Recap: Dispatches From SDCC

There is a mad, fetishism to San Diego Comic Con. By virtue of the overall weirdness of everything, the surreal becomes ordinary. When 125,000 black sheep are herded together, none of them can be picked off for being out of place. Everyone belongs. It’s the club anyone can join, but the rub is that most people don’t want to.

Comics, because of the misconception that they are by and large intended for children, have an awful stigma attached to them. This has lessened since Hollywood, the amorphous entertainment producing entity that determines what is hip, increased its respect for the Super Hero. Nonetheless, the idea of a Comic Nerd conjures an image of a person socially marginalized for either their looks or indomitable awkwardness and, despite the fact that there are “cool” people who read comics (Sam Jackson, for one of thousands of examples), the stereotype is mostly true.

The pervasive model in American comics is: they star people who are either alienated, flawed, alone or outcast; they are read by people who share these characteristics; a select few of the people who read them go on to create them. The readers and creators all join to celebrate the product that they, after a fashion, have collaborated on in a momentous gathering in San Diego once a year.*

At the celebration, some get literal with their connection to favorite characters by becoming them – feeling the power of the mask. Others feel emboldened by the fact that no masks are necessary here – you are completely free to be yourself. Your passion is nothing to embarrassed of here, it’s a badge of honor. The white sheep is the one who doesn’t belong.

*Truly, they gather far more often in smaller clusters around the world, but lets focus on the current.