A Few Thoughts on Improving Panels at Conventions

Written by Joel T. Lewis

As I continue to attend Denver Comic Con year after year, and especially as I have been lucky enough to attend as a media guest as a part of the NTG staff, I believe I’m finally zeroing in on the genre of panel discussion that I get the most of out of [from a content standpoint]. Panels are tricky beasts in that it can be difficult to suss out the panel’s desired audience either from vague or too specific titling, too broad, or too specific content, or from too vague or specific specialization in the panel participants. 101 panels, or those concerned with fostering diversity, inclusivity, and positive fandom environments are often filled with an audience to whom the information presented is not new, and the desired audience, those that would be swayed or galvanized by the panel’s presentation of acceptance, are not in attendance. It’s these kind of panels that force me to ask myself, Is Comic Con for adults, or is it for children? In no way do I mean this question to cheapen the community fostered by Comic Conventions, but rather to sharpen in my own mind, what the greater purpose of the Con is or, perhaps what it should be. If these panel discussions of the basics of inclusivity are aimed at children, at generating in the youth of fandom an informed and nuanced understanding of concepts like body-shaming, bullying, gate-keeping, and fostering diversity then they are not reaching that audience. The same is true if these panels are aimed at aging fans with backwards and damaging views of inclusivity. Now look, we all enjoy the celebrity panels, and screaming our heads off as David Tennant regales us with tales from the set of Doctor Who, or when Kevin Conroy says ‘I am the night!’ for the millionth time on stage, it’s fun and it stokes that fire of fantasy and imagination in us all as we are made to feel a part of these stories, these pop culture staples that we’ve come to build who we are around. It’s why I light up at those flashy big panels that put me in the same room as Batman, or Weird Al, but if I’m honest with myself, those panels, and their impact on this art we love, these stories we fill our wells from, don’t hold a candle to the potential of some of these smaller discussions.

Honest, candid discussions of representation in popular culture, rooms full of the bullied, the quiet, and the hopeful letting each other and especially kids know that it's okay to be a nerd, that it's okay to have a new perspective, that their voice is important, that their voice is necessary to our community; this is the potential impact of the smaller panels. I don’t think we’re going to shout down the belligerent fanboys, it makes me sad to think that’s the case but it's true. They won’t come to our panels. They’ll avoid them by their very titles. So who do we focus on? Who do we target these panels for? Kids. Young ignorant entitled people grow into old ignorant entitled people, but Comic Con provides a perfect venue for shaping young, enthusiastic, and impressionable minds. They’re already in the door, for lack of a better phrase, lured by the massive spectacle of guests, cosplay, fun, and community.

We’ve all experienced the awkward silence of the uncool teacher attempting to relate to their students through pop culture. It feels cheap, condescending, and disingenuous because it’s a tool, it’s a flimsy facade meant to engage you in material that you don’t find particularly interesting. But the Comic Con panel as a vehicle for education is impervious to that sense of falsehood we recognize in the classroom. Here be Nerds! And the beauty is that their passion, their expertise, and their critical analyses have their origin on the fan side of the dividing line, and are not some dubious strategy with a thin connection to common curriculum.
 
All of this is to say that the important work, the crucial impact that the Comic Con panel discussion can contribute is in the vein of education, and to that end it is necessary that panels accurately represent themselves and their intended audience in how they’re named, the content they cover, and the panelists they’ve assembled. Now I did mention that I believe the important target group for these discussions ought to be kids, however that is not to say that there is no value in the panel discussion for adults. I think there ought to be very clear distinctions between introductory, 101, and overview discussion panels (targeted specifically towards kids and young adults) and deeper, more nuanced presentations of how the fandom community can foster inclusivity and suss out themes, commentaries, and nuances of their respective fandoms. This is an area where I see the need for improvement. These more nuanced discussions, and DCC definitely provides a multitude of them, suffer from a number of hobbling factors leaving this intermediate or advanced level panel attendee group frustrated and unsatisfied.

In order for these more nuanced discussions to be effective they have to be just that: nuanced. Oftentimes these discussions dedicate huge chunks of their truncated time to overviews of the topics being discussed, leaving less time for the desired discussion to take place, and even less time for questions from the audience. These panels feel as though they see the need to catch up the audience on the topic being discussed rather than focusing on the specifics of the discussion that they’ve advertised through their panel descriptions and titles.

I believe that a clearer sense of panel progression might be a way of combating this trend, designing panels as components of a larger study if you will. Using DCC’s three-day format as a guide, panels could progress from overview foundations the first day, to intermediate the second, and finally advanced on the third day. This would be a clear cut format indicating to panelist and attendee alike that those discussions on later days would skip the foundation component and start right into discussion with the assumption that those in attendance are familiar with the material. This concept of panel titles indicating parts of a series are currently in place but they exist only in order to distinguish between panels on the same subject with difference panelists such as Batman in Comics I & II, or panels/demonstrations on the same subject tailored to different age groups like Creating Fantastical Creatures Workshop I (ages 3-12), and II (ages 13+). The idea of a three-part panel course over the length of the convention, broken up by expertise would indicate clearly to attendees and panelists how far into the weeds a discussion can lead, alleviating the need to rehash the basics, and freeing up the more knowledgeable panel seeker to skip the primer panels.

Time constraints are another major issue. Obviously, shorter panel runtimes mean that you can provide more panels, and though that is a hard point to argue, an hour (which is the average panel length) can fly by in the depths of an engaging discussion, or creep along at a snail's pace if the content is not interesting. One minor adjustment that would allow in depth discussions to breathe without being cut short, would be a longer buffer period between panels. DCC currently allows for 10 minutes between panels, which is great for quick turnover from panel to panel and jam packing the weekend with as many discussions as possible, but it doesn’t allow for much wiggle room. This can be frustrating as the distance between panels increases for both panelist and attendee, and instead of a thoughtful leisurely stroll to the next discussion as both groups dash from meeting room to meeting room, panting into microphones and hastily testing computer hookups.

Guaranteeing the quality and expertise of panelists is another component critical to how effective these smaller panels are. For example, a panel on diversity composed entirely of middle-aged white men is from the jump lacking the perspective and experience necessary to give their discussion any credibility, the same way that a panel of exclusively comic book artists would have no credible expertise sitting on a novel-writing panel. Ensuring that the panel participants can speak with authority about the content of their panel is crucial to the credibility of the panel, and to a certain extent, the Convention as a whole. Unprepared moderators and misinformed or inappropriate (in terms of area of study or expertise) panelists can be especially detrimental to the introductory or 101 style discussions as they present to an impressionable audience who have sought out such panels for a foundation in a new subject. These first impressions are important and it is critical that with topics like inclusivity and diversity that the foundation is clear, informed, and coming from panelists whose research or anecdotal experience is relevant to the discussion.

Now I spend a lot of time on the merchant side of Comic Con, as my growing Moon Knight collection and comically empty wallet can attest, but panels make or break my experience every year. A poorly presented panel can sour your whole day as you consider how much time you wasted there, the panel you decided not to go to instead, and the mad dash you made to make it there in time while an especially stimulating panel puts a renewed spring in your step. These are effective teaching venues and great forums for interacting with the community of fandom when executed with care and I sincerely cannot wait until next year’s Denver Comic Con and the new panels that’ll come along with it! Until Next Time, Geek On!

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