Andrew J. Lederer

Two things I've enjoyed attending every year are the San Diego ComiCon, usually in July, and Cinecon, in Los Angeles in early September.

ComiCon is the largest "comic book convention" in the world. That is, it started as a comic convention. It's now really a pop culture convention and trade show, focusing on movies, TV, animation, books, magazines, fan creations and the arts in general. I've seen the likes of Ian McKellen, Angelina Jolie and Quentin Tarantino there and also people like Vin Sullivan, the editor who said "yes"to "Superman" back in the '30s after so many others had said "no".

In fact, at one session, someone mentioned how -- to be published as a comic book -- the panels of Superman, which had been pushed as a newspaper strip, had to be reconfigured in various ways. At that moment, an older gent in the room volunteered some information it seemed no one to that point had known -- he had been the one to make those changes.

So that they could publish the first Superman comic -- Action #1.

The beginning of comics as we know them.

Which spawned an industry that's grown to the point where the big entertainment companies have people out in force at this celebratory event. There are parties thrown by Warner Bros., Cartoon Network (which are really two parts of the same company) and other corporate giants, featuring food and drinks and gifts -- sometimes in a cool old converted industrial loft or some other aesthetic wonder. (Sometimes not.)

The event takes up the entire San Diego Convention Center, a space now larger than it was when they held the Republican Convention there a few years back. I love being surrounded by the colors and iconography of a century or so of popular culture and though I'm not particularly a follower of comic books, it always feels like the place to be and I have many friends who also go there every year. (In fact, a lot of L.A.-based comics can often be found there. I've seen Patton Oswalt, Brian Posehn, Kathy Griffin, David Cross, Bob Odenkirk and more.)

Just over a month later, there is Cinecon, an annual event more limited in scope and reach but which can be equally thrilling (or even moreso).

This event is devoted to silent and early sound films and during the 1990s, I met many veterans from both sides of the camera including stars of the silent screen, like Buddy Rogers, who had been Mary Pickford's husband and starred in the first film to win the Best Picture Oscar, 1928's "Wings" -- the only silent ever to win the award. (In fact, I met him in the very room where the first Academy Awards had been held!)

Also, people like Louise Rainer (winner of two Best Actress Oscars in the 1930s), Mickey Rooney, Robert Stack, Eddie Albert, Fayard Nicholas (of the Nicholas Brothers, perhaps the greatest tap dancers who ever lived), Cesar Romero, Alice Faye, Mae Clark (the woman who got a grapefruit pushed into her face by Cagney) and even more amazing film pioneers I can't at the moment remember. (Oh, yeah -- like, 'f'rinstance, one of the guys who wrote "Casablanca". And the guy who did the costumes during the golden days at MGM. And... )

And all day, from Thursday night 'til Monday afternoon, they show early movies in pristine 35mm prints in a movie palace on Hollywood Boulevard, exactly as they were meant to be seen

Amazing.

Then came the first time I visited the Fringe, in 2001.

I had come for a few days to see an all-star charity show a friend was putting on. He had brought over some other friends who helped with the project and one of them was a voice actor named Will Ryan, who has been -- among other creations and recreations -- Goofy in some latter-day Disney cartoons. Will and I wandered around Edinburgh together and, after losing ourselves in the festival's wonders, he asked me something like, "Is this now going to become part of the annual calendar like San Diego and Cinecon?"

Well, this year, for the first time in many years, I did not go to the San Diego ComiCon. I couldn't afford both San Diego and Edinburgh and the choice was clear.

I am now in London. The fact that I went to/stayed in London after Edinburgh means that I did not go to Cinecon in early September.

My favorite annual New York street fair, the Atlantic Antic, is this weekend. I will not be there.

I'm doing a gig tomorrow night and Saturday and Sunday. I've been hanging here with people I really like.

I'm a guy who loves old actors, old comedians, old New York, old traditions but in Merrie Olde England, I feel I am looking forward and not back.

Amazing.

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