Comic-Conned

Filed Under Blockbusters, Comics, Conventions, Movies, TV

The San Diego Comic-Con is a month from now. I’m not going. I’ve never gone. I probably will never go. I don’t desperately need a Charlie Brown bobble-head, even if it is a convention exclusive. The truth of the matter is, Comic-Con has sold out. It’s gone Hollywood. It’s just a bloated, over-extended and smelly press junket. Dozens of hungover actors and filmmakers — the ones who couldn’t contractually get out of going to this monster — sit on panels and field inane questions from wheezing dweebs. Footage is screened from movies that are a year or so away from being released. That shot of Iron Man outmaneuvering fighter jets — it was first shown at last year’s Comic-Con. And it was also in pretty much every trailer for the movie until it was released last May. Some people got to see it before I did. I guess they win at life.

Now, I like comic book conventions. Make no mistake. There’s one at the Shrine Auditorium in Downtown L.A. every month or so, and I almost always go. And Wizard World L.A.? I’ve been to it the past three years. You can find some great deals, fill in any gaps in your collection, and smell 32 different flavors of body odor all under one roof when you go to a convention.

At the Shrine, it’s dizzying how many different items are on sale: comics, action figures, DVDs, movie posters, pornography, Happy Meal toys, more pornography, bootlegs and still more pornography. Comic book creators, C-list actors and obscure pinup models are always on hand to sign autographs — sometimes for a fee, sometimes for free crack. It’s creepy, it’s seedy, it’s a horrible place to bring a girl you’re trying to impress. But that’s kind of what I like about it.

Comic-Con is a convention that’s like Tim Roth after too many injections of the super-soldier serum and being exposed to Bruce Banner’s gamma-irradiated blood. It’s an Abomination, is what I’m saying. I don’t like lines, and from what I’ve read, that’s all Comic-Con is — one enormous line. You wait in line to get in, you wait in line to see a panel, you wait in line to buy a convention exclusive (Charlie Brown bobble head — w00t!), you wait in line to get free swag, you wait in line to smell the smelliest convention attendees. You have to begin doubting your patriotism when you go to an event that people line up for hours in advance. Lines are for Communists.

That said, you won’t see me queuing up at Comic-Con this year, or next year, or ever. Bugger that. I have Internet, I have an eBay account. Anything momentous that happens there — I’ll read about it soon enough online. Any bit of swag there that you can’t get anywhere else — it’ll be up for auction on eBay before you can say, “Why would anyone buy a Charlie Brown bobble head?” All the footage and previews and clips that are shown there — it’s guaranteed to be coming soon to a theater near you. So why do people keep going to this thing in droves? Well, they fell for the biggest Con of them all.

-Brad Lohan

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