Age of the Geek

Gone fishing

     At some point during the sleep deprived blur of days that is Comic-Con, I came to a startling realization.

     Comic-Con is like fishing, but for geeks.

     Sure, we go out there saying we want to catch the big panels, but it's a lot of downtime for a relatively small amount of action. Much like fishers will sit out in their boats for hours only to spend a couple minutes actually reeling in a fish, ComicCon goers will line up overnight in order to experience a panel that is an hour-long.

     That's exactly what I had to do in order to get into the legendary Hall H this Saturday. It was a new experience. While I never get more than a couple hours of sleep at a time at Comic-Con, at least it's always been on the comfort of my friend's couch. Never before have we actually sat overnight in line for something.

     I arrived in line at 4 p.m., on Friday afternoon and spent the next 18 hours waiting to get into Hall H, where I then sat through another eight hours worth of panels. My big catch at the end of all this waiting, a couple minutes of footage from "Avengers: Age of Ultron."

     Which was amazing, by the way.

     There were other nibbles of course. We got to see some footage from "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice." We got to hear George Miller talk about making a new movie in the Mad Max franchise. We got to find out which monsters will be in the next Godzilla sequel.

     And, in what has to be the highlight of the convention, Stephen Colbert was a surprise moderator for the panel about "The Hobbit: Battle of Five Armies." And he did the whole thing in costume from his cameo from the second movie. (Colbert was the spy with the eye patch in Laketown.)

     Was all of this stuff worth the incredible amount of time spent getting there? Probably not, but that's not the point. I got to spend literally an entire day with friends that I only get to see one week out of the year. Once we moved under the tents and set up the blankets and chairs, we weren't so much camping in line as we were just camping. Sure, we sent one of our group out for pizza instead of roasting hotdogs over fire, and we talked about the rules of time travel in "Back to the Future" rather than ghost stories, but for all intents and purposes, it was a camping trip.

     Better, actually, because instead of being lost in the middle of nowhere, we were within walking distance of some of our group's hotel rooms, so we could break off for a proper shower.

     The excessively long lines for Comic-Con may seem like horrible wastes of time, but it's more like a party. There are snacks, conversation, and the opportunity to make new friends with complete strangers. Sometimes there's even music, although my group didn't particularly appreciate the people who decided to blast reggae at 3 o’clock in the morning.

     Would I do it again? It would depend on the schedule. This year was kind of a fluke, with a lot of great stuff happening in Hall H and a lack of interesting things elsewhere. Still, I'm not opposed to the idea.

     But I'll need to remember to bring a pillow next time.

     Travis Fischer is a news writer for Mid-America Publishing and wishes all lines could be as friendly as Comic-Con lines... just without the length.