I awoke this morning in a daze and had actually hosted three panels before I realized I was back home and Comic-Con 2011 was over. Incidentally, Comic-Con 2012 is sold out.
No, it isn't but it will be, about ten minutes after the tickets go on general sale online. The ones offered at this year's Comic-Con sold out each day in record time. I don't know when the rest will be available but whenever they are, they won't be available for long. You can bitch 'n' moan all you like about this and spread, as some do, bogus rumors that the con is moving to Vegas but none of that will change the cold, hard fact that if you want to go next year, you need to be alert and on your toes and decide well in advance. (From what I can tell, by the way, Comic-Con is about as likely to move to Las Vegas as it is to relocate in the Sea of Tranquility. And not just because this year, daytime temperatures on the same dates averaged 108° in Vegas and 72° in San Diego.)
The crush is obviously because people have a very good time at this event. My observation is that this often has much to do with going in with realistic expectations —
Yes, it's going to be packed and it'll be slow going in most aisles. Yes, there are going to be tons of things there you can't afford to buy. Yes, you'll buy some of them, anyway. Yes, it's going to be a hassle to get around outside the convention center, too. Yes, you won't be able to see a tenth of what you'd like to see or meet all the people you'd like to meet. Yes, yes, yes…
— and it also has to do with doing a little advance planning, like making a schedule in advance and figuring out what you most want to do there. I often now hear people saying something about the con that I believe I said first and if so, I want credit for it: "The convention you want to attend is in that hall. You just have to find it."
I should probably amend that to read "The convention you want to attend within the realm of human possibility" because, well, if you want to go to a con where every old comic you seek for your collection is findable for a buck, that ain't gonna happen. And I did have a couple of folks gripe to me that there weren't enough panels with Golden Age comic creators, which is a lot like complaining your birdbath isn't full of bald eagles splashing around. As near as I can tell, there were three human beings at that convention who worked in comic books before around 1960. There was Stan Lee, who doesn't do panels about the old days. There was Jerry Robinson, who was the subject of his own spotlight panel. And there was Ramona Fradon. Maybe there were one or two others I missed but not enough to fill even one of our old Golden Age Panels. I wish it was otherwise.
Anyway, I continue to be amazed at how efficiently run the convention is. The first morning, I looked out the window of my hotel and then tweeted the following:
I am at a hotel in San Diego with a lovely view of a line I'm glad I don't have to stand in.
Then I got in the shower…and so help me, by the time I was dry and dressed, that line was gone. Don't write me about the problem you had. It's impossible to run an event of that size without some things going wrong. I'm sure your particular dilemma occurred just the way you say it did…but it was also atypical. Not much goes wrong at these things. Not much at all.
I'll surely think of more things to write here in the coming days. In the meantime, if you want to see what the convention looked like, photographer Pat Loika has compiled a set of snaps by himself and others that should give you some idea. As with any camera eye's view of the con, there's a disproportionate number of folks in costume but that's the nature of this beast. As I mentioned, my relatives see the press coverage and wonder what Mark went dressed as this year. Oddest get-up I did see: There are usually so many guys dressed as The Joker that I hardly pay them any attention…but this year, there was a black guy made-up that way and the white greasepaint was flaking off his face, making for a very strange, bi-racial visual. I was in too much of a rush to shoot a photo but I expect to see the image in some DC Comics mini-series before long.
More, as they say, to come…