ComicCon is coming (and I have to wonder if it isn't doing more harm than good)

This week ComicCon International will commence in San Diego (formerly the San Diego Comic Con - hence the adherence to SDCC in the interwebs).  Its the annual bacchanalia of all things geek-oriented which has become a darling for mainstream media coverage and seemingly part of the anti-life equation the entertainment industry and press constantly seeks that will unlock the key to eternal profitability with a minimum of effort.

If you had told me in 2001 that by 2011, ComicCon would become a well-known entity that draws a modicum of respect from both regular press and the entertainment industry, I would have slapped you and called you out for the liar you are.  But today, ComicCon has apparently swollen to over 100,000 attendees of all stripes, and by-passed comics to draw movies, TV and other sci-fi and fantasy media.  If you're reading this site, you probably didn't need to be told all that, but nobody ever accused me of under-writing.

I was actually standing in the convention center this winter when I realized I was at the building that houses SDCC when I visited San Diego for a library conference* and noted that the SD Convention Center is actually a fairly small affair as Convention Centers go, especially in comparison to the mammoth halls of Vegas or even Houston or Austin.  Not that SDCC needs to grow, but when you think about the impact we all know SDCC has on the comics biz...  the size of the building tells us how small that business really is and that maybe its still a somewhat small affair in comparison to other industry conventions.

But sometimes I wonder if ComicCon isn't doing the industry and comics a bit of damage.

Come See the Exotic Array of Human Oddities..!

The elephant in the room is, of course, that the press doesn't see ComicCon as a celebration of geek fun but as a colorful freak show.  Sure, it makes for good eye candy, but once you walk away from the "acceptable" coverage of big action movies and movie stars suffering through dealing with the smelly nerds, they swing the camera to the floor to find the chubby guy in the Cosmic Boy uniform eating a pretzel with a dazed expression on his face.

Little-to-no actual information ever comes out of the Con via mainstream press that is comics related, certainly.  The notion that the LA Times will publish even an entertainment feature on "why DC is rebooting Superman" based upon attending the SDCC versus DC's hackey promotional department is still simply unthinkable.  The real action is nerd-girls in skimpy costumes and weirdos sweating through the spandex some delusional image in the mirror told them it was okay to squeeze into.

None of that would bother me, but the Con's mainstream coverage isn't lauding the nerderati for anything, its celebrating Hollywood producers for figuring out that the Con is something of a barometer for Box Office success (although that's fallen sharply.  The GL panel a while back was super-charged, and that movie has tanked.  It seems that its a good barometer of the potential for a movie, but that us nerds still won't line up around the block for Ryan Reynolds spouting one-liners). For a fun game, try taking a drink every time the following are invoked in coverage of SDCC

• sweating
• "nerds" and you can tell, they don't mean it in the "us" way, they mean it in the "let's wedgie this dude" way
• cheetos
• mothers' basements
• message boards
• the word "inexplicable"
• some passing comment on the group-think of the nerds, as if its a hive mind that agrees on all things comic-booky
• the genius of identifying ComicCon as the epicenter of pop-culture
• and you may finish the whole bottle if they refer to cheeto-stained fingers or other vivid, semi-poetic descriptions of how gross the con-goers are

There was a lot of anger a while back about an article in which a Hollywood suit-type was rolling his eyes at a chubby middle-aged man in a form-fitting Flash suit. 

Yes, the Con is "ours", and it is a place where comic book fans should be able to let their freak flags fly, but once other folks clue in...  They're going to change things.  Its going to get co-opted, monetized and re-purposed.  The whole point of the Cons was for a place to quit sitting alone reading and find a place where you could be a part of a community, and maybe meet a creator who was at the center of that community.  It was not to become a willing test audience.

There are still hundreds of other Cons across the country, and some of them like DragonCon and HeroesCon are getting big while seemingly avoiding the whole problem with becoming diluted by the crush of press and other media.  And that's a good thing.  But comic fans need to realize that ComicCon is us as Sissy Spacek in Carrie.  We're clutching our bouquet on the stage and crying tears of joy while John Travolta readies the bucket of blood.

My dollars

Sure, its petty that in order to contextualize that I should point out:  the Con is hard to get to.   If you're not going as a professional and someone's paying to get you there, the cost of hotels, air fare, etc.. is prohibitive. 

Straight up:  I'm married to someone who has no interest in attending SDCC.  I tend to like to vacation with with my spouse if I'm to spend the money.  Getting the days off from work is do-able in my current job, but I am fairly conservative with days-off-per year.  To attend SDCC, I can incur the expense of a flight or I can spend about 45 hours total on the road getting there.

I'm 36.  I do not sleep 10 to a room as, apparently, many do at SDCC (more on the scarcity of rooms, later).  I especially would not do so if Jamie tagged along to go to the zoo or whatever while I wandered the aisles.  Obviously the cost of the hotel is jacked up during the Con.

There's an entry fee, of course.

But once I'm there, I essentially have two choices:  wait in hallways to get into presentations, or walk the floor and spend money.  I really don't have the dough to spend hundreds of dollars for the opportunity to spend hundreds of more dollars.  And I'm shocked that apparently so many do.

As near as I can tell my comics budget is higher than most folks' comics budget, but I prefer to actually buy the product, not spend money getting to the product.  I can see the allure of SDCC as an adventure or trip with your pals, but...  I have issues with spending my vacation money this way, and I think a lot of other people over a certain age do, too.  In that, the comic industry is addressing and selecting a very specific audience to address with Cons, and this one in particular.  And it may be people who do have a selected bandwidth of interest and places to put their money (in which case, I imagine preaching to the very-converted is a comfortable place to be).

Frankly, San Diego is expensive under the best circumstances and the hotels don't need to have competitive pricing.  Las Vegas would be a much, much smarter location with its endless supply of rooms, innate ridiculousness and much better convention hall.  And, flying there is amazingly inexpensive (and their airport is infinitely better). Plus, you know, other stuff to do while you're there.  I'm just saying.

Anyone but DC and Marvel seems to fail at strategy

When Small Comics Press X gets a booth at Comic-Con, that's fantastic.  Having a website or buying small ads online or getting a listing in Previews doesn't mean you'll get attention from the indeterminate number of people reading comics who are already in the bag for somebody else.  The Con gives new creative talent (or old creative talent who hasn't hit) a chance to get foot traffic and attention.

Why anyone but Marvel or DC would announce a project at ComicCon is honestly beyond me.  Your project is going to get utterly lost in the "now Superman wears jeans!  I'm furious!" internet grousing.  There's a sweet spot that some publishers seem to hit, and that's a few days out when people are seeking news.  But, no Small Publisher X, your mecha-steampunk book is not going to get any ink-bits when Scarlett Johansson shows up to do jumping jacks in her Black Widow costume.

There is a difference between exclusivity, scarcity and failure to reach a wider audience

Increasingly, mainstream publishers, comic-related toy companies and others have really jumped on the bandwagon of selling specific items (often very COOL items) exclusively at SDCC.  Why?

Yes, its great to make a few bucks selling extra items at your table, but...  a good portion of what SDCC is about is collecting.  As a collector, I would like complete collections.  I can even forgive toy makers, for example, of creating "chase variants".  What I can't sort through is why you would ask me to stop collecting your line of toys by making one toy (often a really COOL toy) unobtainable based upon my location.

I could buy the toy later via eBay, but the collector in me knows that I was not at San Diego, and didn't I sort of cheat?  And didn't I just pay way more than whatever the guy at San Diego spent on that toy?  So didn't I get a little screwed on that deal?

And its not just toys.  Its comics with variant covers, shirts, etc...  In an industry that needs every dime it can get, and every reader, collector, buyer, etc...  insisting that they need to spend $800 in travel money to buy your $20 toy doesn't make any sense.  Except to the people who are there, anyway.

Look, comic publisher or toy company:  I want to buy your toy or whatever.  I do.  But I can name at least one toy line I'm already ignoring before it starts because its kicking off at SDCC with an "exclusive figure!".  And I can't tell you how many other things I've tuned out as they headlines around them are "SDCC exclusive!".  Doesn't help me, and it doesn't help everyone not at the convention center.

I hate to say it, but I am going to be @#$%ing hating Twitter and the Comic Sites for the next week

You know what's fun?  Going to a party.
What's less fun?  Hearing about a party third hand that you couldn't go to because you had to work.

I don't know how else to say it, but the comics media needs to talk less when at SDCC.  Signal to noise.  Stick to the stories and not to who drinks how much.  We've got creator blogs if we care about that.  I'm going to literally be writing a list of people I'm dropping this week from Following on Twitter so I can pick it up again in two weeks when the Con is over as well as the post-Con afterglow.

But it certainly doesn't build a sense of inclusion among even the stalwarts, and it has to be a bit baffling to newcomers.  Far be it from me to laud the coverage of the film industry, but there's a certain veil of mystery that they've figured out works, and that veil found it s origin in semi-professional journalism that shared details without making it sound like film was just some small school where everyone talks about each others' business.   I hate to say it, but you don't see the ET crew talking about how messed up George Clooney got at his Oscar party.

If you spent half as much attention and money on courting new readers as chasing your own tails at SDCC, comic readership might not be dropping off a cliff

Maybe 8 years ago I watched Newsarama or other sites to see what was happening live at the Con during the Con.  Now I check in for about twenty minutes each night of the Con to see if there's anything new.  There never is, not really.

I have no idea how much of DC's budget goes to Con schwag, booths, flying out staff, talent, etc...  but its got to be a lot.  Its also where the publishers and others seem to put their efforts, and its indicative of exactly why DC Comics is losing market share every single month.

DC insists on preaching to a converted, small audience.  Enough to keep them in their jobs, but not enough to grow DC.  Moving into movie theater advertising may be a bit weird, but its something new and clearly outside the box from any thinking in the past several years.  The problem is that DC let the brand slip away from them in the past two decades, and a Ryan Reynolds vehicle did nothing to create buzz about DC whatsoever.  ComicCon and its aforementioned cheeto-finger coverage and CosPlayers zipping about in iffy Batman and Superman suits is not going to sell your characters any better to the general public.

If month-to-month sales for comics weren't on a steady and depressing decline, I'd shut the hell up about this, but its pretty clear that the only ones winning out of the Con are the owners of SDCC and the tourism board of San Diego.  The Con is a good way for DC to spend money, but it can't just be the feedback loop of the true believers patting DC on its back.

So in conclusion...

There was a time and a place for Cons, and I think there still is.  But even more, I think there's a time and place to realize there is a world outside that convention center that you're not just ignoring, you're outright alienating to some degree.  And you're not just alienating people who aren't customers, you're creating an island that excludes your existing fanbase.

Building a world of exclusivity and scarcity is troubling for an industry that can't seem to hang onto its core fanbase and is splintering that base every year all the further.  Without a concentrated effort for a big-tent approach and a "let's get a comic in every hand" mentality rather than a "who will show their devotion to the cult leader the most profoundly?" attitude, its just going to get worse.

If you want a convention about comics, then bring your announcements and set-ups to those.  Or, better yet, find a way to reach people that doesn't involve the already closed-environment world of the Con and hoping sites like Newsarama will do your footwork.  Its time to get the hell away from the mentality that we're celebrating ourselves and start spending that time and money on reaching a broader, bigger world out there who never heard of SDCC.





*and, seriously...  if you're going to try to do this as a big, International Event, this place seems like a terrible location.  ComicCon International should totally be happening in Vegas.