Conned by Comics?

Today a special treat: Morgan Fraser, film editor of Clingfilm discusses one of the films selected as

part of the Kapow! strand in the Glasgow Film Festival. For regular readers of this blog, it will come as a surprise to read intelligent and articulate opinions: for more of Morgan's critical writing - mostly films and a few TV reviews - check out her blog.

Gareth K Vile: Comic Con IV: A Fan’s Hope is a documentary about the way that the San Diego comic convention has evolved from a small gathering of geeks into a major annual event that attracts Hollywood celebrities and international news coverage. There’s plenty of drama, as the owner of Mile High Comics tries to save his business and a young geek couple make the first steps towards marriage. Plus there’s comic book genius Stan Lee acting all generous at the end.

Morgan Fraser: The documentary focuses in on the greatest of geek culture: the comics, the games, the television shows, the movies. It is unashamedly enthusiastic about the different art forms, and so it should be. King nerds like Joss Whedon supply interviews in between the stories that the film is following, and don’t think for a second that I’m insulting these people by calling them geeks and nerds, as writer John Green says, geekdom should be celebrated and nobody should be afraid to love the things society deems uncool.

GKV: It is certainly a celebration of the geek. To be honest, that started to exhaust me after a while. But the range of talking heads – from Grant Morrison (Glasgow’s anarchist comic author) through to Kevin Smith (who acts like an idiot in the credits) – suggest that geeks are taking over the planet. What did you make of all those Hollywood big shots turning up to use the Con like a big focus group?

MF: It would be hypocritical of me to complain about the big shots being there, as my main interests are the movies and TV shows and the stars that they bring. In the documentary they do complain about the skewing of interest at Comic-Con towards the panels of big film stars, but I think it was important for the convention to evolve. The film shows some amazing outfits and cosplays of characters, although honestly half of them I didn’t recognize.

GKV: Okay – I guess I am a little in the other direction. I was more interested in the comic book people, especially the creators, because I am more excited by the potential of comics than films. Hang on – what is cosplay, and how did that impress you?

MF: Cosplaying is a fancy word for dressing up as a character. In the film it touches on what the girls wear; there are so many slave Princess Leias that there is a photo op with about 30 girls all wearing, erm, next to nothing. 

It is funny that even in geekdom, which is populated by spotty, chubby guys with a World of Warcraft addiction, that the girls who cosplay characters that are skinnier or prettier than them are made fun of. This is especially bad considering I’m pretty sure I saw some very overweight Supermen wandering around in the background. The documentary doesn’t really mention this, although its segment focusing on a girl who makes costumes was definitely one of the more interesting parts!

GKV: I think her story ends happily – she gets a job making costumes for films. But that’s an interesting point about the gender thing… and brings me back to Kevin Smith. I could not believe that he says something so obnoxious about “Comic Con being cool because you might get laid…” It might be a celebration of geekdom, but geekdom still looks pretty misogynistic in this film. Most of the big names are men, we follow the adventures – mostly – of men and, like you say, the women get judged by their appearance…

MF: Yeah it really is a problem, also most of the talking heads were guys too! I think this really goes back to the comics themselves, most female characters are literally just there to be the damsel in distress that the hero can save, I guess this is why these sorts of guys like them…they can imagine themselves as the hero, getting the girl that in real life they would never get. But it was nice to see one of the guys the documentary follows proposing to his (frankly quite annoying and clearly co-dependant) girlfriend. Even if it was annoying dudebro Kevin Smith doing it.

GKV: Last year, I went to Grant Morrison’s chat at the Book Festival, and he was asked how more women could be persuaded to read comics. Morrison kind of shrugged, but there seems to be a whole discussion about whether comics are just aimed at men… or boys. It does bother me… simply, any art form that ignores half the population is going to be missing something. 

On a positive note, I got quite a thrill from seeing Stan Lee at the end. I regard him as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century – he came up with the Fantastic Four and Spider-Man. He seems to have grown old gracefully, and did a lovely speech that did celebrate the diversity of the convention. Did anyone appeal to you?

MF: I love Stan Lee so much. His cameos are hilarious, especially his recent one in The Amazing Spider-man that actually had me in hysterics in the cinema. For me though Joss Whedon is my favourite, I’m one of those people who still wishes Firefly hadn’t been cancelled, and will never forgive him for killing Wash. I’d say he’s definitely one of the better men in the comic book world, he can write great female characters, and I liked his recent film that subverted the horror genre Cabin in the Woods. 

GKV: So – my conclusion is that this film is a bit like comic books. If you like them, you’ll like this. I am not sure it presents anything that would convince non-geeks to go to the convention, but it is an honest and charming documentary.

MF: Yes I agree. A film made by geeks, for geeks. It didn’t exactly shed any new light on Comic-Con, or delve particularly into any real issues, but it is fun and easy to watch. I liked it, and definitely want to go to Comic-Con next year!