Surfing Reddit, I am intrigued by an unusual headline: “Suicide Squad Official Comic Con Trailer.” I frown. Suicide Squad? Is this a movie about mental illness? A military thriller, perhaps? Somewhat dubiously, I play the video…
There they are: the motley crew of criminals, the veritable bevy of baddies. A cavalcade of colorful characters dancing across the screen to a jaunty tune.
…And then another.
They stomp across a ruined city street. They gleefully pummel identically-clothed, unfortunately outmatched guards.
And another.
Will Smith, morose: “Remember: We’re the bad guys.”
I am driven to learn more about this movie by an impulse I can’t quite articulate. For indeed, I initially pay no heed to the scantily clad, di-chromatically pigtailed blonde woman. She sports a fashionably torn baseball tee that bears the painfully Freudian “Daddy’s Lil’ Monster” beneath a bomber jacket branded by golden lettering: “Property of the Joker.” I dismiss her. After all, I think to myself, what’s another infantilized young thing as the token tough-as-nails-and-still-incontrovertibly-gorgeous-woman in this gang?
It isn’t until she opens her mouth that my interest is piqued.
She is in a detention center, surrounded by her fellow antiheroes and their military supervisors. “What?” she loudly asks no one in particular, her eyes darting through vacant space. “I should kill everyone here and escape?” She then smiles sheepishly, sweetly. “Sorry,” she chirps to the now-rapt audience that encircles her. By way of apology, she points to her head and explains, “It’s the voices.” A shocked silence, followed by a giggled, “I’m kidding!” and finally an ominous, under-the-breath, “That’s not what they really said.”
I then watch a recording of the Suicide Squad panel at 2015’s Comic Con. The host announces the celebrities (“Will Smith!” “Viola Davis!” “Margot Robbie!”), each of whom strides onstage and simpers accordingly as his or her name is called. Before long, this assembly of preternaturally attractive people fills the stage. Between hugs and handshakes amongst themselves, they wave to the crowd of hyperventilating fans. They promise to return next year and file out as the rabble erupts in whooping once more.
Looks fun, I muse. Maybe I should go to Comic Con next year. I laugh to myself over the absurdity of obtaining tickets to an affair notorious for selling out within seconds, but the desire remains, gnawing at me as I replay the trailer.
* * *
This was my first experience with Harley Quinn, the character.
I tried to shrug this off in the same way I so often found myself reluctantly dismissing other portrayals of the most commonly bastardized mental health issues (the disorder du jour, apparently, being schizophrenia). However, something about Quinn unsettled me, though the exact reason escaped me. As I learned more about her – that she was the Joker’s long-suffering companion and their abusive relationship had become the stuff of teenage fantasy and romantic aspiration; that many considered her a queer character whose unconventional sexuality had not been explicitly acknowledged for over two decades; that she had been known to be depicted in both the most modest and also most revealing and impractical costumes depending on the whims of the illustrator; that she was the Joker’s former psychiatrist whose utterly unprofessional devotion to her patient had arguably engendered her apparent mental illness – I realized that it was not that she embodied any one of these features, but that she embodied all of them simultaneously.
* * *
I am waiting in the (likely 1,000+ person) line that is twice wrapped around the entire convention center, standing beside a second line of attendees whose position I had lapped 45 minutes ago. I imagine we must look a little ridiculous to passersby: this company of cartoonish outfits waiting in an interminable line. We talk amongst ourselves or fiddle with our phones to distract from the mind-numbing boredom that has settled over the line like an itchy blanket to frantically cast off at the earliest sign of an entrance up ahead. We are all packed together, mingling in this melting pot of pop culture: Peter Parkers laugh with pirates joke with Picards talk with Power Rangers flirt with Princess Leias. (Pheromones are high; fantasies are higher still.) There is lots of moaning and groaning, lots of “Are we there yet?[s]” And yet, many of them paid – often hundreds or even thousands of dollars – for the privilege to wait in this line that will eventually lead them towards that holiest of holies, their annual phantasmagoric forum – the undisputed king of all nerd symposia.
“Man… do you see how many Harleys are here?”
I am finalizing interview questions on the notepad app on my phone when my ears prick at the sound of her (my?) name. I take a step out, bending one knee so I can lean just out of the queue, ensuring one boot is resolutely planted in my original place to keep the Sailor Moon squad behind me from getting any nefarious ideas. My eyes fall on two men conspicuous in their casual plainclothes. I wonder if these two are part of the press corps that attend every year to document panels. (Those wearing press badges – photographers, writers, librarians, teachers, and others – pursue assignments such as frequenting confabs or photographing costumes.) Sure enough, I notice one of the men adjusting a camera looped around his neck. The other man is pointing to a Harley a la Arkham Knight;[1] her cropped black tutu rustles as she trudges by. “So. Many. Harleys. She’s everywhere!” the pointer whispers as the photographer surreptitiously snaps a photo.
As if on cue, a procession of Harleys passes in the line to our left. Though all are members of different attendee cliques, they have magically clustered within a few yards of each other. “It’s because of Suicide Squad,” the photographer mutters as a few Daddy’s Lil’ Monsters step in line beside us. He is unable to keep the scorn from his voice. “She’s so popular right now.”
“Yeah, but man, it’s not just the movie, you know? I mean…” the pointer jerks his head to indicate a Harley sporting the trademark bomber jacket of the Bombshells series.[2] “She’s bigger than the movie. You know she’s getting her own spin-off?”
“Yeah.” The photographer squints into his viewfinder, clearly focusing his lens on a white-blonde Harley in a full body suit. She is standing next to a woman in a particularly verdant, leaf-layered leotard; they chat as Harley fingers Poison Ivy’s blazing orange tresses. The cosplayers are holding hands, animated by color and confidence, flirting with the kind of effortless familiarity usually born of a long relationship. The photographer clicks away. “Let’s see if they make her a lesbian in the new one.”
“Nah, I think she’s bi,” the pointer clarifies.
The photographer shrugs. “Whatever she is, you’re right, dude – this place is crawling with Harleys.”
He is right – it had not taken long for me to notice that Harley Quinn is far from an endangered genus at Comic Con this year. Some are of the Suicide Squad species, while others are of her more classic varieties. Some are even accompanying Jokers or cradling Harley and Joker Jrs. Despite having exchanged some meaningful nods with other Harleys over the hours, I nevertheless feel largely removed from this veritable parade of clown princesses. I consider myself a cultural counterfeit, still ill at ease in both Harley’s metaverse and this, its real-world complement. Is this how undercover detectives feel? I wonder as I linger on the Harley/Ivy couple, now sharing a pair of headphones as their wigs bounce in syncopation.
I lose myself in my thoughts until I hear a flustered, “Um…” behind me. I turn around to see a Sailor Moon expectantly batting rhinestone-encrusted false eyelashes. She tilts her head and looks past me; I follow her eyes and realize the giant lizard-man in front of me has ambled several yards ahead in the line. Oops.
I blurt an embarrassed, “Sorry,” to Sailor Moon, throwing out an extra, “My bad!” to the White Walker[3] on tiptoe a few yards behind, wizened brow furrowed as she attempts to ascertain the source of the hold-up. I jog to catch up to Godzilla, only stopping when I am almost nose-to-spine with the creature. I am careful not to crash into him as he delicately sips a pink Vitamin Water, his teal lipstick leaving a shimmering stain on the bottle’s lip. I sigh – my umpteenth of the day – and brace myself for more line-waiting. I ache to start my day, and my research. I send a telepathic plea for patience to the armored angel primping her wings a few footsteps ahead of me.
Despite my prayer, only a few minutes pass before an unbearable restlessness grips me. I peer hopefully around Godzilla, searching for any sign of an entrance – but all I see is a Dr. Who anxiously wringing his rainbow scarf. He turns to the anthropomorphic telephone booth beside him,[4] hissing, “What if we have to go to the bathroom?”
As I stifle a chuckle, something clicks deep within me: I am but one nerd vertebra (nerd-ebra?) comprising the spinal column of this behemoth sluggishly snaking its way around the convention center. I don’t even need to wait until I make my way indoors. I am enveloped on all sides by characters of comics, film, and television, knee-deep in a sticky sci-fi swamp with nowhere to trek but further into the abyss. I angle my body to get a better look at the smattering of Harleys concentrated just ahead of me and begin taking notes. My subculture safari has, in fact, already begun.
* * *
“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”
He pushes her; she falls back, screaming…
“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”
He shoves her; she tumbles to the ground, her face a grimace of petrified pain as she…
“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”
He shoves her. She tumbles to the ground, grimacing as she falls and bounces, the picture of petrified pain as she…
I am watching a clip over and over, trying my best to capture the excruciating detail of Harley’s fall. I have been at this for over fifteen minutes already before I am interrupted by a voice too faraway to be from the horror playing out repeatedly on my computer screen.
“Lauren?”
I yank my headphones out and look up from my laptop to find my roommate staring at me, forehead crinkled and mouth crooked in concern. I realize I have been visibly flinching with each replay. I un-scrunch my features, but it takes a surprising amount of effort; the discomfort I feel watching this scene still simmers behind my uneasy smile. “Sorry, I just want to get this exactly right.”
My roommate raises a quizzical eyebrow. “You probably got it down ten minutes ago.”
“I know, I know. It’s just… This is really important. I can’t let it go. Not yet.”
I no longer see a cartoon woman being brutalized by a cartoon man, but a woman being brutalized by a man. These animations take on new meaning, their significance becoming more and more profound the more I write.
I don’t know when “Quinn” became “Harley” to me. I don’t know when this – she – became more than a cartoon for me. I don’t know when this character leapt from the screen and into my emotional world, transcending her two dimensions as deftly as if she had careened into my consciousness with one of her trademark tumbling passes.
Maybe it was when I realized how closely her animated domain was tethered to my physical one – and when I allowed myself to fully consider the implications that followed. Maybe it was when I discovered that the showtune she sang in “Harlequinade” describing her life as a lovesick, beleaguered survivor of domestic abuse was not created for that moment in the series (as I had originally assumed, because how could such a chilling song actually exist?), but was in fact a product of the 1946 film Meet the People. Maybe it was when I realized the grand finale later in that same episode was actually a reference to The Honeymooners, and thus a nod to another television show in which viewers casually accepted the reality that a woman lived under the constant threat of intimate partner violence. Maybe it was when I considered how many thousands or millions of children and their parents had watched this series – how Harley had perhaps served to raise uncomfortable, necessary questions, or acted for many children as a de facto entree into adult issues.
Through the open door of my bedroom, I see some of the posters of Harley; The Woman Scorned scowls at me and The Comedian smirks at me. The posters flap in the breeze sidling in through my open window. If I squint my eyes just right, the Harleys are alive and dancing, swaying in soft undulations on my wall.
I turn back to my screen and will Video Harley to avoid the Joker’s hands this time – to somehow escape this perpetual animated prison. A few moments before the strike, she smiles. I pause the videos. If I squint my eyes just right… I square my shoulders, determined, and click “Play.”
“I said, PUT THEM BACK!”
He shoves her. She tumbles to the ground, grimacing as she bounces first on her hips, then on her shoulder…
* * *
Wonder Woman is trying to pass in front of me. “‘Scuse me,” she mumbles shyly, angling her colossal sword so as not to whack into my arm.
“Oh, so sorry!” I step out of her way, marveling at the sight, taking care to avoid being trampled by imposing winged boots. It is not until she overtakes me, lasso and all, that I notice the little Superman toddling past at her side. One of his hands grips her gleaming cuffs while the other falls from his mouth, which one moment ago had been clamped on a pudgy thumb. He swivels his gaze so as to take in his surroundings: Silver scaffolding girds glass panes that loom around us, the pipes intersecting to form geometric silhouettes superimposed against the cloudless blue sky. As we cross the cavernous room, weaving through torrents of bodies (human and otherwise), we duck fins, claws, swords, wands, and other appendages, slipping in and out of the strange shadows the pipes project onto the laminated concrete beneath us. It could be Superman’s Fortress of Solitude, if he had received a few thousand too many RSVPs to a Halloween party. It is difficult to think in this din – my thoughts moil and splinter against the cacophony that now assaults my senses. Rendered powerless in this pandemonium, I have no room in my mind to make heads-or-tails of what I am seeing – literally. An amorphous alien slips past me, a curious composite of sinew and sharp teeth, commandeering Superman’s gaze. Superman stares, mesmerized, before Wonder Woman tugs him along; he almost trips, briefly tottering on one small foot before falling in step with his companion, miniature red cape billowing in his wake.
A white dragon passes on my left. The creature inadvertently presses on my arm briefly in the crossing, its unique topography of scales and thorns and feathers imprinting a shallow relief on my skin. An amply-bosomed zombie hurries to catch up to the dragon, tapping on its wing and breathlessly requesting a selfie. Suddenly, there is pronounced shrieking a little ways to my right. I attempt to maintain my trajectory forward, but am helplessly buffeted by the crowd; I must awkwardly grapevine to stay upright as the curious flood of onlookers moves me east. When the current stops, I find myself face to face with a fluffy Pikachu[5] panting happily on his handler’s forearm. A gaggle of giggling black-plated knights asks to pet the Pokemon. Some must divest themselves of daggers and other accessories, passing spears and shields to their fellow warriors before leaning in to coo at the animal now eyeing the Pokeball his owner holds just out of reach. After a few minutes, Ash takes his leave to give Pikachu his potty break and the knights compare pictures, still squealing, as I watch the man carry the canary-yellow-dyed Pomeranian out the glass doors.
I am having fun, but I have to fight the urge to follow them outside. I am a little overwhelmed, and as the only person I see to have come alone, I have no battalion of similarly out-of-place students on which to fall back. I steel myself for a long day and plunge back into the flow of bodies.
* * *
Harley Quinn: A Recipe
I‘d like to say this is a tried and tested formulation, but really it is a matter of what I could find on hand; a creation of convenience, tailored for Comic Con. That being said, it’s a perfectly adequate presentation: noncommittal enough to represent the character across any of her iterations, but distinctive enough to appear indisputably Harley. Not too sweet, not too spicy.
- 1 pair of dark boots, sans heels (you’ll thank me later)
- 1 pair of black gloves (think studded, or steampunk)
- 1 pair of black and red leggings (preferably with colors divvied by leg, and ideally with diamond silhouettes or cutouts)
- 2 clip-in hair extensions (one red, one black)
- 1 black camisole
- 1 red short-sleeved hoodie layered over camisole
- Copious amounts of black eyeliner, red eye shadow, and maroon lipstick
- As needed: Foundation (think “ghost-tinted”)
- As needed: Sugar, spice, and (not) everything nice
* * *
My alarm rouses me all too early that first Thursday morning of Comic Con. Blearily I roll out of bed and spend two hours perfecting my ensemble. After one last look in the mirror – Is that me? – I rush down the steps of my apartment building and take a deep breath, steadying myself for the journey downtown. I open my door and defiantly lift my chin, internally challenging passersby to throw me a dirty look or untoward comment. I won’t even react. Try me.
I have apparently forgotten that this is New York City. I receive nary a raised eyebrow – no rude glances, no inappropriate wisecracks. I relax, tension ebbing with every step, until a yell rings out over the clamor of car horns and stops me in my tracks.
“Harley Quinn! You’re Harley Quinn!” I turn to the source of the call – a young man in an Oxfam shirt is waving cordially. “Right?” he asks. I am delighted to have been recognized; I practically skip as I go to shake his hand.
“That I am, sir!” No sooner have the words left my mouth that I wonder if this how Harley would greet admirers. Most likely she would say something along the lines of, “Yep, Harley Quinn, M.D., pleased ta meet y’acquaintance!” I shrug to myself. Easy there, Meryl Streep. You’re not method acting. “It’s Comic Con!” I explain, proudly brandishing my badge. “It’s my first time!”
“Aw, nice! My buddy went last year and told me it was insane.” An Oxfam-er beside him raises his eyebrows and nods in agreement.
“I’m actually doing my thesis on Harley Quinn. I’m looking at her as a prism through which audiences can situate themselves along various non-normative spectra.” My words trip out of my mouth before I can stop them, though I had promised myself earlier that I wouldn’t volunteer this information during the convention for fear of othering myself – I want my data collection to be unadulterated by ingroup/outgroup dynamics. That’s okay, Lauren, just don’t say it again.
“Yo, that’s so cool, seriously!” one of the men laughs while the other offers me a high-five.
“Thanks, I appreciate it! I’m pretty nervous about it, honestly. I don’t know much about her, or about… any of this. Comic books, DC… not quite my scene,” I confess.
“Don’t be nervous!” Oxfam-er 1 scans my outfit. “You’ll do great! I mean, you look just like her. I immediately knew who you were.” Oxfam-er 2 nods again, his eyes darting between the black and red hair extensions clipped into my pigtails.
I thank them, and with a quick, “Wish me luck!” I race to catch my subway. I break the unofficial rule of polite solitary stoicism on the train, involuntarily smiling to myself as I squeeze into the subway car. As the train pulls away, I stand shoulder to shoulder between the meticulously tailored suits of business men and women who are surely doing their best to ignore the outrageously outfitted young woman beside them grinning at nothing and no one in particular.
* * *
I reflect on the enormity of the event as I surf the crests of attendees milling about the convention center. Only the most determined fans buoy themselves upon the froth of these countless communities crashing into one another, sharing the same crowded space. The tide bears me into “Artist’s Alley,” where hundreds of illustrators, colorists, and more exhibit their work while admirers ogle stylized portraits of their favorite characters. I am transfixed by a woman across the alley brandishing what appears to be a real lightsaber, wracking my brain for a plausible scientific explanation for such an article, when my reverie is interrupted by a young man in my periphery.
“I like your Harley!”
Grinning appreciatively, I look up to meet the eyes of the artist who has paid me this compliment. “Thank you!” I cast my gaze across the colorful collage of illustrations that bedeck his booth. “I like yours, too! That one’s great.” I gesture to a cartoon portrait of a white, blonde woman wearing a cross between a French maid and a jester costume. She towers over a green-haired man in a gold shirt layered under a purple pin-stripe suit who is propped uncomfortably on the floor before her. This woman, complete with impossibly large eyes and impressively bouffant pigtails, has just delivered a staggering blow with the rolling pin she clutches in hands still trembling in outrage. I can only imagine the force of the immediately preceding smack! that has left the man at her feet pigeon-toed in pain, one finger raised in feeble protest, backside still lifted by flattened knees – as if, facilitated by Looney Tunes-style physics, he had been so quickly felled by the impact so as to send his torso crashing to the ground in advance of his still-pathetically-elevated butt. A small speech balloon reading simply, “Ow…” slithers and blooms from his head, accompanied by stars and squiggles to communicate his concussed daze, details barely noticeable under the woman’s all-caps caterwaul: “YOU’RE SEEING ANOTHER PSYCHIATRIST?!?”
The artist barely glances at the tableau; he already knows the illustration I am indicating. It is clear he has been fielding compliments on that one all day. I readjust my possessions, shifting my backpack so as not to catch on my painstakingly-pinned pigtails so as not to smear my precisely-painted lips so as not to stain my scrupulously-coordinated costume. I free up the hand holding my already-bulging bag of portraits – each of a strikingly similar woman to the one who glowers before me – and inspect the ball of bills that, to my dismay, has been rapidly shrinking over the course of the afternoon. I weigh my options: Hold on to my money for as long as possible, or surrender to the overpowering urge to purchase just one more addition to my curiously-curated collection of this cartoon muse. I sigh and unfurl my cash.
A feeling of exhaustion suddenly overtakes me; I have been perusing art in this noisy hall for hours, and the overstimulation has begun to take its toll. I watch as the lightsaber-wielding Jedi and her similarly-garbed gang exit the hall, laughing, and I must dig my heels into the hard concrete beneath me to keep myself from following them out.
Abraham Lopez
* * *
Suddenly, there she is, her usual mask-encircled eyes environed instead by a liberally-applied layer of kohl lightly bleeding down her pale cheeks. Her outfit is familiar – the “Daddy’s Lil’ Monster” raglan, the “PUDDIN’” choker – that is, until her garb seamlessly melts into blue robes draped majestically over her left shoulder. She tenderly cradles her “GOODNIGHT” bat that leans against her shoulder. It is out of her grip but not far from it, as if she has indulged herself the briefest of breaks between bashing bad guy skulls and wreaking her particular brand of bedlam in order to pose, expressionless, for this portrait. Her dip dye pigtails – bubble gum pink and Day-Glo blue – are teased into spectacularly tumescent tufts of color that almost distract from the golden halo circumscribing her head. Her portrait is printed on a prayer candle on a bookstore shelf situated between similarly depicted paragons of pop culture and politics; she rests beside candles honoring “Saint Bob Dylan,” “Time Lord Dr. Who,” Frida Kahlo, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Sanger, “Saint Ruth Bader Ginsburg,” Oliver Sacks, Princess Leia, Beyoncé, “Saint Bernie,” Sigmund Freud, and “Saint Kanye.” Some of these candles display the official “feast days” of or invocations to their particular prophet, though Her Holiness, this Madonna of Madness, bears no such benediction save for her moniker printed at the candle’s base. I wonder what community or philosophy this newly christened “Saint Harley Quinn” would claim as her patron cause (celebre), and what her patrons pray for as they prostrate themselves before her crimson pout. Our Lady of Irony, perhaps?
I call this one The Icon.
Artist Unknown
Found at The Strand Bookstore in New York City
* * *
“Did you see Suicide Squad?”
“What’s your favorite version of Harley?”
Though I am the one conducting informal interviews of the visual artists I meet, the interviewees inevitably turn these questions on me they finish elucidating their answers.
The first question warrants my quick, “Yes, and I had problems with it, too,” while the second question leaves me uncomfortable. Usually I submit an uneasy, “I don’t know yet. I’ve just begun my research.” Sometimes, if I am in the middle of a truly engaging exchange, I attempt to justify and dismiss my tepid answer: “I’m really a Star Trek fan, so while I’ve always wanted to attend Comic Con, I’m a little out of my element here.” Inevitably, I tell them I am working on a thesis on Harley Quinn. They start to open their mouths, but I already know their question, and I answer in the same way every time: “I’m-looking-at-her-as-a-prism-through-which-audiences-can-situate-themselves- along-various-non-normative-spectra.” It flows off my tongue as rapidly and unconsciously as my own name.
“Wow, that’s amazing!” They all seem sincere. Far from othering me, revealing my thesis seems to have endeared me more to my interviewees. Often, they seem almost touched. Eventually, our conversations turn towards their work. The artists thoughtfully explicate their pieces – how and why Harley is depicted – but there is a giddiness that underlies their answers. One artist confesses how nice it is to have her vocation taken seriously. Standing in the convention center surrounded by an endless ocean of attendees, creators, and panelists, it is hard to fathom why anyone wouldn’t.
Figures released in the days following the convention would estimate attendance over the four-day period at 180,000 people – the highest ever in New York Comic Con’s ten-year history.[6]
* * *
“Excuse me, can I take your picture?”
I feel a timid hand on my shoulder – the man is politely requesting I move, obviously addressing someone else. I spin, eager to photograph whatever spectacle he sees. Is it the towering Iron Man on my right, palms and eyes aglow, magnificent in red metal welded to golden mechanical joints? Or is it perhaps the Amazonian warrior glinting in armored heels on my left, leaning against a bloody spear extending several feet above her head? Maybe the life-sized teddy bear whose fur had tickled me as it lumbered past, now lounging with its cuddly compatriots a few (giant) paw-steps ahead of me? I stay in place and pivot to the gentleman behind me, preparing to track his gaze and adjust my position depending on the creature that had captured his attention. I find myself face to face with wide brown eyes looking expectantly at… me.
I blink, confused. His smile widens, encouraging me. I continue to gape stupidly for a few moments until the smallest of movements catches my eye: a young girl is clutching the man’s hand, her dark ponytail swinging as she shyly steps back. A printed Harley Quinn winks at me from her shirt, daring me to react. Something clicks deep within me, and I oblige.
“Oh… hi! Of course!” I bend my knees to reach the girl’s height and put one arm around her. The man backs away, phone at the ready, and tells us to smile. I tilt my head instinctively, my black pigtail slipping onto the girl’s slight shoulder. A half-second too late, I wonder if I should assume a fiercer pose, as the other cosplayers do when assailed by parents and paparazzi; he takes the picture, my expression surely conveying about as much danger and intrigue as would be found on Paddington’s colossal cousin in the corner of my eye, whose gargantuan paws are fumbling in vain with his iPhone.
I turn to the girl. “Is this your first Comic Con? Are you having fun?” She nods emphatically, her eyes now fixed on mine, as if she is having trouble processing the moment. “I like your shirt!” She glances at her winking Harley and looks back at me; I wink conspiratorially.
The man drops his phone into his pocket and approaches me, beaming. He gives me an earnest thank you as he ushers the girl away. I watch as they descend the steps and exit out the front doors of the convention hall, hands still clasped. She is positively bouncing, talking excitedly all the way.
I stare after them for a long time. For the first time, I have no instinct to follow them out.
* * *
On the last day of Comic Con, I can’t bring myself to dress up. I am exhausted, brimful of quotations, Harley trivia, and, most surprisingly, a calm contentment. I feel I have nothing to prove. Banished is the manic energy with which I was driven to somehow compensate for my inexperience in Harley’s world. My costume, which I originally envisioned as a perfect compromise between so many of her depictions, now seems… too limiting. It had been a stopgap measure – a means of sartorial equivocation until I knew which version of Harley was the real Harley. But now, left with more questions than answers and an increasingly umbral One True Harley, my costume feels prosaic – inadequate. A surprising nostalgia wells up in me as I neatly fold and stow my leggings.
Gone is much of the role play, paper mache melee of the days before. Sunday is the day the convention ends early. Artists and media paraphernalia purveyors get their last few hours of selling in before they dismantle their booths and set off back to their homes (often in other states, or even countries). Among those of us who attended all four days, the mood is celebratory and relieved. We did it! We made it! Panels are relaxed and introspective. I pick up some final few Harley posters and some of the artists recognize me even without my war paint.
When the convention finally draws to a close, we are all flush with a jolly exhaustion, like children deeply and truly tuckered from meeting their favorite characters at Disney World. Surrounded by both plainclothes attendees and kindly chimeras festooned with swag bags, we make our way out the glass doors for the last time, still chattering happily as we pour into the sunset.
* * *
“I like your Harley!”
It took me a shamefully long time before I realized that I had, in effect, misheard him – misheard all who had shared this sentiment throughout the convention. They were saying something else entirely.
I like your Harley.
__________________________________________________
[1] A video game in which Harley is featured.
[2] A series of graphic novels in which Quinn is featured.
[3] Of Game of Thrones fame.
[4] Of Dr. Who fame.
[5] Ash (a human) and Pikachu (a pokemon) are characters in the Pokemon universe.
[6] See MacDonald and Reid.