By Anita K. Palmer
Want quick immersion into pop culture? Attend a comics convention. Our soccer-mom senior copy editor did and was strangely transfixed …
Comics are powered by “a longing for the fantastic, the supernatural.” —Jason Rovenstine
To get to Doug TenNaple’s booth at San Diego’s humongous Comic-Con International last July, we had to trudge through herds of costumed comic nerds, cranky children, and mobs of freebies hunters. We ducked under a life-sized Voldemort leering from a two-story-high display (this was, after all, five days after the launch of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) and trekked past innumerable Disneyland-scale displays for upcoming movies (
Beowulf,
The Golden Compass,
The Simpsons Movie).
When we finally reached the geek tables—where the real comic artists sat—there was still no relief from the masses. A dozen fans crushed close to TenNaple’s tiny stall, asking for autographs of his latest work, a dark graphic novel for adults called Black Cherry. My 13-year-old son, Benjamin, and his friend Jacob watched with big eyes. I sighed.
Welcome to the largest comics convention in the United States. Welcome to pop-culture immersion therapy. Welcome to Nerd Nation, fast being overrun by Hollywood. (But doesn’t Hollywood overrun everything?)
If you want a snapshot of the culture young people swim in, then come with me to a comics convention.
A Colossal Mosh Pit
Comic conventions are bull horns for what’s coming during the next year—and what young people will be consuming.
Comic-Con—which started 38 years ago in the basement of a San Diego hotel for three or four dozen mostly young men who traded old-fashioned comic books—these days draws TV celebrities, New York publishers, well-heeled collectors and monster crowds of kids.
The first time my son and I attended was a shocker. Physically, mentally, psychologically, spiritually: absolutely mind-blowing. One reason, of course, is Comic-Con’s colossal size. In 2005, the attendance was estimated at 104,000. In 2006, it had grown to around 123,000. Last year, all four days sold out in advance; and the fire marshal shut the box office at more than 125,000. (There’s talk of having to move it to Los Angeles.)
For this suburban, Christian soccer mom, the sensory explosion of jumping into a 460,000-square-foot mosh pit of rock music, movie trailers, goody give-aways, collectibles, toys, video, original art, T-shirts and memorabilia is astounding. Exhausting. And exhilarating.
Beyond size, though, the convention forced me into a visual storytelling world that, after three years, I have grown to love.