Except For Comic Con, I’ve Got Nothing, by Michael Davis – Straight No Chaser #304 | @MDWorld
March 2, 2013 Michael Davis 2 Comments
I drew a complete blank as to what to write about this week. I’m in a world class funk and have been for a little bit now.
What follows is what I wrote for my weekly Comicmix article, but given some extra thought, especially for my MDW readers.
By the way, the above was my extra thought.
Comic Con sold out in two hours this year…DUH.
Every year the biggest pop culture event in the world gets bigger, so that should not be news to anyone, but as always people take to the ‘Net to bitch about how they could not buy tickets, or the only ticket they could get was for Sunday.
All you people who think your inability to attend Comic Con is somehow the fault of Comic Con — grow the fuck up. A couple hundred thousand people got tickets and as always, the event sold out.
You simply lucked out. How is that Comic Con’s fault?
DUH.
The same goes for people who get tickets but can’t find a hotel room. There are only so many hotels in San Diego, and once those hotels are sold out, YOU are assed out.
You can solve both having a ticket and getting a hotel room by simply becoming a major playa in the industry or building your own hotel.
Crazy? Bad joke? Unrealistic? Stupid thing to say?
Not as stupid as blaming Comic Con or the city of San Diego for your lack of ticket or hotel because they sold the fuck out.
Mike Gold
March 2, 2013 - 11:10 am
Ah, the edited version’s better.
R. Maheras
March 4, 2013 - 6:16 am
I don’t know, MOTU. Your attitude sounds suspiciously like “Let them eat cake,” or “WTF, I got mine.”
While the Comic-Con organizers are a victim of their own success to a large degree, I think Comicon has to shoulder some of the blame.
Despite its name change, Comic-Con is still trying to be something it hasn’t been in 20 years: a local/regional convention.
If it is truly THE international convention it purports to be, it should be both mobile and expansive enough to respond to attendance demands.
It hasn’t, and its registration system has, in effect, collapsed under its own weight in the past five years.
Its problem is its fixed location in a venue that, for all intents and purposes, cannot handle the crowd size. But its location is probably one of the main reasons for its success, and if it moved to a bigger venue — as other conventions have done — the crowds may drop off significantly.
In short, the organization of Comic-Con will remain a schizophrenic mess for the foreseeable future.
MOTU
March 4, 2013 - 8:21 am
R,
We agree to disagree. Comic Con has had massive success to be sure and yes they are sometimes victims to that success. That said, they and the city of San Diego have made major strides to try and accommodate the ever growing masses. That never makes the net.I also know a little of their plans they have for future expansion but all these things take time.
Real time, not comic book time.
Regarding my WTF attitude, that attitude is reserved for things I just don’t get and seem (admittedly maybe just to me) to just be silly or worse.
I’m not a ‘I got mine’ or ‘let them eat cake’ on ANYTHING (with the possible exception of drunken sex) I’ve built a pretty good career and that includes helping others get theirs.
mike Gold
March 4, 2013 - 9:08 am
I, for one, have a “let them eat cake” attitude when it comes to eating cake.
R. Maheras
March 4, 2013 - 9:20 am
MOTU — Yeah, I know that in general you are a helper, and take care of those around you. I get and salute you for that.
It’s just the way you sounded regarding Comic-Con, it’s like you weren’t really aware of just how badly the registration process has been for the average schmoe/pro these past two years. I know quite a few regular, long-time attendees who got aced out last year or this year — despite their best efforts. This year, I was one of them.
Initially, because of my recent relocation to the East Coast, I was on the fence about attending. But my daughter told me she wanted to go, and since she and I (and sometimes my wife and sister) had been regulars since 2005, I attempted to register on the day proessional registration opened. But the breathtaking and unprecedented speed that professional registration opened and closed this year made my decision for my daughter and I to attend a moot one.
Unlike most people, I have ways of getting tickets to the con outside of ordinary channels. But that wouldn’t be fair. The way I see it, if I can’t get tickets through the normal admission process, then that’s life in the big city.
But the fact remains that Comic-Con has an admission problem that can only be solved in a fair and equitable way thusly: Either issue all tickets via a lottery system; charge all comers for attendance, as most conventions do (this will weed out the pretenders); or transform Comic-Con into a “roving” venue where everyone who wants to attend an attend.
mike Gold
March 4, 2013 - 9:27 am
By the time Hollywood invaded the SDCC and the show stopped having much to do with comics, it was clear the event outgrew their venue by a ridiculous margin. There are only three solutions to this problem:
1) Move the show to a TARDIS
2) Refocus on comics and tell the Hollywood vultures to stay the hell upstate
3) Move the show to a city with an appropriately sized venue.
I don’t know how they keep their non-profit status. They terminally violated their mission statement over a decade ago. One of these days somebody is going to get hurt inside that clusterfuck. One person died outside the Convention Center last year. There’s overcrowding, and then there’s the black hole of Calcutta.
MOTU
March 4, 2013 - 9:57 am
R,
They sell out dude and they are always working on the problem. The people that run the con are and have always been fans first. Unlike a certain east coast convention that treats fans like shit Comic Con makes a real effort to serve the fans first. Problems? Yes? But what massive success story is problem free?
mike Gold
March 4, 2013 - 10:07 am
Michael, I love you like a brother from another time/space continuum, but if SDCC makes ANY effort to serve the fans first, they only make that effort in front of you. Russ’s comments about registration are completely valid. You say the people who run the show are fans first — fans of exactly what? Hollywood whores? TMZ tramps? The back-back industry?
(For crying out loud, the next asshole who slaps me in the face with their back-back is going to get both of my Vans up their hallowed Sigmoid Colon.)
And for this they dare to trademark the term “Comic Con?” Really? A phrase in both common and professional use since the San Diego show was a fart in a blizzard. That’s theft and prime assholery.
Bigger doesn’t mean better. In the case of the SDCC, bigger has become very, very dangerous. The show is just one serious preventable accident away from being a spot on the ground.
Doug Abramson
March 4, 2013 - 2:01 pm
Mike,
Yes, the registration system is a joke and a new vendor needs to be found. Yes, the con can be doing more to accommodate the crowds. The Hall H programs should be moved to Petco Park (there’s a very nice pedestrian bridge linking the areas) and the Media booths should be moved to the Tailgate Park parking lot next to Petco (the street between Petco and Tailgate is lightly used when the Padres are out of town and can be closed for the duration). That being said, I have to disagree with you on a couple of points. First, and we’ve gone back and forth on this before, your insistence that Comic Con has violated its mission statement with the inclusion of the studios. Hollywood has always been a big part of Comic Con, or did Frank Capra and Russell Myers (guests in 1974) have side careers in comics that I haven’t heard about? Look at a list of the convention’s special guests and you’ll find lots of Hollywood people, some who had very tenuous connections to comic books, sci fi, or fantasy. Secondly, bringing up the poor woman that died last year is a cheap shot. She tripped while crossing the street legally and fell the wrong way, winding up under the wheels of a car that was following the traffic laws and coming to a proper stop at a red light. While she was crossing the street because of Comic Con,it happened Tuesday morning. The Comic Con crowds hadn’t materialized. She was using an empty crosswalk. The accident could have happened at any time or any event.
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