I’m back in Philly for the Philadelphia Comic-Con. Timing wasn’t great, given I had just gotten home from a trumpet conference in Georgia. But as I’m trying to be a part of this industry, and I need an artist for a new book, and Philly is so close, it seemed a waste not to come.
The last time I came to this Con was in 2010 with my brother Bill. Bill is a comic artist, was living with me at the time, and was new to the convention scene then. We went to several cons that summer, and Philly was the biggest by far. Bill got his first glimpse of a real city skyline, a real Philly cheesesteak, and on the walk from the hotel to the Convention Center, real abject poverty and homelessness. As I retrace the walk alone today, I remember Bill giving a significant chunk of his carefully-hoarded folding money to a homeless guy on his first day.
The Convention Center is enormous. I get to the Center and think I’ve arrived, but I still have several blocks to go before I reach my entrance. As I walk along the outside of the building, an older man comes out wearing a dress. Not just a dress, but a multi-color muumuu, like something out of the Golden Girls, and a handbag to match. This might seem strange, but comic-cons are the places where these things happen. “Cosplay” (costumed role-playing) is a long-standing tradition of the comic convention; seeing a 60-year-old man in a muumuu just means I’m getting closer. I always take a lot of photos at these things, and am about to take one of him, but something seems a little off.
Most cosplayers love getting their picture taken…seek it out, in fact. Hold up a camera phone to any cosplayer and you’ll get a pose that was meticulously practiced in the mirror for weeks. This guy just sits down and lights a cigarette, not a thought for his surroundings. Also, most cosplayers dress up as a specific character. You see a lot of Jokers, Stormtroopers, Wolverines, Slave Leias, that kind of thing. I guess this guy might be Blanche, but it doesn’t quite fit the comic-con culture. I put my phone away and keep walking.
Another 50 yards, and I see three huge women dressed up in roller derby schoolgirl outfits, kneepads, skates and all. This is a little more like it. They might be dressing up as the girls from Sucker Punch, or from some roller derby movie I haven’t seen. But as my phone comes out, one of the women glares at me accusingly. I pretend to read a text and keep walking, confused.
Next is a guy dressed kind of like Lisbeth from Dragon Tattoo. Then a girl in corduroys, sweater vest, shirt and pink tie. I guess she could be Rick Santorum, but it still doesn’t quite fit. I bump into an employee on her smoke break.
“Help you?” she asks.
“Comic-Con?” I say.
“Through those doors.”
I walk inside and got in the line marked “REGISTRATION.” My confusion continues to grow. This looks way more modest than I had expected. Tonight is just the preliminary opening for the Con; tomorrow the crowd would surely be lined up around the block. A woman ahead of me finishes her registration, and I catch a glimpse of her program as she walks by:
“PHILADELPHIA TRANS-HEALTH CONFERENCE”
I find another employee. “Help you?” she asks.
“Comic-Con?” I say quietly.
“Up the escalator.”
Suggestion to the Pennsylvania Convention Center staff: when two events are scheduled for the same time in the same building at the same entrance, put up great big signs.
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