NOTES: one nerd to rule them all. for the SELFIES task, featuring the word COMPETITION. WC: 778
Just as he suspected, Nerds and Java was packed. But, that wasn’t surprising, considering the prize at stake. It was one thing to toss a gift certificate someone’s way, but four-day all access passes to Comic Con? Sam couldn’t pass it up. There were people there dressed in all kinds of costumes, taking up every bit of space on the comics side of the shop and spilling over into the attached coffeehouse, milling around the tables and waiting for the competition to begin.
Leave it to a bunch of nerds to take this seriously. Sam squeezed past a group of people, all in various Avenger getups poring over their phones, no doubt boning up on wiki articles about influential comic book artists of the last century.
It wasn’t that serious, not for him. If he won, great. If not, he could always find a good livestream of the panels and wait for the trailers with every other unlucky bastard, as he’d done for years. But it seemed foolish to waste the opportunity, at least now that he was living in California and a few blocks away from a place offering free tickets that, at any point prior, the cost would have cleaned out his bank account.
The flyer had been pretty vague about the kind of competition, and as he sipped his coffee from the insulated to-go cup and leaned against a shelf piled high with Hellboy serials, he watched the others and guessed that the general consensus seemed to be a trivia challenge. Those, he was always spotty on. It wasn’t a goal for him to be the most well-versed in multiverses. He liked what he liked and if he didn’t know something, he didn’t bullshit as if otherwise.
But judging from the din of voices rising in arguments about issues and powers, and which X-Men had actually become an Omega level mutant in which year and the preferred brand of ink pen for a famous comic artist, he was certain his laidback approach was the exception, not the rule.
Not even ten minutes later, one of the workers announced the start of the competition and anyone looking to sign up, there was a sheet, but with a limited number of spots, over at the checkout area. And while Sam reasoned they probably could have handled it better, but as luck would have it, he was actually standing the closest to the checkout counter and it was a matter of a slight pivot, grinning as he met the surprised laughter of the girl behind said counter who congratulated him on his luck as the din of scraped chairs and hurried footsteps increased behind him.
First on the list, in the top spot with ten overall, Sam was able to settle back in his leaning position against the shelf. The air of nonchalance persisted, even through yet another announcement for the competitors to meet up at the long table towards the back of the shop, where a stack of sketchbooks and packs of drawing pens and pencils greeted them. And Sam couldn’t help but laugh, even as the guy beside him groaned audibly.
The books were passed around and he plucked a pencil from one of the packs. Long fingers ghosted over the cover of his sketchbook, feeling the rush that typically came to him at the feel of new art supplies. Memorization and trivia and all that fanboy posturing wouldn’t help much in an impromptu art show. Thirty minutes to design a comic panel featuring characters of their own creation and while that kind of pressure seemed to unnerve at least half the people sitting at the table, Sam was relaxed. Perhaps it was the coffee, or just the excitement of getting to draw on the fly. He hadn’t experienced something so off the cuff since art school. It was these things that made him fall in love with the process.
Sometimes it was fun to simply shut off his thoughts and see where his creativity could wander. His character didn’t have a name but she had a killer suit and was versed in hand to hand combat and questionable puns. It was a little rough, considering the time constraint and the lack of proper coloring, but the finished result, a four-panel short about a baker by day, badass by night who defeated evil with cupcake bombs and magic kitchen cookery was a clever hit. ‘Sweet Justice’ was the name, silly and sugar laden but an hour later Sam was walking out with Comic Con passes safely tucked in an envelope and a renewed sense of energy and confidence in his artwork.
Shame Shame,
that ambition be
in quarrel
with obligation,
with, "supposed-to".
That he lacks your
ambition
means little.
That he takes you
to heart
is what stings.
The ignominy
of having
little worth
but his own,
what he sees
as his glory.
Glory is,
alas,
subjective.
The ambitious
successes, mere failures--
Wisps on the fingertips,
a ghost within grasp,
like a long-love, lost-love
conjugating conjugally,
smearing on
the smoky nuptials.
