As crazy as it seems, this is the last week before Comic-Con. Yes, the convention begins next Wednesday with the preview show, but I know how a lot of you going to the convention are thinking. At the end of this week everyone will be celebrating the Fourth of July, if they party ‘right’ they will have pounding heads on Monday. Tuesday will be the packing day and Wednesday will be the travel day to the convention. Of course, your mileage may vary, as the saying goes, but more than likely this will be the quiet week before the convention chaos begins.

I’ve seen lots of people in social media with millions of questions about the convention. As a person who had gone to the convention consistently every year since 1982, the best bit of advice I can give is to chill. I know it’s tough but many people going to the convention either for the first time or the 20th time treat the convention as a bucket list/reality show experience. I won’t go into my biases about most of the modern comic-con visitors caring more about the actors in their favorite show or movie rather that the hardworking artist and writers who created the comics in the first place. What I do see with the modern convention goer is they’re so geared on getting into Hall H or the other big venues they miss the real exciting stuff.

Here’s a good example: In 2012 I was walking towards the convention. The crowds many blocks from the convention were swamped. Instead of holding up my smartphone to record the crazy crowds, I walked and looked around. I saw someone in an outdoor restaurant, and I thought he looked familiar. I took a second glance and saw it was the actor Walter Jones. You may remember him from The Shield as Rondell or more famously as Zack, the original Power Ranger. I asked politely if I could take a picture of him, and after assuring him I just wanted one, I didn’t want to be in the picture and that I appreciated his work, he agreed. All through the day I saw other celebrities while walking through the convention floor or outside of the convention.

That’s the fun of the convention for me. Walking around and seeing celebrities or creative people just walking around, a lot of times without handlers. In a good number of cases, if you ask politely and are respectful of their privacy, they will allow a picture.

The thing for me is I’m not so into the celebrity sighting. Don’t get me wrong, I can go a star crazy with the best of them if I see someone I’ve seen from TV or the movies, but keeping your eyes open and remembering celebrities are just people you might get lucky and get a chance to chat it up with them or get a picture of them.

I know from a lot of posts that Hall H is the holy grail of a good number of Comic-Con attendees. I’ve never been there, never attended an event there. If you want to be real honest, and I admit this is my cynical convention side, what’s the point? Look, this is the year of Star Wars so you know the lines for Hall H for that event will be huge. You’re going to sit in line for days, work your way into a huge room and if you’re lucky you will see the director and stars as medium dots on a stage. Your eyes will really be focused on the monitor broadcasting the event to the huge crowd. The big reason for being there in person, to get a glimpse of new footage for the film, will shake your knees, make your mouth water and your bladder weak. The days of waiting in line, the hours of standing up, the crowd humanity, all of that seems like nothing as you see those fresh images on the stage.

The thing is, as soon as the footage has been seen, as soon as you start to recover from the shock and the glory of what you’ve seen, in the dealer’s room, there will be a hush, then there will be cheers as smartphones are beeping with new posts and people find out someone, even though people were told not to record the event, will have recorded the footage and uploaded it. It might be grainy, it might not have the best sound and it might be shaky as all get up, but people on the floor going about their business have seen the same footage you waited days to see. Don’t think that’s will happen? Last year the exact thing happened with the announcement of Batman v Superman. Now, that’s not the say the excitement of being with a crowd of people isn’t fun, but you have to put the experience in perspective. If you take the time, money and effort to get to San Diego and the convention, spending days in a line for a few minutes of pleasure seems to defeat the purpose of the planning and action of getting to the convention.

If I had to boil things down, I would have to use the wisdom of Bruce Lee to sum things up. “Its like a finger pointing away to the moon. Don’t concentrate on the finger or you will miss all that heavenly glory.” Don’t concentrate on seeing the star or the big event at the convention. Focusing on that you will miss all of the fun and adventure the convention can offer. Look at some of the smaller events going on, possibly check out an off-site event, or better still, if you have the time explore the city. That will make your experience at Comic-Con and the city more memorable.

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A Way to Enjoy the San Diego Comic-Con - June 29, 2015
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