Core Fandom

Some of you know that I can play “Six Degrees of Separation” game like a champ; it should come as no surprise that I need considerably less than six to get to Stan Lee.

Now is not the time or place to explain in great detail; I only bring it up because it’ll help explain my shocked, but not shocked reaction to the reports of the attempted theft of a centerpiece model at the Scottsdale Stampede.

Comic Book Fandom and the Model Horse Hobby have a lot in common; not only are the social dynamics fairly similar, but there is also a perception among casual participants of each activity that the “core” of it – people, places, activities – is much larger, distant and anonymous than it actually is.

I had been a casual participant in Comic Book Fandom for years. One day I decided to get more involved – by responding to an open invitation to join an APA in a letter column.

What seemed inaccessible – hanging out with the movers and shakers, artists and writers, and all the BNPs – suddenly wasn’t. It was both exhilarating and disorienting to find my new friends gleefully teasing Jim Shooter, making idle conversation with George Perez, and overhearing industry insider gossip both salacious and mundane….

My experience with Comic Book Fandom came with the revelation that the actual dedicated “core” of most hobby communities isn’t that large, and isn’t that remote. It just takes a very modest bit of effort to step it up to the next level.

So anyway, back to this incident. The fact that some hobbyists exhibited bad behavior at a hobbyist-oriented event is not unusual. I have been in the hobby now for over 40 (ulp!) years, and I have seen many things, some of them quite bad.

If you’ve been to BreyerFest even once, you’ve seen or heard similar things.

While there’s some degree of anonymity at an event like BreyerFest (that allows bad things to happen with little in the way of consequences), there is not much room for error at an Exclusive Event (with only 200 participants, many of them repeat customers).

Who are broken into groups of fifty people each.

Where you have to provide proof of your identity when you show up to pick up your models (yes, even me).

And where almost everyone is taking multiple pictures of everyone and everything.

So while I am not shocked that an attempt was made, I am shocked that it was attempted at what is essentially a “core fandom” event: this is the last place on Earth you should try to pull a stunt like that.

You might think you’re anonymous, but trust me: for better or for worse, you’re not.

(FYI: mostly for the better. But you knew that already.)