Relay: Make Way For Geeks!
The Pop-Up Comic Extravaganza on Sunday transformed one little corner of East Hampton from chic to geek.
The event, which couldn’t specifically be called “Comic Con” for legal reasons, was, functionally, a comic book convention. There were artists and writers, vendors selling comic books, stickers, buttons, action figures, other nerdy stuff, and even “cosplayers,” short for “costume play,” meaning dressing up as your favorite fictional character, often in attire that is proudly homemade. Just about the only thing the Pop-Up Comic Extravaganza was missing was a celebrity geek-culture guest star charging around $60 for a signed photograph and photo-op, as is the norm at the bigger conventions. (That’s what I paid in June when I met Brent Spiner, my favorite actor from “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” at an event called Eternal Con, held at the Cradle of Aviation Museum in Garden City.)
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The Pop-Up Comic Extravaganza wasn’t Long Island’s first. Among the early ones was I-CON, which began as a science fiction convention in 1981 at Stony Brook University and evolved to incorporate comic books, animé, the fantasy and horror genres, gaming, and medieval re-enactment.
I-CON was reborn as LI-CON in 2014, but has not announced a 2016 date yet. Since then, other conventions have popped up, including Eternal Con, L.I. Who (a Doctor Who-themed convention to be held for the fourth time in November), and Long Island Geek, a sci-fi and fantasy convention.
The significance of the comic book convention cannot be overlooked. Geek culture is making its way mainstream; it’s actually okay to be a nerd now. When I was in high school, in the late 1990s, I was ostracized for dressing in a “Star Trek” costume for Halloween. A couple of weekends ago, the film “Star Trek Beyond” took in $59.6 million, suggesting a bunch of cool kids also went to see it. In 2014, The New York Times wrote that “once-fringe, nerd-friendly obsessions like gad-gets, comic books, and fire-breathing dragons are increasingly everyone’s obsessions.”
And the significance of the Pop-Up Comic Extravaganza, I think, went deeper than just a fun way to spend a Sunday afternoon.
Its organizer, Nancy Silberkleit, is to be commended for her efforts. Not only did her event “fill the gaps” for comic book lovers on the South Fork, as Patrick O’Connor, a comic book vendor from Shinnecock Hills, put it, but she is also quite an inspiring role model. As the co-chief executive officer of the iconic Archie Comics brand, Ms. Silberkleit stepped in to help run the company after the deaths of both her husband and his business partner. A former schoolteacher, she says she is the first female top executive in the company’s 75-year history. She also started the Rise Above Foundation, which uses comic books as a tool to promote messages of kindness and deter bullying among youth.
At the Pop-Up Comic Extravaganza, I envied a handful of high school students dressed as characters like Negan from “The Walking Dead,” Harley Quinn from “Suicide Squad,” and Daenerys Targaryen from “Game of Thrones.” They kind of made me wish I could do high school all over again and this time let my geek flag fly proudly, so I could be seen as being ahead of my time.
But until time travel is invented — can someone get on that, please? — comic conventions will have to do for me.
Christine Sampson covers education for The Star.