I spent a few hours at the Comic-Con last weekend. It’s a pretty easy target, but I guess I was struck by the huge divide between my culture and theirs. With the parades of costumes heroes and oddballs, down-at-the-heels superhero artists, and just plain oddities, like Neal Adams, I wondered what all of this had to do with the medium of comics rather than the business and nostalgia of comics. The answer, of course, is that, historically, they’re one in the same. Comics, even in these pseudo-sophisticated days, are as trashy as ever. I can’t decide if I cynically like that or detest it. But as I sat at the Abrams booth signing my book, I kinda thought, “wow, I have nothing in common with these people.” Which makes me wonder, of course, who our (tiny) audience really is for Comics Comics and other PictureBox publication. Who knows. It’s a funny thing, selling these kind of books in that sort of venue, but it’s one among many, and when you’re marginal to start with, you have to try for as many little corners as possible. Eventually it adds up. But man, what a place. What a thing.

Labels: Comics Comics, NYCC, PictureBox, superheroes