I spent the weekend before last in New York.

Comic Con was in San Diego.

I DEMANDED THAT THE WORLD GIVE ME AN “I’D RATHER BE AT COMIC CON” T-SHIRT.

I didn’t get one.

But then I sighed and spent the weekend taking breaks from novel writing to follow the Tumblr feeds of queer fandoms and spent a great deal of time squeaking so loudly that my girlfriend kept jumping. (They finally sat Lana Parrilla and Jennifer Morrison together for photos, interviews, and panels. Lesbian devotees of Once Upon a Time–myself among them–nearly died from all the feels.)

One consolation for missing the most widely celebrated geek event of the year was that Tumblr feed. Another was the amount of work I got done.

And the third consolation was my set of memories from New York Comic Con a couple of years ago.

Now don’t get me wrong, I had a blast. John Barrowman took a picture with my friend and grabbed her ass (her face was absolutely priceless), and I filmed two of my friends’ engagement (and took pictures at the same time; I’m talented that way).

But I was also lonely.

I had to search for queerness, for narratives and celebrations of narratives that don’t centralize able-bodied white straight cis masculinity. Yep, there was GeeksOUT and a bunch of fantastic Japanese Harry Potter slash fan art/fic zines. My biggest regret is that I went to catch up with the straight folk who were calling my name and didn’t buy any/spend all damn day reveling in their glory. (My other big regret is wearing those boots. I looked sexy, but damn did they hurt. People don’t lie when they tell you to wear comfy shoes to Comic Con, cosplay permitting.)

But for the most part, it was… lonely. Even though there were so many people around.

We have our own guides to getting around Comic Con, our own events. Which is amazing. It’s amazing that we have our panels, our workshops, our social spheres. Absolutely amazing.

And it’s also isolating. So much so that even when we have our own Comic Cons–Flame Con, anyone?–we know that we need to market ourselves as being “family-friendly.”

So maybe it’s alright with me that I spent the weekend writing my own queer fairy tales instead of searching for them among all the queer-baiting in the media and queerphobia and racism at Comic Cons themselves.

Jennifer Polish

Jennifer Polish is an English PhD student at the CUNY Graduate Center in NYC, where she studies non/human animals and the racialization of dis/ability in young adult literature. When she’s not yelling at the computer because Netflix is loading too slowly, she is editing her novel, doing activist-y things, running, or giving the computer a break and yelling at books instead. Contact Jennifer at staff@LawStreetMedia.com.

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