We came, we saw we talked… ComicCon was a blast! It was a learning experience, for sure, on the exhibitor front, but so much fun.
Shout-out to Wayne Kramer and Hero of Time Productions for letting me join in the fun. Wayne is a great new author and very thoughtful when it comes to the marketing and people interaction side of things. I also enjoyed meeting his friend and assistant Jacob. (Wayne and I both had to leave ComicCon a day early due to family obligations, so Jacob manned the table for us on Sunday.)
This was the first time I’d ever been to ComicCon before, and, oh, my word, was it sensory overload! So many, many cool things everywhere I looked. Artwork, jewelry, collectible superhero stuff, custom Lego figures (I bought a Sailor Moon Lego figure!! Didn’t even know such a thing existed!!) , and more. Wow. So much geeky stuff in one convention center. It was amazing.
There were also other authors there, which was cool, too. It was neat to see how other people did table displays differently, and it’s always fun to discover new books.
We took pictures whenever we could. There were so many cosplayers with amazing, creative costumes! The time, effort, and love that go into these costumes is stunning. A plethora of characters from all over the place—anime, cartoons, movies, games, books, etc., you name it.
On the exhibitor front, one of the things I noticed was a sense of community. I met a number of people who frequent Cons all over the country. Many of them have known each other for a while, and they look out for each other. I’d never thought about Cons having a community of exhibitors before, but it makes sense. (There’s a story idea there—I’ll add it to the growing list. LOL.) And some of them were kind enough to offer helpful advice to us newbie exhibitors.
Over the course of Friday and Saturday, especially, we talked to so many people I was hoarse each night. (And then I got home late Saturday night and told my husband about everything and was even more hoarse. LOL! Couldn’t help myself.)
It’s funny, though, that in the midst of so many good experiences, our human nature tends to pick out the few sour notes and prioritize them above the memory of those good things.
One of those memorable experiences was the rather sketchy parking garage where we parked our cars for the weekend. It probably wasn’t all that bad, but the horrific smells permeating the place and the creaky elevator that almost stopped between floors turned it into something I will probably never forget. (This was definitely NOT an elevator you wanted to be stuck in for a while, especially the night we left to come home, when there was questionable liquid all over one side of the floor.) We laughed about it later, but I’m not sure I’d want to go back to that parking garage, particularly if I was by myself.
The other moment that stands out is a brief conversation I had with somebody who stopped by to browse our table. Upon hearing the premise for Head Case, this person made a dismissive comment about how that’s been done before. That irked me a little—if you want to get technical, every story that has ever been told has been done before (and depending on who you talk to, Shakespeare did them all and did them better)—but I just smiled, shrugged, and didn’t argue. There wasn’t any point in trying to explain to this particular individual that, yes, it’s been done before, but this is my take on the idea.
I’m not sure why that moment has stayed with me so strongly, other than the fact that it’s really made me think. Ecclesiastes tells us there is nothing new under the sun. And there isn’t—just look at cycles in history, or cycles in fashion, or cycles in food. Fiction isn’t any different. There are cycles and tropes and ideas that people keep writing over and over.
So I understand that person’s assertion that the idea of somebody losing their body or thinking they’ve lost their body is nothing new. Maybe he’s read too many stories or seen too many movies with that core concept and he’s tired of it. That’s quite all right.
Doesn’t change the fact, however, that if you give the same idea to three different writers, they will all come up with three completely different takes on that idea. Same concept, different execution. Different stories. It’s one of the amazing things about writing, actually.
If nothing else, that moment has enabled me to gain a better grasp of why we as human beings can keep telling the same stories over and over. They’re different, because we’re all different.
As ComicCon made abundantly clear.
Anyway, I thoroughly enjoyed ComicCon and I’m grateful for the chance to have gone. I even got some writing done at the hotel. Total win! More on that in a later post.