The Beginning Is The End Is The Beginning: From San Diego To Aurora

Before I make any commentary on the tragedy at Colorado, I'd like to go back in time and tell you how I spent my "summer vacation." Indulge me, will you?

Menu at the Hilton, SDCC

Last week, I was knee-deep in San Diego Comic-Con. I had been in sunny San D since Tuesday, July 10th. Throughout all the festivities, I felt a sense of...what is the word...objectivity about everything I saw. I just couldn't let myself fall into the "wonder" of the pageantry before me -- instead, looking at the whole shebang with the clinical eyes of a sociologist, not a fan. Maybe I was just too tired from my journey. Maybe I ate too much seafood. I didn't even really drink a lot. I felt bad about my lack of zest, totally Charlie Browning the entire event. As I waited for the taxi to pick me up to go home, a travelling companion even whistled the "Christmas Time Is Here" song from the Peanuts special.

Line for "Hall H" -- SDCC

Anyway, I took about 200 photographs at SDCC, mostly not of cosplayers, celebrities, and various wonders -- but instead, of long lines, advertising signage, people wearing giant billboard-like bags, protesters of various stripes, "Twilight Tent Cities," and the like. I took these photos casually, not really with any end-goal in mind. People looked at me like I was crazy. Why was I taking in-depth photos of a group of tired, twenty- and thirty-something women with Robert Pattinson t-shirts slumped under a tent like refugees; sleeping bags, blankets, water-jugs and shopping carts filled with what looked like their life's possessions strewn about? Why was I carefully photo-documenting the ads for new television shows and movies about the post-apocalypse that plastered the restaurants and sides of buildings...and even covered entire buildings, like the hotel I stayed in, and the one that loomed ominously across the convention center?


"Looper" advertisement, SDCC

Why was I taking photos of people cheerfully standing in line to be literally chained as zombies, or painted to look like zombies, or undergo a simulated alien violation of their body, or be packaged under plastic as an action figure? Didn't I want a photo opp for myself, to share on Facebook?

Con-goer at "Falling Skies" exhibit, SDCC

Throughout it all, I had the following vague idea: our pop-culture both shapes, and reflects back to us, our own selves and the world in which we live in. (It also very occasionally -- in some very strange, somewhat uncanny way -- presages future events.)

Murals on restaurant windows, SDCC

Now, in fan circles, the concept that comic books, movies, video games and the like might have any impact at all on a person's emotions/actions/beliefs is highly taboo. We shan't go into that concept here.

What I would like to talk about instead is my trip to San Diego, and what happened afterward. Indulge me, will you?

So anyway, I took all these photographs, jotted down a bunch of notes -- but that isn't all I took back from San Diego Comic-Con. I also invested $25 -- a huge sum for me -- to buy a cute little stuffed animal of Batman-as-a-puppy-as-a-skull-creature. Part of a toy line heavily promoted at the show called "Skelanimals," I was initially attracted to the doll because he heavily reminded me of Anubis, the jackal-headed Egyptian god of the dead. I'm a big fan of Egyptian mythology, and I thought this toy was just adorable.

Anubis Batman "Skelanimal" display, SDCC

Anyway, I got home -- and before I even really had a chance to recover from my trip, me and my husband had to make the painful decision to put our eldest cat down. Suffering from hyperthyroidism and rapidly losing weight, we had boarded Simon with a vet who could monitor his condition and give him steady nourishment and meds. Unfortunately, he not only didn't gain any additional weight -- he had a stroke. Near-blind, unable to walk steady, and mostly skin-and-bones, it was clear what had to be done. But it was so unbelievably sad, the type of sadness that I think only cat-owners really understand. At one point I made a drunken Facebook post about how cats really are individuals with their own interior lives...I'm sure some friends and family somberly witnessed the screed and feared I was becoming a Crazy Catlady.

At the very same time, I received a promotional package for "The Dark Knight Rises" movie.

Throughout the last month, I had been reading/reviewing a large amount of Batman-related material. I worshipped Batman in my youth, but never really felt close to the character after that -- with the possible exception of the "Batmania" of 1989 when the Tim Burton movie came out. Recently, I was feeling that very same "Batmania," the hype and ballyhoo surrounding "TDKR" whipping up the same sort of excitement -- to the point that recently I had a dream in which I was the "TDKR" Catwoman being saved by Batman from the Joker. Looking over the promotional materials for the movie, I made a decision right there to watch a screening this weekend, and catch up with the first two via On-Demand.

Admittedly, the recent stories about obsessive Batman fans ganging up in droves upon reviewers who didn't like the movie -- and going so far as to write death treats -- sort of soured the festivities somewhat. But it's the *Internet* after all...

On the night of July 19th, I went to bed with my subconscious swirling in a stew of those pictures from SDCC, memories of my cat Simon, and Batman. And when I woke up, my husband informed me that there was a shooting in Colorado at a midnight screening of "The Dark Knight Rises."

While the scope of the massacre was not on the level of casualties of Hurricane Katrina, or 9/11, I still felt that sickeningly-familiar feeling of numbness, depression and utter horror. I spent the day in a daze, unable to write, my eyes glued to the news on my computer and my phone. It was unimaginable to me the sorrow the families of the victims were going through. Lives were not only cut too short, but would be impacted for a long time to come via injuries and post-traumatic stress.

But, according to some fans and even industry professionals, that wasn't the *worst* thing to come out of all this. The very worst thing would be..."letting them take away Our Batman!"

Really, Misters Trey Parker & Matt Stone, get on a cartoon parodying this jaw-dropping lack of tact and empathy, stat!

But I'm not going to get into all that here, or break down for you all the myriad of feelings, theories, interpretations, outrages, and etc. I have regarding this entire horrific incident. I'm not sure if a personal blog that theoretically is "targeted" to comic book fans is the right place to have these discussions. I really want to devote more of my private writing pursuits taking a sociological/psychological/symbolic view at our pop-culture, and I don't know if that's something some "traditional" fans can handle without completely losing their shit. I'm reminded of a particular quote from "Easy Rider" about "freedom" that in itself is, in context of recent events, too incendiary to repeat here. But I am reminded of that quote.

I have nothing against the makers of "The Dark Knight Rises." I don't want to see Batman "banned." I will see the movie eventually, but it won't be any time soon because I'm just so sad. I'm just sad. I'm just depressed and haunted over the loss of life, here -- as I'm sure Christopher Nolan is, and Christian Bale, and Batman's publishers and writers and artists.

What we need to always remember is:

In the end, it isn't about comic books and your favorite fictional characters. It is about the lives and well-being of your fellow human beings.

In the end, it isn't about comic books and your favorite fictional characters. It is about the lives and well-being of your fellow human beings.

In the end, it isn't about comic books and your favorite fictional characters. It is about the lives and well-being of your fellow human beings.



              Batmobile display, the morning after the last day of San Diego Comic-Con