CSotD: Meanwhile, back at the Con …
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Pirate Cove has been taking a breather from its usual four-panel color absurdist shoot-em-ups to comment on comic conventions, at greater length than usual (this is only half of today's episode, f'rinstance).
It's an interesting balance of insider and insight, and, if you've never been to a con, you'll learn a few things about them here while, if you do go regularly, you'll get some laughs over these guys' experience.
Example: I think most people know, from all the press coverage of the San Diego Comic Con, that there is a type of person who dresses up as a favorite comic book character — Superman, Wonder Woman, Sailor Moon, etc. — to go to these things, a hobby known as "cosplay."
But the fellow in the sheep costume is a "furry," one of a group who specialize in dressing as cute animals and who carry cosplay into at least the creepy outskirts of the fetish neighborhood.
And, I would add, there are now also "bronies" who make furries look like Mel Gibson.
The premise of the current arc at Pirate Cove is that our gang is at the Con, only, this year, they aren't being sponsored and so are out of the big time and tucked away at a table in the Small Press section. (To start at the beginning, click here)
I've never been to the big Comic Con in San Diego, and I do have a place to crash there if I wanted to give it a whirl, but I am reliably told by people I trust that the shark has been jumped and that Comic Con has joined Mardi Gras and Grateful Dead concerts in the realm of things that, if you didn't go to them before, you needn't bother going to them now.
As Yogi put it, "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."
On the other hand, if you choose your venue, cons are a great place to meet cartoonists and an excellent place to gift shop, as there is a lot of book-signing that involves not just signatures but sketches, and you can generally request a particular character when you're standing right there.
As a fan of comic strips rather than comic books, I'm less inclined to go to a general con, where that format is dominant, though I've been to a couple when someone I know is exhibiting there. But it can be a quick trip around the hall if you aren't into comic books.
But not all cons are comic-book based, and I enjoyed the New England Webcomics Weekend last year because Christopher Baldwin and Dylan Meconis — a couple of my collaborators — were there, a few people who I didn't know but whose webcomics I admire were there and because I saw a few new things that impressed me. Which is the point of a convention, after all.
I also had some fun last spring at a gathering in Northampton that was less of a "con" than a regional art show with a lot of cartoonists and illustrators. RWO's Hilary Price was there, but there were also children's book illustrators, animators, comic publishers and a host of creative types so that no one format was dominant and you could ask basic questions without feeling like an outsider.
How do you find these gatherings?
Anne Hambrock lists the cartoonist appearances she can keep up with at Spot the Cartoonist, which will not only keep you up to date on cons but on smaller scale appearances as well. Another source for tracking these things is Tom Spurgeon's Comic Reporter.
I have a feeling that, after you've followed this Pirate Cove arc through to its end, you'll see how welcome a sane fan can be at any of these events.
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