Recap: Now You Can Take the Comic Out of the Con
By: Matt Levine (Fused Film L.A. Office)
August 1970. The basement of the U.S. Grant Hotel teemed with over 300 nerdos who came to oogle at their favorite artistic medium: Comic Books.
Back then, Pale-skinned, Chewbacca-loving folk like these barely made local headlines let alone national news, relying on the love of the thing to bring in numbers and dollars. But now, nearly 40′s later, that tiny basement bonanza has ballooned into a global media feeding frenzy of pop culture known only as: COMIC- CON.
Guys and Gals of every race, religion, and creed shriek at the top of their lungs for a Twilight-faced bag laden with buttons, bookmarks, pamphlets of god knows what- just basically anything with Robert Pattinson’s face on it; their eyes in proverbial coitus over every movie preview and sneak peak they see- the sight of Johnny Depp or Robert Downey Jr. pure eruptible climax. What did San Diego put in these people’s water? Why were they at the near point of brain aneurisms…but more importantly, where did all the comics go?
I first attended the con four years ago. I casually walked into the exhibition hall and glanced around at the massive displays of sideshow toys, life-size Lego men, and Alex Ross banners. Like a beat cop making his rounds, I took several laps of the place, eyes peeled, effortlessly moving in and out of Con goers. Everyone else too, taking their time to stop and appreciate all that the San Diego Con posters boasted as the “celebration of popular arts”. Here are my people! Joe Nobody could take the time out of his work week to come and lean his fanny pack on the table of Grant Morrison, Bruce Timm and Jim Lee, not necessarily to camp out to catch a look at Matthew Vaughn’s Kick-Ass (A comic book- yes. But the film is going to come out before the series even finishes. What’s up with that!) The hysteria was still there in my years, yes, but it was contained. Mind you, this was before the release of a few films you might’ve gone to see in the theaters. Ohhhh just films like Iron Man, The Dark Knight, Twilight, Transformers, etc. With the success of these movie franchises and the incredible vocal and built in “geek” fan base, the term “the geeks rule Hollywood” was born. What this year became was a springboard for upcoming blockbuster movies. People bought their tickets in an effort to catch a glimpse of clips of New Moon, Iron Man, and Avatar. Rarely did you hear anyone boast about the rare issue of Power Man that they scored, or the incredible Harley Quinn drawing done for them, or the highly informative How-To panel with Marv Wolfman, a man working in comics way before the word “con” got attached. It has become clear that as these massive film franchises rake in loads of dough, production companies will continue to light the powder keg months in advance hoping for a massive box office explosion. Iron Man 2 is slatted to open summer 210- it already made to cover of Entertainment Weekly.
Someone recently said to me “well Matt, they ARE Comic movies- doesn’t that count?” Sure. Great. Grand. Lovely. They’re right- but no one goes to a museum to see a painting half finished do they? Bad parallel? Who knows but all I’m trying to say here is that there is a major discrepancy when Geoff Johns, the driving force behind all things DC right now, can casually walk the floors of an event tailored for him where as the cast of True Blood needs an entourage of 80 (that number is no exaggeration) just to walk across the exhibition floor.
All of this a good thing? Maybe. Good is a relative term. More importantly, does it shine a light of on the cruel level of capitalism that is sucking the marrow from the bones of our country dry? Quite possibly. Do I love every goddamn second of it?…. you bet your ass I do.
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Categories: Features, Fused Movies
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