Robert Garcia reveals his inner Superman

PHOTO COURTESY ROBERT GARCIA

Robert Garcia was running for city council, I was riding my bike, and when we almost—literally—ran into one another on the sidewalk outside Dale’s Diner—my bad—on a crisp, sunny afternoon last winter, well, it was definitely a gotcha moment. Problem was, I had no idea what I’d got.

There was something suspicious about Garcia’s smile, which looked both amused and unnerved. Then again, I was wearing a bicycle helmet that transformed my already large head into something positively Herman Munster. Maybe Garcia was simply weirded out. Except there was also something not quite right about the dark paper bag he clutched close to his chest as he scurried down Norse Way. What the hell was going on?

“Comic books,” said Garcia, opening the bag to show me a thick roll of glossy, bound documents. “I bought them across the street. I’ve been doing this, once a week or so, for 15 years.”

I tried to arch my right eyebrow in an expression of skepticism, and Garcia immediately fell silent—in courtesy and sympathy for what he probably presumed was a particle of dust in my eye. Then he went on.

“I just buy a graphic novel or a comic book”—he nodded across the street to a shop called Pulp Fiction—“and I grab some food somewhere”—he threw his head back toward Dale’s Diner—“and I just sit there for an hour or two and enjoy it.”

Garcia explained all this nonchalantly, as if it were almost the most normal thing in the world. So he wasn’t lying. Being a comic-book geek is almost normal. And that’s what had me flummoxed.

Had I inadvertently pedaled across the most significant character issue in Garcia’s campaign for the First District council seat? The fresh-and-frat-faced 31-year-old, whose only previous runs for elected offices had been in student governments, is a comic-book freak who checks his values against Superman’s. Was this scary? Or was Garcia’s lifelong love of comic books one of those tidbits of human-interest color that brighten our endless election cycles? Should I report this? And what about possible ripple effects? Did I want it on my conscience if some nutjob went out and gave Garcia a wedgie?

Right or wrong, I sat on the story—which, by the way, delivers a physical sensation not unlike a wedgie—until now.

The Long Beach Comic Con—and let’s be perfectly clear: that’s “con” as in “convention”—is coming to town this weekend, and it looks like organizers are going to turn the downtown convention center into quite the wackenhut.

Stan Lee, the octogenarian creator of Spiderman [NOTE: IT WAS ORIGINALLY INCORRECTLY REPORTED HERE THAT STAN LEE IS THE CREATOR OF SUPERMAN], will make a ribbon-cutting appearance and attend a small gathering. That’s a special touch.

But what truly foreshadows success for this inaugural event is that the hundreds of 10’-by-10’ exhibit booths—floor-planned into sections for dealers, premier exhibitors, small-press publishers and an artists’ alley—sold out weeks ago.

The wide variety of panelists is pretty impressive, too.

Berkeley Breathed will make his first-ever comic convention appearance 20 years after he retired his famous Pulitzer Prize-winning comic strip, Bloom County. No, it’s not a coincidence that an archival collection of Bloom County is about to be released, but Breathed is a good get, anyway.

Personally, I’d be more amped to attend Saturday’s panel of Robot Chicken’s creators headed by Seth Green. It’s sort of a victory lap from their just-concluded nationwide “Robot Chicken On Wheels” tour, and will feature behind-the-scenes clips, teasers for the upcoming season and a preview of their new show, Titan Maximum.

Lots of the show is pretty technical, including opportunities for people aspiring to careers in the graphic arts to expose their work or to improve upon it.

“Because we’re doing this show for the first time, we focused its appeal on the hardcore fans,” says Martha Donato, director of the Long Beach Comic Con. “Most of our marketing has been in comic book shops. We realize that’s not going to get us very many rings out from the core of the tree, but it’s a good way to start.

Besides, it’s not as though there aren’t attractions for the more casual fans. Nintendo is a major exhibitor. If you came and said, ‘I’m lost,’ I’m sure you know about Wii. There will be Rock Band. There will be a wrestling ring.”

Some 7,000 people are expected to crowd the convention center for all of this, and a perhaps disturbing percentage of them will be dressed up like characters—Superman, Batman, the Tick—from the graphic novels, comic books, movies and television shows that have been playing out the genre’s exaggerated themes of good and evil for more than 80 years.

Garcia will be among them, all three days, from opening to closing. He’s clearly thrilled.

“I’ve been reading, not just comics, but graphic novels since I was 8 or 9 years old,” he says. “I’ve been going to the San Diego Comic Con for 10 years in a row—it’s always been the best weekend of the year for me. I’m so excited to get a convention like this in our city, something I can walk to.”

Although Garcia says he won’t be dressed as Superman—been there, done that, more Halloweens than he can count—he’s definitely putting some thought into an outfit.

“It’s funny when I go to these conventions,” he says. “I take out my old Green Lantern T-shirt, my Superman stuff, pin a bunch of buttons to my backpack. I totally geek out.”

Yeah, that is funny. But that’s not all it is.

“This is a mostly American art form,” Garcia maintains. “When you talk about superheroes, you’re really talking about an American mythology. These are the themes of good and evil in our society that have been incorporated into these myths, just like the Greeks and Romans did with their societies.”

And yet, graphic novels always seem to carry some kind of nerd quotient that just doesn’t come through in the stories from Mt. Olympus. You don’t tend to think of people who are into those myths as, oh, I don’t know . . .

“Dorks?” Garcia interjects, and although he doesn’t sound at all offended or irritated by where this conversation is going, he is speaking pointedly. “See, that’s never bothered me. I’ve always been—I’m like a self-proclaimed dork. I have no problems with it. That’s who I am. I’ve always been that way. It’s just me.

“I like all the geeky stuff. Star Trek? I love it. Star Wars? I like it. Indiana Jones? My favorite movies of all time. Superheroes? Love that stuff. I’m the first person in line at a summer blockbuster. It’s the same reason I like certain types of television—like Lost and Heroes. I’ve always liked things that are fantastical. Always.”

All that said, however, Garcia allows that the fantastical art he loves does have a reputation for the fanatical.

“I’m pretty hard core, but there are people who are crazy,” he says. “I go to a convention as someone whose life is 99 percent other things—I’m a city councilmember, I’m working, I have my family, and this is my hobby. But there are people whose life is 99 percent this—this is what they do. They eat it and sleep it.”

Then again, even in Garcia’s case, it’s not as though there isn’t crossover.

“A lot of people don’t know this, but my campaign headquarters was an old comic book shop,” he says, elated to tell the story. “It was called the Comic Book Guys, and it was located at Sixth and Pine, but it was only open for about eight months.

“I looked at three spaces when I was searching for a headquarters. The old comic book shop was actually smaller than the other two, but I chose it specifically for what it used to be. I said, ‘There’s good karma in here—let’s do it!’”

Superman won, again.

In fact, whether or not Garcia ever again goes through the formality of dressing the part—the blue tights, the big letter S, the long red cape—it can be argued that, in a Clark Kent kind of way, he’s always dressed as Superman.

The clean, dark ambiance of Robert Garcia’s small, sparse condominium in the Temple Lofts feels almost subterranean. Would I be stretching this theme all out of reasonable perspective if I said it reminded me of those undisclosed bunkers where so many superheroes love to hide out?

No, I don’t think I would.

“My dog’s name is Anakin,” Garcia says, and he almost loses it when the name doesn’t register with me. “Anakin Skywalker? Darth Vader’s real name!”

I’m not embarrassed. I’m proud.

“I’m kinda known for all the blockbusters I haven’t seen,” I sass back. “E.T., Titanic—”

“My favorite movies are things like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars,” Garcia cuts me off.

“Never seen ’em,” I say quickly, then reconsider. “No, wait, I’ve seen one of the Star Wars movies.”

“You can’t even do that,” says Garcia, “because you’ve got to see them in order.”

“I saw, like, the second one,” I insist.

“The Empire Strikes Back,” he interjects helpfully.

“And that was it,” I continue, “because I never had any desire to see them again.”

Garcia seems a little overwhelmed by this revelation.

“You’re one of the very few people I know who hasn’t seen the Star Wars movies,” he says slowly, as if trying to absorb it—and actually, as if I may actually be the only person like that in his life.

Although Garcia describes himself a pop culture hobbyist, and categorizes graphic novels and comic book conventions as mostly good, clean fun, he really can’t talk about himself on any significant level without referencing the influence of this over-the-top art and its larger-than-life characters on his own, precisely life-sized self.

Garcia was five years old when he met Superman. He had just arrived in the United States from Peru, his father had left the family and he was being raised by his mother, an aunt and his grandmother.

“I’ll never forget the day at Thrifty when my mother bought me an ice cream and a Superman comic book,” he says. “It was kind of over from there. Superman was what I gravitated toward. I identified with him. He was an alien, coming from another planet. He wasn’t an American, but he was trying to attain that. In a lot of ways, it’s like any immigrant, coming from a strange place, having to adapt and learn the new culture.”

Except he was white with a rock jaw.

“Yeah,” Garcia concedes. “Fortunately he didn’t land in Soviet Russia or the Middle East. It might have been a different story if he hadn’t landed in Kansas.”

Garcia tries to choose his words carefully when accounting for the effect that Superman had—and, he acknowledges, still has on his life. But he gets so excited that he invariably just blurts out the truth.

“Superman had a huge influence on who I have become,” he says. “It goes from little things like being honest to bigger things like trying to make the world better. That ‘Truth, justice and the American way’ motto has always stuck with me. I think it’s very powerful, that little line, and I believe in it and try to live by it.”

After soaking his brain with superhero stories for most of his life, Garcia says he cannot help but see parts of the political process on the Long Beach City Council along iconic plot lines.

“Yeah, I think it has shaped my world view a little bit—I do see people involved in the city who are good guys, and I do see people who have other intentions, who are,” and Garcia lowers his voice, “not good. Obviously, I always try to be one of the good guys. I want to be in the Justice League. I don’t want to be in the Legion of Doom.”

Hearing himself say that seemed to startle Garcia, to make him wonder how his statement might sound. Dorky?

“I wouldn’t wear a cape to a city council meeting,” he quickly adds, and what’s weird is that it left me kind of disappointed.

LONG BEACH COMIC CON 300 E OCEAN BLVD • LONG BEACH 90802 • FRI-SUN • FRI 3-7PM, SAT 10AM-6PM, SUN 10AM-5PM • $25-45 • LONGBEACHCOMICCON.COM

Tags: city council, comics, long beach comic con, Robert Garcia, superman