Believe it or not, Preview Night at this year's Comic-Con International in San Diego starts in two months and two hours. I haven't even unpacked from WonderCon and they already have me working out my panel schedule…and this weekend, I'm writing a couple of tributes to departed folks to appear in the souvenir book. We're also close to announcing this year's recipients of the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Writing.
I have heard all the complaints. Okay, I'm exaggerating. There must be at least ten people who either go there, decide not to go there or want to go there and can't who do not e-mail me with their gripes…but I hear a lot of them, none of which I can do anything about and some of which I don't think anyone can do anything about. When you drive down the 5 Freeway to go there on a Saturday morning, you're not going to have the Car Pool Lane all to yourself and the price of gas is not going to be what you want it to be. Deal with it. Just deal with it.
Many of the complaints are things I wouldn't want anyone to do anything about and an awful lot of the grumblers are not unlike the acquaintance of mine who moaned about this: He went to the con one year with a list of 50 or so old comics he wanted to buy to complete his collection. He couldn't find 20 of them at all and of the remainder, well over half were priced too high for him to afford. Some old comics are scarce and expensive and somehow, that's the convention's fault.
This person should not be confused with the guy who used to come up to me every year and tell me the con sucks because some old-time comic artist he wanted to meet wasn't there. Often, the artist in question had been invited but had declined. In one case, the artist was deceased. This was probably the convention's fault, too.
To oft-dead ears, I told these belly-achers what I've told you here before. I love Comic-Con. I loved what it was back in the seventies and eighties, and I don't fault the current version of it for not being what it was back then. The comic book industry, for reasons good and bad, isn't what it was back then, either.
It is obviously possible to have a great time at Comic-Con. The thing wouldn't sell out each year in nine nano-seconds if it wasn't.
I sympathize with those who tried to get tickets but couldn't. That's an absolutely valid grievance and one which will always exist as long as 400,000 people (that's probably a low guess) want to attend a function that can at most accommodate 135,000 or so. The operators of the convention can't help that and even if they moved to larger quarters, more folks would probably want to attend and your odds of scoring a badge might not be much better.
(Important Note: I cannot help you get in. Don't ask. Don't even offer bribes…and, yes, I've had offers.)
But if you can get in, you can have a great time. You have to accept the fact that it's crowded and there'll be a lot of walking and you might not be able to get into every panel or event you want to attend…and the food, like the food in every convention center, will be overpriced and underedible. That's a useful new word I made up last time I tried one of their alleged pizzas.
You have to plan ahead. By now if you're attending, you should know how you're getting there, where you're going to stay if you're going to stay, some good places to eat, etc. If you're leaving these things for last-minute decisions, you're setting yourself up to have a bad time.
About two weeks before the convention, the Programming Schedule will be posted. Naturally, you're going to want to attend all the panels I moderate but there may be others. Check the schedule when it's available and mark down what you want to see and what you'll go see instead if you can't get into your first choice. Study the map of the hall and get a sense of where the exhibitors you want to check out will be located. (Hint: If you're not into video games, note where those exhibitors are and avoid that area at all costs. They like to make certain you can't hear and you can't move.)
Make sure you have shoes you can walk in for a long time and for long distances. And follow other tips I'll be posting here in the coming two months.
It really can be a wonderful experience if you work at it a little. If you stumble into it or give yourself unrealistic expectations, you'll wind up with a lot of complaints. For God's sake if you do, don't dump them on me. There's no point in both of us being miserable.