Well, San Diego’s annual celebration of the entertainment arts is in full swing and I have spent the last few days taking quite a few pictures of Comic-Con displays and the people (I use that term loosely in some cases) who attended the massive event. I’m sorting through my pic’s right now and I’m going post the ones I find to be the most interesting, bizarre, entertaining or funny (some could be all the above).
I live on Cortez Hill, in downtown San Diego, about a mile from the San Diego Convention Center and the Gaslamp Quarter is even closer to my neighborhood, so it has been fairly easy for me to trot on down to where all the Comic-Con action is. I really lucked out this year because I did not have a pass, but I was able to attend the preview night of the convention because I bumped into a few people in the Gaslamp who were handing out free passes on Wednesday, the 17th, when everything kicked off.
Comic-Con was already a pretty big deal by the time I moved to San Diego from New York City back in 2003. That year the attendance was 70,000. I had heard of Comic-Con prior to moving to SD, but I didn’t fully appreciate what an important event it had become for serious fans of comics, sci fi/fantasy movies and TV shows, video/computer gamers, etc. until I saw how downtown San Diego was invaded every summer by the Comic-Con folks. As you might expect, it attracts mostly younger people, but it does draw a fairly diverse group of people. It is multi-generational and draws people from all over the States as well as many foreign countries. The last few years the attendance of the 5 day event has surpassed 130,000. The first Comic-Con was held at the U.S. Grant Hotel in downtown San Diego back in 1970 and the attendance was 145. Back then it simply an event that gave comic fans an opportunity to buy, sell and trade comic books. Over the years it evolved into something that covers all forms of media related to the entertainment arts.
Has Comic-Con become too big? I don’t think so, but I’m not so sure I would want to see become any larger than it is right now, but I think it probably continue to grow. The city of San Diego agreed to expand the size of the Convention Center in order to ensure that Comic-Con stays in San Diego for at least the next few years.
Here am I leaning on a replica of Han Solo (Harrison Ford) frozen in carbonite. All of you Star Wars fans remember how that happened to Solo. Those of you who don’t can watch The Empire Strikes Back or just search for the scene on You Tube.
Here are some more pictures from inside the Convention Hall
A lot more to come, but I think I’m going to put up a separate post for the pictures I took outside the Convention Center.
gmf journal 