San Diego Comic-Con, which was held this past weekend, was a four day and five night-long celebration of everything pop culture, from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” to “Elfquest.” On the first floor, there was a packed bazaar filled with every kind of toy, showcasing upcoming TV shows and films. On the second floor were dozens of panels and exhibits. Outside the convention center, San Diego’s downtown turned into a miniature Mardi Gras.
San Diego’s convention is a pilgrimage with pseudo-religious overtones. I noticed a few pros and cons that made the experience memorable.
Cons:
Tickets
The convention was packed. And it was even bigger this year, stretching the convention center to the limits of capacity. It’s often claustrophobic – walking in a dense crowd for hours at a time. Each year, tickets are more expensive – they went up to $200 from $175 last year. Tickets sold out in within 90 minutes this year as the time window to buy them online was short and highly luck-dependent. Reloading the website at the wrong moment could ruin a chance to get in. Increasing prices has done little to blunt demand.
Hotels were fully booked months in advance and overpriced, especially closer to the convention center, where they ran between $300 and $500 per night. Airbnb, a site that allows users to arrange lodging in private homes, worked better for me. It’s cheaper for outlying areas, at the price of time spent traveling to and from the convention.
Fatigue
It was impossible to see even a tenth of what Comic-Con has to offer. Overlapping schedules for events and programs, along with fatigue, meant guests had to make difficult decisions in their itinerary.
Comic-Con involved walking between five and 10 miles per day around the convention center. This is actually a reasonable amount for UCLA students, who walk the hill-ridden campus on a daily basis, but by the end it was a painful slog.
Getting sick afterwards with so-called “con crud” is a common experience, as tens of thousands of guests touch the same things. Sleep deprivation doesn’t help. I only got a cold, but saw some others with more serious symptoms.
I found parking and getting to and from the center via San Diego’s tram line to be totally fine, except for when I parked at local Qualcomm Stadium and arrived back at the end of a totally unrelated One Direction concert. Just as packed, but with a different target audience.
The Waiting Game
Long lines are there for guests who have too much time on their hands.
Hall H, Comic-Con’s largest stage, is like a jail in the street, and its associated longest line of the convention ran for days before Friday’s “Star Wars” panel. People camped out on Wednesday for panels on Friday, and overnight for “The Hateful Eight” and “The Walking Dead” events. Comic-Con exclusive merchandise like a “Vikings” drinking horn seem great, but lines to buy them often reach for hours as soon as the doors open. At one point, I asked someone what an especially thick crowd around the Marvel booth was for. “I don’t know,” he said, as he, too, waited.
Outside of the convention hall, the crowds are even thicker. On Saturday night, the most crowded time, I saw a group of monks parade through the streets.
Pros:
The Floor
The exhibit floor ranged from pavilions with pillars and multiple levels large enough for 100 people, down to small, single-table booths. Discovering my new favorite story or artist was as easy as trawling the aisles with smaller booths. There were hidden comic books, art prints and sketchbooks in the small press aisle.
Cheap copies of older comic collections, T-shirts and toys of every variety flooded the Chinatown-like east side of the main floor. There were deals to be found especially on the last day, when supplies had to be sold or written off.
I found work by several artists I’d never heard of and purchased new work that I’m looking forward to reading, like “Last Man,” a French take on teen fighting tournament manga. Art ranged from lifelike concept artists to hyper-stylistic punk motifs. When I talked to webcomic creator Rad Sechrist, he said his comic, “Kipo,” was put on hold – so that it could be developed as a TV series by DreamWorks.
Panels
Comic-Con had every size of panel discussion, from film announcements in the packed 6,200-seat Hall H to smaller auditoriums with quirkier fare. While the larger panels were packed, the smaller ones were often more intimate.
The smaller panels included a “Greatest Movies Never Made” panel about the failure of “Jodorowsky’s Dune” and Tim Burton’s “Superman Lives.” There was also the annual “Quick Draw,” where three master cartoonists drew different interpretations of the same prompts and competed for laughs. Mad Magazine’s Sergio Aragones packed several visual gags into every picture – he drew himself running afraid, a wig in his hand and then a bald Donald Trump running after him.
Spotlight panels covered the work of individual creators, like seminal 1970s Nick Fury artist Jim Steranko, who tells stories from his time at Marvel in larger-than-life terms influenced by his experiences as a carny.
Panels are a chance to hear the people behind my favorite media, and maybe ask them a question. I asked “Sex Criminals” Chip Zdarsky about his satirical pitch for “Watchmen 2” and if he’d tackle any other iconic sequels to acclaimed writer Mark Waid’s work. He told me that his upcoming “Jughead” series already qualified.
Cosplayers
People in costumes – or “cosplayers” – were everywhere, and pictures often don’t do them justice. Store-bought costumes are the minority; most are custom-made and show the time and effort attendees put in. These cosplayers draw from every medium, especially superhero comics. At least 20 people appeared as the Batman villain Harley Quinn, but obscure and unidentifiable characters abound. One cloaked figure in a mask seemed mute and wouldn’t identify the character he was playing. He was creepy.
The most difficult part, though, was finding all of the different Waldos from “Where’s Waldo?”, a perennially popular gag.
Email Greenberg at jogreenberg@media.ucla.edu.