There is no Super Bowl of comic books. But there are conventions.

To the naked eye there are a couple thousand people here at C2E2 on the second day of three at McCormick Place. Probably more than 10,000 people pass in and out over the course of the weekend.

The mass includes everyone involved in the comic industry the artist, writers, editors, hopefuls looking to one day be artists or writers, costumed super hero impersonators, merchants selling every variety of brightly colored t-shirt, video game, plush doll or the occasional comic book and the fans.

It’s mostly the fans. Some are wandering around on the floor of the convention center (it’s something that is a cross between a mall and a fantasy camp with comic writers instead of baseball players) others are at panels which are kind of like college lectures from comic book people, except the lecture halls have more sexy costumes than most colleges and the only people who have to write papers are the media. From a totally non-scientific poll I took I would guess that at least a third of these folks aren’t from around here.

Some of the fans here are hopefuls. Hopeful to make comics or make comics that more people read, hopefuls wanting to draw comics or find someone to draw their comic ideas. They can offer up questions to editors and established creators.

They can get vague suggestions and responses to vague questions like, “how do you deal with writer’s block,” and, “where do you get your ideas?” My favorite exchange of the weekend of this type went like this:

Convention attendee and aspiring writer:
“Do you think, that as some writers suggest, one should ...