Good times.
Con season is upon us!
Well, my con season is, anyway.
Truth be told, most of us really don’t have a “con season.” Globetrotting jet-setters like the iFounders find themselves at ten of these things a year dragging 80 pounds of camera equipment (don’t say they never did anything for you) but the rest of us get to maybe one or two, if we’re lucky. This year, my lone con is going to be C2E2 in beautiful downtownish Chicago this weekend. As I try to prepare for something more than a day in advance for perhaps the first time since my wedding, I find myself thinking about the mistakes I seem to make every time I go to one of these things. Here now are those mistakes, so that you may learn from them and I may avoid them. Some of these may seem like common sense, but bear in mind, I am terribly stupid.
There’s more to life than panels. To the extent that you hear anything online about a convention, what you hear is usually “news” from one of the many panels being held that weekend. And yes, it is sort of cool to see that preview art projected in a hotel ballroom a full hour before everyone else sees it online. Watching the righteously indignant guy try to get up during the Q & A and sarcastically confront the writer he thinks “raped his childhood” is even more morbidly fascinating than reading about it later would have been. Getting to see the blogosphere gossip columnists on the floor huddled around the outlets joylessly transcribing the panel is sort of amusing, in a how-the-sausage-gets-made kind of way. By and large, though? The panels are about 70% skippable and nowhere near as much fun as you’ll have out on the floor. Worry more about meeting up with those people you only know from the internet. Worry more about getting to walk up to Ryan Stegman in Artists’ Alley and tell him to his face how great you think Scarlet Spider is. Years later, you and your friends will be talking way more about the cosplay you saw or the celebrity you bought a drink in the hotel bar than you’ll ever talk about the Fear Itself panel. I went to San Diego with the iFounders a few years ago, and none of us ever set foot in a single panel. We heard the news about Marvel acquiring Marvelman from someone passing by. (How’d that work out, by the way?) That night at dinner, the cast of Firefly came in and sat right next to us. That’s the stuff the memories are made of. Sure, there are cool panels to be had– the one Ali and I went to about Jim Henson’s Tale of Sand at the last C2E2 was amazing–but don’t put all your eggs in that basket.
Don’t be That Guy. You know how people talk about the crowds at cons? You know the stereotype of the pushy, sweaty slob in the undersized Flash t-shirt who creeps out the creators and helps make the room smell bad? The part about that guy that makes me saddest is that he is completely oblivious to the fact that he’s that guy. Be aware of whether or not you might be that guy, and try to avoid being that guy. Bring your deodorant; we are not animals. You know how everyone comes home with “con flu,” because everyone is pawing everything and everyone all day? Wash your hands. My personal Achilles heel is clothing; I always think, “I will be efficient and travel light,” and pack a handful of t-shirts into a backpack, then I get there and I’m completely rumpled and disheveled, going to dinner with people who remembered to pack shirts with collars. I spent most of last C2E2 looking like a homeless man Josh had taken pity on and agreed to feed. This year, I swear I may wear a tie the whole time to balance it out.
"It's for recreational use only, officer."
Consider the romance of riding the rails. If you’re like me, very few conventions are in your backyard, and that trek can seem a little daunting sometimes. As Steve Martin and John Candy taught us, though, there is more than one way to get through the Midwest. I like a road trip as much as the next man, assuming the next man would rather spend the whole time reading and sleeping instead of listening to his buddy’s questionable “travel mix” for six hours. When I headed to C2E2 last year, the revelation that I could just take a train transformed the whole trip. I sat in business class, got to charge my phone the whole way there, and didn’t have to worry about rush hour traffic. (Plus: no security screenings. Feel free to impulse-buy that replica bat’leth and stuff it right in your duffle bag.) Just another option to keep in mind; your mileage literally may vary.
Things cost money. The few times I have found myself at a convention, I’ve always made the same mistake. The day before I head out, I go to the ATM and withdraw what I earnestly believe to be a decent, reasonable amount of cash for shopping on the con floor. I think, “There. Now all I have to do is wait until Sunday, when the dealers are desperate not to have to pack up all their wares and lug them all the way back to Edwardsville or wherever, and I can whip out this hefty roll o’ bills and make a killing on the sweet, sweet savings.” On Sunday morning, I open my wallet and a cartoon moth flies out of it, because I have spent three days chipping away at my cash wad with cab rides, breakfasts, tips, and convention center hot dogs that cost $43. I never remember to bring my own food. I’m never patient enough to wait for the shuttle when a taxi is parked right there on the corner. I never remember that people outside the con will only provide goods and/or services in exchange for currency. Then I’m left with $7 and a gum wrapper, and I still have to buy souvenirs for my family.
Maybe don’t buy souvenirs for your family. Yes, it is sweet and thoughtful that your significant other let you off the chain for the weekend and didn’t even roll her eyes until you were out of the room. He or she may even be, say, spending all weekend singlehandedly wrangling your two children, who will also miss you a great deal the whole time. However, you are probably the only person in the house who likes comics, and no matter which action figure or shirt or novelty Norse hammer you bring them, they won’t care all that much. Hypothetically, your wife still hasn’t looked at what you brought her last year, and your children gleefully tore up the Power Pack collection you bought with your last five bucks right before your eyes because they can’t read yet, you nimrod. Hypothetically. Take them all to Six Flags when you get home and call it a day.
That thing about waiting until Sunday to shop is no joke. Ever try to carry a box full of Omniboo across town? Try doing it on Wednesday, spending twelve hours on your feet for the next three days, and then loading it all up again for the trip home. Many dealers are all too eager to ditch that entire crate of Essential Man-Things on the first shlub who comes along Sunday with three dollars or a reasonably shiny button.
Check the weather forecast, dum-dum. “It’s 70° here today; I assume it will be exactly like this hundreds of miles away, days from now. Say, what’s this ‘Lake Effect’?” -me, always
With any luck, these tips from a professional amateur will serve you well. If nothing else, I can pin them to my shirt this weekend to keep me from making too big a fool of myself.
Jim Mroczkowski will see you on the floor, Sexy Lady Moon Knight.
I’ve seen fans go to town on twitter and message boards ripping into pros for their comic book work, as if they’d done something to their family. Why? What does that fan hope to accomplish. We did ten years of hearing people rail against Joe Quesada with as much passion as someone who hates the president. I suppose if you’re a Marvel shareholder, then you could take Quesada’s decisions personally. But then again, if you were a Marvel shareholder, Joe Quesada also made you a metric assload of money.
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