{"id":1219,"date":"2013-06-18T09:45:00","date_gmt":"2013-06-18T16:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=1219"},"modified":"2023-12-15T09:48:47","modified_gmt":"2023-12-15T17:48:47","slug":"devourer-of-words-006-convention-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/devourer-of-words-006-convention-season\/","title":{"rendered":"Devourer of Words 006: Convention Season"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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A LOVE\/HATE RELATIONSHIP WITH CONVENTIONS . . . BUT MOSTLY LOVE.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Devourer of Words 006: Convention Season<\/h1>\n\n\n
Marc Bernardin<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"Toucan<\/figure><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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\"Marc<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I love conventions, even though I hate them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s an odd sentiment, to be sure, to have for a thing as wonderful as the annual invasion by like-minded nerds of an innocent city, but it\u2019s true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the reunion of it all\u2014especially Comic-Con\u2014which reminds me of those collegiate Christmases when everyone who was off living their campus lives would come back home for the holidays and you\u2019d all go back to that same diner you\u2019d spent so many late nights in and catch up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hate the pressure of it: As a writer who\u2019s not an invited guest of a convention, the only way to make financial sense of it is to make contacts that lead to more work. Artists can do sketches and commissions, inkers can, well, ink them and letterers can make border runs for Mexican soda and horse tranquilizers (kidding!)\u2014but no one will pay for anything that a writer can do on the spot. I once tried selling haikus. You can imagine how well that went over. The pressure to make it all worthwhile\u2014to sell a pitch, to score an assignment, to make an editor think you\u2019re a dazzling urbanite that can do no wrong\u2014can dominate a con, making it impossible to enjoy what should be an amazing few days in nerd paradise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love the smell. Really. A convention floor, two days in, when the body odor is nice and ripe. I love it because no one who smells like that wants to smell like that. They smell that way because they used all of their money\u2014that they hoarded away all year\u2014to pay for airfare or gas and admission badges and they\u2019re sharing a pocket-square\u2019s worth of floor space in a crappy hotel 40 minutes away from the Convention Center that has a communal shower that\u2019s always broken. That smell is the smell of passion. Of someone willing to endure all of that to come and have the best time ever. I don\u2019t have that passion because I\u2019m dead inside, but I can recognize it and nod silently in respect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I hate that it reminds me that I\u2019m getting old. I\u2019ve been doing Comic-Con for 12 years now, long enough that I remember being a different man when I first started attending. One whose knees didn\u2019t turn to powder and whose spine didn\u2019t threaten to fuse after three days of walking the floor. One who could stay out until 3:00 a.m., loitering outside the Hyatt, and still be fresh for a 10:00 a.m. panel the next day. One whose immune system was still a fully functioning affair and wasn\u2019t always teetering on the edge of compromise. Every year reminds me that it\u2019s been another year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I love, love, love the random amazing that can happen at a con. Granted, I\u2019ve been afforded some ridiculous opportunities thanks to being both a professional and a member of the press, but if it hadn\u2019t been for Comic-Con, I\u2019d never have had Jim Lee introduce me to Stan Lee. I\u2019d never have told Mary McDonnell that, if it\u2019s okay with my wife, she can totally come and move in with us. I\u2019d never have seen a Joss Whedon dance party up close. I\u2019d never have been an Eisner judge and been coerced into reading books I now consider among my favorites (like Blacksad<\/em>). And I\u2019d never have sold my first graphic novel pitch, to Larry Young\u2019s AiT\/PlanetLar, almost a decade ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This column isn\u2019t so much an advice column\u2014unless that advice is to accept a con for all of the things that it is and the things that it can be. Wrap your arms around it and understand that the perfect con will always carry with it some pain, but it can also deliver moments of transcendent glory\u2014like stumbling upon Brian K. Vaughan just sitting on the grass reading a comic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Marc Bernadin\u2019s Devourer of Words appears the third Tuesday of each month on<\/em> Toucan!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Marc Bernardin<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n