Novi — Another Motor City Comic Con has arrived, and I’m here for what my best guess is, my 32nd time. Indeed, my excitement has lasted all these decades, but I’m beginning to grow a little weary.
Don’t misunderstand me, my optimism for these events still rises to the level of Superbowl Weekend hysteria, but the mainlining of “Nerd Culture” into normie mainstream pop culture has dimmed the pull of Comic Con a bit.
Much of this now feels like vulgar consumerism intended to separate middle-class suburban dorks—dudes like me—from their money with exorbitantly priced items meant for display in basements. Normie wives won’t stand for this kind of shit taking up space in living rooms.
Underneath my hockey-dad persona is a comic book fan with an obsession with Star Trek and, to a slightly lesser extent, Star Wars.
It was the Star Trek fanatic conventions in the early 1970s that pulled actors from that show to begin attending as guests, turning the autograph industry into a nationwide phenomenon.
The nerdy sci-fi fans and the even nerdier comic book fans of DC and Marvel ultimately merged into a massive industry built on an ever-growing coalition that continued embracing various fandoms within the gaming, fantasy, and animation realms.
Somewhere along the line, this subset of a unique culture literally became “The Culture.”
A sports-normie GenX dad once claimed total and complete ignorance of “Game of Thrones.” Wincing with pretentious contempt, I replied “The f—k is wrong with you? You living in a bubble?”
But walking around Comic Con—now a full weekend event at Suburban Collection Showplace that causes traffic backups along the I-96 and I-275 corridors—I’m a bit dismayed at the lack of what made these events once so special.
Accompanied by Livonia City Council President Brandon McCullough, my search for actual comic book vendors was difficult. Indeed, I found a couple selling rare and expensive comics, but for an event named for such items, you’d think they’d be wall-to-wall.
Easier to find were vendors selling action figures, replica lightsabers and He-Man swords, AI-generated images, and mystery boxes. Paying $25 for a box of unknown items seems absurd, but that’s just me.
The buzz generated by celebrity guests was high powered, but more mainstream. Instead of more relevant actors to the specific science fiction or superhero genre, Comic Con was graced by cast members from the “Scream” films.
There was no one of particular interest to me except the cast of the iconic film Starship Troopers, and the perpetually young Johnny Rico (Casper Van Dien). Van Dien spoke to us in character.
“Service Guarantees Citizenship!” he yelled at me with a wink in his eye.
McCullough is a sports card enthusiast, an obsessive collector, and we made our way to the card grading table with some rare items, including a very old Willie Mays autographed card for which he’d traded a “big ass flat screen TV.”
His eyes lit up and darted with excitement like a kid on Christmas morning. McCullough pulled out a small bag and removed several baseball and hockey cards in protective holders.
For collectors investing in the value of their autographed cards, authentication is required to boost their value for potential resale. Fraudulent cards and fake autographs are all over the industry and a secondary authentication industry has sprung up to combat it.
For $17 your card is sent by secure carrier to experts employed by CGC in Florida who use various technological techniques to date the items and confirm the autograph is real. This process is also done for items like comic books signed by the artists, and sports and celebrity memorabilia.
A private comic book dealer I spoke with in Livonia told me comics and drawings signed specifically by the late iconic figures like Jack Kirby and Stan Lee are particularly prone to fraud due to their value on the market, making authentication essential.
Autograph seeking has exploded, evidenced by the long lines of fans at the convention waiting hours to get their preferred item signed and a selfie with their favorite actor. A group of Gen X ladies I spoke with paid several hundred dollars to get a group photo with the two actors from “Scream” at the Motor City Convention.
This was not an investment by professional collectors, it was wild-eyed love for a film series.
I’m sympathetic. I too have waited in lines to get autographs from William Shatner and others, but this feels a bit played out as celebrity culture has become too self-serious, cold, and consumerist. Selfies costing upwards of $100? Come on, get real.
Selling nostalgia is big business, and for many of these celebrities—most of them D-List—it’s probably how they make the notes on their energy-efficient abodes and effete lifestyles. It beats actually working for a living.
Always more interesting is the attendees, pulled from all ages and swaths of middle-class suburbia. The main driver of this entire industry is Gen X. My generation is the one targeted by what’s now become a pop culture industry.
Case in point: A man named Rob Taylor works under the banner HEROFIED ART to create metal print art with incredible skill that pulled in GenXer dads like a magnet. Taylor displays his eye-popping images of classic Star Trek and Star Wars ships seemingly traveling at blazing speed with iconic quotes from films emblazoned on the bottom edges of each print.
A Connecticut native I’ve seen before at various comic cons around the Midwest, Taylor is known to the famous actors of films he’s immortalizing with his art. Taylor’s motivation for his endeavor of passion is simple and perfect: “I never grew up.”
Scanning his displays, I fixate on one specific image: A Gunstar from the 1984 film “The Last Starfighter.”
“Dude, that the one, right there,” I said, as if finding my own personal Holy Grail.
I find myself handing over cash to Mr. Taylor, hands trembling with nostalgia for a piece of art reaching the deep recesses of my inner 10-year-old, knowing full well my significant other will never let me hang this in the family room.
Walking away, I turn to McCullough.
“I gotta get the f— outta here, dude.”
Jay Murray is a writer for Michigan Enjoyer and has been a Metro Detroit-based professional investigator for 22 years. Follow him on X @Stainless31.
