#SDCC: Stabbing in Hall H– and how the studios and convention can ratchet down the tension

And I was so proud of us earlier at the convention.

We laughed hate-mongering yahoos Fred Phelps and his family off the stage.

But save a seat for someone in Hall H, and it’s grounds for being stabbed with a pen.

Which is what happened yesterday afternoon. When it was all over, one man was carried out on a stretcher and another was led off in handcuffs and a bloody shirt.

USA Today quoted San Diego Police Sgt. Gary Mondesir saying, “Two
males got into a dispute and one male stabbed the other male with a pen
around the eye socket. Paramedics arrived almost immediately and took
the victim to the University of California/San Diego hospital. The
suspect was taken away.

“We had officers inside the convention center and
they were there relatively quickly, and citizens had actually detained
the suspect,” said Mondesir.

Flashback: I was there twenty years ago when Rob Liefeld was throwing gold copies of Youngblood #1 into the crowd at a New York convention at the Javits center and nearly sparked a riot. The Javits didn’t have another comic convention there for almost a decade.

And now we actually have someone getting arrested for assault while somebody else is dragged off to the hospital.

So for all of you who are saying “Hoocoodaknown?” I suggest you go back to reading Johnny DC and Marvel Adventures. The grown-up comics are too much for you.

This situation is intolerable. What’s more, this can change and needs to, right away. Here’s how:

The studios must immediately stop this “oh, we’re only going to show this footage to the people in Hall H because you are soooooo special because you sat in line for foooooour
hours”. No more. The footage you show at the convention goes up online that day. If you don’t like
it, you don’t get to show the footage to the audience and to hell with your PR
campaign. You want to get fans excited, fine. Bring out the stars, keep them in the same room, but don’t make this dangerous. The Con can easily enforce this, and should.

Which ties into the second change: the San Diego Comic-Con must
reverse their policy of no videos from panels, and more, must provide
videos of the panels online. Tape-delay them if you must, an hour or so
if you want to keep a certain level of cachet, but no more stoking the
feeding frenzy. You’re already filming the events for usage inside the
room, and setting up feeds to other rooms during the Masquerade– set up
a feed to get it out to the rest of the world. If they’re not going to
clear the rooms between events (and to be fair, they may not be able to
logistically) they can at least do this much.

Because if they can’t, I really have to question the statement on their website: “Comic-Con
International is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated
to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and
related
popular art forms.” This is no longer providing education
and creating awareness, this is now limiting access when there is no good reason to do so. And if they’re going to
limit access, then it may be time to look at their nonprofit status. Which would force them to raise ticket prices to market levels, which would also reduce the crowd sizes to manageable levels.

“It’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye.” Well, it looks like it might not be fun and games any more.

(Hat tip to Heidi MacDonald for the picture.)