Posted in: Comics, Look! It Moves! by Adi Tantimedh | Tagged:


Religion Without A Dogma – Closing Thoughts Of Look! It Moves! At NYCC

Adi Tantimedh has a quick ramble about what everything Comic Con is all about.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Jnc0c5peF8[/youtube]

As I wandered New York Comicon filming videos on my phone and watching the thousands of people make their way through the con, the cosplayers, the fans, the collectors and their kids, it occurred to me that geekdom and fandom is a kind of religion.

When you think about all the people who want to gather at a con, waiting long hours to get in, cosplaying, buying merchandise and comics featuring their favourite characters, it feels like more than a celebration but a gathering to partake in a communal act of worship. The stories and characters they are celebrating – superheroes, warriors, villains, demigods and goddesses – are figures of transcendence. They represent Power, transcending normal strength, injustice, despair, sadness, the limits of gender, of the mundane, and when fans dress up as them, it is as if they're channeling these characters to acquire their strength, whether it's Superman, Batman, Deadpool, Naruto, Edward Elric, Darth Vader, Chun Li, Wonder Woman or Commander Shepherd. I believe Grant Morrison has said things to this effect many times. In a way, it doesn't seem to matter that some of the comics featuring those characters might be rubbish or badly-written at the moment, the fans' love of those characters and what they represent overrules that, even if the companies publishing them still wins out because fans still buy the comics or merchandise. Publishers should not, however, mistake this as supporting the books. The fans are supporting the characters, and don't really need to buy the books to express that, as a comic con proves. The fun is in the possibilities the characters represent, and if even if the fans don't get it from the books, they still get it from cosplaying and celebrating. The fans' love for these characters give them a reason to do something positive, even if it is devoting time and energy in creating a costume, and the courage to wear without it embarrassment, and be accepted no matter how seemingly strange or silly. When I saw Bioware's official live action face of MASS EFFECT's Commander Shepherd Holly Conrad, I felt like she was an avatar of Shepherd, along with the many other Shepherds walking around the con.

Of course, this kind of unironic devotion can be looked at with condescension and contempt by people not in the loop, who see it as weird, possibly creepy, but if you read it as a kind of religious celebration, it starts to make sense, even as the wild energy in the air of a con is almost pagan in its glee. It doesn't stop these fans from still belonging to an officially-recognised and sanctioned religion like Catholicism, Buddhism or Judaism. If it is a religion, it's one that has no real doctrine or dogma, and its tenets are generally positive: fostering a sense of community and mutual support, creating an increasingly global tribe linked across not only different states but entire countries and continents. If it is a religion, it's a largely benign one.

I'm not religious, and I generally distrust religions, but in this case I can't say there's anything truly wrong with all that.

Observing worship at lookitmoves@gmail.com

Follow the official LOOK! IT MOVES! twitter feed at http://twitter.com/lookitmoves for thoughts and snark on media and pop culture, stuff for future columns and stuff I may never spend a whole column writing about.

Look! It Moves! © Adisakdi Tantimedh


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Rich JohnstonAbout Rich Johnston

Founder of Bleeding Cool. The longest-serving digital news reporter in the world, since 1992. Author of The Flying Friar, Holed Up, The Avengefuls, Doctor Who: Room With A Deja Vu, The Many Murders Of Miss Cranbourne, Chase Variant. Lives in South-West London, works from Blacks on Dean Street, shops at Piranha Comics. Father of two. Political cartoonist.
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