Guh! Comic-Con! Last time I was there, Wesley Snipes was the only Blade there was! So dope to be at the 50th anniversary of SD Comic-Con as a new Blade, the incomparable Mahershala Ali was crowned. It’s changed. Far less comics than my last time, over 15 years ago. My last time there I was working for the sometimes infamous, always legendary Rory Root, owner of Comic Relief.
That comic book store was my gold standard from the first days I came to California before I even lived out here. More than Forbidden Planet in NYC, my childhood epic comic book shop, Comic Relief encapsulated what I loved about comics; the underground, DIY, epic fantasy and proletariat tales of crime, responsibility, power, and imagination. Plus, the store had a cat. Rest in peace Pia. Rory’s gone on to that big comic book store in the sky, but somehow he’s imprinted on me as the gatekeeper and agent provocateur of taking comics seriously.
Before Vertigo and Dark Horse became the big dogs that they were/are, it was Rory and his ilk, comic book shop owners who sold books to libraries, went to college classes to speak about the industry. They spoke as the organic intellectuals that books like Maus, the Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, and Paul Auster’s City of Glass produced.
Those days are gone now. It’s possible to get a Ph.D. in comic scholarship. There are full-blown academic courses in writing and creating comics, and every other minute there seems to be some supposed luminary coming out as a comic book “scholar.” I’ve been guilty of that appellation myself. Back in the day, it’s was just the heavy set dude with the cowboy hat, sweat stains everywhere with a big mug of coffee, and a cigarette dangling from his mouth named Rory Root and his friends.
That’s what Comic-Con will always be to me. Rory was no saint. He stiffed me out of more than one paycheck. And don’t ask how many times I saw him naked, seemed to be a rite of passage more than one Comic relief employee had to endure. But he also got me hooked on taking the funny books I love so much seriously. So for me, Comic-Con will always be Rory Root’s spot.
One of the highlights of my Comic-Con experience was hanging with @marinchef, which is always awesome.
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