A Portrait of Comic Conventions from the Casual Observer

The first time an outsider enters the realm of a comic convention, they walk through a “garden of earthly delights” that encompasses many of the touchstones of popular and geek culture. Cosplayers, those individuals that celebrate characters from mass media by adopting the dress, behaviors, and communication patterns of their favorite personas, bring the worlds from two-dimensional pages and screens into the reality of the now. Visuals that promote the various intellectual properties near and dear to multiple fan communities are seen on the floors of the hall, on the sides of the buildings, and in the ceiling hanging down in the form of banners. Gathering fans perform the love of their favorite show, film, and/or graphic novel by purchasing the tokens and artifacts that show their fandom. The building hosting the comic convention acts as a sacred space for this celebration of fandom as space allows those individuals attending the event to present the various temperaments that fans display in service of sharing and emoting their joy of popular culture (Tilton, 2016). No building is more sacred or a better representation of fan culture or fandom than the San Diego Convention Center in the middle of July when it hosts the San Diego Comic-Con.

San Diego Comic-Con, like other comic, gaming, and popular culture conventions, allows those individuals who enthusiastically enjoy and consume one or more different series from the realm of graphic novels, video games, books, movies, anime, or some other mode of popular culture (i.e., a fan) to perform their enjoyment of those titles with others that share their same passions (i.e., a fandom). Some of the more passionate fans within the community share their knowledge about the more nuisance areas of their selected areas of expertise in popular culture disconnected from emotion. These type of fans can recite word for word all of the lines from “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” or could tell others the order of boyfriends that Scott Pilgrim faced in “Scott Pilgrim vs. the World” as easily as someone would sing “Happy Birthday” or say the “Pledge of Allegiance.” These choleric individuals are described as “nerds,” but a better description would be those fans that want to share what they know to the more massive fandom (Matz, Chan, & Kosinski, 2016). Their passions are less in line with caring about how the larger society see them and more about maintaining their place within the fandom by being the guardians of knowledge related to a specific graphic novel series or some other series in the various mode of mass communication distribution (e.g., film or television show).

There is another subgroup within the fandom of those individuals that denote a more hyperactive cast of fans that are more extroverted than the previously listed group of individuals. This group feeds on the socialization that events like the San Diego Comic-Con provide. They will proudly show off t-shirts, pins, statues, and posters of the favorite graphic novel series like the way that sports fans will put on the jersey of their favorite player or team while holding a sign supporting their game while attending a game (Robinson, 2018).  Both types of fans referred to the last sentences take pride in their fandom of focus. They can quickly lose themselves to hours of their selected passions and stick with those passions regards of how others feel as long there are a select few that share those feelings and are willing to perform those feelings within the group setting. These sanguine people often wear their geek pride with the immersive social environments that are connected to their passions (Kefir & Corsini, 1974).