This is a comic book convention

And this is, sort of, what it looks like. A blur of people, and storm troopers, and a few too many very obese young men. "Gamers," I'm told. Thousands of artworks for sale, most of them on pirated themes which I am sure Disney, DC, or Marvel could sue about, only it's not worth their while to pursue small-bore artistic license and capitalism run amok. Much of the art very, very good -- which leads me to ask, what could be produced by these same men, if they lived in another time and drew and painted Renaissance-style original commissions, rather than endless dragons, glorious cumulus clouds, Batmans, and buxom young women with impossible thighs?

After several hours, the crowd becomes so thick that there is nothing for anyone to do but keep on circulating, keep on shuffling around booths of art and trinkets whose wares go unadmired and unbought because no one can step out of the herd to look, judge, and spend. A scientist with a camera poised far above the hall could probably look down and record all the people moving as a single unit, obeying properties of physics involving mass and volume and waves.

And who knew that tonight's fun culminates in a Masquerade Ball -- Zombie Edition, the drinks and the dancing lasting from 8 p.m. to midnight? Perhaps we two single ladies left too soon.