Now that there has been some time to decompress from Comic Con, it was interesting to read something in the fashion section of the LA Times. Because of a movie premiere that occurred for Cowboys and Aliens, with a number of Hollywood fashion plates on hand, the fashion sectioned opined if Comic Con would become a mecca of high fashion. Yeah, I'll believe that when some fashion conscious starlet walked down the Cannes carpet in a Slave Leia inspired dress.

Look, this past week lots of tie ins were given for Comic Con, as businesses tried to jump on the cool for the moment, express. Funny thing is, last year, when the big movie out there was Scott Pilgrim, predictions were made about how great sales would be for that and all the trends that would happen. Time will tell if Cowboys and Aliens will be the next Iron Man or Scott Pilgrim, but the prediction of a shift in the masses at Comic Con are a long way off.

I admit that I was surprised by the shift in the demographics of Comic Con. More girls, more women and more kids are attending the event, but I suspect that up tick is because of marginal fair. I remember the San Diego Union, in the Friday edition covering the first day of the Con, gushed about the filled Hall H with Twilight fans. Really? You really want to flog that horse? It was a case of lazy journalism because in assuming Twilight, Harry Potter and other light lit fair was the be all and end all at Comic Con would be to miss out on some real trends hitting.

To put it bluntly, there were no signs of Team whoever at the convention, or people dressed as Bella. No buzz about the Twilight trailer. That's the thing; for something to be a trend there would be talk in the air, a sense of something organically moving among the people. Comic Con coverage is becoming much like political coverage. You have people who work for People magazine, for Entertainment Weekly and other hot entertainment magazines and websites who are given access to the big parties, are given passes to Hall H, who are granted interviews with stars, and because of this they feel they have a grasp of what Comic Con is all about.

They are shuttled about, never getting a real sense of what the sweating masses are facing. If they had bothered to be among the crowd and not looking for the kookiest person they could find, they would see the steampunk trend is a growing force at Comic Con. There were many booths, seminars, lectures and costumed folks in the steampunk culture. But there was little mention of them.

Despite Comic Con giving a lot of business to the community, we folks who have been coming here for years are still thought of as strangers, as easily manipulated dupes who will shell out anything with a comic logo on it. They think we will be mesmerized by the lights of a camera or the shapely legs of some woman reading rehearsed lines about something they know nothing about.

This year it seemed it was the return of the smarmy reporter. This is the reporter that is too cool to be at the convention, who see the odd assortment of people dressed in costumes as some dent in the evolutionary tree. They look for the crazy ones to prove their point, though what they call crazy maybe just someone deep in character. I saw a number of reporters make fun of people in costume to their faces, and the lure of being on camera had these folks put up with it. A few male reporters with cameras in hand headed for the booth babes, and the booth babes were willing to show the cheesecake. Of course, for the millions of people who never will attend Comic Con, this will be their lasting impression of the event.

So the convention will never be a fashion plate for Hollywood stars. It will not, despite the hype, be a trend setting event because the trends set go against what the play-makers want to have happen. The Comic Con will continue to try and be the fat, awkward kid that comes back to high school after graduation who made it bug, but no one will ever let them forget who he is and will still try to exploit him for all it's worth.