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Die by the Pen will be taking a two week hiatus, while Jared Gniewek explores the English countryside in pursuit of the historical Watership Down. This week, Kevin Gillespie fills in with his thoughts about his first trip to a comic convention and his own place in fandom.

by Kevin Gillespie

Chewbacca sits at the end of the row – a wide brimmed leather hat obscures his wild eyes – as he signs an autograph for a cotton-mouthed, tongue-tied fan. From beyond the gang of breathless fanatics, an impostor Chewbacca roars announcing his arrival. He stomps his way through the line bellowing through an electronic voice changer, waving his arms over his head. The real Chewie looks up from his hastily scrawled autograph and smiles, belting out a weak but gleeful roar of his own. The fan looks on, his sweaty twenty-five dollars clutched tight in his fist, his mouth soundlessly mouthing words like the face of a dying fish.

The onlookers snap photos as the Wookiees embrace. Real-Chewie calls out to his booth neighbor, “Lou! Lou!” The Hulk continues signing his own autograph. The Wookiee disciples join in on the chant: “LOU!” The breathless fan finally speaks, his voice croaking to no one, “But… Lou Ferrigno is deaf…” Finally, the Hulk’s handler taps him on the shoulder. He turns to see the spectacle, jaw dropped open.

The next few moments are a blur. I paid my $25 and found myself a few aisles away, staring at an 8 x 10 of a man in a furry mask with silver marker scribbled on it. Nicole the Girlfriend was apologizing that the pictures she took of Chewbacca were so blurry. She was being ridiculous, they were great. They depicted something that could never really be described in words. You can recount it, but you cannot communicate what it really MEANT. That was the first thing that happened at my very first comic book convention.

Year after year, I have allowed these things to pass me by. Comic book conventions, sci-fi gatherings, collector shows, all of them. In the past, I’d get informed of them a day before they started and being a jobless, penniless, malcontent for most of my life, I didn’t see the point in spending the money I needed to eat with to go to what was described as “an indoor flea market,” so I could see and touch things I couldn’t buy. Setting foot on the floor of the Javits Center this year meant a lot to me and, dare I say, the comic book community at large. I was able to walk down the street with my badge dangling from my neck and proudly count myself among the fans, the devotees, purveyors of the fantastic and confusing, because for so long I feared becoming one of them.

Although it was all new to me, it was exactly what I’ve come to expect: mobs of artists (modern and golden age); merchants; toys; antiquities. Aisles upon aisles of: baubles; trinkets; shirts; robes; tights; weapons (real and plastic); furries; ninjas; astronauts; cowboys; gamma radiated giants made of papier-mâché; obscure but treasured nonsense; and priceless historical artifacts.

This world is built on a precarious foundation of conflicting perceptions.

No two fans are particularly alike in their taste. You can get two Pokemon collectors in the same room but more often than not they disagree viciously over the superiority of one Pokemon over another. They stand by their beliefs and go red in the face, sometimes collapsing from exhaustion defending them.

I met actors, artists and writers I never thought I would ever speak to. I hugged ship’s counselor Deanna Troi from Star Trek: TNG. I called Battlestar Galactica‘s Chief Galen Tyrol “dude” fifteen times, give or take. Peter Laird drew me a picture of Raphael’s head (for $20). I showed up on the second day with a list of books I wanted to catch up on. It doesn’t work that way at a comic con. You can’t expect anything. You wait for the things to come to you. I bought things not only for what they were but mostly because I talked a guy down to five bucks for it. Nicole the Girlfriend and I sat through a Marvel Animation panel, instead of [adult swim]. We went in there mostly to sit down. There was no way I was waiting an hour for the Robot Chicken panel. If I want to listen to Seth Green verbally ejaculate on his own face in an explosion of self-praising gibberish I can read a blog or something at home if I choose.

I think I’m recovering from a lifetime of being a self-hating comic book guy.

The word NERD or GEEK or whatever makes me cringe as if I was hearing an ethnic slur. Listening to people refer to themselves as such makes my stomach lurch. To me the idea of a NERD is something exploited by popular culture and misunderstood in the real world. The concept limits anybody that happens to enjoy the occasional episode of Star Trek Deep Space 9 or knows the difference between all 75 Supergirls. Even the media built to cater to and cash in on “NERD” culture, subtly points and laughs at their core audience. News crews came in droves to get a load of the freaks in their homemade capes and cowls, and that’s basically all the viewers at home get to see. It shames me to admit that until now that’s all I could see. They blanket it with this idea that NERD CHIC is in, but what happens when that stops?

These people are a large cross section of our community. Only 20% of the ‘NERDS’ I met at NYCC fit the bill of your typical specky faced, thick glasses wearing, pocket protector owning, snort laughing, NERD. The same percentage of people you meet anywhere else! I say we abolish these labels! Give people room to grow!

What’s wrong with grouping people in this way, you ask?

Okay. Remember Lord of the Flies? Remember how in the beginning they were little kids and by the end they were basically feral monsters, and when the rescue shows up the adults are all: “anybody dead?” and the kids are like “yeah, two” and then they all $&!# themselves? I forget if that happened for real. That’s not the point. What happens when you take a bunch of already emotionally frail, physically unfit, passionate types and stick them in a corner and tell them over and over again that they are different no matter what they do? What happens when you take a bunch of mice and stick them in a shoebox and shake it over and over again? Well, obviously they all start watching Naruto. Tell me what the hell is Naruto? That’s the future I envision if we don’t accept each other for who we are!

That’s what I learned there. Either I was paying too much attention or too little. Maybe next year I’ll just buy stuff and go home.

Kevin Gillespie works in the advertising field as a graphic designer, and is the creative force behind Richmond Hill Comics (http://www.rhcomics.com/). His regularly-updated “PG-13” photo blog can be found at http://giant-girls.tumblr.com/

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