The Geeky Appeal of San Diego Comic Con

By Germain Lussier on July 27th, 2009

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A cell phone alarm rings from the hotel room floor. A quick glance down reveals the time: 3:45 a.m. Is this really a vacation?

San Diego Comic Con is one of those rare vacation destinations where to truly appreciate all it has to offer, you have to give up being a normal, functioning human being. This can mean any number of things. For me, it means giving up sleep for four nights to be in line to see one of a kind events. For others, it means dressing up in outlandish costumes and walking around having your photo taken. And for others, it means braving hundreds of thousands of other people to get free crap that they can sell on eBay.

2009 marked the 40th anniversary of San Diego Comic Con. It started in one room and now inhabits almost two million square feet and several blocks in the San Diego Convention Center. What once was specifically about comics has now evolved into an monstrous, multimedia pop culture event where almost every single comic book publisher, toy manufacturers, video game developer, movie studio and much more has a presence to show off what is the latest and greatest thing they have.

Why do they do this? Because the people who attend – regularly referred to as “geeks” or “fanboys” – are modern day taste makers. Love them or hate them, they are the people you ask about what is good at the movies, what book you should read or what video game is fun. They blog about it, tweet about it, talk about it and live it. If these people find something interesting, everyone eventually does (such as happened with films like “300″ from Comic Con). If they hate it, then they can ruin a movie before it comes out (bad buzz coming out of Comic Con in the past had been rumored to affect the editing or marketing of several films).

This year was more of the same, but a little different. For the first time ever, the entire convention sold out months in advance and no tickets were sold at the event. So that meant that it would be the busiest one yet. What I noticed though, being my sixth Comic Con in the past seven years, is that 2009 had one thing the others didn’t – a whole lot of girls.

Ladies were everywhere this year, in much larger numbers than previous years. Is that because of “Twilight,” which had a very popular panel discussion on Thursday? Are girls just finally finding their inner geek? Or has Comic Con finally gone main stream to the point where girls don’t feel awkward around 150,000 guys dressed as Superman? It’s probably a little bit of all three of those things. But either way, it’s certainly a good thing.

So does that mean you should attend Comic Con next year? Well, here’s a bit of context. If this sounds appealing to you, then by all means go for it.

When that alarm went off, I jumped in the shower and walked to the line for Hall H, which was holding all the big panels for the weekend. Normally, I wouldn’t get up this early (6 a.m. is MORE than sufficient to get a good place in line) but today was the “Twilight” panel and that meant that people had been camping out, literally, for the past 24 hour or so. If I wanted to get a good seat at the panels before and after “Twilight,” I had to be in line with those fans (they don’t clear out the room between panels). So we got up super early to do so. In that time, I slept on a newspaper, drank coffee, chatted about “Twilight,” “Avatar,” iPhones and more until, seven hours later, we finally made it into the hall. I was about 1000th in line and only 6500 people get in. Behind us was, basically, infinity.

Then you rush to sit as close as possible to the stage in this huge room. Make sure you pick a good seat, because you will be there all day. Then, once you sit down, is it worth it? The first panel had Robert Zemeckis, Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, Jeff Bridges and Patton Oswalt. Later, all the stars of “Twilight.” Even later, Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, Don Cheadle and Sam Rockwell. Not to mention Denzel Washington, Cameron Diaz, Megan Fox, Josh Brolin, Gary Oldman and more each with clips no one else has ever seen.

So yeah, it’s worth it. Crowded, exhausting, brilliant, enlightening and totally and utterly special. San Diego Comic Con might be a hassle, but it’s one you will never regret.

I already have my ticket for next year.

(Photos By: Koadmonkee, Danifesto and BobbyProm)