Comic-Con International. San Diego, California. Four days of pop culture at its finest – and sometimes its edgiest, and strangest. For some participants, it barely touches on comics at all, unless the comic has some connection with a movie or TV show.
Some of Comic-Con is pretty much what you’d expect from the name. About 1/4 of the Exhibit Hall floor was taken up by small comic-book dealers and independent artists and writers, while another sizable chunk was occupied by the big comics publishers (Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, etc.). Video-game makers, toy companies, and sellers of themed souvenirs (at all price and quality levels) are heavily represented as well. But the prime exhibit space goes to TV networks and movie studios, who come out to promote their shows and stars to this particularly plugged-in, pop-culture-savvy audience. TV-show panels were the big draw for us. I went to four of them – Psych, Burn Notice, White Collar, and Hawaii Five-0 – but I’ll tell you more about them tomorrow.
Speaking of shows and audiences, at Comic-Con, the audience itself is a big part of the show. One of the fun things at Comic-Con is that if you’re wearing a particularly good – or particularly weird – costume, people will ask to take your picture. Some will even ask to have their picture taken with you. Tall Paul dressed as Indiana Jones on Friday, and his was a particularly good costume. People were greeting him as “Indy” all day long, and I heard a few even start to whistle the Indiana Jones theme music when he walked by; I insisted on addressing him as “Dr. Jones” all day. (I didn’t wear a costume. I decided that next year I’ll do the same thing, but I’ll say I’m a Cylon – they look like us now, you know.)
Fry and Bender from Futurama (Mike, we took this one for you!)
Who ya gonna call? (Sorry, you can’t post a picture of Ghostbusters and not say that.)
Princess Leia, Slave Girl edition, and …oh, some guy
Modern: Captain Hammer and Dr. Horrible from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
Classic: Captain Marvel and the Mrs.
Avant-garde: Fashion statements from Darth Vader and Boba Fett
Comic-Con is fun for the whole family! Some folks believe in starting ’em off young.
Tall Paul and I only experienced the first two days of Comic-Con 2010, Thursday and Friday, July 22 and 23. The tricky thing about Comic-Con is that you have to get your tickets way before there’s any information about what the content will be, so you’re taking your chances about what you’ll get to see and do. Based on our experience, it’s well worth the risk.
Today was the “show” portion of my Comic-Con report – come back tomorrow for the “tell!”
All photos by Paul Vasquez (or at least by his camera, if he happens to be in them)
Disclosure: My husband and I purchased our own tickets to Comic-Con, and I have no affiliation with any of its artists, producers, authors, publishers, exhibitors or vendors.
