Here at Comic-Con, and I don't really know what to think about it. It seems so incredibly different just from six years ago, and it was pretty noisy and crowded then.

Hanging out at the Keenspot booth, there've been some really nice folks there. But maybe it's me, but there's this overwhelming sense that no one really wants to look at comics anymore. And it's not just my book, sitting among dozens. It's all the people passing by, barely registering any interest or wonder. Why should they? This is a whole pile of archaic stuff, a dime a dozen, all written by people who, like me, love the craft more than the audience loves them.

Allan was telling me about how movie studios are starting to rethink their traditional presence at Comic-Con, because the geek community is doing them no favors. The geeks aren't providing the free publicity they're supposed to be doing. Now, this may be because the product is as soulless as they claim, or it may be because there's such a glut of entertainment out there that they feel free to pick pieces and choose others. Or it may be that one is the result of the other.

I do not honestly feel that free market entertainment, with the millions of choices it provides, creates more fulfilling works. Instead, it creates disposable niche-oriented mediocrity. The masses of creators out there, from the top studio executives, to the lowly comic artists such as myself, are forced to cut corners to get MORE out there, to get quickie entertainment ready, or someone else will beat them to it. It's the fastest with the mostest. It's about product. And as much as we all like to fool ourselves that we're all putting the care into our work that it deserves... I don't think we are. And it's not a failing on our part... why work so hard when something else will come along and outshine what you've done just by being more recent, by being the "latest thing"?

I know the natural response to this is "Don't tar all of entertainment with the same brush" or "Speak for yourself, rodent"... but doesn't it get harder to separate the wheat from the chaff when we're surrounded by a whirlwind of media, forcing us to always reassess the worthiness of what we're doing? Even if we're happy in our niches, do we just allow ourselves to become complacent, knowing we belong somewhere?

I'm as guilty as the next consumer. (Yes, consumer.) I have my iPod, I'm writing on the internet and there's no way I could sort everything at Comic-Con in terms of value. We have more, more, more available to us... and more has become less. All of us artists could stand to grab a mop more often, but we're being held hostage by our muses, and the hope of the immeasurable metric of "ultimate success".

People are welcome to look at this differently. Me, I'm drowning, and wonder how the water level got so high.