In this item, I will make frequent reference to the annual event in San Diego we all know as the Comic-Con International. Before it was called that, it had a number of different names and to simplify matters, I'm going to ignore them and just refer to it as Comic-Con.
It changed in other ways over the years, as well. The first one in 1970 was in the basement of the U.S. Grant Hotel. The second one was on the campus of the University of California at San Diego. The third one was at the El Cortez Hotel and the fourth one was at a Sheraton out on Harbor Island. Then Comic-Con went back to the El Cortez for six years before shifting to the city Convention Center (the old one) for two years, then back to the El Cortez for one, then back to the Convention Center for nine more years. In 1991, the new Convention Center was completed and Comic-Con moved in there, occupying (as I recall) about a third of it that year. At this point, attendance had climbed to a staggering 15,000 attendees. That was quite an increase from the years at the El Cortez when the con seemed huge with 4000-5000 people showing up.
Last year, as a point of reference, it had somewhere around 130,000 folks on the premises at one time or another over its four days. Hall H, where they do the big movie-oriented programs, always has around 6,500 people in it — or more than used to attend the entire convention.
But it's really not one convention. It's several occurring simultaneously in one building. Or at least I find that it helps to think of it that way. It's like a big buffet where you have to go around and help yourself and maybe you want to avoid the salad bar and the display of Mexican food and focus on the stuff you like. There's a full-sized Videogaming Convention going on in that hall and I largely avoid it as surely as I avoid bean burritos. And though I have been attending that con at that convention center for 21 years and having a great time, I not only have never set foot in Hall H, I'm not entirely sure where it is. I know which end of the building it's on and I've seen the lines waiting to get in but that's about it.
You can not only find a Videogaming Convention there, you can find a convention that's all about current animation or one that's all about forthcoming movies. You can pick and choose events to create a con about Anime or one about collecting original art. There's a cosplay convention and a Small Press convention and there's even — I know it's hard to believe — one about comic books. There's actually a pretty good convention there about comic books…the paper kind, not to be confused with the kind that appears on movie screens.
What isn't in there? A smaller, intimate convention where most attendees know most other attendees…or at least the subject matter and programming are sufficiently narrow that we all feel a common interest with one another. That's a lament that I sometimes hear: Comic-Con, some say, was better when it was just 3000 of us hanging at the El Cortez. Those cons were less like industry trade shows and more like a big, three-day party and the biggest "star" on the premises wasn't some Hollywood flavor-of-the-month who was doing a movie playing a character Jack Kirby had designed. The biggest star at those El Cortez cons was Jack Kirby.
You know, the comic book artist.
I loved those cons. I love the current ones too and I don't fault these cons for not being those cons. I can and do go to other cons from time to time and feel a lot of what I felt about the days when a con in San Diego felt more intimate…if "intimate" can even be applied to a gathering of thousands. They haven't asked me back to the Mid-Ohio Con in Columbus (now called Wizard World Ohio) lately but that felt a lot like a vintage San Diego Con the last few times I was there. So has the Super Con (now called the Big Wow! ComicFest) in San Jose I'm attending next month.
And still later this year, I'm going to be the Fan Guest of Honor — and I'm really proud of the "Fan" part — at the San Diego Comic Fest 2012, which will be held in that town October 19-21.
Let me make the point clearly that while this event is organized by several folks who were responsible for starting the Comic-Con International decades ago or working on it, it is in no way affiliated with or endorsed by that entity. It is, in fact, trying to carve out its own identity not as a competitor but as a small, loving attempt to recapture that feel of a smaller convention where everyone's largely interested in comics and not what we used to call "mainstream media" before "comic book movies" made $100 million-plus.
There will not be 130,000 people there. There won't be a tenth of that number. There will be few if any movie stars or videogames. If you've always wanted to attend one of the big Comic-Cons, this is not the one you want to attend. This is one that aspires to be like the ones back at the El Cortez. (They'd be holding it there but for the fact that the El Cortez is no longer a hotel. It's now a mixed-use facility — condominiums, apartments and retail outlets.)
I'm looking forward to it. If you harken back to the days at the El Cortez, you'll probably look forward to it, too. Over the next few months, I'm going to post some convention memories here that may explain just why we're looking forward to it. In the meantime, you can do two other things you can't do at Comic-Con International. You can order a membership and you can reserve a hotel room that's in the same zip code as the convention. Check out the convention website.