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PrintA Gathering of Gigglical Proportions
For five days every July, a variety of people attend Comic-Con International in San Diego.
For 360 days a year they work as illustrators at ad agencies, sales people in your local big box retailer or as your kid’s grade school teacher. But during five days every July, they direct the future of popular American culture. They are the nerds, geeks, comic junkies and steam punks who attend Comic-Con International in San Diego.
Comic-Com is odd as conventions go because it is centered around the attendees more than the exhibitors and speakers. The most influential figures in Hollywood and the power elite on Wall Street bow down to the opinions of this patchwork group of the ultimate entertainment consumers. Only in this venue could a man in a homemade foil space helmet and a woman in green spandex, a purple cape and tiara command real authority. Comedian Robert Smigel (with puppet Triumph, the insult comic dog, in hand) spoke to the crowd and received thunderous applause by pointing out that, “For one week you outnumber the people that would normally kick the shit out of you”. It is a group of people who celebrate their uniqueness.
Comic-Con International started as a comic book convention in the basement of San Diego’s U.S. Grant Hotel in 1970, with a total of 300 fans. The organizers’ original intention was to bring a wider audience to an art form that had been nearly forgotten in the late sixties and early seventies. In 2008 the event swelled beyond the capacity of the San Diego Convention Center with 125,000 crazed enthusiasts in attendance.
The creator of Spiderman, The Fantastic Four and X Men, Stan Lee, spoke at this year’s show and said, “The finest writers in the country are writing comics. Comics are the springboard to greatness.” Lee also predicted that “these kind of comic hero movies will be with us for a long time.” In the last fifteen years comic book writing has become the training ground for many of America’s best television and movie screenplay writers.
Comic-Con features screenings and previews of upcoming science fiction, horror and action movies and video games. Many of the major studios view the convention as the launching pad or burial plot for their products. Movie directors Zack Snyder (300) and Jon Favreau (Iron Man) attribute their recent box office success to the audiences at Comic-Con. “Any success I’ve got, you really have to give to the fans here, they don’t give (approval) lightly,” Snyder confessed.
Celebrities show up in force to promote their latest projects to this sophisticated group of entertainment snobs. The 2008 Comic-Con parade of stars included Hugh Jackman, Samuel L. Jackson, Paris Hilton, Keanu Reeves, Mark Wahlberg, Tori Amos and Dan Aykroyd. Samuel L. Jackson promoted the sequel to his popular animated Afro Samurai movie and video game. Jackson was drawn to the project because he has been a lifelong fan of Japanese movies and animation. He said the latest installment Afro Samurai – Resurrection “has everything I like in a movie - swords, blood, sex, and rock and roll.”
Comic-Con seems timeless, which may be rooted in the knowledge that much what is presented at the event will become part of the fabric of our daily lives. It represents what’s unique and great about our culture, allows for individual creative expression, yet demands a certain protocol in how an idea is delivered. If our founding fathers showed up at this event, they would be pleased at our cultural progress. They would even fit in well in their period dress … and their story would make an excellent action adventure film.
