Nerd Prom 2009 – Denouemount is French For ConSARS

CONSARS – con-sars – Noun. Upper respiratory infection caught at a pop culture convention, such as a comic book, anime or film convention. Infection usually coincides with extended airline trip. Symptoms include nasal and chest congestion, fatigue, rage, and hatred toward one’s fellow man. Etiology – Wil Wheaton, March 2008 -The American Jerk Dictionary, 2009.

For a comic book freak, there is nothing sweeter than being at Comic-Con. You get to hear inside information for the next year’s worth of books, some creators like Geoff Johns and J. Michael Straczynski seem to take particular glee in spitting out spoilers about what they’re working on (Straczynski said, “I’m working on a project for DC Comics that they told me I cannot say a WORD about.” Then he hummed the Superman theme.), and it just generally gets you excited about the fact that you’re spending thousands and thousand of dollars a year on something your mom yelled at you about, without the pesky gangrene of heroin addiction.

The problem is that it gets EVERY comic book fan excited, so they all show up with you… and the character of Comic Book Guy on the Simpsons was not created in a vacuum. Grossly overweight, stewing in their own juices thanks to the parka the insist upon wearing despite the California heat, picking up discarded freebies from the bathroom floor… and sometimes in panels, they sit next to YOU, ranting at Bob Wayne for not releasing Young Justice in trade paperback form… and thus spitting microbes at everyone within a five-seat radius. He or she will eventually waddle back to their moms’ basements with bags full of swag, absently wiping the snot from their nose since the discomfort of the bug pales next to their irregular heartbeats. YOU, however, will be left with the conSARS.

Which is what I am battling with as I pack up to check out and spend six hours in a pressurized tube. Therefore, this will remain short; there will be more on Comic-Con tomorrow after a long rest and medicinal whiskey to get over the bug and the timechange.

In the meantime, I was the guest on the latest episode of Popcorn Mafia. Check it out and hear a man fogged with mucus argue that Harry Potter is nothing but a story about rampant pedophilia in English public schools.