If you're down at Comic-Con (where I am not yet), that guy you see running around taking photos of absolutely everything is my pal Bruce Guthrie. With his kind permission, I've often featured his photos on this blog because no matter what happened anywhere, Bruce got a photo of it. He shot some of my birth and I still don't know how he managed that since he's so much younger than I am.
He's already down in San Diego, sending me photos of, among other newsworthy images, people standing in long lines to get their vaxx status confirmed. The photo above of a Comic-Con banner inside the hall looks just like photos he's taken there every year…but this one was taken last night and that's the key thing: It's solid, incontrovertible evidence that Comic-Con is back. I shall confirm this in person before long.
I can't really explain my assorted feelings about going this time. I know I'm happy that Comic-Con exists again as I've always had a good time at them. I guess I'm just hoping that everyone rises to the occasion and respects everyone else's concerns about too much close contact. Comic-Con has never been the place you go to get away from crowds. Quite the opposite.
The last time I went to Comic-Con — or it may have been the year before — I was scurrying to get to the Eisner Awards to make my little presentation and I was walking across the park-like area between the convention center and the Bayfront Hilton. Cosplayers were all around creating little photo-ops, displaying their wonderful outfits.
When I first began attending conventions back in the Mesolithic Era, long before the word "cosplay" was invented by whoever invents words like that, there were costumes. On average, they seemed to take about fifteen minutes each to make. Some guy would put on a torn shirt and declare he was Doc Savage. Some gal would remove as much clothing as the convention allowed, make up a clever title to justify it, and get so much attention, no one would notice how lame the Doc Savage guy's costume was.
Now, those who dress-up really dress-up. Most of what they don is elaborate and sometimes expensive…and you know so much time, effort and creativity went into them that the wearers earned the chance to show off.
As I've said here, I love about 95% of the cosplayers…and that number may be low. But there are always a few who don't respect that others just might need a place to be. The 5% or less strike their poses and do their little antic scenes wherever anyone has a camera…and of course, these days, everyone has a camera. We talk to each other on our cameras. I have prevented actual injuries, once to a small child, by stopping a cosplayer from cosplaying too close to others.
Anyway, that early evening when I was hustling to the Hilton, there was this guy dressed as Conan the Barbarian or Kull the Barbarian or Crom the Barbarian or Someone the Barbarian…I don't know who the f-word he was supposed to be; only that it wasn't Groo even if he did have about the same I.Q. and consideration for others. Dancing about, waving a prop sword that could still have done serious damage, he somehow did not see me walking where I had every right to walk. ("How…clumsy…was he?" "He was so clumsy, he couldn't see me." That's like not noticing that you're in close proximity to Mighty Joe Young.)
Crashed right into Yours Truly. Knocked me off my feet, which is like accidentally toppling the Colossus of Rhodes…and I was dirtied a bit but unhurt. Mostly, I was stunned by the lack of "I'm sorry." There are people who go through life unaware that they're expected to share the planet with others. I guess they've always existed but before those omnipresent cameras and YouTube, we didn't see video-recorded evidence of them in the wild and no one dubbed them "Karens."
I've thought about that guy way more than he deserves…probably way more than is good for me. I hope he's not there this year. I hope he's not there any year but especially this year.