Evan Dorkin reports on last weekend’s National Convention in NYC:
I mean, wow. Wow. WOW. What an absolutely terrible show. Having nothing to do with how we did at the table, because we didn’t expect much, just to cover costs ($40 parking, tolls, lost brain cells) and maybe low-rent dinner out for the family, which we barely eked out. And we seemed to do better than a lot of those around us. And not a knock on old — very old — school bargain bin/back wall o’ expensive headlights comics, hucksteriffic cons based around want lists and sweaty palms, which can be fun in a way if, like me, you like old comics, looking at original art, and eyeballing tables heaped with flea market junk that some poor schmuck still deems worth lugging all up and down the coast hoping some other poor dumb schmuck will buy. I can stand, and enjoy, these buck-bin, desperation extravaganzas, but this one tested even my Eltingville limits. This was Eltingville writ large, bulky, real, and stinktacular. I wasn’t expecting MOCCA or SPX, nor the NYCC or even a slice of the dealer’s area of the congenial, enjoyable and cool Heroes World, but I wasn’t expecting this freakshow trainwreck.
Heidi McDonald, meanwhile, provides some perspective while Valerie D’Orazio offers a pointed rejoinder:
Have a heart. I know I’m going to be laughed to oblivion for saying that, that it sounds ridiculous. But have a fucking heart. Some of these older collectors are some of the nicest people I’ve ever met. I grew up around these people. I’m not ashamed of it. Some have used comics as one of their only bright spots in a life that in every other respect might have been awful. If it makes them happy, let them do it. If they aren’t bothering you (other than by the fact of their very existence, offending your delicate sensibilities), stop fucking ragging on them. I can’t fucking stand this anymore.
November 18th, 2008 at 1:49 pm
However, Mark Evanier had a delightful time.
November 18th, 2008 at 2:21 pm
I’m with Valerie, lay off. Especially considering some of the mutant-parades I’ve seen Dorkin and Heidi consider “good shows”, oh boy.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:51 pm
How hard is it for people to not cuss in public venues, especially around kids? Also taking pictures of your wife without asking. I’d be just as pissed.
November 18th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
The thing is, this is what it’s like to be trapped behind the table at a bad convention. (“Bad” being a term relative to your tastes, disposition, and tolerance.) If you’re an attendee, you can leave any time you want, but if you’re an exhibitor and you realize “OH CRAP I SHOULDN’T HAVE COME THIS IS NOT THE PLACE FOR ME,” you have to tough it out, either to earn back the cost of your space or because you feel some kind of responsibility to stick to commitments. In a situation like this, after a while the convention starts to seem like a nonstop parade of horrors. You start thinking irrationally and projecting all the problems you see in the industry onto the people walking past. You get really, really frustrated and then angry in a weird, out-of-proportion way that becomes a generalized contempt.
And this contempt? It’s just better not to write or speak about it publicly. I know whereof I speak.
I’ve had these trapped-here-horror-contempt feelings in everything from a mainstream comics show to a tiny goth convention. I’m not saying it’s fair or right, but I empathize.