Fischer: Familiar Ground

By Travis Fischer, tkfischer@charlescitypress.com

It’s good to be home again.

And by “home” I mean a public convention center the size of three football fields packed to capacity with more than 100,000 people coming and going.

This is an unusual year for the San Diego Comic-Con. The writers and actors guild strikes threw a monkey wrench into a lot of programming. Several panels were canceled entirely. Others had practically no studio representation, at best playing pre-recorded videos that put extra emphasis on the fact that it was recorded before the strike began.

The ripple effect touched every corner of the convention. Without the massive draw of the Hall H line consuming people’s time, the rest of the convention’s panels saw a big uptick in attendance and, anecdotally, I heard that the exhibition floor vendors had a very good year.

It felt like a nice throwback to the mid-00s, before the convention became the behemoth of pop culture it has become known for.

Personally, I didn’t realize until I got there how much I needed that hit of familiarity.

Very few things about my life have been routine lately. Since going to Comic-Con last year I’ve gotten a new job, moved to a new city, met new people, and generally hit the reset button on everything I’ve come to know over the last decade. Even my romantic life is a different place than it was a year ago.

So while this convention wasn’t exactly a typical Comic-Con, it was still nice to fall back into the familiar patterns and traditions that my friends and I have developed over the last 20 years.

I’ve spent more of my life in the San Diego Convention Center than I have in the apartment I’m currently living in, so it was nice to once again roam the halls and regain my sense of normalcy surrounded by people dressed up as Mandalorians, Spider-Man, and Mortal Kombat characters. There is a comfort in the chaos of navigating the crowds, bouncing around from booth to booth, checking out all the displays, artwork, and very expensive collectibles.

Then there are certain panels that I go to every year, like the world premiere of Warner Bros. Animation’s latest super-hero adaptation and Comic-Con Talk Back, where con attendees give feedback about issues they had and what can be done to resolve them.

And while the Hall H experience was definitely not as intense as it typically has been, that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. There were two panels on the schedule that I was interested in during the convention and I was able to practically walk in for both of them. That’s something that’s been virtually impossible since before 2010.

I can’t say I would mind if the big studios just stayed away from the convention from here on out.

Then, of course, there’s the food. From Wednesday breakfast at Café 222 to the post-convention dinner at Buca di Beppo, dining out with my friends has become as big a part of the convention as anything else.

Comic-Con is the best week of the year and while it, too, is not immune to changes from the passage of time you’ve got to appreciate stability where you can find it.

— Travis Fischer is a news writer for the Charles City Press and after a week of shopping and eating out is gonna have to start appreciating the stability of his bank account.