What does it mean to a lifelong fan?

 

It’s been about 10 days since the comic con weekend came to a close. 10 days from the rush of Comic book and Anime fans. From the booming sound of people and music and video games played over loud speakers. It was such an awesome event. It was awesome in the sense of its enormity. I tried to let the experience I had marinate in my mind for a while. I decided to let the 3 day weekend seep into my consciousness. I didn’t know how long it would take and I hoped that it wouldn’t be a long time because I know the editors Eric and Wilson were expecting something about a comic con soon. It’s hard to really describe this whole thing from an objective point of view because for me it had personal relevance.

I guess the best way to describe it is that it's a culmination of all the images you imagine in your mind as a youth coming forward into reality in front of your eyes. It seemed surreal and almost overwhelming. I’ve been to conventions before, and maybe it wasn’t the best convention that ever took place in the history of comic books but for me, this was. As a long time comic book fan it triggered nostalgia. I’m 30, and I might not have been around when comic books started, but I was around when comics was just passing its middle age.

Comics as we know them today started in the mid 30’s. More importantly, the comic book industry didn’t change that much till the 90’s where the speculators market and video games began to take over so I can say that my early experiences shared intrinsic commonalities with the fans in the 70’s and despite it being to a lesser degree, even the 60’s. For as far as I saw it my experiences with comics came out of the average newsstands. It was a humble experience buying a comic back then. I’d also go to the comic stores, but my main experiences were from the dank dirty newsstands because the comic stores were like meccas scattered through out the city. They weren't as easy to find as the newspaper shops. It seemed everyone at the newsstand were oblivious to comics except me. The comics were never very expensive. I would go to the newsstand and the comics would be stacked sometimes irreverently where the cover is bent or folded. They were toss away items. Sometimes I’d enter a newsstand and they wouldn't even sell any comics. Sometimes they did carry my particular comic and it was sold out. I would ask the guy "Excuse me do you carry Spectacular Spiderman?" and he'd say "I don't know whatever's there." I’d have to go hunting down every newsstand or small shop I can. Finally I’d purchase a couple of comic books and I wouldn’t have enough money. Many times the guy at the newsstand would let me slide or just give me a comic for free. No biggy it was only 50 cents. I was never satisfied but grateful. I remember being home and waiting for my brother to go to school so I could ransack his comic books and read from them. One of my earliest experiences was seeing him tracing an old Spiderman comic book. I thought he drew it himself. I was blown away.

I was 6 years old at the time, waking up at 6 in the morning just to see Spiderman on NBC. I still wonder why the hell they put Spiderman at 6 and Robocop cartoon after. Robocop and some Dinosaur cartoon gets more ratings than Spiderman? But I was hungry for comic book cartoons. There were hardly any. There were few, nothing like today though. The Incredible Hulk live action series is the closest we’d get to see a live action Marvel character. DC was getting all the exposure with Superman movies and tv shows like Wonder Woman and Justice League cartoons. Batman and Robin even had a cameo on Scoobie Doo! I watched Scoobie Doo religiously just to see Batman and Robin only to be disappointed 99 percent of the time. I was a deprived child. I watched the Hulk and had to make due imagining how a real fight between Thor and Hulk would be. I was still recording the special guest appearance of Daredevil on my VHS on SP (highest quality) even though they butchered DD’s costume. The Flash live action series I thought was the best yet despite being quickly cancelled. The closest thing to action figures was Colorforms (look it up). The Spiderman video game was Atari 2600 which topped out at an astounding 4 kilobytes (that's less than one bit genius). Being a comic book fan was very humble experience. If you were a die hard like me you’d starved for anything you could get your hands on connected to your characters. 

Today comic fans have is ni-limitless abundance. It’s all there for you at the tip of your fingers. The Comic genre arrived on the grand stage and officially cemented itself in the core of the entertainment industry. This is not a fad, and it is not like some passing romance. It’s here in all it’s glory in every level of commercial media and promotion there is. It’s here to stay.

Now at this year’s Comic con I saw previews of upcoming Avengers cartoon series, the Green Lantern, a panel with previews of the Marvel Japanimated cartoons coming out next year. All kinds of made for DVD animated movies for DC and Marvel. Tons of live action DC and Marvel tv shows in development. The special effects have caught up and surpassed our wildest imaginations. Big budget movies in development all green lighted- Avengers, Thor, Captain America, Batman, Superman, Green Lantern, Flash., Red, Watchmen. Did the movies save comic books? Are comic books saving the movie industry? Maybe it’s both. I don’t know for sure. Was it the chicken or the egg? I saw huge centers where Sega allows fans play demos of the Captain America video game based on the big budget summer movie. Capcom presented their Street Fighter game about Marvel Superheroes fighting Capcoms characters. Image Comics' “The Walking Dead” is now a phenomenon and has it’s own TV series coming to AMC. ABC has Heroes— it goes on and on. There were hundreds and hundreds of artists and writers to greet fans at every turn in artist alley. There were so many tv networks there reporting on the show. Today there’s a channel just for comic book and video game fans called G4 who showed up at the comic con. There are websites full of venues where you can purchase comic books or get their digital comic equivalent instantly. There are so many independent comics being published and respected as works. The varieties of comic book art and style are endless. A sea of creative wealth and it’s being contributed from people from all parts of the creative artistic world. Entrepreneurs, authors, painters, actors, athletes, musicians, programmers, video game designers, studios are all knocking down the door to fill into the comic book conventions and present their works and their ideas.

There was a point I thought I’d never see this spectacle called the NY comic con come to fruition. The era of the speculator market got so out of hand I thought that was it as it almost sank the entire industry. To make the long story short (and there is much more to it than this),  in which speculators were purchasing and selling comic books based on their market value instead of for the work itself. Comics became similar to stocks. Buy low sell high, or buy high anticipating it to go up. Or sell before it drops in value etc. The comic book publishers were influenced by this explosion of money being passed back and forth so they initiated all kinds of gimmicks, quick profit schemes and campaigns like creating tons of new comic book series, dozens of variant covers for one issue to raise value and get the speculators to purchase and feed the hoard. Countless limited series were developed just to have the comics start at #1 because the first issues always sell more. Killing and introducing new characters were a norm because it brought money. Comics were being sold as rare collectors sets or editions with trading cards packaged inside. The prices of comics skyrocketed. Quantity obliterated quality. It all diluted and watered down the market to a point where ultimately it tanked. Many comic book stores went under and countless publishers went with it. Marvel comics the biggest publisher even went bankrupt before it recovered. To this day the comic book industry is still recovering.

At the Comic Con I saw first hand that it’s quickly being understood what the comic genre could provide to readers, or moviegoers, or video game fans. They get what I and many other comic fans through out the years already understood. Comicbooks are a medium. It’s not just about super heroes or even fantasy. It doesn’t even have to have a story; it’s a unique literary experience that the creators share. It can be translated in all kinds of ways. So many various work to be read or seen. It’s the vastness of its styles and manifested forms of quantified expressions that make it unique art form. It’s the marriage of the literature with graphic illustrative art in the deepest most symbiotic sense.

It was so much for me to take in. There was so much sensory overload everywhere. It takes time to make sense of this. To make sense of what the conventions relevance is to me as a fan. To delve into why is it so emotional. All I know is in the late 80’s up to the 90’s I felt comics was being tapped into properly till the great literary works got lost amidst the troth and frenzy known as the speculator era. It survived like all great heroes do during cliffhangers. Now the comic book artist/writers time has come. The industry is back and this time, maybe the humble comicbook would be treated the right way, and be utilized for what it artistically can offer, and let the money take care of itself.