{"id":544,"date":"2015-10-02T23:30:16","date_gmt":"2015-10-03T03:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/?p=544"},"modified":"2015-10-02T22:40:27","modified_gmt":"2015-10-03T02:40:27","slug":"a-view-from-a-con","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/?p=544","title":{"rendered":"A View From a Con"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s column is a departure from the ordinary thread on comics creation that had been the focus for the last few months and, instead, deals with that once-a-year happening of attending the Baltimore Comic Con.<\/p>\n

Last weekend, I headed north to the Baltimore Comic-Con with three friends to check out the lay of the land.\u00a0 Despite the fact that the usual state of the average Maryland driver sits somewhere between distracted and negligent, the trip on the highways and byways of the Free State was accomplished without incident or even a close call.\u00a0 Parking was also fairly easily settled at the lot just behind the Days Inn.\u00a0 A short walk later found our party just outside the Convention Center.<\/p>\n

Surprisingly, there really wasn\u2019t anything in the way of lines and it was only a matter of few minutes before we received our wrist bands and were heading in.\u00a0 The majority of the action at Comic Con happens in the lower level of the convention center where the vendors, comic creators, and independent artists, creators, and associated personnel have their tables set up. \u00a0The upper levels are setup for panels.<\/p>\n

In the course of wandering through the crowd that showed up I came away with a variety of impressions; most good, a few bad.<\/p>\n

First off, the overall state of the con had a real family feel.\u00a0 The number of small children present was amazing to me after the usual state of affairs at Anime conventions, where the target demographic is more focused on the slice of our population from older high-school students, to college-age attendees, and the proverbial young adults. \u00a0It was a common sight to see parents and children cosplaying together and that was also stood in sharp contrast with the usual Anime program. \u00a0\u00a0There were several Raven cosplayers who were in their earlier teens at about the time many kids get shy these girls felt that they could express themselves.\u00a0 In addition, there was a kid\u2019s area in the lower level where the attendees could do some arts and crafts led by a comics creator.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t really see much of this but I sat in on Andy Runton<\/a>\u2019s drawing lesson and it was nice to see his interaction with the kids and his encouragement and coaching about drawing.<\/p>\n

Another really nice observation was that the quality of the cosplay was quite splendid.\u00a0 I didn\u2019t take many photos but there was a nice couple who came dressed as Hawkeye and Black Widow<\/p>\n

\"Hawkeye_and_Black_Widow\"<\/a><\/p>\n

They were really friendly and chatted with my wife and me for a while about how they assembled their costumes, where they found their props, and how long it took for them to get it all together.\u00a0 The repurposing of common household items that \u2018Hawkeye\u2019 did to make his quiver was impressive.<\/p>\n

Equally impressive was the fellow who came dressed as the Man of Steel version of Superman.<\/p>\n

\"Superman\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It was uncanny how well he \u2018nailed it\u2019 in costume, look, and overall how he carried himself.\u00a0 He was also very friendly.<\/p>\n

In the vendor\u2019s area, there were the typical wheely-toting fanboys carrying their latest prized-find in large suitcases from setup to setup.\u00a0 Despite the lack of social graces, generally they were well-behaved and tried to avoid running you over with their rolling treasure chests.\u00a0 The vendors were engaging and quite a few went out of the way to find or search for things.\u00a0 So overall, a real plus there.<\/p>\n

The most unusual table was manned by a guy who works full time at the NASA Langley Research Center in Virginia.\u00a0 His table, which boasted screen snaps from his 3-dimensional renderings of some of NASA\u2019s most experimental aircraft, was actually devoted to his doctoral research.\u00a0 I\u2019m not sure what degree he was pursuing but it clearly was in one of the psychology-related fields based on the questionnaire that he asked con-goers to fill out.\u00a0 The subject of the questions was the responder\u2019s attitude to the mental state of Bruce Wayne versus Batman.\u00a0 Is Batman the dominant role and Bruce Wayne a mask?\u00a0 Is it the other way around? Is Bruce crazy?\u00a0 Things like that.<\/p>\n

This guy wasn\u2019t the only NASA presence at the convention.\u00a0 Numerous people had NASA paraphernalia on \u2013 NASA tee-shirts, NASA pins, etc.\u00a0 I wonder if the agency knows its reach?<\/p>\n

Only one thing rubbed me the wrong way the whole day.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it came at the end of the con and there really wasn\u2019t enough time to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.\u00a0 My wife and I intended to go to the last panel of the day and, being a bit tired, decided to stop in at the end of the panel prior to it and grab a seat.\u00a0 This was a mistake.\u00a0 A group of creators, mostly from DC comics I believe, were indulging a raunch-fest.\u00a0 The program clearly said the panel was 16+ so that fact that there was adult material wasn\u2019t so disturbing.\u00a0 Rather it was the mean way that most of the panelists interacted with each other and with the audience.\u00a0 It was akin to watching Don Rickles in his old Las Vegas shtick without any of the cleverness and charm \u2013 just the vulgarities.\u00a0 I wasn\u2019t so much offended and embarrassed.\u00a0 Not for myself but for the creative guys who formed the panel.\u00a0 These guys hold dream jobs, getting paid to create art in a fashion that makes them admired by others and only bitterness seemed to come forth.\u00a0 True each line had a laugh surrounding it but still there seemed to be no graciousness from most of them (the one panelist who tried to be gracious was roundly mocked\u2026sigh).<\/p>\n

Overall, it was a good experience but I should have stayed in the kid\u2019s area surrounded by people who still see the charm and wonder of the medium and stayed away from the older ones who hang onto the edginess of teenage rebellion and corresponding shock value that just never quits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s column is a departure from the ordinary thread on comics creation that had been the focus for the last few months and, instead, deals with that once-a-year happening… Read more ><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-544","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=544"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":548,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544\/revisions\/548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=544"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=544"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/aboutcomics.blogwyrm.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=544"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}