There is something utterly thrilling about the big, bombastic reveals of the San Diego Comic Con. Yes, yes, yes, it’s all a big show to get you to open your wallets, but then what isn’t, if we’re honest?
From the music performers that put on personas to show how cool they are so you listen to their music to the movie stars that do the same to just dopes like me that pretend to know what the heck they are doing so you give their books a twirl.
It’s all part of a big show to get money.
Fine.
Whatever.
It’s an exchange, they offer us something and we pay for it.
POW.
ANYWAY!
There’s a beauty to the big pomp and circumstance of all of these companies, comics (oh, poor comic companies, sorry) and their larger film counterparts who are there to unveil to fandoms near and far what is to come.
WHAT IS TO COME!
I love it.
I love that in a time where everything in the media is telegraphed, our hands held, things spoiled for clicks, that there is some small effort put to get us excited for the future of things.
Heck, just talking about the future as if it’s a thing is nice in these dodgy times.
Again, I get it, it’s marketing, but so what?
I love it.
I love it because, as stated above, were in a time where we are so dispassionate about things, so OVER everything that it’s nice to get excited. It’s nice to geek out and see others geek out. It’s nice to look forward with anticipation.
I wish more horror companies like Blumhouse did these sorts of grand reveals at a bigger convention. Let the fans participate and make these sorts of big announcements.
Horror geeks absolutely rival comic geeks in their passion, we just don’t cross over as easily with the average fans.
Still, how great would that be if a studio specializing in horror – Blumhouse or A24? – had a big reveal of their upcoming projects to hype them and really get you stoked?
It’s an utter shame that this new Predator film, which seems as if it could be fantastic, has been treated like a direct to video shrug when it deserved the announcement, the cast and director reveal, and the whole lead up.
Maybe they pumped it up at Comic Con, but it’d be too little, too late.
I know there are lots and lots of people who hate Marvel, and DC, and Star Wars, and all of geek culture because they like REAL movies, they like CINEMA and to them I shrug and say, sorry, that’s your loss.
I grew up entrenched in the school of Martin Scorsese. I used to actually go to art houses to see indie darlings. That’s where I saw TRAINSPOTTING (meh), REQUIEM FOR A DREAM, and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. I still love movies of all kinds but horror and geekier stuff draws me back. Draws me because it reminds me of the wonder of cinema. The power of it to transmogrify the simple into the grandiose. The power to bring folks of all stripes together to scream and cheer at a screen.
The smaller stories about humanity and its many foibles and charms are fantastic, and I will always love those, but I will always seek out the movies of wonder first.
I fantasize from time to time about how fun it would be to have a fanbase that WANTS the reveals and the teases. I love that King used to do that to varying degrees and still sorta does, though mostly it’s an agency or publisher doing it. I still remember standing in line for the last Harry Potter book at midnight and how much fun it was. I sensed then that this was the end of an era, that this sort of thing wouldn’t happen any longer and that’s a shame. Heck, I remember going to a local indie music store a few times for midnight music releases and we were not alone! It was great because we were so in love with music we HAD to have that album – CD – right…that…minute. Even if we couldn’t listen to it until we were home.
With our need for immediacy there’s random drops online all the time and while it’s still fun, it’s not the same.
There is magic in the waiting, if I am honest.
Magic in the reveal.
Magic in the anticipation.
As a kid I spent hours and hours thinking about and talking about episodes 1, 2, and 3 of Star Wars and what they might be like. And when I learned there was a plan for nine movies it just let me project into the future.
It’s the same sort of childish exercise my friends and I did in college where we’d wonder – who would win between the Thing and the Blob?
And on and on and on.
It’s that What If of it all that makes it so magical.
And part of that is the reveal.
Hearing titles of things that won’t come out for months or years.
Considering what those titles lean, who will be involved, and what could happen next.
It’s fun, as simple as that, and Comic Con still has that fun.
Even after Covid, even watching from home, it still had that fun.
Something we need desperately.
We’re in an era of worry and despair where many of us are struggling day to day and we need these reminders of the simple magic of anticipation.
You don’t have to like comic book movies, or comics, or toys, or horror, or anything else ‘geeky’ (though, if we’re honest, sports fanatics are HUGE geeks), but it’s about throwing yourself into something so much that it consumes you with wonder and happiness.
That’s what matters.
It’s where dreams, and longing, and passion are birthed.
It’s where we all come from and need to return once in a while to remember that there’s more to life than paying bills and faking it to make it.
We were all once kids and wondered about who would win in a fight, Superman or Batman, or whether there were ever really dragons, or if Bigfoot is real.
We all once looked at the world with eyes wide, and mouths open, uncertain what was coming next.
In a small way these reveals return us to that place in our lives and I love them for that.
…c…
I write books. They’re weird and scary and fun. Check them out!
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 