Forget the Olympics; too much rain, anyway. Forget football training camps; too humid. And forget those camping trips, way too many fires.
If you are really looking for an escape to paradise, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more temperate and diverse place for a summer weekend than the San Diego Comic-Con International, blissfully finally back up to full capacity both with crowds and exhibitors after an uncomfortable four-year run of “abundance of caution” and last year’s double strikes.
One look at the amount of signage and efforts on the parts of supposedly cost-conscious media companies reinforces this, as the DEADLINE duo of Katie Campione and Natalie Sitek observed in their opening night post from Wednesday:
(T)he streamers and TV networks…have taken over the Gaslamp District again with massive ads across the major hotels like the Hilton, Hard Rock and Pendry, as well as the trains. Even Petco Park is sporting a flashy promo for ABC’s Abbott Elementary. The big winner undoubtedly is Paramount, which has splashed advertisements across what seems like the entirety of downtown San Diego. From train cars dedicated to CBS hits like Elsbeth, Tracker and Ghosts to an extreme takeover of the Hard Rock Hotel (including the restaurant) for the 25th anniversary of SpongeBob SquarePants, the studio is everywhere.
Which to me begs two questions: one, what in G-d’s name is a show like ELSBETH doing at a convention ostensibly devoted to comic book devotees and two, how likely is the executive who somehow snuck this through finance in a time of confusion going to justify this to his or her incoming bosses?
The San Diego Comic-Con began in 1970 as a wild idea from the clearly geeky brain of the appropriately named Shel Dorf. And if you think that’s judgmental, check out how his Wikipedia bio describes it:
In 1964 back in Detroit, teenager Robert Brosch organised a convention for fans of the comics medium, which Dorf and Jerry Bails, the “father of comics fandom”, attended.[7] The next year Dorf and Bails took over the event, christening it the “Detroit Triple Fan Fair” (referring to fantasy literature, fantasy films, and comic art)[9] and organizing it as an annual event. The Detroit Triple Fan Fair (DTFF) is credited as being the first regularly held convention featuring comic books as a major component.[10] Dorf went on to produce the DTFF in 1967[11] and 1968 as well.
In 1970, Dorf moved to San Diego, California,[12] to take care of his aging parents. Almost immediately, he organized a one-day convention “as a kind of ‘dry run’ for the larger convention he hoped to stage,”[4] with Forrest J Ackerman as the star attraction.
And from there, it eventually grew large enough to take over the downtown San Diego Convention Center. And as comic book IP became increasingly lucrative for studios that would eventually acquire brands like DC and Marvel, seeing both the size and the passion of the crowds gave these companies the bright idea to market their other content to a captive audience. Nothing like long lines and overpriced churro stands to find people receptive enough for a magazine or, these days, a card with a QR code to hawk their upcoming movie or fall TV premiere.
The news coming out of San Diego this week tends to revolve around these massive undertakings, none bigger than the opening weekend of DEADPOOL VS. WOLVERINE. Heck, the leads even showed up, as no less than THREE Penske penners, VARIETY’s Angelique Jackson, Meredith Woerner and J. Kim Murphy, reported:
(S)tars Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman saved their biggest press tour stop for last. The pair rolled into San Diego Comic-Con, alongside co-star Emma Corrin, director Shawn Levy and Marvel chief Kevin Feige to present the Hall H audience with a surprise screening of the film on the same day that it hits the big screen around the world. The special event, dubbed “The Ultimate Deadpool & Wolverine Celebration of Life,” came at the end of a particularly busy day for Reynolds, Jackman and Levy, who jetted to San Diego from Los Angeles following Feige’s Walk of Fame Ceremony earlier in the day.
As it turned out, the 6500 attendees for that event were also treated to a surprise showing of the film which the leads happily joined them in watching. I suppose those in the room didn’t mind that they could have paid a LOT less than the $354 single-day admission price for the same viewing experience, and might have had enough left over to afford a decent snack and cocktail as well.
And while it’s easy to appreciate the monumental significance of such a newsworthy event, I’d like to think that at least some of those 6500 found their way to the convention floor itself, to at least take a look at the somewhat lesser known talent that paid for the chance to be seen. As the convention’s “unofficial blogger” Kerry Dixon wrote earlier this month:
This year’s list of exhibitors covers comics, toys, merchandise, video games, television and film, and so much more. All the major players in each category are represented — for comics, that includes Boom! Studios, IDW Publishing, Image Comics, Marvel Entertainment (again separated into the main booth and a separate merch store), Oni Press – Lion Forge Publishing Group, and the return of Dark Horse Comics.
And if you happen to be on that floor this weekend, or know some lucky uberfan who could be, I’ll throw in a personal request to visit someone who is not only creative and auspiced in the comic book world she has gravitated to, she also happened to survive a few years working for me. And if that doesn’t qualify someone as a true superhero who in my mind is in the same league as Deadpool, I don’t know what would.
I’ll hazard a guess that they may be more overlap between fans of THE MASSIVE-VERSE and the MCU than, say, TRACKER.
And I’d further offer than Shel Dorf would have liked Melissa Flores way more than Carrie Preston.
Until next time…