You are hereMatt's Rantbox: Comic-Con 2010 Wrap-Up
Matt's Rantbox: Comic-Con 2010 Wrap-Up
Or: So What if I Skipped Days 2-4?
So, when you last heard from me on my experiences at Comic-Con, it was the end of Day 1 and I was a little bit peeved. Well, now that the Con is over, I’m sure that you’re dying to know whether my mood improved; and now that I’ve had a couple of days to look back on it, what I think of the Con as a whole. What? You’re Not? Well too bad.
First off, let me just say that if you’ve never been to Comic-Con, and you plan on attending next year, BE PREPARED TO WAIT IN LINES. There were lines for every panel, lines formed just to get autographs from somewhat obscure artists and authors, lines to get in line for Hall H. Surprisingly, pretty much the only thing I didn’t see a line for was the bathroom. Regardless, it might as well be called Line-Con.
I think that the biggest problem (and I’m sure this has been touched upon by other bloggers before) is the fact that Comic-Con has just gotten too big. When you have to wait in line for 4 hours just to see a little bit of footage from a movie about a Norse god turned superhero, it’s a little ridiculous. Personally, I don’t think it’s even worth it. I’m not saying that just because I didn’t make it into the Thor panel, but also because I’m just not all that excited about a Thor movie. That’s a rant for a different box, though.
I suppose that’s part of what makes Comic-Con so great, though. The fact that you can find so many people ready and willing to wait in a line that long, just to get a glimpse of how Hollywood is going to treat one of their favorite characters. At least, that’s how it should be.
As “geek culture” rises to prominence (and don’t you dare argue otherwise when a Batman movie can make a billion), there are going to be more and more people jumping on the bandwagon without a good understanding of what exactly it is that they’re jumping on. What I’m getting at here is that I saw a lot of people wandering around Comic-Con who didn’t actually know who any of the authors or artists were, but instead were there just to get the latest news, or worse yet, there just because they thought it was “the cool thing to do.”
How to fix this situation is a tricky spot, though. I mean, sure, you could just question every applicant on their knowledge of Thor trivia, but you don’t want to completely exclude the “hipster nerds.” For one thing, if it wasn’t for these hipster nerds, the comic industry could potentially be completely dead at this point. It can’t be denied that these tourist geeks help to bring in a lot of cash every year.
For another thing, being a tourist geek is how plenty of people get their start in the comic nerdom. They come for the weekend and stay for their lives. How many people do you think saw the first Spider-Man movie and are now subscribed to Spider-Man (or at least Ultimate Spider-Man)? How do you think Obama became a Spider-Man fan?
So what is a logical solution? Well, the San Diego Convention Center loses its deal with Comic-Con pretty soon. Maybe the problem isn’t entirely that Comic-Con has just gotten too big, maybe it’s just outgrown its hometown. If Hall H could hold another 2000 people or so, well you would still have to be in line for a while, but at least I wouldn’t have missed getting into the Expendables panel when I was only ten people away.
Of course, the logical counterpoint to my proposed solution is that this would only encourage Comic-Con to get larger and larger; eventually you would just be hosting the convention in the entire city of Las Vegas or something. Another problem is that this solution doesn’t really answer the point that Comic-Con isn’t really about comics anymore. Sure, there's more room for “real” nerds to get into the con, but hipster nerds are still going to outnumber them (if the past couple cons are any indication), so the convention is still going to pander to these people. There’s no real good solution to these problems, but it helps to at least admit that there are problems with Comic-Con.
This is my solution to most problems
Like I said, I’m sure there are plenty of people who have talked about this before with more experience and elegance than me. The whole “Comic-Con isn’t even about comics anymore” argument has been made far too often, and we made the “woah! Comics! At comic-con?” joke more times than I’d like to admit. It’s still a bit annoying, though, when you actually get there and are denied access to something that you truly care about and really feel a connection with, just because someone who doesn’t even know what Scott Pilgrim is got in line before you.
On a more personal level (because, you know… that last run-on sentence wasn’t personal enough), I only got lost on the freeway one more time during Comic-Con! Way to go me!
I accidentally ended up in a memorial panel for the guy that started Comic-Con and all of the older attendees just kept on complaining about how people past by these great artists. I think what CCI could do to pander or give credit to comics is that at the screenings of these movies, have some of the artists and writers of the comics that they are based on.
contrary to your observation, I did encounter lines for the bathrooms. Also, I liked Ryan's idea of having a point system (the more you pay the more points you receive) and you can dish out those points to go to the panels you want, but it would eliminate having people plop their asses in Hall H all day because they wouldn't have enough points for all the Hall H events which would undoubtedly be worth the most. That or have some advance reservation system for panels so you can reserve for the ones you want and once the room is capped, there is no uncertainty or disappointment. Kind of like registering for classes online at college sorta thing. @lYZ, I loved the crazy asian santa clause who ripped all the hypster nerds who just come for the famous stars and blockbuster movies...although I admit I am one of those.
Quick correction, I never said anything about paying for more points; that's a terrible, terrible idea.
I was actually talking to Other Kyle about the whole "advanced reservation" idea, and the problem that we had with it is that you would just be changing when and where the lines are. There would still be massive lines, but now instead of lines to get into the event intself, you would have massive lines to get an early reservation to get into the event. If this reservation system didn't let you pick where you wanted to sit, then you would still have pretty big lines to get into Hall H, too, since you'd have people who wanted to sit close to the front. As for the point system, while that's definitley one of the more logical solutions, it seems a little unfair to cap when people are allowed to stop attending events. There would be a lot of backlash from people who like to see all the Hall H panels.
While yeah I'm sure there are people who'd like to see every Hall H panel, it's still not fair to people like us who really want to see certain ones, but can't, because people are sitting in there all day. I think if the implemented a point system or something similar, you could still have a standby line to get in if people don't show up. Say, you need to arrive 30 min before the panel, or else your seat is up for grabs, and they start letting standby line people in.
Like I said, it's one of the more logical solutions, I just foresee a lot of upset fans who are going to be all pissed because they don't get to go see all the panels they want to see because they ran out of points. You also have to take into consideration how complicated a system like this would be and how hard it would be to maintain. Also, if there was a standby line, that line would still be ridiculously long, haha. Either way, I wouldn't mind seeing them at least TRY something like this, it would be better than just continuing with the way they have it now.
I think you guys are missing the simplest solution of them all: limit the freaking passes. Anyone who has been to Comic-Con can tell you, the lines are only half the problem. The other half is the crowds.
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