Rant-Man's Notebook

By Jim "Rant-Man" MacQuarrie

GeekFest 2002

A while back, I mentioned that I'm going to the San Diego comic-Con, which I described as "summer camp for geeks." The time has arrived. Camp opens next Wednesday. Since I'm in the middle of trying to get everything in order for the grand adventure, you have to hear about it again.

I attended my first Comic-Con back around 1981, if my dubious memory serves. At that time it was in an old hotel called the El Cortez. I had no idea what I'd find, but I caught on fairly quickly. I learned that there is a geek heirarchy; that certain artists and writers are wonderful people and others are royal SOBs; that the whole convention will stop dead when a girl walks through dressed as Vampirella; and that the REAL convention starts after the hall closes for the night.

These days, the Comic-Con is at the huge and fancy convention center, and it's a much bigger event. You can get the official version at the Comic-Con website.

There are actually multiple levels of activity going on simultaneously at the Con. Would-be artists show their portfolios, pros make deals and pitch new projects to publishers at poolside, fans meet up with people they've corresponded with for years and have never met before. There have been both weddings and funerals at the Con. It is a surprisingly important part of the comic book industry.

The most prominent feature is the dealers' room, a gigantic area with hundreds fo vendors selling every conceivable item: toys, posters, software, costumes, photos, t-shirts, swords, and of course, comics. Looking for every appearance of Krypto the Super-Dog? Gotcha covered. Have your heart set on owning the excreble live-action Justice League TV pilot starring David Ogden Stiers as the Martian Manhunter? You can find that. (By the way, isn't "excreble" a great word?) Want a complete set of UFO Dai Apolon robots? Well, I haven't found them yet at an affordable price, but I'm sure they're there. The dealers' room is collector heaven.

Also in that room are the major publishers' displays, which frequently feature their stable of talent, signing autographs and posing for pictures; the Small Press are, where independent publishers hawk their wares; and Artists' Alley, where the greats of the industry, past and present, are doing sketches for their fans. As a rule, I only pay for sketches from the old guys. The younger crowd of artists generally have a pretty good deal, and they usually get one of the big companies to pay for them to come to the Convention, so I don't pay for sketches from them. The "Golden Age" guys are another story. These fellas worked their butts off inventing one of the few truly american art forms, and they got a pittance for it, while the publishers made millions. Now, 50 years later, some of them don't have any retirement to speak of; they don't get any royalties for their work, they don't share in the profits generated by the characters they created, in most cases they didn't even get their own artwork back from the publisher. They got screwed. So I'll happily pay for a sketch from one of them.

Aside from the activities in the main exhibition hall, there are film screenings, sneak previews of upcoming projects, panels, classes and exhibitions, and people dressing up in odd costumes for no readily-discernable reason. Okay, a gaggle of slightly chubby girls in Sailor Moon costumes is mildly amusing, but the guy in the cardboard boxes frightens me.

That's one of the interesting things about the Con: there seems to be a hierarchy of geekdom. Each group has another to look down on. The Brunching Shuttlecocks did a pretty accurate chart showing the levels of geekdom, but it's really more specific to science-fiction than comics. There's a huge overlap between the two.

No matter how you slice it, the furries come out on the bottom.

What's a furry? Well, there are these comics that feature animals in human situations. They might be rabbits or foxes or cats or pandas or whatever, but they walk upright on two legs, wear clothes, and carry on soap-opera lives. A disturbingly high percentage of them are pornographic. But that's not the creepy part. The creepy part is the people who dress up like their animal character and wander the convention floor, buying specially-commissioned sketches of their characters in compromising positions. EWWWW.

Actually, in general, the people in costume are quite a show. Some are having a little harmless fun, but others seem a little mental. There are some, like the little group that dresses up as the Joker, Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy, who have done an excellent job on their outfits and look perfect in them, but their evident need to be part of the show is a little off-putting. They really want people to think they're actually connected with the cartoon in some way; they loiter near the DC/Warner booth, posing for pictures and behaving in character, but you can tell they're just fans. (See that? "Just fans," as if that's a bad thing. More of that heirarchy thing.)

Others try real hard, but even though they have great costumes, they're still a little disturbing. The Stormtroopers, for example. There are about a dozen or so who've put together these perfect replicas of the Stormtrooper outfits from Star Wars, no doubt incurring huge expenses along the way... just so they can walk around the convention floor in them and swelter in the heat as faceless drones. Why?

That's really the key for me. What is the point of going to a convention in some outfit that's so awkward and difficult? Why bother? It's one thing to enter the Masquerade (there are cash prizes), but to wander the floor? You can't see, can't hear, it's a good 30 degrees hotter inside your costume, you can't sit down, can't pick anything up, can't turn your head... This is fun?

Then there are the ones who make a half-hearted stab at it. There's a guy who dresses up in cardboard boxes spray-painted red (I think he's trying to be some sort of robot, but he's really just a big sweaty guy in a pile of red boxes); the would-be fox (he puts on fox ears and a tail and smears make-up on his face and arms); the loincloth guy....

Before you put on a costume at a convention, consider these points:

1. What is your primary purpose?
Some people dress up because it's fun. You can usually recognize them by the fact that their costumes look reasonably comfortable and practical to wear. If you're spending hours getting into a cumbersome and uncomfortable outfit so you can stumble around the convention in headgear that renders you nearly blind and deaf, then you're not doing it for fun. There's something else going on there, and we all know it, and frankly, it creeps us out a little.

2. Do you own a mirror?
Some people simply should not wear spandex. If you're one of them, accept it. If you're going to trot around in your Deja Thoris costume, hit the gym first. One of the signs of maturity is knowing your limitations. Pick a costume or character that suits you. Don't say you don't care what people think. If you didn't care, you wouldn't bother to put on the costume. You're dressing up because you care very much what people think.

3. How are your sewing skills?
If you're going to make your own costume, don't cut corners; it shows. If you're dressing up as a superhero, socks are not an acceptable substitute for boots, and a bath towel will not work as a cape. No. It won't. People will snicker at you behind your back and talk about you at parties for years to come. If your skills aren't up to the job, find somebody to help you.

The nice thing about the Con is that everybody can do their own thing. I'll be doing mine, which is frequently just watching you do yours.

Now that I've ensured an angry mob awaiting my arrival, I'm off to prepare for the convention. Depending on my access to a computer in the next week, there may not be a new episode of Rant-Man's Notebook next week. If not, have a good week anyway. See you when I get back.

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