“Nerds of the world unite!” These phrases thundered from the lips of the creators of San Diego Comedian-Con greater than half a century in the past as they summoned their kindred spirits from throughout the land. The decision went out to each sci-fi and fantasy lover — each comedian e book, dime novel, and movie-obsessed fan and collector — to start a pilgrimage. “Our time is right here,” they cried. “And the world shall tremble earlier than what we construct!”
Effectively, OK, possibly not precisely. However comparable impulses, no less than, guided the creation of the world’s most outstanding geek gathering, which is again in full power in 2022 after two COVID-shuttered years, and greater than ever (it’s utterly bought out in case you have been hoping to hitch the 130,000 or so attendees). And the rallying name did work. The place as soon as discovering one another might need trusted decidedly analog means similar to shortwave radio, fan mags, snail mail, and assembly in … the title escapes me … bookstores, now followers can virtually beam themselves into the biggest hive thoughts within the universe.
And in case you suppose that hive thoughts hasn’t all however conquered popular culture from its humble particular person origins in garages, basements, and rec rooms, properly, resistance is futile as a result of the large visitors at this yr’s present embody company emissaries from Lord of the Rings, DC, Star Trek, Marvel, Dungeons and Dragons, and, properly, mainly each geek model you may consider, together with a complete bunch you in all probability can’t.
It hasn’t even been 4 a long time since William Shatner famously informed Star Trek conference followers to “get a life” on Saturday Evening Dwell, and now they’re on the heart of an ever-expanding IP universe that caters on to them. Contemplating the 460,000 sq. toes of SDCC conference house, in addition to the encircling locales the conference has colonized — to say nothing of its world digital attain — it appears assured that such gatherings have completely escaped basements. The world has trembled certainly, as we present on this temporary historical past.
Humble beginnings
The Comedian-Con Mission Assertion, prominently displayed on the homepage, reads as follows:
“The SAN DIEGO COMIC CONVENTION (Comedian-Con Worldwide) is a California Nonprofit Public Profit Company organized for charitable functions and devoted to creating most people’s consciousness of and appreciation for comics and associated well-liked artwork kinds, together with participation in and help of public shows, conventions, displays, museums, and different public outreach actions which have a good time the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to artwork and tradition.”
The concept that anybody felt the necessity to create the “basic public’s consciousness of and appreciation for comics and associated well-liked artwork kinds” looks like a hoot now. However that’s solely as a result of it’s exhausting to recollect (and even comprehend, for these youthful than 40) how rapidly the leisure world grew to become hypermediated within the Nineteen Eighties with the appearance of cable, house video, and private computer systems, and much more so within the Nineteen Nineties by way of the Web. The concept that we are able to all nerd out collectively, both at house round our gadgets and televisions, or nearly in boards, was barely an inkling in 1970 (besides, after all, in science fiction tales), but it surely was the dream of SDCC’s founders, the San Diegan pals Shel Dorf, Richard Alf, Ken Krueger, Ron Graf, and Mike Towry, who needed nothing extra to deliver the like-minded collectively.
Dorf had truly launched a comic book conference in Detroit within the mid-Sixties earlier than establishing Golden State Comedian-Con in 1970, which grew to become completely often known as San Diego Comedian-Con in 1973. Dorf and his pals’ love for the medium, in addition to their insistence that comics have been an artwork kind value celebrating and preserving, was shared by tens of millions of people that have been grateful to have a brand new house to specific it.
Spreading the mission
The SDCC’s said mission appears now like an clearly noble pursuit in an age by which comedian e book variations like Joker and Black Panther have earned Greatest Image nominations, and when popular culture generally has develop into extra accepted by intellectual tradition (as soon as strictly the fancy-pants area of literature, drama, opera, classical music, portray, sculpture, and the like). However this was removed from the case traditionally. In 1970, the yr Comedian-Con launched its first iteration, comedian books, pulp novels, sci-fi mags like Wonderful Tales, and B sci-fi and monster films have been typically thought of lowbrow and disposable. Their disreputability partly accounted for why sci-fi and fantasy followers remained considerably underground. However these followers existed en masse, and so they started to passionately arrange and advocate for what they liked, as proven by the well-known letter-writing marketing campaign that introduced the unique Star Trek again for a 3rd season in 1969.
Which is why it didn’t take lengthy for attendance at Comedian-Con to exponentially improve as soon as phrase of its existence started to journey, from 300 attendees in August 1970, to 800 the next yr, and a pair of,500 by 1974. Take a cursory have a look at a few of the earliest points of interest and it’s no surprise why fan curiosity unfold so rapidly. Forrest Ackerman — sci-fi fan, collector, curator, and literary agent (of Ray Bradbury, Isaac Asimov, and L. Ron Hubbard, amongst others) — kicked issues off on the very first occasion. Over the following few years, Bradbury himself would seem, together with legendary Marvel Comics artist and scribe Jack Kirby, creator Leigh Brackett (who later co-wrote The Empire Strikes Again), and Star Trek actors like Majel Barrett and Walter Koenig.
By the top of the ’70s, SDCC was commonly internet hosting 5,000 followers at every conference, usually held on the El Cortez resort, and the visitors now included huge names like Stan Lee, Chuck Norris, legendary sci-fi creator Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers), and “Peanuts” creator Charles M. Schulz. After just some years, the conference was well-established and on the way in which to world popular culture domination.
Huge progress in a worldwide market
Attendance was regular all through the Nineteen Eighties at 5,000 to6,000 folks a yr, then exploded within the Nineteen Nineties, growing from 13,000 in 1990 to 42,000 in 1999. The nascent web and its mind-boggling new organizing and speaking capabilities performed a task, however so did the corporatization of well-liked tradition — the horizontal integration of franchise content material beneath the umbrellas of main firms. Sony purchased Columbia Footage in 1989. Time Warner fashioned the next yr. Viacom purchased Paramount in 1994, and on and on.
On the similar time that followers and conventions have been changing into ever extra refined about how they organized, these new media giants have been getting savvier about how they packaged content material and catered to these followers. Together with theinternet, conventions — particularly the mecca of SDCC — grew to become important hubs for a brand new leisure panorama by which historically “nerd” and comedian e book properties like Star Wars, Star Trek, Batman, and Spider-Man have been the crown jewels.
All of which makes the concept the SDCC is a “California Nonprofit Public Profit Company organized for charitable functions” really feel only a tad disingenuous, given all the company empires and billion-dollar franchises doing enterprise on the conference flooring, whereas additionally streaming their wares globally. Nerd tradition has achieved what as soon as appeared unimaginable: changing into cool, setting tendencies, and bending the purveyors of mental properties — together with gigantic film, online game, and publishing corporations — to their collective will. No franchise or studio with a prayer of remaining related would dare thumb their nostril at a collective with this a lot affect and buying energy.
Followers are nonetheless at its coronary heart
However whereas the enterprise is about revenue, it’s hardly all cynical. SDCC has directed monumental income and publicity towards 1000’s of filmmakers, authors, artists, actors, and ancillary companies with out huge title model recognition, a few of whom owe their livelihoods to it. And if the concept any of that is for “charity” provokes titters, there’s no less than one profound public service that SDCC, different conventions, and the elevated visibility of nerd tradition have supplied. They’ve kicked open the door for rather more various fan bases to specific their love for comics and different geek materials.
If Shatner’s rant within the mid-’80s SNL skit was directed at overgrown straight, white dudes, followers just some a long time later are available in each creed, gender, sexual orientation, and colour (generally even blue or inexperienced). Whereas on-line nerd gatekeepers usually attempt to implement an absence of variety behind closed doorways, the halls of the conventions are a a lot totally different story. There’s little doubt that 130,000 folks of each stripe, lots of them carrying costumes, milling about and interacting in a grand bazaar of acceptance, is a profound imaginative and prescient for the longer term certainly.
All of it begs one query, although. Given its world attain, the businesses and types that proliferate underneath its roof, in addition to the staggering variety of cubicles, tables, occasions, contests, displays, awards ceremonies, debuts, panels, shows, and every thing else that happens there for 4 days every summer season, is Comedian-Con nonetheless about comedian books?
I assume the reply to that will be … isn’t every thing these days? It’s just a little exhausting to consider {that a} medium that felt so area of interest 4 a long time in the past has develop into the Earth’s hottest type of expression. Sure, it’s principally by way of films and tv now, however the identical tales, characters, and worlds that graced the inked pages for the higher a part of a century are people who stay probably the most treasured. One does surprise, although, if Dorf and his fellow pioneers — most of whom have ascended to that nice comedian e book store within the sky — wouldn’t suppose that a few of what they tried to protect isn’t all that particular anymore. However attempt telling that to tens of millions of rabid followers.
Editors’ Selection