Yesterday we walked through McCormick Place on our way to C2E2. The start of the convention was a touch disorganized as there was very little in the way of a guide to where the holding queue line was supposed to be. Once we found it we queued up and bided our time. The convention started to concern me because there were sessions going from 11am and it was 12:45pm by the time our queue began to process. Scott informed me that we were in the cow-class and that VIP ticket holders could get in much earlier, and that it was meant for them, those early sessions.
Once we got in I immediately saw that this years exhibition hall was significantly bigger than last years c2e2 was. We started to browse the aisles. Scott took off like a shot for artists alley, Sean and Jeff and Chris took off for the line to get the con-special figurine. This year that figurine was a white-lantern Batman and a white-lantern Flash. They all were successful and I went to browse the vendors. The vendors are pretty much laid out in a standard convention format. You’ve got shirt-sellers, music producers, art studios, comic book sellers, and fake weapon smiths. A microcosm of the same exhibitor hall at San Diego Comic Con.
I immediately noticed Comixology there and chuckled at myself. My serious interest in the comics industry is in the realm of digital comics. I firmly believe that paper is dead, very 20th century. As I wandered the aisles I saw tons and tons of old paper for sale and thought to myself just how comical all this was, that it all could be reduced into a tiny little USB memory stick and sold for $10. The biggest thing is to have respect for the dead, even if they don’t know they are dead. It’s one thing to smile at the future you know and quite another to terrify those that either haven’t a clue or are willfully ignoring what is coming.
After we were done with the exhibition hall we attended some DC panels. The Green Lantern panel was all right, many of the panelists were artists and they did a good job of representing DC. Many of the fan questions however required the presence of a writer to answer. One funny thing to come out of this panel was the Green Lantern oath in other languages. Some of the DC artists are French, while their headliner is Portuguese. The artists tried their best to be affable and good hosts and were successful for the most part.
The other DC Panel was less useful. The biggest stumbling block we had was how DC has effectively buried one of their characters, Wally West, who played Flash after Barry Allen was removed from the storyline a while ago. Now that Barry Allen is back, Wally has faded away. This bothers Scott and I can commiserate a little bit in that my favorite character, Kyle Rayner is in a slightly similar predicament. Where Kyle gets some actual play in Green Lantern Corps comic Wally only shows up as Kid Flash in the Young Justice Animated TV Show. I am a little personally bent at the vendors, all the Green Lantern play is for Hal Jordan, which is a character I mildly appreciate but would much rather see MY favorite Lantern featured way more often. I suppose it’s that I identify closer to Kyle’s sensitivity and creativity than Hal’s brusque flyboy persona. Sometimes I get overwhelmed with Hal everywhere and I just want him to “Save The DC Universe” and die for it. Characters that die in that way never really stay dead, but it would be nice to see Kyle, Guy, and John get more showtime in Hal’s death-absence.
The disappearance of Wally West however *is* a serious problem for DC. I appreciate the Flash-verse almost as much as the Lantern one and I see a place for Barry, Wally, Bart and Irey. We’ll have to see how that works and see if DC gets with the program or not.