Pronoun Problems: A Novel About Friendship, Transgender and (eventually) Ninjas

46 - One Hundred Percent Support

If you've ever called a technical support line for a major corporation, you've had at least one moment — probably a lot more — when you got so frustrated and angry at the person on the phone that you just wanted to scream at them. And maybe you did.

"Listen to me, Mary Smith!" — which was the name she had given you, but was clearly bullshit since she had an almost impenetrable Pakistani accent, and while you were no expert you were fairly confident that there were no Mary Smiths working at this call center in Karachi — "This is the third time I've called here and nobody can help me and I just want my fucking cable modem to fucking work!"

You might or might not have felt better. But one thing was for sure: You screamed at the wrong person. Because Mary Smith didn't make policy. Mary Smith was just following the script she was being paid to follow. And sure, maybe you asked Mary Smith to transfer you to her supervisor Bob Miller and you screamed at him, but he didn't make policy, either.

In truth, you could have spent countless hours being transferred higher and higher up the support chain — Tier 2 Supervisor Steve Jones, Tier 3 Supervisor Jim Davis, Assistant Head of Support Sally Williams and on and on and on until every permutation of WASP-y, white bread American names was exhausted — without ever getting to scream at the person who was actually responsible for your nightmare techno-clusterfuck.

I bring this up because to me when DuckGoose decided to come after us — or, more accurately, Tammy (I was just collateral damage) — it was very much like that. Except instead of tech, it was family entertainment and instead of a cable modem it was Comic-Con.

For those of you who are unfamiliar, Comic-Con was nerd Mecca. It was hugely important throughout the geek-o-sphere, but for people who work in animation attending Comic-Con was a sacred rite. What the Hajj was for Muslims, Comic-Con was for animators. (And since I know embarrassingly little about The Hajj, I suspect I will abandon this analogy sooner rather than later.) Every year under the punishing heat of the July sun, they made their pilgrimage to the hallowed ground of the San Diego Convention Center to pay tribute to their gods: The artists, actors and writers who created the entertainment that gave their lives meaning.

When I started working at DuckGoose, I had never been to Comic-Con and had no intention of ever going. But then I listened to my co-workers weave their tales of Comic-Cons past. They spoke with such passion, such reverence, about the panels they attended, the costumes they wore, their encounters with celebrities. William Shatner! Lucy Lawless! Kermit the Frog!

Hearing all this I decided that, Yeah, I still don't want to go. But it turned out that when you created an animated show, you had to, so Tom and I attended 2011 Comic-Con to help promote Suit & Tie. Although there wasn't much to promote at that point. All we had to show was a short trailer that was mixed in with trailers for other DuckGoose shows, played on a loop in the DuckGoose booth. Why this required our presence I am still not sure.

Having been forewarned about the traffic snarls that accompanied Comic-Con I chose to travel by rail which I found extraordinarily pleasant, at least compared to slogging down the 5 Freeway, hoping that a giant asteroid would put me out my misery. Also, I could buy wine on the train. The selection wasn't great — Amtrak was not exactly famous for its wine list — but it was tolerable, helping to pass the time and dampening my feeling of dread.

I had a lot of uncharitable preconceptions about what I'd find at the Convention Center. But when I actually got there and could finally see it for myself, I discovered that all of them were absolutely correct. The exhibition halls were hot, noisy, crowded and dull. But they also — and this I did not anticipate, although I should have — smelled awful. Stale air, sticky with dork sweat. It was like Anthony Michael Hall's character from The Breakfast Club had been clubbed to death, thrown into a dumpster and left there to rot.