My husband loves Comic-Con, which if you don’t know is a yearly event here in San Diego in which an ever increasing number of people ranging from normal to deranged descend upon San Diego for the weekend. It started out as a comics thing, but it’s expanded and exploded to a Hollywood event with TV stars, movie stars, and famous authors appearing for insanely crowded panel sessions on such topics as “Creating the Dothraki language” and a meet and greet with the guy who plays Masuka on Dexter.
It sounds fun, if you’re into that sort of thing. I went for a day last year and although I couldn’t bring myself to wait in line for 4 hours for any of the sessions, the shopping was fun as long as you stayed away from the booths where they were giving things away for free. That got ugly real fast.
We went yesterday, for opening day. Outside, they placed a bloody car complete with corpse from Walking Dead, which was pretty cool.
Inside, mass chaos for the expanse of the Convention Center.
I couldn’t be bothered to look up what was going on and who was going to be where so we just wandered. It was fun to happen upon Grover interviewing Sailor Moon:
I was amazed watching the puppeteer. He had a monitor in front of him so he was watching Grover and the interviewee with his head pointed away from them, but he could effortlessly maneuver Grover so he was fluidly interacting with her the whole time.
Only here would a Star Trek officer battle a LOTR troll.
And like last year, I found myself gravitating towards the artist section. More interesting and less crowded, more dogs and less people elbowing each other to get the latest GI Joe limited edition doll.
And man, was it crowded. And Thursday is the least busy day.
But for a bunch of people who say they identify with the Secret Super Hero thing, I found the overall chivalry level lacking. What I did see were grown men using their bulk to edge little kids out of the way at the Build Your Own whatever thing at the Lego booth, lots of shoving, and a disturbing number of people who thought burping in a crowded room was hysterical.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, there’s a difference between putting on your superhero costume and putting on your super hero costume, if you know what I mean.
And it’s my own fault for immersing myself so deeply in what I’ve been writing about for the last week, but my head and my heart are still 100% vested in this project I just completed, and I couldn’t stop thinking about how weird it was that I was in Africa just a couple weeks ago having a mind blowing experience, and now I am here getting farted on by some guy in a Wolverine costume and I can’t escape because I’m inside a wall of flesh. And that I had been thinking to myself, “Nerds! These are my people!” but when I got there, and saw them in their polyester costumes being so ugly to one another, I had second thoughts about who my people might be.
And then I started to feel like this guy:
And I just wanted to go outside and get some air, preferably on another continent.
My pass is good through the weekend, so I need to give it another shot, and see if there is a little bit of humanity there under all that Spandex and special edition plastic. My friend Nancy just posted a picture of her sitting next to George R.R. Martin, and you Game of Thrones people know how I feel about him, so I know there are good experiences to be had. I guess I’m just hanging out in the wrong exhibit halls.
Yeah, the dream is better than the reality.
I think experiences like your trip to Africa tend to alter our perceptions of ‘our’ lives. And, yippeee that they do! We do, in the more affluent countries, get hung up on stuff that doesn’t really matter in the end, with wainscoting, granite countertops, luxury cars and purses, the latest Mattel toy, television, etc., becoming much more important in our minds than they really are.
Love the pic of the Star Trek dude fighting the trolls!!
Yup, just happened by this guy getting totally into it.
I know I mentioned this last time you returned from Africa… but it’s so relevent.
My friend who goes to Africa to rehabilitate chimps has the same issue every time she comes back. She called me once from Target because she was having a raging anxiety attack. She was looking around at all the STUFF that people don’t need, and all the colors and options and… waste… and she freaked out because NONE of it matters! Americans often get caught up in the comsumerist culture and forget that we can get by on a lot less!
You post about the shoes and crayons was a wonderful reminder about the simplictiy of life, and how I should be thankful for every single thing I have. The crayon thing especially… every kid in this country probably has dozens if not hundreds of crayons. This weekend I am going to tell my niece about the African children, so hopefully she can gain a new perspective about her life, too.
I can so see how she would feel that way. I’ve only been gone for 2 weeks. Any longer and I would have lost it too.
Talk about culture shock! After reading your posts about the punda and the Masaai, and all the beautiful people you met, I felt like I had a bit of culture shock as well. It’s hard to reconcile this kind of behavior when we have so much compared to so many. I’m thinking you need a run with Brody to remind you of your mountain hike and put you back in your happy place! But as ever, thanks for sharing it all with us, the good AND the not so much!
I’ve already run off into the local mountains despite it being 90 degrees out, just because I NEEDED it. And it was great.
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But Neil Gaiman is going to be writing another Sandman story!
But yeah, you’re right. It must pale in comparison with everything you’ve just experienced.