“When a woman tells you to grow up, that’s God’s way of telling you to get a new woman… There’s three billion women on the planet, and not a lot of great comics, so it’s an easy choice.” -Chuck Rosanski, Mile High Comics

by Kevin Gaussoin, Editor-in-Chief

San Diego Comic-Con is the cultural Mecca of geeks everywhere, the one place where we can all gather together and gaze across the vast landscape of all our varied fandom obsessions from superheroes to sci-fi to fantasy to horror to anime to video games and every related subject–Where we can not only hang out with each other but we can meet the creators and stars of all our favorite stuff–where ‘Trek and ‘Wars nerds can take up their sabers and phasers, not to battle each other but to pose with the next generation of geeks or to drink with the real Green Lantern or Duke Nukem and listen together to bands play songs about Aquaman or Laurence Fishburne and then look over and say to each other in the words of Joss Whedon: “Are we not dope?”

Morgan Spurlock is an experienced and celebrated documentary filmmaker, but he had his hands full with Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope. A documentary tries to answer important questions about its subject, but with an event that is now this broad, what questions do you choose to ask? How do you approach the cultural behemoth that is the San Diego Comic-Con and really get it right? Do you just try and tell the history of the organization or is that just background information? Can one movie ever tell the whole story? And perhaps most importantly: Will Spurlock’s interpretation of Comic-Con ring true to the fans?

Spurlock and his collaborators Joss Whedon, Stan Lee, Harry Knowles, Jeremy Chilnick, and Thomas Tull seemed to start with a shotgun approach, querying hundreds or thousands of people associated with Comic-Con, then weeded through those responses and chose a small handful of archetypical congoers and stars to follow around Comic-Con 2010, and over a hundred more to photograph and interview at the Marriott next door.

I was one of them. I had written in talking about 2010 being my 26th year at Comic-Con, how I used to be a CCI committee member, how I had been taking my son with me since he was an infant, how I had proposed to his mother at Comic-Con in 1994, and how I had built my own ComicsOnline business around Comic-Con–that without Comic-Con, ComicsOnline would not be what it is today, nor would I. Unfortunately for my vanity, my dreams of waxing poetical about how Comic-Con changed my life didn’t much make it into Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope. I did tell a story about meeting a comic book creator hero of mine back in the early 90s, and all of my contribution that remains in Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope is me simply saying that comic writer’s name.

“Neil Gaiman”

So instead of following around Kevin Gaussoin and his undoubtedly scene-stealing ComicsOnline staffers at Comic-Con 2011, Spurlock and crew chose some other interesting subjects and told their stories that answered the question: What do you hope to accomplish at San Diego Comic-Con 2010?

• Chuck Rosanski, Owner of Mile High Comics in Colorado wants to get his business out of debt. Chuck has been coming to Con for 38 years and may have to open his personal vault and sell some rare comics, one of which may be worth half a million dollars. How much will Chuck have to sacrifice? Why does Chuck get all the best lines in the film?
• Holly Conrad, a talented amateur costume designer in San Bernardino, California. She and her design team she’s assembled out of her friends have created some amazing costume replicas of video game characters and now are looking to display their skills at the Comic-Con Masquerade costume contest in hopes of gaining industry recognition.
• Skip Harvey, a young single geek from a long line of geeks who works as a bartender in Columbia, Missouri and dreams of going to Comic-Con and getting his big break as a comic book artist.
• Staff Sergeant Eric Henson, an Airman (not a “Soldier”) stationed at Minot AFB in North Dakota, Henson is also looking to break into comic book illustration by showing off his portfolio at Comic-Con.
• James Darling and Se Young Kang, a young couple who started dating at San Diego Comic-Con 2009. James wants to propose to Se Young at the Kevin Smith panel at Comic-Con.

Around and throughout these touching and exhilarating main stories, we watch clips of creators, stars, and fans as they tell us little bits of their Comic-Con stories. I’m sure that many will watch Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope and be disappointed that it doesn’t tell their story–that their favorite fandom doesn’t get sufficient representation or their heroes aren’t mentioned. That is the inherent problem with attempting to document something like Comic-Con: Even Morgan Spurlock can’t cover it all in one movie. With a fandom multiverse as vast as Comic-Con, it might be true that Con couldn’t even be covered in a whole season of reality TV, though I’d love to see someone try.

Overall

Practically any Congoer should enjoy Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope. Whether you’re a lifelong attendee, a geek who hasn’t yet been able to attend the big show, or simply a concerned relative, you will undoubtedly get something out of Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope.

Ultimately, Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope is like Comic-Con itself. You have all these great expectations and high hopes at the beginning, lots of surprise thrills in the middle, and even when you disappointedly realize that you can’t possibly cover it all, that you have come to the end, you can look back and smile and say “Yep, that’s Comic-Con. I can’t wait for next year.”

ComicsOnline gives Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope 4.5 out of 5 Con badges.

Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan’s Hope is in theaters and On Demand today!

Check out our exclusive interview with Morgan Spurlock and Holly Conrad here: