Once a sleepy indie scene, now an international commercial blitz, Comic-Con International in San Diego is a sight to behold.
By Michael Aushenker / Special to The Malibu Times
Back in the 1970s, you could go to the aging El Cortez Hotel in downtown San Diego and spend the weekend rubbing elbows with the late artist Jack Kirby, architect of the Marvel Universe, and fan-favorite Neal Adams, among the 300 comic book fans in attendance. Today, you can still meet comic-book industry superstars such as Adams. However, at this summer’s event, which now bears the title of “Comic-Con International,” some 162,000 attendees from around the globe descended on San Diego to catch panels with their favorite celebrities promoting upcoming projects in the world of movies, television, video games, toy collection and, oh yeah, comics.
San Diego Comic-Con International has come a long way from the sleepy little comic book convention founded in August 1970 by Shel Dorf and Ken Krueger at the U.S. Grant Hotel. Today billing itself as a pop culture convention, Comic-Con has been virtually co-opted by Hollywood ever since the rise of the Marvel movie with the “X-Men” and “Spider-Man” franchises of the early 2000s. Comic-book fantasy and horror are no longer the prerequisites for making a splash in San Diego. Now studios chase demographics, promoting everything decidedly un-comics from the “Harold & Kumar” movies, “The Office” and “Glee,” to borderline genre films such as the “Twilight” franchise and the remake of “Total Recall.”
Meanwhile, those Marvel movies have become so big, Marvel Comics are no longer sold at the convention. The comics’ readership has dwindled in the last 20 years. What is considered a blockbuster Marvel Comic is lucky to attract 100,000 readers, and most average 40,000 to 50,000 at best. In 1980, by comparison, Marvel would cancel a comic book series if it fell to 100,000. Comics have been irrelevant to Marvel since 2000, beyond informing the real moneymakers: the Marvel (now Disney/Marvel) movies.
That’s why Marvel Entertainment now spends its energy at the big yearly convention touting the next “Iron Man” and “Thor” movies.
Today, it’s become more complicated than ever to attend Comic-Con. Attendees can no longer just pop down to the Convention Center early in the day, wait in line, and get into the show. Badges to get into Comic-Con have become such a hot commodity, people now apply nearly a year in advance to assure their place for next summer, as they can sell out by January.
And yet despite the griping over how big it’s become, San Diego Comic-Con is still the place to be come summer. This year’s show went down July 11-15 with all the requisite costumed pageantry people have come to expect from the show. Highlights from this year included everything from “The Simpsons” creator and Malibu resident Matt Groening, to a surprise appearance in Small Press by mini-comics self-publisher Shia LeBeouf (who moonlights as an actor in those globally received “Transformers” and “Indiana Jones” franchises) to the impressive (and some spectacularly unimpressive) homemade costumes of attendees.