About 35 years ago. Yeah, haven’t been there during the modern heyday of Comic Con, but in the 70’s I totally got to go two years in a row as a kid. My parents took me, and dropped me off at the hotel it was held in to hang out all weekend while they went and partied in San Diego proper.
It was held pretty much in the basement of the hotel. I don’t remember which one or if it is even still there, but it was all pretty low rent compared to today’s con. But it was amazing to me. I had yet to go to any kind of con, so I was just blown away by all the merchandise and stuff. Then it wasn’t a huge venue for film promos, but comic book companies were there, and always big names for the panels. I loved Captain Sticky. Cap was a big fat bearded guy in a superhero costume, and he had a Batmobile type care parked out in front of the hotel. The car was even more awesome than Batman’s car, because it shot peanut butter out of a turret on the roof! Captain Sticky was a real life local celebrity, because he had some kind of comic book cable show down there. He was an everyman hero, aiming his heroic sights on crooked car rental companies and other modern villains of day to day life.
But in reality, my best experiences were meeting Stan “The Man” Lee, and also Mel Blanc. A small group of us gathered around Stan (no crowd would be small around him these days, back then nobody but a diehard comic collector would have recognized him), asking questions about Howard the Duck and other stuff. But I got to spend close to an hour by myself talking to Mel! It was by the pool, and he was sitting down most of the time because he had broken a leg recently horse riding and was quite old. He did all the Looney Tunes voices for me, and sang a song for me in Speedy Gonzales’ voice. It was the most amazing celebrity moment of my life (although David Lee Roth giving me a hit off of his whiskey bottle backstage at a Universal City Walk concert in 2002 was a pretty nice highlight too).
Comic Con looks amazing these days, but I want to be honest, I don’t have a great love for crowds, especially crowds of super geeks. The smell of Dork-ass in huge quantities is like Kryptonite to me. But every year, as I watch some of the con coverage on G4, I remember those great little childhood memories of the early con days.
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"...asking questions about Howard the Duck"
ReplyDeleteVery cool that you happen to mention this comic. HTD was a true treasure of the 70s.
As for not being comfortable around crowds, I'm right there with you. While I loath crowds, the allure of 25-50 cent comic bins are too much to resist, so I still hit the major Cons here in Kansas City.
Plus, there are always two or three booths that have some old RPG goodies stuffed in a lone box under all the comics.
Great story. Honestly I'm sure I would have been more impressed by Mel back then too. Blown away would have been more like it! My dad often mimicked him (or rather, his numerous characters) for us as kids and I always appreciated it, but to hear the real thing... Cool.
ReplyDeleteI saw parts of the comic con coverage on G4 and to tell the truth, I found it a bit off-putting. It seemed very manufactured to me. Lots of created hype and sales pitch and not much of real interest. It just felt false.
ReplyDeleteI can't decide which of your celebrity moments (Lee or Roth) are better. Being from Seattle, all my celebrity moments involve 90s rock icons, their women, and/or (usually) booze.
ReplyDeleteDiamon Dave...shit, man.
Supergeeks.... Damn. When the hell did it become cool to be a geek? Back in my day, you had to get straight A's and aspire to be a physicist or a computer software engineer before you were labeled enough to have no recourse but to watch Star Trek and Monty Python in order to get your kicks. Now, they let anybody in. Did you know that half those convention-goers aren't virgins? What is the world coming to?
ReplyDelete...Sarcasm aside, I'm too young for the heyday of ComicCon, but I first started going to anime conventions before the medium was popular, and it was pretty similar. Last time I went to one was six or seven years ago, and it was a mass of people standing in lines acting like incredible dorks. It was like, everybody has to act as outrageously geeky as possible in order to prove they've got "geek cred." A few of those people are one thing, but a few thousand of them would get on my nerves but quick.
Had Mel Blanc been a voice actor for cartoons today, you'd not be able to get near him for all of the obese, pale, worshipping fangirls trying to get him to sign their panties. The fact that you got to meet him in an era when these sorts of hobbies were still quite fringe is an awesome blessing.