25 April '08
Comic-Con

It's long overdue, but I'm finally attending this year's San Diego Comic-Con, which makes me realize how long I've wanted to go. I tend to avoid conventions; my first was the BookExpo America in 2005, when Simon & Schuster launched Gods. It was okay, but I was too stressed to take it all in (highlight: dragging my publicist to the Wizards of the Coast booth, where I geeked out on D&D nostalgia with a fellow thirty-something).

In ages past, Comic-Con was the provenance of geeks, a lousy word (geeks, not provenance) that doesn't mean anything, other than a caricature of intensely-devoted, whip-smart creative types (of course the old meaning of geek--a circus performer who bites off the heads of live animals--is a tremendous word, and should be brought back into the mainstream, though in the interest of animals, soy substitutes should be used). A love for comic books seems to be a prerequisite for geek-status, but the publishing world has avoided that stigma by calling certain comic books (the ones that cost 20 bucks) graphic novels. I like graphic novel as much as the next writer. It sounds impressive. But does that mean regular comics are graphic short stories?

Of course the geek part of Comic-con is long past, co-opted by the economic power of niche marketing. Not that there's anything wrong with that. But I do feel a little, I don't know...sheepish. I missed my chance to get there in the beginning. Before it became the trendy launch pad for those comic book franchises we've been waiting years for.

It used to be slim pickings. Remember the first Punisher? The one with Dolph Lundgren, where he lived in the N.Y. sewers, rode his Harley through the tunnels, and meditated in candlelit sewer rooms, naked, contemplating his violent ways? I convinced myself that movie was awesome. Even though I knew it wasn't. It was the Punisher. It had ninjas. It had Louis Gosset Jr.. It was good enough.