LOS ANGELES, July 15, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – From Peter Parker’s run-in with a
radioactive spider to Superman fleeing an exploding Krypton: comic book fans
love a good origin story.
So when 135,000 geeks and nerds invade San Diego next week for the 50th
edition of Comic-Con — the world’s largest celebration of pop culture — the
event’s humble beginnings will be a hot topic of discussion.
The sprawling convention today draws Hollywood A-listers like Arnold
Schwarzenegger, Patrick Stewart and the cast of “Game of Thrones” to its
frantically hyped panels, where billion-dollar franchises are launched.
But the first iteration — the brainchild of an unemployed 36-year-old
comic collector and his five teenage acolytes — drew just 100 people to a
seedy hotel basement down the road in March 1970.
The “Golden State Comic-Con” was first designed as a way for fans to
connect with each other and meet their heroes — the comic book creators —
at a time when the genre was a million miles away from the mainstream.
“We never thought we’d be as big as we are. We never thought we’d be
around in 50 years’ time,” David Glanzer, Comic-Con’s marketing chief, told
AFP.
– Star Wars to Tarantino –
“They were the first people who really viewed comic books as art,” added
Glanzer.
Comic-Con’s subsequent growth was gradual but inexorable. It increasingly
looked beyond comics and catered to film and TV, as well as other genres such
as sci-fi.
Oscar-winning director Frank Capra was the first genuinely mainstream star
to attend. But arguably the tipping point came in 1976 when Lucasfilm’s
publicist sent a team bearing posters and slides to promote an upcoming
“little film called Star Wars,” said Glanzer. The ploy to spread word of
mouth about its ambitious space opera was “viral marketing before there was
viral marketing,” he added.
It evidently worked. Big-shot studio executives who had previously
attended for fun on their weekends began coming for the whole week, arriving
in their business suits to close major licensing deals at San Diego’s top
restaurants.
By the 90s, studios and networks were sending the “talent” itself — star-
studded casts and directors — forcing the traditional media to pay
attention.
Francis Ford Coppola came to promote “Dracula,” while Quentin Tarantino
went from wandering the halls as a fan to appearing front and center on
stage.
“Back in the day we used to give away two or three thousand tickets on the
radio because we couldn’t get people through the door,” recalled Glanzer.
“Now tickets sell out within an hour.”
– Comic roots –
The recipe has been so successful that imitations and spin-offs have
popped up around the world, from New York to Saudi Arabia.
This year San Diego will host a series of retrospective panels celebrating
Comic-Con’s storied past.
But for some, the exponential growth has come at a cost.
What was once an intimate event now sees thousands of bleary-eyed fans —
dressed in pitch-perfect monster, alien and manga costumes — lining up long
before dawn to squeeze into packed events.
Comic retailers who maintained stalls at the event for decades have
stopped coming, priced out by rising costs as Comic-Con has filled and
spilled out from the 27-acre (11-hectare) San Diego Convention Center.
And many bemoan the fact that, in a world of Hollywood blockbusters and
video games, the comic books themselves have been relegated to the back
pages.
“Yeah we do get a lot of Hollywood people, but entertainment now is very
different to how it was in 1970,” said Glanzer. “I think that’s just a
healthy progression and acknowledgement of art in its various different
forms.
“As long as we maintain our roots in comics and other art forms, I hope
we’ll be okay.”