Originally published January 15, 1999, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1313
Some more belated observations/recollections about the MECYF ’98, the sizable convention held in Mexico City last summer…
The hotel floor upon which most of the guests were staying had a sort of private hang-out where we would usually convene in the morning for breakfast. It was always a low-key affair, giving everyone a chance to hang out and schmooze while looking down at the view of Mexico City.
One morning we were presented with some unexpected amusement: Several of our number were appearing on an early morning talk show. As I recall, it was Denny O’Neil, Mike Carlin, and a costumed Spider-Man who had been sent by Marvel.
The problem was, the hosts didn’t speak English. So questions would be posed, translated into English, the guests would answer, and the questions translated back for the comprehension of the viewing audience. We were fortunate that morning, however, as Sergio Aragonés was there to provide us with translation of what was being said.
So there we were, grouped around the TV set, watching the questions being lobbed at the Americans and having the lag time filled by Sergio’s instantaneous translations.
None of us were anticipating potential disaster.
“Tell us, Spider-Man,” said the host via translator, “what sort of advice would you give to the youth of Mexico?”
Spidey, looking as earnest as one can be while wearing an all-concealing mask, said without hesitation, “Work hard, fight crime, and stay in school.”
Immediately, as if everyone in the room had just been jammed up the backside with a ten meter cattle prod, we angled forward as though the TV set had suddenly developed a magnetic field that was yanking us towards it, like something out of Poltergeist.
“FIGHT CRIME!?!” we shouted with incredulity, practically in unison.
Well, that was perfect. That was just perfect. All of us saw the same potential, awful scenario playing out. Thanks to the Amazing Spider-Numbskull, kids all over Mexico were going to go grab guns out of daddy’s closet and start prowling the streets looking for purse snatchers, muggers and low-lifes. I was thinking about how we’d been warned that the streets of Mexico City could be dicey if one traveled alone. The implication was that crime could easily find you. Which meant, by the same token, that crime could easily find one of the hordes of newly-benighted crime fighters.
Think the concern was over-exaggerated?. All Soupy Sales had to do was say once, just once, “Hey, kids, go into your dad’s wallets, take that funny green stuff, and send it to me!” and he was deluged with mail (ostensibly monopoly money for the most part, but still…) So to have an authority figure like Spider-Man urging young Mexican kids to “fight crime…”
The translator, meantime, had not missed a beat. And Sergio provided us with the instantaneous translation of what the interpreter was saying for the edification of Mexican youth:
“Work hard,” Sergio said, “obey the law… and stay in school.”
That was not what Spider-Man had just said. “Obey the law?” someone asked. Sergio nodded. Palpable relief flooded through the entire assemblage. The TV translator had just made a magnificent recovery. Realizing the potential disaster of what Spider-Man was advocating, he reconfigured it into something that was in the same spirit, but not remotely as incendiary. It was as deft a save as anyone had ever seen Spider-Man in the comics make.
* * *
The panel set-up on the vast stage was as nothing that I’d ever seen at any convention. It looked as if we were lounging in someone’s living room. There were huge, cushiony sofas and chairs, a coffee table and footrests. If only the furniture had all been covered in plastic, it would have been like the Jewish homes of my youth (does anyone do that anymore?)
I served on several panels, although on most of them the vast majority of the questions went to Denny and Mike (neither of whom urged young people to fight crime, so that was something of a relief.) But definitely the oddest panel was “Wives of the comics pros.” It was a very strange ensemble, since it consisted of Mary Fran and Sue Grant, the wives of Denny O’Neil and Alan Grant respectively. But also present were Barbara Kesel, Karl’s wife, who is a comic pro in her own right, and Kathleen, who is my girlfriend but not hardly my wife. Barbara, sharing a couch with Kathleen, nonetheless required extra room so that she could have the opportunity to physically “bounce” between being Barbara the wife and Barbara the writer. A vote was eventually held at the end as the audience determined which Barbara they preferred (it turned out to be a tie.)
Questions they received were the “What’s it like living with a writer?” type. The most lively discussion was when they women were asked which comics they themselves read and enjoyed, and Mary Fran turned to the others and said, “Okay… husbands and significant others are off the table; otherwise we’re all just going to round robin with them.” Happily, they were all able to come up examples outside of their men-folk (as opposed to those spouses or girlfriends—and I have encountered them—who don’t know from, or care about, the comics industry. Moreover, they don’t want to know.)
They were also asked if they had met their significant others before or after they’d become “famous.” For Kathleen, it was the latter… except she had no idea who I was. I first met her a number of years ago when she was selling various of her hand-and-rod puppets at the Atlanta Fantasy Fair. I bought one of them, a Klingon which I still have, and after I walked away, various committee members ran up to her all excited and said, “Peter David bought one of your puppets!” They were beyond hyperactive about it. And Kathleen, failing to see the monumental significance of this action, kind of shrugged and said, “Yeah. Good.” She went home that evening, spotted a copy of one of my Star Trek novels on her bookshelf, and said, “Oooohhh… that’s who that is.”
During the panel, Kathleen displayed a hand-and-rod “Will Robinson” muppet she’d made. The muppet was also asked questions, which he fielded as well as could be expected considering he had someone’s hand up his middle.
* * *
Convention security continued to remain hyper about crowds. We were escorted everywhere, in anticipation and concern over being mobbed at any given moment. It became something of a game during one autographing session as Mary Fran, Susan and Kathleen started a contest to see who could make it all the way to the women’s rest room and back without attracting a phalanx of guards. Kathleen, using her best Xena warrior princess ninja mode, was the only one who managed to make it all the way there and back (although, unlike Xena, she didn’t feel obliged to strip naked and cover herself with black body make-up to accomplish it… which is kind of a shame, because it probably would have made her the hit of the convention.)
At the far end of the convention center from where we normally hung out, there was a table belonging to a Star Trek club. They were very anxious for me to go see their table, but the convention was reaching its last hours and I still hadn’t managed to get over there. I’d promised I’d make it, and I don’t like breaking a promise.
So completely on the spur of the moment, I turned to the translator/escort who’d been assigned to me for that day and said, “I’m heading over to the Star Trek club. Bye.”
He blanched. “Well, we need time to set up an escort.” He wanted to make sure that there would be a coterie of guards who would surround me to stave off crowds.
But by that point, I’d had it with being escorted. “It’s fans. I can handle fans. I’m not a rock star. I’ll be fine.” And before he could muster a squad of protectors, I was gone. Seeing no other option, he immediately dashed to my side—Sancho to my Quixote—and we began the long haul from one end of the hall to the other.
At first, fans glanced our way and didn’t quite believe that I wasn’t surrounded. Normally, when any of us were on the move, lines of arm-linked guards stood between the fans and us. But here I was, marching along with a single companion. Thoroughly accessible. Eminently stoppable.
Nobody tried.
The whole trick—if you ever find yourself in a similar situation—is that you never stop moving. Like a shark, if you stop moving, you’re dead. I simply kept walking. That didn’t mean that I was rude.
When fans approached, I talked—and moved. When they produced things for me to sign, I signed then—and moved. I never slackened my pace. It takes some serious kind of hardcase to physically block your path and prevent you from advancing. There may be people like that out there, but none of them happened to be around at that particular time. I made it all the way to the Star Trek club table without significant problems.
My time at the table was limited, of course. Because naturally, once I was visiting the club, I was stationary. As I spoke to the club members, I kept a wary eye out and saw, after a few minutes, that word was leaking out and fans were starting to converge. My escort saw it, too. Like Schwarzenegger in Terminator 2, he said, “Time to go.” I said quick good-byes, and started back. Same thing happened: I encountered folks along the way, signed material, walked and talked, and made it all the way back again without significant problems.
I felt I had achieved a great—albeit minor—triumph. There’s something to be said for being treated like a rock star. Then again, there’s something to be said for normality. Or at least, as normal as abnormality will allow.
(Peter David, writer of stuff, can be written to at Second Age, Inc., PO Box 239, Bayport, NY 11705.)
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