The New York Times has an article on the business side of Comic-Con International. I would quibble with this paragraph:
The group began almost by accident, with 300 friends and acquaintances meeting in 1970 to swap notes and artifacts under the aegis of the comic strip artist Sheldon Dorf in the basement of San Diego's U.S. Grant Hotel.
The 1970 event — I was there — was open to the public. It was not just friends and acquaintances. I also wince a bit when Shel Dorf (no one outside his family called him Sheldon) gets sole credit for the con…and Shel was not really a comic strip artist.
But I thank Tom Galloway for telling me about the article. And it's nice to hear that negotiations are in progress to keep the convention in San Diego for 2017 and 2018. The current contract expires after the 2016 gathering. I remain confident that the con ain't goin' nowhere.