Torontoist, as they do every year, had me go to Fan Expo and be amongst the nerds, and so I wrote stuff about that.
Not mentioned: the sweet dedicated sketchbooks I started this con, one of Brainiac Five and one of Doctor Strange. (I may in future start a third dedicated sketchbook titled “Deadpool Plus A Giant Fish.”)
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I do enjoy the remark that Torontoist should get someone who knows more about “nerd culture” to do these write-ups.
I was all smiles and happy nerd thoughts right until I caught sight of that Big Bang Theory plush in the photo gallery. Then I died a little on the inside and wept for our culture.
Not pictured: the seven million different Big Bang Theory t-shirts. KEEP CALM AND BAZINGA.
I didn’t know that the different genres have to compete against each other for space (which is nuts, as you say). I guess that explains why the comics area is getting increasingly cramped, but it’s also frustrating because I never liked the addition of gaming and horror and it seems like they’re crowding out the original genres.
The worst ‘line’ I was in was at the end of the day on…Friday, I think. We’d actually left the building, but staff were only allowing the entire mass of people out through a very narrow space. Unsurprisingly nobody was able to move, and since it was the end of the day more people kept piling up behind us. That honestly could have ended with somebody getting crushed or trampled. Finally somebody pulled open another piece of fencing so the crowd could move and leave the area.
Dangerously over-crowded and run by people whose devotion to squeezing every last dime out of every last nerd make Stan Lee look like Mother Teresa. Gaming and horror and films and anime and oh yeah, comics. (They still make those things?)
The best thing about Fan Expo is sitting in the drop-off/pick-up/smoking area with a six-pack and judging the cosplay from a safe distance. Also, not having any close interactions with THAT MANY nerds.(… what? I don’t like crowds.)
If they didn’t all have asthma and knew more about combat that what they’d gleaned from video games, they would be an UNSTOPPABLE fighting force. Think of it – by the time your brain processes the fact that I’m dressed as Wolverine, I’ve successfully ambushed you, army guy. And I didn’t even have to roll some dice.
Something tragic is going to happen there, with that many people packed into that space. It doesn’t take Frank Lloyd Wright to figure out that it’s too crowded.
But hey, it gives fanboys something to brag about. “You think that’s bad? I waited forty-five minutes in line!” ‘I WAITED three hours in line for the right to get into another line!’
(Sorry if this sounds trollish, it’s just … I don’t like crowds. Or having to pay forty bucks for the privledge of being able to shop.)
I found this photo of a giant line on Saturday morning, and I’m actually in it (near the bottom left):
http://www.flickr.com/photos/_jwong/7880691530/sizes/k/in/pool-1018709@N20/
Sewer Urchin? Nice!
@ Gloria
I had a laugh at that too. Not only that it was MGK who wrote it, but that person is obviously still attached to the idea of ‘nerd culture’ still being a select group of ‘hard core’ followers.
The two biggest movies of the year were about comic books. I think it’s time to accept that ‘nerd culture’ is pretty much in the mainstream
Hmm. Patrick, it’s more just dickish than trollish. But keep trying and someday, yadda yadda.