Hard to believe, I know, but it's five and a half weeks until this year's gala Comic-Con International in San Diego. And yes, I'm aware some of you still haven't unpacked from the last one. That's just how fast time passes now that we've lowered the Age of Celebrity in this country down to around 14.
If you are without admission to Comic-Con this year, you may well be outta luck. Try every possible avenue except buying from unofficial sources or asking me. If you are attending, here are a few tips…
- Wear the most comfortable shoes you own, regardless of how ugly they may be.
- Before the con, take the time to study the Programming Guide. It'll be on the con website a week or two before the event and you should go over it and make notes on (a) what you want to see and (b) what you'll go see instead if your first choices are full.
- It also wouldn't hurt to study the map of the exhibit hall that will be on the site. Get a sense of how the place is laid out and where the displays that interest you are most likely to be found. Writing down booth numbers is also a dandy idea.
- Plan where and when you're going to eat. The food at the convention center is pretty bad even by the standards of convention center food. Best thing I've ever found are the hamburgers they sell out on the back terrace during lunch hours but they get worse every year. Last year, they were bad approximations of Burger King so this year, they'll probably be down to the level of Carl's Jr.
- That back terrace which overlooks the marina is a great place to go, sit for a while and breathe non-convention air.
- Bring more money than you expect to need there. You can always take some home if you don't spend it all. Which you will.
- If you're driving down, figure out where you're going to park. When you get there and it's full, think about taking the Amtrak train next time.
- Make sure you have along a watch or a cell-phone that tells time. The hall will have more people dressed as Luke Skywalker than it will clocks.
- It's impossible to find people in that place and cell reception can be spotty. If you're hoping to hook up with friends, it's a good idea to plan a time and place in advance. A lot of folks use the DC booth as a location since it's centrally-located and there's often someone attractive hanging around dressed as Wonder Woman, Supergirl, Black Canary or the Golden-Age Green Lantern.
- Remember that the con is not just the exhibit hall. Most of the programming is upstairs and there are always fun things transpiring outside the convention center, mostly on the southeast end. The crowds out there may also make you long for the crowds inside the building.
And lastly, here's the most important piece of advice I can give you…so vital I'm giving it its own bullet-point…
- Relax. Don't stress. Accept the reality that you cannot see every event you want to see, meet every celeb you want to meet, acquire every treasure you wish to acquire. I've been going to these things since Richard M. Nixon was President and I have never, not even when the con had under 500 attendees, ever seen anyone "do everything." You do not have to function at the pace of the convention. Function at your own pace and take in as much of the con as seems possible. You can really have a great time there if you don't put pressure on yourself to do too much.
So that's my main advice. Also, you might want to spend every waking minute of the next five and a half weeks reading Tom Spurgeon's convention tips. He makes it sound like a much grander ordeal and daunting task than it is but everything he writes is true to some extent except for where he says Batton Lash is the King of the Friendly Pros On The Comic-Con Floor. Batton is a very nice gent but compared to Sergio Aragonés, he is that face-eating guy in Florida. As are we all.
Batton will, by the way, be on one of the twelve (so far) panels I'm hosting at the convention — a tribute to Joe Simon and Jerry Robinson. Others include the usual two Cartoon Voice panels (Saturday and Sunday), the Sunday panel on how to break into that field, Quick Draw! (Saturday), the Jack Kirby Tribute Panel, Cover Story, the Sergio/Mark Show and I can't find my list at the moment. I'm currently finalizing the lineup of folks who'll be on these so let me know if there's someone you really want to see on, say, the Cartoon Voice Panel.
Or I tell you what I could really use help with: There will be no Golden Age or Silver Age Panel because we just don't have folks there who qualify. But we are now doing something called That 70's Panel with writers and artists who did a lot of work in comics in that decade. I know there will be many of those at the con but I'm not sure yet who'll be around and am thus unsure who to invite. If you have some thoughts, I'd welcome them.
I think that's all for now. Actually, I hope that's all for now but will probably think of something else in twenty minutes.