{"id":268162,"date":"2020-09-09T03:13:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-09T07:13:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=268162"},"modified":"2020-09-09T08:50:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-09T12:50:39","slug":"comic-conhome-virtual-comics-event-declared-a-failure-by-industry-critics-but-fans-loved-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2020\/09\/09\/comic-conhome-virtual-comics-event-declared-a-failure-by-industry-critics-but-fans-loved-it\/","title":{"rendered":"Comic-Con@Home: Virtual comics event declared a failure by industry critics, but fans loved it"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>
Some went so far as to travel to San Diego and hold socially distant meet-ups, including cosplay photo shoots, in beloved locations nearby. (Pixabay file photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With the vast majority of North America\u2019s thousand-plus fan conventions<\/a> cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, virtual conventions (called cons) have been a bright spot for fans in an otherwise bleak year. Although organizers have experimented with different ways to run an online convention<\/a>, none had as high expectations as the San Diego Comic-Con\u2019s Comic-Con@Home<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The virtual event, held July 22\u201326, featured content distributed across several platforms, including video panels, a virtual exhibition hall and a cosplay masquerade on Tumblr<\/a>. From the beginning<\/a>, it promised not only to fill the Comic-Con-shaped hole in regular attendees\u2019 summers but also to make a Comic-Con experience accessible to fans who ordinarily can\u2019t attend or are turned off by the scramble for badges and hotel rooms or by endless lines.<\/p>\n

Comic-Con@Home inevitably drew comparisons to the in-real-life<\/a> event, but some critics promptly branded it<\/a> a failure<\/a> \u2014 perhaps most prominently in Variety<\/em>, the entertainment industry trade magazine.<\/p>\n

But calling Comic-Con@Home a flop for not having enough exclusive movie reveals<\/a> or failing to produce enough social media buzz<\/a> assumes too much. Not all participants share the same goals as the largest industry players.<\/p>\n

While Comic-Con has always had a relationship to Hollywood, to many fans, gaining virtual access to panels that might have been otherwise capped by space constraints and the sense of community matter more than a simplistic analysis about metrics or interactivity.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Industry views of Comic-Con<\/h2>\n

Variety<\/em>\u2019s Adam B. Vary\u2019s story, \u201cWhy Comic-Con \u2018At Home\u2019 Was a Bust\u201d cites data from social media analytics firm ListenFirst<\/a>, which found \u201ctweets that mentioned Comic-Con@Home were down 95 per cent from 2019\u2019s live convention<\/a>.\u201d Vary is unimpressed by YouTube views of around 15,000 per panel, and he laments the lack of fan interaction \u2014 \u201cthe most elemental reason for Comic-Con\u2019s 50-year success\u201d \u2014 in Comic-Con@Home\u2019s video panels, which were pre-recorded and disabled user comments.<\/p>\n

But the relationship between fans, Comic-Con and big media companies has often<\/a> proven a point of tension. When a major studio skips a presentation<\/a> in the celebrated Hall H<\/a> or an apparent cult classic in the making bombs at the box office<\/a>, the media are quick to speculate whether Comic-Con attendees have lost their most favoured audience status.<\/p>\n

If anything, Variety<\/em>\u2019s focus on analytics proves that, when it comes to the entertainment industry\u2019s attempts to shape and define the Comic-Con experience, the virtual con wasn\u2019t really all that different than other years.<\/p>\n

Another look at numbers<\/h2>\n

Evaluating at-home participation by the same yardstick as an in-person event doesn\u2019t account for differences in format and mode of engagement. These metrics need to be understood in context. Even then, they don\u2019t tell the whole story of Comic-Con@Home.<\/p>\n

For instance, the more than 84,000 views logged for AMC\u2019s The Walking Dead<\/em> panel<\/a>, (now over 95,000<\/a>) would be an impossibility in Hall H, which seats 6,500 fans.<\/p>\n

This same panel also aired on gaming and entertainment site IGN\u2019s official Comic-Con hub<\/a>, which did feature live chatting among users. (As of this writing, the IGN version of The Walking Dead<\/em> panel has garnered another 63,000<\/a> views, and their livestream of that day\u2019s programming<\/a> was accessed over 180,000 times.)<\/p>\n

Add the 11,900<\/a> tweets about this panel alone cited in Variety<\/em>, and these impressions and engagements begin to rival, if not exceed, the 103,000<\/a> social media mentions logged by The Walking Dead<\/em> in 2017.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not forget fan- and community-led panels. Their views this year frequently outstripped the capacity of the rooms they are typically assigned in the San Diego Convention Center. For example, this year\u2019s Super Asian America panel has received 1,700 views on YouTube<\/a> so far; in 2019, it was scheduled in room 5AB<\/a>, which has a maximum capacity of only 504<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Super Asian America panel.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Sense of community<\/h2>\n

Throughout Comic-Con@Home, fans used social media, blogs and forums to share memories and connect with friends they made at previous Comic-Cons. Some went so far as to travel<\/a> to San Diego and hold socially distant meet-ups<\/a>, including cosplay photo shoots<\/a>, in beloved locations<\/a> nearby.<\/p>\n

The San Diego Convention Center\u2019s video tribute<\/a> prompted an outpouring of love for the building, which for many attendees symbolizes the experience of Comic-Con (an \u201cI Miss SDCC\u201d pin featuring the convention centre sold out in two minutes<\/a>).<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

Fans even bonded over negative experiences, such as the glitches<\/a> in the online sales of exclusive merchandise. In these moments, the sense of community mattered more than the relative absence of Hollywood buzz and hype.<\/p>\n

Contrary to Variety<\/em>, the largest fan-run SDCC blog stated, \u201cwe had an amazing time<\/a>,\u201d a sentiment echoed by<\/a> many virtual<\/a> attendees<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Experiences like these are absent from industry-oriented assessments of Comic-Con@Home.<\/p>\n

Comics go beyond Hollywood\u2019s needs<\/h2>\n

Instead of definitively capturing the meaning of Comic-Con@Home, criticisms of the event illustrate how media companies still claim pop-culture pride of place for themselves<\/a>, even as the popularity of Comic-Con and other con events<\/a> is frequently cited (often by these same<\/a> outlets as evidence of fandom\u2019s growing influence.<\/p>\n

This is not to suggest that cultural industries should be understood in simplistic, fan-versus-industry terms.<\/p>\n

But with fan events moving mostly online for the foreseeable future, the debate about Comic-Con@Home is a useful reminder that these relationships don\u2019t start and end with Hollywood\u2019s needs.<\/p>\n

The Comic-Con experience may have looked different this year, but competing attempts to define this experience \u2014 as either failure or success \u2014 made it just another Comic-Con.<\/p>\n

This analysis was collaboratively authored by the members of the Swarming SDCC<\/a> project team, including Anne Gilbert, Felan Parker, Suzanne Scott and Matthew J. Smith.<\/em>\"The<\/p>\n

Benjamin Woo<\/a>, Associate professor, Communication and Media Studies, Carleton University<\/a><\/em>; Erin Hanna<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Cinema Studies, University of Oregon<\/a><\/em>, and Melanie E.S. Kohnen<\/a>, Assistant Professor of Rhetoric and Media Studies, Lewis & Clark <\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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