Who Watches the Dorks Who Line Up to Watch the Watchmen?

ME, that's who. Just returned from an exhilarating day at the Javits Center for the 4th annual NY Comic Con (my third) and boy are there a lot of inexplicable statuesque hot chick/fat dude with ponytail couples in this world. In fact, 'dude with ponytail' is the most popular costume at the Con surpassed only by the simpler (no need to grow hair past your chin) 'dude dressed as Kevin Smith.'

I considered snapping pics of every dude with a ponytail that I saw and making a collage, but I got distracted by all of the Anime kids and only managed to get this guy.

As a Bronze/Silver Age comic book geek, I can't keep up with what the kids are reading. At every Con I've attended there's been flocks of 13–15 year olds dressed as whores (the girls) and androgynous fluffy domesticated animals (the boys). I wouldn't mind getting into Anime, because clearly that's where the genre has gone, and its style and themes have bled into even the most traditional of comics (Spiderman may as well speak Japanese and cause seizures), but shit is so goddamn confusing. I saw 3 separate girls today dressed as french maids and carrying around oversized Bugs Bunny-like mallets. There's a major clash between the overt sexuality of Anime kids (and the old men who love them) and the withdrawn, stuttering, overweight Marvel/DC fanatics of yesterday. Both groups kind of suck, but the former invokes the kind of discomfort felt when watching a Sarah McLachlan soundtracked ASPCA commercial. Also, they make me feel old.

By far, the most exciting happening: our chance to view the first 20 minutes of the upcoming Watchmen feature film. Because mad scientist/writer of the original graphic novel, Alan Moore, hasn't signed off on the film ("I will be spitting venom all over it") most fans expect it to suck hard, yours truly included. But today's special preview was totally promising; co-creator/illustrator Dave Gibbons was present to introduce it. And ... for once, a comic book movie looked like a comic book! The opening fight between Adrian Veidt and the Comedian was so jokey! Pages flipped! The camera panned around each frame like a reader's eye on a comic book panel! Perhaps the most influential comic book ever (and one of the most important literary works of the last century) has received the film treatment it deserves. Final verdict to come March 6th, around 2AM.

Anyway, the trailer's below. More on the Con tomorrow.



**Here's some tabloid trivia for my fellow A&Pers, who I'm fairly sure have zero interest in the entirety of this post. Two former fiances of Mary Louise Parker star in the film, Billy Crudup and Jeffrey Dean Morgan. Oh, to be a fly on the wall at that craft services table.**