“After New York Comic Con, we’ll have done a year’s worth of conventions in four months.”
I was on a call with my editor when he said this, and it’s stuck with me ever since. He’s right, as it turns out; the weird scheduling of comic shows this year — driven in part by late planning and a belief earlier in the year (and late last year, for that matter) that COVID might be a thing of the past by now — meant that a series of big events that would traditionally run from March through October have instead all been squashed into a tiny window between the end of June and the start of October… and I’ve done almost all of them.
(I signed up for my job too late to attend things like Star Wars Celebration or Florida Supercon, as it happens. Everyone else was there, though.)
It’s something that I’ve found particularly useful to keep in mind when I’m feeling tired or run down lately; as I write, there’s another convention happening — D23 Expo, in Anaheim, California — because, of course there is. The way things feel right now, there’s always another convention happening somewhere, and even if I’m not there, I’m working it somehow. I’m not at D23, but I’m part of the support team, writing stories and quick news hits from home connected to what’s being announced.
There’s actually another convention this weekend, right here in town, that I don’t have time to attend… because I’m working as support for the California one. There’s a strange point being made there, I feel, even if I don’t know what that point actually is.
Maybe the point is that I’m not imagining that things feel a little too non-stop right now. There’s a year being squashed into four months, and I’m squashed in there with it, trying to find space to do everything while keeping up with the outside world.