Comic Con: The Presentation

On Sunday, it was safe to say I was a wreak. My entire summer thus far had been leading up to this day, and here I would make a splash (so to speak) in the comic academic community.

So maybe splash is not the right word to describe the tiny little bit of impact I would make on an already tiny subset of a tiny community. Maybe something more like...drip. Or, to hold to the aquatic theme, ripple. Regardless, I had good reason to be nervous. The presentation room held 210 people (roughly) and if even a quarter of those people showed up, it would be more than twice the size of my largest presentation to date. And though the Aberystwyth University English Department Graduate Conference is illustrious, the 40th Annual International Comic-Con draws a slightly wider, more prestigious crowd.

Erika and I made our way over to the convention center where, for the fourth day running, we battled with the City of San Diego in a silent war for our parking money. The regular rates had been jacked up anywhere between $5 and $10, and what was usually free on Sunday's now cost upwards of $25. My father raised me never to pay for what I could get for free, so we usually trolled the streets looking for street parking, which was at a greatly reduced rate. With my nerves on edge, I called a truce with San Diego and paid $15 for something that should have been free (at least, I told my Dad's watching spirit, it wasn't $25), and met my friend Jonathan and his girlfriend Lisa for breakfast.

I had a pretty delicious sandwich and a large tea, which, having spent time in Wales, has become my go-to relaxation drink. I bought a huge box of teabags at the grocery store at the end of summer and have taken to drinking a mug or two a day here in Chicago. Some friendly chatter and time in the sunshine detracted me nicely from the looming task at hand.

There was an added problem that I should probably address here: I was consciously long. I was given 20 minutes, and I prepared 30. Considering that the two presenters had roughly 50 minutes for both of us, I figured I could trim some as I went, but still hit just past the twenty-minute mark. This would cut the Q & A time short, and as you will later see, this could have been helpful. So, as we made our way over to the convention center, I started to worry about what ten minutes I was going to pull from my presentation.

After taking Jonathan and a much-amazed Lisa around the floor, the four of us made our way to 26AB - the room of my presentation. The previous presentation panel was still on, something about queer comics, and I had the "privilege" to sit through the last speakers paper on man/boy homoerotic Japanese comics, which left me wondering why he no longer taught high school history. Granted, I was only half listening, as I spent most of my time cutting whole pages from my paper.

The panel ended, and as the people milled about, I made my way to the speakers dais. There was a placard - and honest to God placard - with my name on it, and a microphone for questions. This was, it quickly dawned on me, the real deal. This was the big time for academic comic nerds. I had reached the highest I could reach (save for a Saturday presentation), and one thought burst through my racing mind: I am not ready for this.

Suddenly, like a rampaging army of Huns riding elephants, uncertainty sacked my previous aplomb, burned my confidence to the ground and raped my equanimity. The room, to my now gaping horror, continued to fill with people. Smart looking people, dress smartly and carrying smart looking notebooks filled with smart questions.

As I sat there, quietly falling into despair, something both wonderful and horrible happened: another panelist was added. Peter Coogan, the director of the Comic Arts Conference, told us, rather offhandedly, that another panelist was added (with some disdain, he withheld the reason, which leads me to believe, and with some justification, that she complained until getting her way), and that I needed to cut five more minutes from my paper (which was really now 15, or if you are doing the math, half of what I had in front of me).

The problem here grew from annoying to serious. I already had concerns that my paper lacked solid connections, and now I was given enough time to summarize the cobbled mess I had before me. While one might assume that this problem would lead me to further anxiety, quite the opposite was true.

Sure, I was still fairly (read: excessively) nervous, but now there was a task at hand: rewrite 17 somewhat cohesive pages, into a concise 8 page argument. Like a closer who comes in the ninth, with a one run lead and a winning run on second, I no longer saw the arena I was in, and was more focused on me, my presentation, and the mental exercise in front of me.

As I half listened to the first presentations - the one, added last minute, to my great annoyance/salvation which pit Wonder Woman and Tank Girl in a physical battle (Fan Boy nonsense, if you ask me), and the other which presented Captain America as the American ideal (an interested paper from a fellow scholar) - I cut away more pages and tried to tie up lose ends whenever possible. Before I knew it, my time had arrived.

The actual presentation went by in a blur, but when I watched the five minutes that Erika recorded, I was struck by how fast I spoke. It didn't feel that fast, but there is irrefutable evidence that it was, in fact, really fast. Regardless, it was well-received. Either because I was last, or because my presentation was, as the Brits say, aces, I fielded the most questions. Afterward, I answered some more questions, gave out business cards, and told others how they too could use the amazing free software I used for my presentation (which can be seen here).

There was really only one glitch to the whole thing, and that arose at the very end of my presentation. See: I claimed that Marvel was revising Captain America and the rest of the heroes to better speak to the fears of others, having the revised heroes resemble this generations Iron-Man. As I finished making this point, and I took my seat for questions, before Coogan could begin moderating the questions, one rather large woman from the back shouted at me: "I disagree with your entire premise!" She then had to repeat this, as no one could hear her over the shuffling of presenters. As she did, she went on to explain that Marvel polled their readers, and the poll showed Captain America to be more popular. Seeing as I was commenting on how Marvel saw their heroes in the world, I was a little concerned how a popular poll could disprove my premise (as I really didn't care what people thought), so I asked for clarification. She reiterated that people liked Captain America more, so my interpretation of the two characters as metaphors was invalid.

As you are confused reading this, I was thus confused. I finally answered that polls are always suspect, and I would be happy to talk more about this with her afterward so that we could move on to another question. As the next person asked me a question, one that was more relevant to what I was talking about, she stormed out of the room, never to be seen from again.

Though, as I left the room, on my way to lunch, I was not so sure she wasn't waiting there to knife me. Beside that question, though, and the resultant fear that came with it, I would say my first presentation at Comic-Con went fairly well.