras of Batman – the poor Adam West-era Batman always gets picked on by the Christian Bale-era Batman – but it also serves as a quick and easy way to win the affections of Mark Waid.

7. Bail money.

The Social Study Of The Comic Book Convention

True fact: I accidentally walked through the wrong door at the end of the Battlestar Galactica panel at San Diego Comic-Con last year, and found myself backstage. If you’ve ever seen a movie, and there’s a famous person – let’s just call them the President, because that’s normally who it is – and they’re on their way to make an important speech, and they’re headed to the podium through some kind of underground bunker-type thing with pipes along the ceilings and surrounded by a gaggle of bodyguards? That’s entirely what it’s like backstage at SDCC. It’s part-dungeon chic, part the uncomfortable feeling that you’re totally somewhere where you shouldn’t be, and everyone is staring at you.

That’s the thing about conventions, though; at some point, no matter where you are, someone will be staring at you. And, most likely, judging you. It’s the natural order of comic book conventions – you think you’ll be amongst like minds, people who’ll understand and embrace you for your love of Gil Kane, Steve Englehart and the Forever People, and instead, you discover that you’re being judged because you don’t love any of those things enough. Yes, it’s all of your worst social anxiety nightmares in one place, except for maybe that one about your childhood sweetheart being revealed to actually being related to you and, by the way, she hated you all along and was only pretending otherwise because her parents – who are, of course, your parents, because you’re actually adopted and you never knew it – lied and told her that you had an incurable disease so that she’d be nice to you. 

Or maybe that’s just me.

Nevertheless, it’s odd but true; comic book conventions may look like exciting social whirl, full of parties and celebrities and Lou Ferrigno, but let me tell you, that’s very much not the case. Sure, you feel as if you belong, but the minute you accidentally walk into a room full of the stars of a critically-acclaimed SciFi Channel TV series, it’s all calls for security and no-one letting you take any of the masses of M&Ms in bowls spread across the table. Why must the world be so cruel?

The One Time You Need To Be At Con.

The last day. Preferably, the last hour of the last day. Seriously; all the pros will have gone home already, and the panels will have finished hours earlier, but the end of every con is marked by all the dealers realizing that they really don’t want to take all this crap home with them again, and suddenly everything’s half-off and it’s a possibility to buy your own body weight in Essentials and Showcase volumes without going bankrupt. 

Not that I’ve done that, of course.

Because – while comic book conventions really are a cornucopia of excitement and possibility and the mixed emotions of meeting your favorite creator only to (a) act like a tongue-tied idiot who forgot that you could actually speak English as opposed to saying “Munh nuhm uh Guhm” and (b) discover that your favorite creator is, in fact, a bit of an ass to people whose attempts to converse fail when they lose the ability to speak coherently – it’s that last hour of crazed bargain hunting and wondering to yourself whether you really need a copy of Essential Dazzler (You do, by the way) that reminds you what the whole thing is really about: Comics, and the weird and wonderful and probably quite unhealthy thrill they give you when you find one that you can’t wait to read. So, if you haven’t been to a convention, don’t feel bad; the best part of it all is buying comics. And you can do that right here.

Unless you’re reading this somewhere other than Comix Experience, in which case, I meant there. Really.