Going to the convention

Growing up, the idea of going to a comic convention always felt impossible to me. There was just nothing like that anywhere near I lived - I wasn't just in a country on the arse end of the world, but a town on the arse end of that country. Nobody held comic conventions anywhere near me. 

If I was lucky I might hear about a small Doctor Who convention happening in Christchurch, but that was 200 kilometers and I was 12 and had no way to get there, and I only heard it about it six months after it happened, when we read an account of it in the wonderful, wonderful TSV fanzine.

I would see footage of overseas conventions in rare TV clips, and see them talked about in fan magazines. Every now and then, something like the 2000ad Sci-Fi Special would show what the UK comic marts looked like and I genuinely ached to go to places like that, and even just see the kind of comics I could literally only ever dream of seeing.

The San Diego con was on the other side of the Pacific and the European creators were literally on the other side of the world.

This lack of a real-world meeting place, or interactions with my peers and heroes, certainly helped build up my weird fucking relationship with the creators I admire. I never saw them on panels and definitely didn't have a beer with them in the bar afterwards. Archie Goodwin might as well have been the pope, and the very idea of saying hello to Brian Bolland was brain boggling.

I still think comic creators are amazing gods of myth and splendour, as long as I don't see most photos of them. When one of them acknowledges something I've written, it feels absolutely unreal. Even if it's just Eddie Campbell.

So I didn't go to my first comic convention until I was well into my 30s. It was one of the Armageddon shows in Auckland, the last in the Aotea Centre in the middle of town, which it had obviously outgrown and would move out of next year. I saw Jim Lee, got the World Funnest comic that Evan Dorkin did that I'd been after forever, and I was in fucking heaven.

I've been to some kind of convention almost every year since, and I still love it. I love the cosplayers, I love the weirdos who still sell old comics at these things and I love how super rude so many of them are. I love the kids going apeshit over the manga, and the dumb tee-shirts I don't understand and the booths full of American candy. I love seeing the dudes from my local comic store slowly loose their fool minds over four days of convention working, and I love the young girls who are passionate about things I just will never understand.

And I love seeing the odd writer or artist who was always just a name in the credits give a talk, and after decades of reading their work, hearing them speak about story structure while video game explosion reverberate down the hall.

I've even talked to some of my heroes, including three Doctor Whos. Some were through work and some were on the convention floor, there is some immeasurable joy in seeing Sylvester McCoy's face light up when you see him passing by and get to tell him how amazing he was as the Doctor.

I would be shocked into immobility if I found myself in the same room as John Wagner, (or even Alan Grant), but I could try to be a professional about it.

The smaller events at the community hall, which feel more like the British marts I saw, might not have the celebrity guests or big money companies, but are are still my favourite kind of convention. They are always a bit more chill and they always have more $1 comics, which are my whole reason for being. The big ones are always crowded and sweaty and the big ones are just too fucking much and sometimes they're just really bloody disappointing, but I love the whole thing. 

There hasn't been one around here in a while, but I'll be going back when I can. And I still ain't been to San Diego, but I gotta try one day. The 12-year-old in me demands it.