I love Comic Con. To me it is a secular Mecca. Where else can a Klingon and a Stormtrooper get in a scuffle-- plastic weapons at hand!? (Although, unfortunately, the Klingon population has been dwindling. I don't want to blame the guy from Quantum Leap, but...)

It is a celebration of human imagination, pop art, fandom and pure geekiness. But for me, one of the highlights of the Con is The Comics Art Conference. Basically, the CAC are lectures and panel discussions where scholars give very interesting insights to comic books as a medium, superheroes, and pop culture.

A great book that came out of the CAC was Peter Coogan's Superhero: The Secret Origin of A Genre, a book that I ought to finish reading. Plus I ran into him at Horton Plaza just before I left San Diego. Just so I can say thanks.

He asked me why I liked the CAC. For me, it's because it gives me ideas. If mission, powers, and identity are the main things that define a superhero (read his book), then what would happen if I changed some of these aspects? Will I still get a superhero?
If I am to become a decent comic book storyteller, I ought to know my medium. This is better than an Art History class.
Also, the scholarly language used in the CAC have become part of my vocabulary. With the company that I keep, "superhero deconstructionism" is a common word. Basically, the CAC prevents me from sounding like a geeky fanboy and more like a pop culture intellectual... in theory.

Although sometimes the lecturers to the CAC aren't exactly a Broadway musical, they do say a lot of really interesting things. (Mind you, I love lectures. It's like someone telling me about a really fascinating book that I don't have to read because I need my eyes for drawing.) And I've never gotten any of my friends to go with me, even though I know they'd find it interesting.

You know who you are.

But I guess going to a panel discussion to see clips from a movie that will be next year's summer blockbuster-- that you'll see anyway-- is a lot more shiny and seductive than hearing about postmodernism in comics or gay and lesbian themes in Grant Morisson's run on X-Men or how Superman mirrors "The Golem of Prague".

This is one of the major reasons I go to San Diego Comic Con. I love, as Dr. Stephan Hoeller calls it, "The 20th Century Mythic Revival." (Please use this phrase often, I'd like it to be a meme, why do you think I put it in italics? It's catchy in a convoluted way and it makes Star Wars sound like it should be placed next to King Arthur--the Star Wars with Mark Hamil, not this Hayden what's-his-name crap.)

...that and also to oogle at Asian Slave Girl Princess Leia.


But, Asian Fetishes aside, the CAC is one of those things more people ought to check out. It's my intellectual salvation from the insane commercialism on the Floor. (Plus I have a habit of running out of money on the Floor-- its also a salvation for my wallet.) I sort of wish they'd put the lectures up on Youtube like TED or Carnegie Mellon University. It would be slightly better than a CD with all these word documents that I buy every year, but rarely come around to reading them.

Here are some other wonderful CAC resources:

Emaki.net - Neil Cohn has some interesting things to say about comics and visual language.

Hyperreality.alechosterman.com - Alec Hosterman gave an interesting lecture on Hyperreality. I found it very fascinating because in a very secular way, he was touching on Buddhist, Hindu and Gnostic concepts. His work is still in need of some development, but he's definitely on to something.

ScottMcCloud.com - Although he didn't contribute to the CAC this year, or for a while, Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics is a frequently referenced book when it comes to the study of comics. I'll have to say that this book is the basis of how I think of art.


I wish I had more links. I remember last year, one lecture was on the fascination of Wonder Woman to the gay community. That mainly stood out because the lecturer danced to the Wonder Woman theme. There was another on Dave Sim's view of women in Cerebus. A bunch on Superman and mythology.


I also remember a really great one on Watchmen and exactly how it deconstructed the superhero. [In a nutshell, classic superhero: the most moral is the most powerful, Watchmen: the most moral is the least powerful (Nite Owl) and the most powerful is amoral (Dr. Manhattan). It's interesting how these two characters at the extremes of the spectrum both had romantic relationships with the same woman.]

See?! Don't I sound like a nerd with an expensive Phd rather than a nerd that lives with his mother?


(I don't live with my mother, by the way.)

Labels: comics, lecture