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THE SAN DIEGO COMIC CON

Last week was the annual San Diego Comic-Con.  If you like anything that has to do with pop culture, you may have heard of it.  If you haven’t, it’s literally the biggest comic book / sci-fi / fantasy / anime/ television / movie / animation / video game / toy / publishing / cosplay / stand in long lines next to people who decided not to take a shower / eat cafeteria food because the nearest restaurant is too far to walk to in the heat / convention of the year.

But let’s step back into the wayback machine for a moment shall we? Let’s say, hmmmm… 1986.

I was fifteen years old, taking my first road trip from Central California to Southern California with my brothers and our friends to spend a week attending “The Con.”  That was the year it was held at the Convention and Performing Arts Center and Hotel San Diego.  If you loved comic books, that was the place to be.  It was there that I had my first brush with comic book royalty and got some of my first autographs.

Clockwise from Left: Ray (Fahrenheit 451) Bradbury, Jack (Fantastic Four, X-Men) Kirby, Sergio (Mad Magazine, Groo) Aragones, Dave (Cerebus) Sim, Archie (The Greatest Comic Book Editor Ever) Goodwin, and Kevin (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) Eastman.

Everybody was very down to earth.  Even Jack Kirby, the reigning “King of Comic Books,” who was mobbed by everybody on the floor when it was announced that he was going to do a signing.  Bottom line: it was exciting to see the faces behind my favorite comics and just be in the same air space as them.

Being 15, I wasn’t completely enthralled by many of the panels.  I spent most of my time picking up freebies, looking at the original art, gawking at the old back issues, and watching the various artists draw sketches for their fans.  Back then, the freebies were usually flyers, trading cards, buttons, stickers, mini-posters, and exclusive preview comics. At the end of every day, we would dump out our bag of schwagg and compare “our stuff” with one another.  If we didn’t have something, we made sure we got that something-something the next day.

When we weren’t at the con, we would drop off our bags at our hotel room and hide our badges so as to not be associated with the other “geeks” at comic-con.  It was like being in a super secret society that you loved but knew others wouldn’t understand and make fun of you so you kept it all on the down low.  So while most of my friends were going camping or to the beach on their summer breaks, I was looking forward to my week at comic-con.  But only in certain social circles.

Fast forward to today.  The con has grown from 6,500 attendees in 1986 to over 126,000! Instead of Jack Kirby being the big draw, it’s every A-list actor from Angelina Jolie to Robert Downey Jr. and every A-list director from J.J. Abrams to Joss Whedon.  As for freebies, you got a gigantic tote bag from Warner Brothers (which many broke from the amount of freebies people were carrying).  It’s now being called “Hollywood’s Cannes for Blockbusters.”  So, now it’s “kinda cool” to go to the San Diego Con.  But only in certain social circles.

So if you haven’t been to the San Diego Comic-Con, it’s takes place every year in the summer.  It’s an experience.  And if you go, be prepared to be overwhelmed.  If not by the sheer magnitude of the convention, than perhaps by the over-the-top culture of it’s participants.  Excelsior!

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