This is KPBS midday edition. I'm Maureen Cavanagh author Richard Andrii only grew up in San Diego going to Comic Con. Now he's written a novel that uses a pop culture convention as the backdrop to a dark comedy about unlikely heroes. K PBS arts reporter Beth Comando speaks with the author will be signing copies of battle at the comic expo at mysterious Galaxy bookstore. Richard your roots in San Diego go quite deep. So tell people a little bit about kind of your connection to San Diego and how that ties into pop culture. I was raised in San Diego is three months old when my family moved there from Massachusetts and at 13 my brother in law took me to my first comic con down when it was at the convention and performing arts center in San Diego. He saw that you know I like to be Superfriends cartoons and the Spiderman cartoons on TV. And then when he took me to my first comic con my mind was blown away because it wasn't just the comic books that those cartoons were based on it was also things from the UK British science fiction series or anime shows from Japan that I had never heard of. And it just immediately captured my imagination and made me want to learn more and I just dove in head first and became very proud and active fanboy from 13 years old on. And you were also part of the Rocky Horror Picture scene down here in San Diego as well. I was. Yeah. Well you know it's interesting because San Diego is a big city and yet in those worlds especially back in the day there was a great overlap. So when I was in Comic Con I met a group of friends who also did the SCA the Society for Creative Anachronism which is the Renaissance Middle Ages Historic Society. I got really actively involved with those guys and that group of friends who are all high school and early college also did Rocky Horror at the camp theater. So you know when you're 15 16 17 you can't go to bars and you were just getting your license. You went where your group of friends went in all of it was so very counterculture and different. And unlike the stuff that I was seeing around me growing up in La Mesa and San Carlos. It's interesting because in those groups you sort of find your place you find the thing that you're good at. And I was a theater kid in high school so going to Rocky Horror was crazy because I looked like Barry Bostwick. I had dark hair and you could put those Buddy Holly glasses on me and I would kind of look like him and so next thing you know they're asking me if I'll perform the Brad majors role for the live cast. Dancing in front of a movie screen. And why not. It was just a fun thing and I was immersed in everything that San Diego fan culture had to offer. Now you've turned some of this immersion in pop culture in San Diego into a new book that you've written called the battle at the Comic Expo. It's not called Comic Con but everything about it to anyone who's been the comic knows of what you're referencing. So how did this book come about. When I was 15 I first started volunteering for Comic Con and I volunteered in a number of the departments the registration department the Treasury Department special events and that was another just group of wonderful people in my life. But because I was a fan of action movies and comic books and cartoons I thought what would happen if a crisis ever broke out at Comic Con where it happens in a world filled with people who believe in heroism and grow up sort of feeding off of those concepts. Could those people who are fans of heroism actually step up and become a hero when they're called to action. And I wrote a version of it as a movie. I wrote a version of it as an early book. Finally was able to come to this version where I really honed in on three characters only the conventions and being able to zone in on the three main characters allowing me to kind of explore the convention in a real knowing way that you would only know if you had volunteered for the organization. But it also got to get to the core of what it means to be a hero and how heroism isn't as black and white as we often like to think it is when we're immersed in these you know Marvel Entertainment action movies or a cartoon series or something like that. You mention that you get into some of the detail of going to comic con what that's like. So I want to play a little clip from your audio book just to kind of set the scene for Comic Con from your point of view. But just then a soft subtle scent hit his nose. The dry dusty age smell of old comics magazines and paperback books. A chill ran up Joe's arms to his shoulders neck head and then down his back. When people talk about the smells of a convention like America's finest comic book expo they often joke about fanboys with an inability to practice proper hygiene. Joe knew those tales were true. He'd been caught downwind of soiled clothes on a sweat soaked person. Gender didn't really apply to these stories. But for Joe the real scent of a comic book convention and this one in particular was this the smell that had invaded his soul when he was 15 and attending for the first time. Back then the scent had heralded all the adventures waiting to be discovered in those aging pages. A few years later it became the center of possibility. That too was a simpler time when Joe still lived at home and didn't have to worry about rent or car payment or utility bills. Last time when he could spend hours drinking coffee and writing story ideas character studies and possible scenes in the leather bound journal his high school English teacher had given him as a graduation gift to encourage him to continue following his passion. It was this sense memory from a time when he knew knew that his would be like all those other writers words printed on paper sealed in plastic protective bags just waiting to be devoured by some eager fan. Joe felt safe warm out of his funk. I didn't want to go in making fun of the fans because the fans were my heroes growing up. The fans were the ones who accepted me for who I was who embraced me for being the weird oddball kid living in la Mesa. I really wanted to get into that side of the fan brain not the side that everybody can sit and look at and laugh at. But the real depths of what it is to be a fan and who these people are now having been at Comic Con from some of its early years and seeing where it is now. What are your feelings about it. That's a really great question because I'm conflicted Comic Con has just grown and evolves. Right. And if I look back to that first convention and I see the things that had happened year after year in terms of its growth and I see how Hollywood has become a part of Comic Con. But I also see how comic con organizers have made a concerted effort to keep comics central to the show and they provide a ton of comics programming. I look at that and go Well that's just the natural evolution of it. Now personally when I go to a comic con it's hard for me now because I want to hang out with all of those friends of mine who volunteer for the organization but they're still working. So I'm conflicted in a purely selfish way that I don't have the ability to have the same relationship with my friends at comic con that I used to have. But then that's just how life is. You know we our friendships grow and change and evolve. And in the same way his comic con. That was PBS arts reporter Beth Accomando speaking with Richard Andreoli. He is author of Battle of the Comic Book Expo and he will be at mysterious Galaxy bookstore this Saturday at 2pm.
A pop culture convention much like Comic-Con provides the backdrop for Richard Andreoli's new novel "Battle at the Comic Expo." He will be at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstore Saturday, Sept. 1, to sign books.
Andreoli grew up in San Diego and started going to Comic-Con at the age of 13. He said his "mind was blown" by all the pop culture available at the convention, even back in those early days. Andreoli's love for the convention led him to not just attend, but to volunteer to work at the annual event. That experience inspired him to write the novel "Battle at the Comic Expo."
Anyone familiar with Comic-Con will notice details in the novel that feel directly lifted from that pop culture convention. But the story is a work of pure fiction.
Andreoli wanted to see what might happen if you took an obsessed fan, the most arrogant man working in comics, and the head of security and threw them into a crisis situation with the world's largest comic book convention as the setting.
"I was a fan of action movies and comic books and cartoons. I thought, 'What would happen if a crisis ever broke out at Comic-Con?' where it happens in a world filled with people who believe in heroism and grow up sort of feeding off of those concepts. Could those people who are fans of heroism actually step up and become a hero when they are called to action?" Andreoli said.
The book captures the feel and flavor of the real Comic-Con in its fictional America's Finest's Comic Book Expo. Andreoli writes as an insider so he is never making fun of the geeks, fans and cosplayers, but rather as someone who appreciates all that a pop culture convention offers in terms of passion, obsession, dreams and acceptance of those who don't necessarily feel they fit into the mainstream.
So Andreoli tackles the stereotypes of the nerdy guy with poor hygiene and then refocuses our attention on what a comic book convention really means to someone who loves it. In Andreoli's case, it's that particular and intoxicating smell of old paper of a boarded and bag vintage comic book.
Andreoli will be at Mysterious Galaxy Bookstores to sign books, answer questions and read selections at 2 p.m., Saturday.
You can also listen to Andreoli reminisce about the Ken Cinema and his time performing with the live cast for "The Rocky Horror Picture Show."
