FINAL COMMENTS ON THE CON
But first...
A little public announcement. I may have shelled out money for my own domain name but I haven't paid a penny for my web hosting. A good friend of mine back east has given me the privilege to host images and other files on his web space account free of charge. That means no remote linking of images on this site, www.zombitorium.com, www.poop-culture.com, or www.falsemetal.com. Otherwise any image you link to might get changed to something offensive or downright nasty. If you want to display a picture you see on here on your own site then send me an email and I'll find a way for you to get the image hosted. Thank you.
AND NOW BACK TO THE CON.
Although it's been nearly 3 weeks since comic-con, I have yet one more post to make about the event. I've been attending the San Diego Comic-Con since 1996 but it wasn't until around 2000 did I start to pay attention to the various conferences in the upstairs portion of the convention center. At these conferences exist the most unique learning opportunities with the respect of creative media.
I've spent nearly all my life watching, reading and playing just about every possible example of creative media. To hear and see creators talk about their particular craft can provide a person a unique perspective that was not attainable by merely absorbing the end result of the creator's labor. For me, every year I come back from the comic-con I grow less critical of creative works than the year before. I realize that even a bad movie, song, cartoon, or comic book sometimes takes an incredible amount of effort to create.
When I was younger, I spent way too much time picking apart movies, music, videogames, and comic books. I pointed out all the parts I felt were wrong, could've done better or parts I felt were just plain awful. And while there are examples of media in this world that are universally bad such as: Joel Schumacher Batman movies, Rob Liefeld comic books, and John Romero videogames, I began to ask myself... "Can I do any better?"
The answer to that ranges from "Well sort of," to "Dear god, I'm just as fucking terrible if not worse." Criticizing someone else's work is a lot easier than creating your own. If you think a script to a movie is piss poor, try and write your own. Do you think that CGI sequence in a movie looks fake? Go grab a copy of 3ds max and let's see how well you can animate a computer generated model to interact with live action footage. Seeing, listening, and absorbing all the information creators of artistic media give out during the comic con causes me to feel as if is someone yelling at my face, "Put-up or shut-up!" Every year the comic-con challenges me to create and reminds me that I have a hell of a lot more work to do.
The most memorable treat this year came in the form of a wonderful old man. Ray Bradbury returned to the comic-con this year to provide a whole new series of interesting and heart-warming stories to a humongous crowd willing to hear them. Ray Bradbury is a man who's very much at the end of his life and wishes to pass on a few last words whenever he has the chance. Mr. Bradbury ended his conference with a small piece of advice for a crowd of young listeners. "Fall in love and stay in love."
