The American Jerk

Editor’s Note: Didja miss Part 1 and Part 2? Gee, if only there was an easy way to find them…

So Comic-Con has started circling a weird kind of cultural singularity: more people want to attend to see movie stars, so they add more movie stars, which makes more people want to attend, ad infinitum. Which causes we comic book readers to bitch, if only because stutterwalking like an Egyptian with a seizure disorder around 60,000 people on the floor at any given time, even if you are the most even-tempered Yoda-speaking Jedi-wannabe? Rage, it will make you become crazy with.

Even the furries seem to have abandoned Comic-Con as being too unwieldy to get their yiff on… although I anticipate they will resurge the minute the con announces an appearance by Zach Galifianakis.

And it’s easy to complain about it, except for the small fact that the OLD Comic-Con, the one that’s all about the COMICS, MAAAAN? Yeah, that’s still there. It’s easy to miss it, what with the hoards wandering around, slack-jawed and stinking with dehydration, hoping to catch a glimpse of the talented and talented Olivia Munn (Called such because she only has two talents. Three if you include the silicone), but trust a Comic-Con vet: it still exists. But you have to WANT IT.

For every mob of Twi-Hards with a set of squishy panties over sparkly vampires? There’s a comic book related panel that you can just walk into. There’s a comic artist willing to give you a free sketch and a short conversation for every star-struck nerd herding up hoping to bump into Natalie Portman (And by “bump into”, I of course mean, “Meet her and she will see the inner beauty hidden beneath this terrible acne and she will come back to my apartment and love my Queen Amidala action figure collection and she will take me by the hand and lead me to my futon and OHHHH GOOODDDD… thank God I brought clean underpants… and by ‘clean’ I of course mean ‘underpants I haven’t jacked into yet.'”).

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Editor’s note: Part one of the Nerd Prom 2010 Post-Mortem can be found here.

I’ve made a lot of noise here over the past couple of weeks or so about the negative parts of Comic-Con, and make no mistake: there ARE negatives if you look at the experience in a certain way. It’s crowded; the only reason I know that I haven’t yet been frozen out of my first-choice hotel is because they haven’t put Comic-Con 2011 dates up for reservation yet… and yes, I have called every day since I got back (Martha on the reservation desk either has caller ID or she answers all callers with a hearty “Fuck off, Reuter!”). And it’s Goddamned expensive; during some of my efforts to get drunk in bars the downtown Gaslamp District, I’ve been gazed upon with pity and offered roached butts and Bus Station Men’s Room Toilet Tank Sangria by homeless heroin addicts.

And God knows I’ve bitched incessantly about how Comic-Con should be more about, I don’t know… COMICS. Go ahead and check out the panel schedule for this year, and remember what Robert Crumb said about comics being nothing but written words and pictures. So what the fuck is DANNY ELFMAN doing here? Yeah, he wrote the soundtrack to Batman, but that was SIX MOVIES AGO. That fucker can write one good score… and he did… twenty years ago… and he KEEPS ON SELLING IT.

Sure: White Collar, Californication and Glee might be good shows (I say “might”; I’ll start watching any of them as soon as the goofy dialogue to musical number to indiscriminate gunfire radio approaches 1), but they are only related to comic books based on the number of lawyer-scrawled Wonder-Woman-rimming-Superman doodles that may or may not appear on the contracts that forced Comic-Con to bring them in in exchange for Tron: Legacy participation.

And make no mistake: that kind of “We’ll bring you the gold if you showcase this turd” blackmail HAS to be going on behind the scenes; it’s Occam’s Razor: there is no reason for Molly Shannon to be appearing on a major Comic-Con panel when she would attend for the vague mention of a hot meal.

Jesus, even Angelina Jolie showed up at Comic-Con this year, which made a nice headline for the straights in the press – “Jolie Deigns To Rub Elbows With Nerds” – and gives the gutter wits ample fodder for jokes about walking past a hundred thousand dirty, dehydrated and hopeless people without adopting any of them. But those of us who ATTEND Comic-Con know what the REAL story is: Since all the REALLY good shit is scheduled for Saturday, if Angie only had the juice to get a THURSDAY Hall H panel? She’s only a Sky Captain II away from the Sunday morning voice acting panel in *snort* room 2AB… and then it’s just a hop, skip and a Sharks Tale II away from working the Troma booth in a half-shirt and a completely dead-eyed smile.

Sure; it adds a certain amount of extra excitement to Comic-Con knowing that these Hollywood types are wandering around, but it’s just that: hype. And it’s usually EMPTY hype; having Will Sasso at a comic book convention adds nothing substantial except for more unnecessary biomass, unless his studio contract rider stipulates that he be helicoptered out of the city to shit… and having just written myself into a corner where I now have to picture Will Sasso taking a pantless dump, I pray that that rider exists.

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My first day back at the day gig, I was relaying some Comic-Con stories to one of my co-workers as well as my regrets that I was unable to get him a Joss Whedon autograph when he said, “Don’t worry about it. After everything you’ve described, I’m thinking about taking the kids out there for next year’s Comic-Con.”

I goggled at him. “Sorry, you can’t. That’s a stupid idea. And you’re stupid for having it.”

He glared at me and I remembered that this was a NEW job, and I was still breaking these people into accepting weird behavior, offensive outbursts and the idea that a human being could constantly smell vaguely like a distillery outflow pipe as daily and normal occurrences. “Sorry, man. I don’t mean to be blunt. But with that said, if you think you’re getting into Comic-Con next year, at least you won’t have to spend time working on a costume, because you’re already the spitting image of a deluded fucking MORON who – ”

“Excuse me, I need to go speak to Human Resources. And maybe my lawyer. Or actually pretty much ANY lawyer.”

“Okay, okay, I’m sorry,” I said, giving him the kind of jocular punch to the shoulder that I imagine sober people give to their co-workers (And probably opening myself up to an assault charge). “But look: it’s 2010. You need to understand what you’re getting into.

“First of all, remember how I told you about Preview Night?”

“Yeah,” my co-worker said, “That’s when you wander around the convention drunk.”

“Technically, it’s the just FIRST time I do that. Anyway: when it comes to selling Comic-Con tickets, the convention gives preferential treatment to members of the Comic-Con organization.”

“How do you become a member?”

“By being at Comic-Con.”

“Oh.”

“Blowjobs may also help.”

“Wha – ”

“I’m not sure who exactly you would blow. Since you’re looking for the kind of person who would run a comic book convention, I’d normally suggest looking for the bloated, smelly geeks… but if you follow that strategy at Comic-Con, your uvula would swell, burst and fall off before the Hall H line even started moving.”

“I don’t – ”

“Unless, of course, the line was moving because they heard some desperate, ticketless rube was chucking out free blowjobs…”

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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!”)

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