As we hinted here yesterday, this year's WonderCon in Anaheim has been officially canceled…or to be more correct, it will be a two-day online event, as opposed to a three-day in-person event. I assume no one is startled at this announcement. There will be online video programming and I'll be doing at least two videos for it.
As for Comic-Con, which is staged by the same folks and which is scheduled for July 22-25, there is no official word, nor are we likely to see one soon. Speaking only for myself and with no inside info, I doubt the con will happen except in the virtual sense. Cases of COVID-19 are dropping in many areas but no one can say how long that trend will continue or what surges may erupt.
More to the point, no one can say when and how it might become possible to stage an in-person Comic-Con. There are literally hundreds of things that have to happen for it to be possible, above and beyond the arrest of the virus. As of today, 856 homeless folks are currently housed in the San Diego Convention Center. How long might it be before those people can be properly relocated and the convention center is turned back into the convention center?
How many hotels and nearby restaurants are fully functional? What about security personnel? There's a long, long list of such issues. One thing I have learned about working closely with Comic-Con for many years now is how unbelievably complicated it is to put one of these things on. The people who do it are so good at what they do that they make it seem simple, like someone just says "Let's put on a show" and hundreds of elements all fall magically into place. Doesn't happen that way.
I've received inquiries about guesting at a few smaller conventions later this year. I doubt most (if any) of them will happen…or if they do, that they'll happen with me there. I'd love to be wrong about this but I don't think I am.