Comic Con: A Two-State Solution

Wow, up until yesterday, I had almost completely forgotten that Comic Con is happening this weekend. I guess it doesn't speak well for the Con that my interest in it has decreased to the point that I don't even really care to pay attention to the scheduling this year, let alone pay for registration. (Granted, I'm going to a wedding on Saturday, so I'm physically unable to make it to Comic Con this year anyway. But even if I was free, I'm not sure I'd make the effort to go this year.)

In a way, it's a relief. The feeling of not going to Comic Con reminds me of how I felt last year when I decided to not sign up for my work's fantasy football league. Gone is the burden of having to rack my brain, picking and choosing and plotting my every move over the course of two 16-18 hour days. No running, no crowds, no drain on my wallet. Every so often, life requires you to stop and take a break, right?

Of course, I'll still miss being there this year, since I've had plenty of good times in the past. Who could forget Spike & Mike's Gauntlet of Sick and Twisted Animation? Or Jerry Beck's Worst Cartoons Ever showcase? Or the Brisco County Jr. panel with Bruce Campbell? Or getting into an epic gunfight with the cast of Spaced? Or meeting Troma head honcho Lloyd Kaufman? Or meeting Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi and getting a free personalized drawing from him? Man, I'm getting all nostalgic now. Makes me really wish I could go this year.

But for all the awesome panels and occasional encounters with living legends, there are plenty of things to gripe about. For one, the aforementioned crowds and lines. Comic Con wasn't always the insanely crowded high demand extravaganza that it is today. I remember taking a trolley downtown on a Sunday afternoon and casually strolling into the convention center with practically no wait time in 2005. The following year, my good friend (coincidentally, the same friend whose wedding I'm attending this weekend) had to stand in line for three hours, just barely making it in before they had to cut the line off completely and start turning people away.

Since then, Comic Con has strictly been a "buy tickets in advance" type of event. In 2007, Friday & Saturday passes sold out days in advance. In 2008, all four days were sold out weeks in advance. Now, if you wanna go, you need to register more than half a year in advance because the passes sell out so quickly (many of which are bought by scalpers and sold for huge markups on the black market, a.k.a. eBay). This eliminates the possibility of waiting to see what the guests and panels are gonna be before deciding on going. You have to throw down your hard-earned cash for the sole purpose of attending the convention. Any cool guests or panels that happen to get scheduled are really only an added bonus.

Once you finally make it to the San Diego Convention Center, you find yourself surrounded by tens of thousands of sweaty fans at every turn. Even with the attendance caps, Comic Con is very crowded. It's inevitable, but annoying nonetheless. Walking through the western and central areas of the exhibit hall is an experience comparable to driving north on the 405 during rush hour. You have to deal with the crowds by figuring everything out ahead of time. If there's a panel you really wanna see, you have to head over to the room two or three hours in advance and camp out, and you have to be prepared to spend those two or three hours standing in line.

Going to Hall H on a whim probably isn't going happen. In fact, if you want to see anything in Hall H at any point during the day, it's probably best to just get there first thing in the morning and spend the whole day there. Unfortunately, much of the time, seeing one panel that you want to see means having to skip another panel that you also want to see, even if you have a decent gap of time in between the two. You just have to pick your battles. You're not going to see everything you want to, and the sooner you accept that, the sooner you can stop worrying and enjoy the day.

The increased crowd sizes and higher profile of the event can be explained pretty easily: the convention has been taken over by the entertainment industry. What was once a hardcore yet low-key gathering of nerds and fanboys has changed over the past decade into a preview showcase for every movie distributor, TV channel, and media conglomerate in the country. A-list celebrities and big-name directors talk about their new projects and have Q & A sessions. Studios unveil clips of new movies to the public for the first time. It's where "buzz" and "hype" are created. All the nerdy stuff is still there too, of course. But with each passing year, we see the nerd culture of Comic Con being pushed slightly more to the side.

This year, this trend goes beyond the standard fears of the comic section of the exhibit hall shrinking. The registration price for exhibitors has jumped from $75 to $200 (source: Cartoon Brew), essentially discouraging smaller-scale exhibitors from even being able to attend the event. They've also cracked down on attendees registering as professionals. It used to be that anyone who worked in the entertainment industry got two free passes. Now the passes are reserved for industry professionals with creative/production jobs and a thorough list of credits and credentials. Essentially, they're slowly but surely driving out a significant contingent of the convention's lifeblood. Drive out the independent artists, more room for multibillion-dollar media giants. I shudder to think about what Comic Con will look like in five years.

Let's face it: Comic Con has jumped the shark. The days of it actually being centered around comics have long since passed. Last year, ABC had a panel for a new Patricia Heaton sitcom (the program noted "being a housewife is kinda like being a superhero..."). E! News gives Comic Con recaps and highlights the Monday after the convention ends. Last year's most popular panel was the friggin' Twilight panel. Clearly, something is wrong here.

So how do we remedy the situtation? How can Comic Con get back to its roots? My recommendation: have two conventions. It's a fact that Comic Con has gotten too big. They've expanded slightly by having some panels at the next door Hilton ballroom, but the problems remain. There's been plenty of open speculation about whether the convention will stay in San Diego or head elsewhere in a few years to try to accommodate its growing size. The purists are upset about the convention's shift away from what's supposed to be its main focus.

So let's create a separate convention for all of the high-profile entertainment industry stuff. It can be in San Diego or Los Angeles or Las Vegas or wherever they want to do it. Most of the panels that would normally occupy Hall H and Ballroom 20 can be held in their own separate time and place. All of the studios and organizations and celebrities can converge in one place and present first-hand footage and information for highly-anticipated upcoming projects. It'll still be the second biggest entertainment industry showcase of the year (the Oscars being the biggest). Everyone gets to see the stars, hear the news, and have a great time. Call it Entertainment Con, or whatever.

Meanwhile, let Comic Con be Comic Con. Let the emphasis be on comics, animation, video games, collectibles, art, and general nerd culture. Some products of the mainstream entertainment industry can still be a part of it. 20th Century Fox's Futurama comes to mind as a high-profile program that still fits in at Comic Con. Troma can stay. Bruce Campbell can stay. Hell, we could even keep the panels for blockbuster movies specifically based on comics or video games. And of course, Kevin Smith can still have his annual Q & A session. But honestly, most of the TV and movie panels currently at Comic Con don't really need to be there.

Moving all of the extraneous stuff elsewhere will clear a lot of space in both the panel ballrooms and the main exhibit hall. And of course, leave the damn thing in San Diego! The San Diego Convention Center is the perfect location. The biggest problems with San Diego (crowds, expensive hotels) are the direct results of the insanely high demand for the event. If you carefully scale the whole thing down a little, it'll be a richer, more enjoyable experience for everyone.

Of course, this would mean that much less corporate cash would flow into the event. That shouldn't matter to a non-profit organization like Comic Con, but it will. So the odds of them kicking out the most high-profile exhibitors anytime soon are slim to nil. In the real world, money typically triumphs over integrity.

The voices of discontent grow louder and louder each year. Thousands are clamoring for a return to order that doesn't appear visible anytime soon. But in the meantime, artists, exhibitors, and fans are banding together and attempting to recapture the spirit of what Comic Con once was, as evident in the creation of groups like Creator Con. It could be an interesting time for the creative contingent, the people that make up the true heart and soul of Comic Con. Nerd culture has been co-opted by the giants of the entertainment industry, so artists and like-minded individuals have the opportunity to break free and start something new, something better, something that whole-heartedly celebrates the things that brought Comic Con into existence in the first place.

All that said, I still think that going to Comic Con is generally more of a positive experience than a negative one. So let's hope that Comic Con listens to the concerns of its truest devotees and gets its act together. But if that doesn't happen, it's nice to know that alternatives with more focus and integrity are taking shape out there.