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Actor Andrew Garfield asks a question from the audience wearing a Spider-Man costume during the Sony panel presentation of The Amazing Spider-Man at Comic Con last Friday.

Gregory Bull/AP

Actor Andrew Garfield asks a question from the audience wearing a Spider-Man costume during the Sony panel presentation of The Amazing Spider-Man at Comic Con last Friday.

This clip made the rounds last weekend. You may have already seen it: Actor Andrew Garfield, the guy who'll be playing Peter Parker in The Amazing Spider-Man, next year's reboot of the film franchise, puts in a stunt appearance at Comic-Con and gives a heartfelt speech.

If you watched it, you may have come away with the same kind of Pavlovian "d'awwww"-response that videos of monkeys taking pictures or Dogs in Wigs engender.

Or you may have only gotten a few seconds in before Garfield's outpouring of guileless sincerity made you so uncomfortable you were tempted to click over to the Amazing Spider-Man preview clip before something untoward — like, say, a feeling — happened.

The more cynically minded among you might have thought, "Pfft. This guy's just playing to the crowd."

Here's the part where I admit that all three of the above reactions occurred to me, in rapid succession, the first time I watched the clip. But I've since gone back to watch it again, and my thinking has evolved.

Kevin Winter/Getty Images

Guillermo del Toro speaks at the Film District Studio Panel in Hall H at Comic-Con 2011.

Someone asked me what Comic-Con panels I was most excited about and I almost could not answer.

These three days are about rooting for stories, taping sound for stories, cooking up ideas for stories. I'm really excited about the performance capture panel, but that's probably not what that person meant, right?

Then — there's Guillermo del Toro. I am just going to announce right now that I struggle with journalistic objectivity when it comes to GDT. The guy is so insanely engaging, so wildly informed, and his visual aesthetic is simply the living end. (Shut up, fan girl!)

The point is that I did attend, um, two GDT panels, all in the name of improving NPR's pop culture coverage. And here's what I gleaned. His new movie, Don't Be Afraid Of the Dark, looks stupendously creepy. No one can work the scariness of a keyhole better than GDT, as anyone who's seen The Devil's Backbone can attest. (I remain a little concerned about the plot. Plots are not my beloved GDT's strongest suit.)

But the best thing about seeing him, especially in the company of director Jon Favreau, was how much they both relished their interaction with fans. It was, clearly, like oxygen. (Not the network.) One of the highlights was when GDT announced that he routinely picks future production assistants from the fans he meets at Comic-Con and brazenly announced a personal-sounding Gmail address to recruit a few from among the thousands of people crowding Hall H for his new big budget film now in production, Pacific Rim.

Wow.

Way to give back.

Enlarge Denis Poroy/AP

Fans arrive during Preview Night at the Comic-Con 2011 convention Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in San Diego.

Denis Poroy/AP

Fans arrive during Preview Night at the Comic-Con 2011 convention Wednesday, July 20, 2011 in San Diego.

This is my war zone.

That's what I told a producer the other day who has worked in many real, actual war zones right before I left for Comic-Con. He had the good grace to laugh. "It's probably worse," he said.

This is a crush of nerd passion, a pop culture city-state as regulated as Singapore but with vastly worse food. ("Costume swords must be tied to your costume in such a way that they can't be drawn," the event guide instructs sternly. I'm looking at you, giant bearded guy dressed up like a character I don't remotely recognize whose costume sword is tied so as not to clank against his costume machine gun.)

Comic-Con is overwhelming. There are thousands of people here salivating at the opportunity to witness Mark Hamill (yes, Luke from Star Wars) explain the challenges of voicing a character in a Batman video game. Sarah Michelle Gellar, geek goddess of Buffy fame, is here to flack her upcoming TV show Ringer, and the line is already forming two hours ahead of time.

Word is, this year's Comic-Con is already a bit of a bust. Harry Potter is over. There's no huge movie coming out this year as exciting as, say, Avatar. So there's a lot of absolutely frantic promotion of splashy 2012 films, like the next Twilight, or the next Spider-Man — which has commanded building-sized posters on nearly every edifice facing the San Diego Convention Center.

Inside the exhibition hall, though, it doesn't feel like a bust at all. Here, people are doing something old-fashioned, simple and pure. They are buying comic books.

NPR arts reporter Neda Ulaby is reporting from Comic-Con for the next several days.