Before you ask: I don’t go to any of the Hall H programming anymore, so I don’t know anything about the stabbing. And you can tell I’m telling the truth because this sentence isn’t: “And I’m not answering any more questions without my lawyer here.”
For new readers who’ve never been to Comic-Con: Hall H is the big room where they show all the sneak preview clips for the upcoming geek flicks at Comic-Con. Five years ago it was possible to get into the Hall H programming of your choice by getting in line a couple hours early, staking out a seat and waiting through the panel before the one you wanted. Since they don’t clear out the room between programs, bingo! You’ve got a seat for your panel for the low, low price of pissing away your morning watching something you don’t give a shit about (What is a… Yo Gabba Gabba? Is it… what Spongebob yells while he is ejaculating?), and knowing that the funk of 4,000 geeks will permanently burn out all of your nostril hairs.
Then God got distracted and allowed the creation of a little something called Twilight, which spiked the lines a dozenfold and changed all the rules… which is putting it mildly. People start lining up at 9 p.m. Friday to get into Hall H at 9 a.m. Saturday, and when the get in? They sit there ALL DAY, setting back the image of genre geeks as ANYTHING but borderline autistic couch potatoes at least 10,000 years (Throg! You sit on rock all day for sneak peek at next cave hunt painting! Get off ass and go outside. Maybe invent underpants so I invent wedgie!”)
Need a snack? You need to leave the hall and get back in line outside – a line that’s commonly 10,000 people long. Need to take a leak? Get out and get back in line. Heat exhaustion? Sorry; the paramedics want to see the Green Lantern footage, too.
So yeah; the more I think about it, it’s not that Twilight changed the Hall H rules, because the word “rules” implies that someone wins. And NOBODY wins at Hall H anymore except maybe the movie studios. Shit, even Thunderdome had a more equitable rule: two men enter, one man leaves. In Hall H, 4,000 people enter, and NO ONE leaves.
And every year people gripe that there has to be a better way to handle the rolling apocalypse / concentation camp that is Hall H, but frankly there probably isn’t one.
“Clear the room after every panel!” a lot of people bitch. Sure. And once you factor in the CONSERVATIVE estimate of fifteen minutes to clear 4,000 people out of a room, you can spike two panels a day right out of the gate. Which nerdgasm do you want to dump… and remember that you’re vastly outnumbered by Twilight fans who on a good day cosplay as Bella Swan, who on a good day is completely unfuckable by any being with a pulse.
Throw on top of that the inevitable trampling when three ofrfour thousand geeks hit a dead run trying to get back in line for the next panel, and it makes the odd face-stabbing look like full release.
There is a good solution: stay the fuck away from Hall H and trust that the “exclusive footage” any given panel’s showing off will be on YouTube by the end of the day. And if anyone scoffs and tries to convince you to brave the lines? Stab them in the fucking face.
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That certainly isn’t the end of the stories from Comic-Con 2010, but it’s the end of them for now. The convention is over now; the banners are coming down and the Con Whores have stopped handing out fliers and started frantically showering off the stink of an eight of a million sweaty geeks asking for photos, which means it is time for me to collect my purchases, my novelty t-shirts and my hangover and return to Boston before people start putting names to faces and getting the names right on the warrants.
I have plenty of additional videos and photos to upload, which will continue to trickle out probably starting tomorrow. In addition, I will try to put together a wrapup describing, despite the generally doomed tone of my posts this week, why Comic-Con is the greatest experience in the world…
Despite the rumor going around that Comic-Con 2011 four day passes with Preview Night included sold out BEFORE COMIC-CON 2010 ENDED.
Yeah. There may be one more stabbing before my flight boards.
[tags]San Diego Comic Con 2010, Nerd Prom, dark humor, satire[/tags]
