The Comic Book Convention I Went To This Weekend and The Pain In The Ass That Is Theater
So I went to the Staple Comic Expo this weekend with my friend Mark who is looking to break into the world of online comics. The idea was to hand out business cards for his website to all in attendance whilst perusing the various wares being offered at the booths. This is only the second comic book convention I've ever been to, the first of which was sometime in junior high (known as "middle school" to you younguns) at the convention center in Houston. This one was in the Elks Lodge off of Barton Springs, which seemed an odd setting for a comic convention, but whatever. I didn't spot a single person in a costume of any kind. Perhaps this was because this was an independent expo with little to no representation from any major publishers, but I would have expected to see at least one or two folks show up in something resembling a costume, even if I didn't know who or what the hell they were supposed to be. There was one chick sitting at a booth sporting a 1940's bottle blonde Gwen Stefani kind of get-up, but I don't know if that was a costume or a fashion commitment. There was also some guy wearing a Wolverine tee-shirt who had super long frizzy Logan-style pork-chop sideburns, but again, I think this was less of a costume and more of a permanent everyday look for this guy. If it was a Wolverine costume, it needed lots of work.
So we succeeded in handing out a buttload of cards, checked out all the booths, and sat in on a panel discussion about the field of webcomics, which featured several people who hold varying levels of prominence in this field. I must say, I had no idea that webcomics were so huge or that they held such an enormous fanbase. Throughout the discussion, my mind drifted a bit towards theater and how it compared/contrasted as an artform to what these panelists were talking about. I find it hard not to do this whenever I listen to people talk in depth about any artform, no matter what it is. I just start thinking about theater and how it relates to what I'm hearing. Once again, I was reminded that one of my favorite elements of theater is also the element that I find the most frustrating: it is a 100% live experience. It is scheduled at a certain time at a certain place. In order to take part in it, you have to be at that place at that time or else you miss out. You can't rent it and watch it at home. You can't buy the CD and listen to it in your car...yes, I know, listening to a CD and seeing music live are two entirely different experiences, but I think you understand what I'm driving at. If you practice theater and you want your art to connect with people, you have to get them to the theater on time. There is no other alternative. If you write a book or draw a comic or paint a painting or make a film, people could see it years, decades, fuck, centuries from the time that you create it, and they can do so pretty much on their own schedule, and they can connect to it. Less so with theater. Sure, you can write a play and somebody might produce it years from now, but again, they gotta get the folks in to see it. Now as I said before, this is also one of my favorite parts of theater. The kind of connection that occurs between artist and audience when they are actually in the same room at the same time focused on the same thing, well, that just can't be faked or manufactured or reproduced. It gives the phrase "you just had to be there" a stronger meaning. It's the difference between seeing a band live and listening to their CD, between watching "Steel Magnolias" the movie and "Steel Magnolias" the play. I'm not saying anything new here. Hundreds if not thousands have said it before me, and if you're reading this and you practice or like theater, it's undoubtedly something you yourself have thought or talked about or written your thesis about, but it's still a good thing to ponder from time to time.
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Theatre is precious because it only happens once. A show might run for six weeks, but no two shows are ever the same. A different pause here, more inflection there. The same words and meaning but each night a different show. Amazing. If theatre immitates real life in anyway it's that each moment, each show, happens once.
I had a similar dissappointing convention experience. I went to a Star Trek con when I lived in Washington. It was held in the basement of a Holiday Inn, which seemed appropriate since many of the attendee's lived in their parents basements. But there wasn't a single costume donned, which was half the reason I was there. What kind of half assed Trekkies were these. My dad ended up buying, and wearing, a pair of pointed ears trying to inspire others. It didn't work.