Pop Geek

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.

I don't know how anyone can generalize any event of this size, but the truth is that Comic-Con isn't really Woodstock or Altamont; it's more like New York City.

There are many, MANY generalizations to be made about New York. if you want to go out and find them, you can. Someone will be rude to you. You'll find lots of garbage on the streets. You can stay up all night in the middle of Times Square.

But if you end that trip and say, "New York City is a rude, dirty city that never sleeps," full stop, does anyone really believe that mirrors any kind of reality?

The backlash that seems to be rising against Comic-Con is becoming folded into a backlash against geek culture itself, and it seems to be specifically a response to Hollywood embracing geek properties as a path toward cocaine and hookers. Their presence has turned the mainstream image of Comic-Con into a place where a lot of nerds sit in rooms and get pandered to by pretty famous people.

And that's fine. That happens. TV networks show up, small and large, and cover it. So do journalists. So do bloggers. The din is overwhelming.

But it's total bullshit to define Comic-Con as "a tumorous growth so massive that the original tissue is all but obscured." Hell, I was a couple thousand miles away, and I have a long list of projects I was excited to hear more about that have nothing to do with pretty famous people, from the next chapter in Adam Freeman and Marc Bernardin's Genius comics series to the Mickey Mouse reprints coming from Fantagraphics. I guarantee most of the stuff that is on my radar after Comic-Con isn't going to be covered by Mary Hart on Entertainment Tonight.

Does that matter? Should it? Of course not. Me and all the others who would be excited by such things got to hear more about them. On the other side of the country, some of those people even gathered in rooms to talk about them excitedly. Then they splintered off into small groups who got to commiserate, drink, and generally have fun together.

That is the spirit of Comic-Con. It's the spirit of conventions since time immemorial. It's not dead, and it won't die. And if you don't see it, or you can't find it, YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

(Full disclosure: I haven't been to Comic-Con since 2002. I want to go back.)

Postscript: What's becoming truly aggravating is the propensity of people who are paid to attend Comic-Con spending most of their time complaining about it on Twitter and blog posts. I get that it's exhausting, and humanity doesn't always represent itself well. But if it's that big of a burden, STAY HOME.

The second part of the panel was to introduce "Thor," and they wisely included Natalie Portman in the panel.  The audible response to her entrance in the section of Hall H where I was seated made me cackle quietly.  Seriously... fanboys loooooooooove her.  She is the ideal girl for them.  There's a generation that's grown up hopelessly head over heels for her.  She was fascinating in talking about her motivation for making this movie, using careful language to make her feelings about "Star Wars" very clear once again.  She kept repeating, emphatically, that she decided to do this film because she wanted the experience of working on a big FX driven summer blockbuster pop culture machine, but one directed this time by someone who was interested in both character and in really taking apart the text.  She kept referring to Kenneth Branagh's particular background in stage and Shakespeare and how that informs the sort of work he does as a director and the priorities he has in the film.  It was very revealing.

Very revealing, indeed. It's fascinating to me how George Lucas is just sort of commonly accepted as an awful director by everyone who's worked with him.

Comic-Con. It’s not just for nerdy guys anymore.

That’s right-you dweebs, geeks, and weirdos who only crawl forth from your parents’ basement once a year and face the blinding light of a southern California afternoon just for the opportunity to paw Master of Kung-Fu back issues and augment your masturbatory fantasies of Eliza Dushku by sitting a few feet outside the restrictions of the restraining order while she gasses on about how happy she is to be working with Joss Whedon, even as she’s thinking, “Something smells like mildew and underwiped ass,” and she’s smelling YOU-yes, YOU-it’s not just for YOU anymore!

It’s also for scum-sucking Hollywood slime hoping to leverage your shameless enthusiasm for anything that sniffs of “geek” into cheap coverage for their vapid, horrendous projects! And for moronic “writers” who treat stereotypes as gospel in a ham-handed attempt to snort some coke off the bare ass of the zeitgeist! And supposedly, for DA LADYEZ!!! Even ones who aren’t compensating for cripplingly low self-esteem by wearing inappropriately skimpy outfits in a crowded public place!

Still pretty happy with how this turned out. I need to utilize the phrase "underwiped ass" more often.