Ridiculous Opinions #303
This will be a short one. I will post more soon, but let me just say that I am at the very end of the New York Comicon and it has been a long and wonderful week of stuff. I’ll detail more of it in an upcoming newsletter, including the non-event of the release of my graphic novel, Four Frontiers…
The following is a rewritten text exchange between me and my Best Friend For Life, Chris. Enjoy…
So…final thoughts on Comicon as I sit in an apartment in Brooklyn over this last day (I leave tomorrow). This morning, I saw a panel that was being offered about the new George Lucas museum in Los Angeles and I thought, “That looks intriguing!” And then I saw that it was going to be moderated by Martin Scorsese and I was like, “Huh?”
MARTIN SCORSESE! The director of “Goodfellas” and “The Wolf of Wall Street” and “Raging Bull”? One of the GREATEST directors of all time? A MASTER of his craft! And the organizers AREN’T PROMOTING HIM MORE? I couldn’t believe it.
So I went to the venue and it was half-empty for most of the time until the last minute, and I thought, “It can’t really be Martin Scorsese moderating this! There’s nobody here!” Sure enough, Martin Scorsese shows up and starts moderating the panel.
Basically, he introduced the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art, which is a “museum for the people” and contains George Lucas’ extensive collection of art that he has acquired over the years, him being a multi-billionaire and all. It looks phenomenal. Scorsese said that this was his first Comicon (and it was), but the discussion that he was having was pretty highbrow. He had guests with him, one of whom was the artist JR (that’s his name), alongside science fiction artists Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell.
And about ten minutes in, Scorsese is doing a deep discussion on art and its meaning and importance, and he is interviewing these artists on stage, trying to have a deeper dive into why we create and what the meaning behind producing art might be.
But next door, there is a panel for an author named Jaysea Lynn, who writes “demonic smut” according to her bio. And they are having some kind of cheering contest and you can’t hear Martin Scorsese or any of the artists because the cheering is so loud.
The whole thing just grew more and more uncomfortable, and I looked around and saw that everyone in the room looked like me…middle-aged, graying…old. And a switch flipped in my brain that said, “I don’t think I belong here…”
I did not understand how or why people weren’t clamoring to get into a panel that had an intimate discussion with Martin Scorsese. At the same time, I did not understand how Scorsese’s discussion could be so boring. I did not understand why he was there or what could have persuaded the man who said that Marvel films are "not cinema," comparing them to theme park attractions rather than films that offer "revelation, mystery, and genuine emotional danger", to come to a Comicon for whatever reason. Nothing made sense to me in that moment and I thought to myself, I want to leave this room…
All I could think about was how out of touch I am with the world around me sometimes and how that actually made me happy, but sad at the same time. Sometimes, you can literally see the world passing you by, and that can be a frightening notion. But even as I saw that world whipping past me, there was a strange sense of giddiness at the fact that…
…I just didn’t care.
And maybe that’s the glory of age. Maybe it’s time to leave that rat-race for those younger than me, so that I can do whatever the hell I want without thinking about anything or anyone else. And that’s what makes me happy as a whole. My biggest revelation was I don’t think I give a crap about this anymore, and it was freeing.
So, I saw a panel with Martin Scorsese today. And I bought a couple of prints from my all-time favorite artist, Michael Golden, who was selling nothing and had nobody around him. And despite all of that, he was still kind of a dick.
I am glad to be going home.
