Twilight, Robert Downey Jr., eight-hour lines. Time to ask the $64,000 question: Has Comic-Con become something completely different?! Why not ask those who made it all happen during the formative years of the Con? Luckily, that’s exactly what we did, and their answer may surprise you.
Twilight, Robert Downey Jr., eight-hour lines. Time to ask the $64,000 question: Has Comic-Con become something completely different?! Why not ask those who made it all happen during the formative years of the Con? Luckily, that’s exactly what we did, and their answer may surprise you.
Narrated by Brinke Stevens
Created and Directed by Mathew Klickstein
Executive Produced by Rob Schulte
Written and Produced by Mathew Klickstein, Rob Schulte, and Christopher Tyler
Edited by Rob Shulte, and Christopher Tyler
Mixed by James Bilodeau
Original Music Composed by Max DeVincenzo and Produced by Fox Tracks Music
With help from Brannan Goetschius and Michael Fische
All interviews (unless otherwise noted) conducted by Mathew Klickstein.
Principal interviewees/contributors (in alphabetical order):
Al Jean, Anthony Russo, Barry Alfonso, Barry Short, Bill Lund, Bill Mumy (provided by contributor), Bill Schanes, Bjo Trimble, Bob Arendt, Brinke Stevens, Bruce Campbell, Caseen Gaines, Chuck Graham (provided by SDSU), Clayton Moore, Dave Clark, Dave Scroggy, Erin Hanna, Gene Henderson, Greg Bear, Gregory Benford, Gus Krueger, Felicia Day, Frank Miller, Ho Che Anderson, Igor Goldkind (provided by SDSU), Jackie Estrada, Jeanne Graham (provided by SDSU), Jim Cornelius, Jim Means, Jim Valentino, Joe Russo, John Pound, John Trimble, Kevin Eastman, Linda Yeh, Lloyd Kaufman, Kevin Smith (provided by contributor), Len Wein (provided by M. Klickstein archive), Maggie Thompson, Mark Evanier, Mike Towry, Mo Alzmann, Neil Gaiman (provided by contributor), Paul M. Sammon, Phil Yeh, Richard Alf (provided by KPBS), Richard Butner, Rick Geary, Roger Freedman, Scott Aukerman, Scott Shaw!, Sergio Aragonés (provided by contributor), Stan Sakai, Tim Seeley, Trina Robbins, Wendy All.
We are grateful to the family of Mary and Gene Henderson (who, sadly, passed away during the final stages of Comic-Con Begins' post-production). This production is dedicated in part to their memory, as well as the memory of the many Con contributors no longer with us but whose legacy will continue to live on for time immemorial.
Archival material and additional research provided by:
Mike Towry and his “Comic-Convention Memories” website.
Alan Light’s 1975 Comic-Con recordings
Jackie Estrada and Comic-Con’s 40th Anniversary Souvenir Book
Pamela Jackson and San Diego State University’s Comic-Con
Maureen Cavanaugh at San Diego’s KPBS
Erin Hanna and her book Only at Comic Con
Bjo Trimble and “The Star Trek Concordance”
Fantagraphics’ “We Told You So: Comics As Art”
Bruce Campbell:
Couple of years ago, I was at San Diego Comic-Con, and JJ Abrams was previewing something never before seen from a Star Wars movie in one theater, you know, “X “and there was a pilgrimage, like, it was an Exodus from one building to another. And it was fans, maybe, I don't know, 15 wide and half a mile long. It was the most amazing thing you've ever seen in your life. And I'm in a van. We got to get from “A” to “B,” and we have to get through this ocean of people. And I'm like, “Stop the van stopped. We got shit to do too, JJ Abrams, you know.” So, I got out and a couple of people recognized me. And so I was able to part the sea and hold the savages back and push them back and, you know, waving our van through. And you know, we thanked them profusely. Then they, you know, I got out of there as they collided again. They thought that I was lucky. Later they could’ve killed ‘im if they knew that they were being held up to get a special seat at this Star Wars thing. But, you know, “Hey, we got stuff to do too.”
Brinke Stevens:
Thanks for joining us one last time for Comic-Con Begins. My goodness! Can you believe we're at the end of our six-part oral history of the San Diego Comic-Con? From 1970 to today, we've really taken quite a trip through geek and fan culture together. And for those who need a quick refresher, we recommend you check out Episodes One through Five. As we made our way into the early nineties, sci-fi movies were on the rise, thanks in large part to major innovations in the realm of special effects and computer graphics. Comics, though, were in a strange place. Marvel and DC had to do what they could to keep readers interested with gimmicks, such as the infamous Death of Superman saga. Meanwhile, creators were starting to find ways of taking control of their own intellectual property and began coming together Avengers style to establish independent companies, such as Dark Horse and Fantagraphics. This included Image Comics, co-founded by our own Jim Valentino, whom you've been hearing throughout the series. The underground comics of the sixties and seventies were infused by a punk rock ethos that emboldened new creators, such as: Peter Bagge, Johnny Ryan, Lynda Berry, Phoebe Gloeckner, and Ho Che Anderson to produce outstanding work that we were now calling “alternative comics.” All the while, we at the Con continued to honor and remember the great creators of classic comics from yesteryear. We brought recognition to those who were maybe left behind or even left off the credit sheets from their own creations. One such way we did this was through what has become the Oscars of the comics field, held at the Con and begun throughout the eighties. Before passing away in 2005, Will Eisner was the creator of such influential works as The Spirit. He is considered by many as the father of graphic novels and was just an all around super guy and mentor to hundreds in the industry. It's no wonder that after a few name changes, we finally landed on the awards being known as the Eisner's. As one of the only people who can lay claim at having been at every single Comic-Con ever held, it's no wonder, too, that our dear friend and colleague Jackie Estrada has long been the queen bee of the comics industry's most auspicious award ceremony.
Jackie Estrada:
Originally, there was something called the Jack Kirby Awards. And this was in the mid-1980s. And it was something that Fantagraphics Books came up with. And the idea was to have professionals in the comic book industry vote on a slate of nominees in categories like Best Writer and Best Single Issue and Best Comic Book, and things like that. And then they were announced at a program at Comic-Con. And then, in 1990, Will said, “Yes, I will attach my name if it's a nonprofit.” That's when Comic-Con took over the Eisners. And that's when I became the administrator of the Eisner Awards. And I've been doing that ever since. That's our big award show that we now have on a Friday night of Comic-Con.
Stan Sakai:
They're like a sense of legitimacy for me. Now I had my own character, my own comic book. I had been doing Usagi now for more than 35 years. And along the way, I'd been honored by Comic-Con, which is a huge honor in itself. I received an Inkpot Award …Uh, let's see, I hate to say it, but, uh, nine Eisner Awards, including the, um, the Hall of Fame now. And these awards are really special to me because Comic-Con is really special to me. It was the first convention that I had ever been to. And the only convention that I have attended religiously.
John Trimble:
An Inkpot award is a, uh, award, uh, instituted in the early years for service to Comic-Con. When Bjo got hers, it was a little lovely cup from Party City or something. The current Inkpot Awards are designed by Will Eisner and are bronze. And, believe me, if one of them fell on you, it could break your foot.
Stan Sakai:
Comic-Con had the foresight, uh, not only to expose people to other countries, what other countries are doing in comic books, um, motion pictures, and anime. But they're also instrumental in honoring or bringing back the Golden Age artists, which is something I really appreciated, because just to bring up and honor the people who were there before us.
Sergio Aragonés:
One of my biggest, biggest memories is standing next to Will Eisner at the awards ceremony. And in-between, I had chance to talk to him and eventually became friends. And there was something magical. Somebody you have admired was your idol, and now he's your friend. And you can talk about anything you want. That was one of the great things that our convention did for me, is that I became friends of, of my idols. And I felt at home all the time.
Mark Evanier:
Today, people get into comics, knowing that you can get famous to a certain extent. You can go to conventions and sign autographs. You can maybe have a celebrity that transforms into some jobs and some money. A lot of older artists make their livings doing commissions for fans. When the comic book industry was not paying them a pension, their fans pay them a pension in effect by buying artwork from them and paying them to sign and draw things. And for the first generation, anybody had gotten comic books before about 1970, got into the business, maybe got out, with knowing that was a possibility. At San Diego, these people become celebrities and they get thanked and they get honored and they get financially rewarded in some cases. There are people like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who were not treated very well by the industry. Or Bill Finger or Jack Kirby. And there's dozens of other lesser cases of people who created great characters and because of not knowing what they were signing, or just merely the fact that the company had such good lawyers and way more money, they were excluded from their own characters. They often didn't get credit for their work at all, or not very much. And the fact that the fans rallied around them and made them celebrities at the convention and talked about the injustices that were done to them, went a long way towards righting a lot, not all and not enough maybe, but a lot of those past injustices.
Alan Light:
At the banquet was The Spirit's own Will Eisner.
Will Eisner:
I was asked to bring samples of my artwork here. I thought maybe I could sell a few pages. They told me a big publisher was out here, a fella named Stan Lee. I heard he does some comic books. And I thought maybe I'd sell a few pages to him. I’d like to, uh, say something serious. I've been saying that all day. Now I've got somebody to listen to me. I believe, speaking largely for the comic artists, comic books, that we are now on a threshold of a whole new era in comics. And with the rather long-overdue recognition of comic art as an artform or what I like to call “sequential art,” we are facing now a whole new, uh, emergence of this artform into many new things. For 35 years, comic art or comic books have devoted themselves entirely to one thing: “Crime does not pay.” We found out that that's all wrong. There's got to be a new reordering of our intellectual editorial priorities. You hear that, Stan?
Stan Lee:
I’ll get even!
Will Eisner:
I'm going to keep talking ‘til you faint!
Stan Lee:
You always do!
Brinke Stevens:
We spoke last episode about how Hollywood changed the Con in the eighties. But what does Hollywood's involvement look like today, with the advent of the Internet and social media? Image Comics co-founder, artist and original Con contributor Jim Valentino has plenty to say about all of that.
Jim Valentino:
I remember Fae Desmond, the president, I think, of Comic-Con at the time, she came up to me, I was the publisher of Image Comics. So this must've been about 1999. And she asked me if I had any problem with the convention bringing in movie and television studios to set up their stuff. And I said, “No. It seems to me like they would bring people into the show. And if they bring people into the show, I can sell them my books. Fine. Yeah, sure!” And I said, “And anyways, we've always had these people here, you know,” and she says, “No,” she's talking about a really big presence. I had no idea what she was talking about or in those days, the fact that it would turn into hall H and all of that.Hall H was created after the movie studios started to make a very big presence in Comic-Con. And I think that was after the Convention Center expanded a bit. So as I recall, the very first year, there was a pirate ship in the middle of the floor to promote Pirates of the Caribbean. There were, there were Star Wars vehicles and, um, X-wings and, and landspeeders. Full size! The actual props from the movies! LEGOs had this big giant thing with all their monstrous LEGOs. They were bringing in a lot of stars. You know, people, movie stars, right? Not just comic book stars or, or science fiction, but actual movie stars, just like Charlie Lippincott did many, many years before. They realized if they could get the fans fired up, they could have a successful show. So, Hall H accommodated that. Basically it's a big stage and it's a very large hall and all the people who want to go for movies or TV shows or premiers, or to see some celebrities, actual, real, you know, people like Harrison Ford, for example, they can go to Hall H, and they sit in there pretty much all day. They camp out for three or four days to get in, to get a seat. And then they just stay there.
Erin Hanna:
When Robert Downey Jr. made his entrance as like 50% Robert Downey Jr., 50% Iron Man/ Tony Stark, I feel like, that was a great research moment for me, because I had spent the entire day in Hall H, watching panels, making notes, recording audio where I could. And I got up in anticipation of the Marvel panel to kind of move to a different part of the room where I thought I might, just to kind of change my perspective and get a better view, as people were shuffling around in and out. And I ended up moving to a place where I was kind of sat, sat behind a pole and couldn't see anything. And the place where I was previously sitting was the aisle that he came right down. And it was just such an interesting moment in terms of thinking about Hall H and how you have this really potent feeling of like live-ness and that you're, you're there. But I actually watched that whole thing, even though I was physically there, on one of the screens. So I had this meta-moment of like, “Does it, what, what am I actually getting from being here?” And again, that's where, you know, it's the crowd, that's the excitement. And that's, again, the fans generating that and creating that excitement for the industry.
Scott Aukerman:
it really felt like it was a secret for nerdy people and geek culture and people who are of a similar mindset. It seemed like, “Oh, wow, yeah. These are our people. And we're here and this is cool. And, oh, whoa! Now in the late nineties through the mid-two thousands, the mainstream is sort of trying to market to us and our dollars are important. Well, that's cool.” And it was very new and exciting. And I'll admit it, the first year that I was invited to an Entertainment Weekly party up on a rooftop, “I was like, whoa: Comic-Con is going to the next level. This is incredible.” But then the people on the floor started to change as well. There were, there was always a collection of like Playboy models who were taking pictures with people even back in the, in the nineties. But suddenly you started to see people realizing that they wanted to go down to Comic-Con in order to, to create “content” for whatever they were doing for their YouTube channels, for television shows that were covering Comic-Con … So you got sort of what I would consider to be carpetbaggers coming in.
Paul M. Sammon:
You know, one of the most ominous phrases I've ever heard is “content creator.” I'm not a fucking content creator! I'm a writer! “Fuck off!”, you know?! I mean, that's a nice way of just like de-individualizing the contributor. Or this “creatives” thing. You know? These are all slightly condescending and rather sinister corporate speak, in my opinion, you know, and we've all, any of us who have been in the arena professionally know exactly what I'm talking about. And we all get bruised, and we all get hurt, and we all get like used and thrown away and then picked up by someone else and used and thrown away. That's the cycle. So that's not geek culture. That's not geek culture doing that. That are the overlords.
Jackie Estrada:
Somebody mentioned something about Comic-Con: you'll see the complainers. And one of the big complaints is that what used to be the most the obvious about Comic-Con, which was all the back issue bins and the, you know, all of the Golden Age and Silver Age comics on display, you know, “We can't find those at Comic-Con anymore. Comic-Con doesn't care about that anymore. And that's how they came to be! And now they just don’t care!” So, you know, you get a lot of that sour grapes kind of thing going on. But, uh, you know, it's … What I observe is that people resent that it became popular because they want it to be their thing. And, uh, you know, they they're upset that other people got interested in what they wanted to be their own niche things. So they're not so excited that it became big; they're upset.
Lloyd Kaufman:
Our panels used to be Prime Time in the old days. Right? They'd be on a time when you'd get a pretty good turnout, maybe. Now they put us Saturday night. And it's not anybody's fault. It's just the, we're not, you know, we're not, we don't draw the big crowds. So, um, we, uh, get relegated to Saturday evening, which as you probably know is the big evening, uh, socially at Comic-Con. So people are not as interested in going to a Troma panel. But the good part is, uh, if we get 500 people, those are dedicated people. Those are, uh, people who really care about us. And so there's a kind of a yin and yang to the whole thing.
Igor Goldkind:
There is a spirit of the original Comic-Con that's still present. But I think it's more about shared values and shared perspective. That's not necessarily the same focus or interest of the Comic-Con the way it is now. I mean, right now, they’re a showcase for very important companies in the industry, very important television programs, very important film projects, large comics publishers, medium-size comics publishers. So they're catering to that now. Their focus isn't cultivating the next Scott Shaw!.
Neil Gaiman:
My first Comic-Con, there were 15,000 people there and I thought, “This is too big.” And having said that, it was wonderful. Now I have no idea how many people come to San Diego. Um, and of course the tragedy now is that I don't get to meet people. I miss meeting people. I miss making friends. Um, everybody knew when I was young that I wore a big black leather jacket and dark glasses, which meant that if I took off the big black leather jacket and the dark glasses, I had a certain amount of anonymity people. Weren't quite sure what I looked like. I was the guy with the dark glasses and the leather jacket. And that was amazing because that would allow me just enough freedom of movement to walk the dealers room, to walk Artists Alley, to meet friends …
Brinke Stevens:
For those of you who haven't been lucky enough to attend a Con, our long-running Artists Alley is the place where creators, artists and entrepreneurs of all kinds can come to set up their tables and booths, meet with fans, sign autographs, and hock their wares to the public. Think of it as Comic-Con’s,very own flea market, minus the fleas. Being that the Con remains so integral to both the commerce and lives of so many in the industry, it's no surprise that many comics creators, Hollywood insiders, and other creative professionals will quite literally schedule their entire yearly itinerary around our annual late July event. Don't believe me? Here's uber-geek pro himself Kevin Smith to confirm.
Kevin Smith:
San Diego Comic-Con functions for me like the start of my calendar year. Most people, you know, start in January and stuff. The geek year kicks off in San Diego Comic-Con and, and goes from con to con. So, uh, the, you know, a little comic book show that some cats decided to throw in San Diego has developed into an institution around which I center the activities of my working year. Isn't that nuts?
Stan Sakai:
We plan our entire year around Comic-Con. I mean, summer is just reserved for Comic-Con. I mean, we spend like two or three weeks just preparing for this big convention. And it is a big convention. And, you know, it's, for me, I go for the comics and to meet the fans and meet other creators.
Erin Hanna:
Just the visibility and the scale of industry promotion happening at the San Diego Comic-Con now, and Hollywood promotion in particular, I think there's the sense that, that, that stuff, in being so visible has kind of taken the place of comic books at the event. But it's more like what stuff travels outside of the Convention Center and becomes most visible to people who aren't at Comic-Con in some ways. I think the more obvious industry presence, as opposed to just artists and writers, like comic artists and writers, but gradually in addition to those artists and writers who would show up at Comic-Con, you also start to get more of a presence of the companies like Marvel showing up, representing the company. Eventually you get to the point of today where if you're watching and learning about Comic-Con and seeing how it's reported in the press, it seems like that's all it is. If you're at Comi-Con, and that's all you're interested in, that also seems like it's all there is. But you can also kind of seek out that other stuff at Comic-Con still today.
Barry Alfonso:
I had gone to a Comi-Con and there were a group of people in a little side room that were doing a Reader’s Theater of a Little Lulu comic strip. They were passing around scripts where people were reading this dialogue from this comic strip from the 1950s. I mean, so nerdy, it was painful. But it was delightful. And my wife Jan took one of the parts. And if this wasn’t old-time nerdish fandom, I don't know what it was. So maybe you might say that there were giants that were moving through Comic-Con. They were great film stars and huge blockbuster movies being presented, but there were also activities like this going on.
Felicia Day:
I created a show called The Guild. It was a web series, and I shot it in my garage for almost no money. So I went in 2008 to publicize my web series. And I literally went down there to hand out bookmarks to people at the doors. And then in 2009 and ‘10, we actually had our own booth and I subleased it from someone. And I actually had to put together the Ikea shelves myself, and our lines got longer and longer and longer over the years. And I think in 2008, it was still kind of a creator-friendly environment. And as the years went on and Comic-Con got more and more hyped and more and more mainstream, big companies started coming in and trying to co-opt the space and obviously a lot of money. So, uh, it, it sort of turned into something different. I feel sad when Artists Alley keeps getting infringed upon by bigger and bigger companies and more and more booths. And I get upset when small creators like me could never kind of breakthrough when there’s eighteen Star Wars TV shows coming through. So it is different, but you just have to change with the times and find other places to celebrate the smaller voices.
Stan Sakai:
Well, I created Usagi Yojimbo's, or rather, Usagi Yojimbo’s first published in 1984. We got, uh, tables back then … Um, we could buy a table for as little as $15 or something. And, I remember sitting with Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman, creators of the Ninja Turtles, uh, for some reason where we were kind of situated by the restroom.
Kevin Eastman:
But in those days, you know, you’d be at a show? And they would put the “funny animal” guys kind of, uh, on a set of tables that nobody really wanted usually next to the restrooms or on the way to the restroom or something. We would sit next to Stan a lot and just, you know, it was just the best, ‘cause we would be trading sketches. And I mean, I've got a sketch in my studio right over here from, I got from Stan in 1985 that I asked them we would trade drawings and stuff.
Stan Sakai:
Usagi and the Turtles, um, came out both in 1984. I think the Turtles came out in May or June. Usagi, uh, first appeared in, uh, Beetle in, um, October, November. There were very few black-and-white comic books at that time. So of course we gravitated towards each other. We supported each other. And after the, um, Ninja Turtles got their TV series, uh, you know, it was red hot, they were great. Peter Laird and I were at a Comic-Con, San Diego Con, and we're just sitting with each other, just talking and he just turned to me and said, “Do you want a toy?” And I said, “You know, sure!” And he said, “Good! We’ll include Usagi as part of the Ninja Turtle toy line. And, how about in the TV series?” And of course I said, “Yeah, that sounds fine.” And then he said, “Yeah, sure. Have your people call our people, and they'll hash it out.” The thing is I didn't have any people. It's, like, I had a friend, a lawyer who did some legal work for me, but, uh, basically I had no one to do the licensing or anything, uh, at least not on that scale. So basically they gave me some of their people.
Kevin Eastman:
And the reception was appropriate. Fans fell in love with Usagi Yojimbo and Space Usagi. And we published it at Mirage. And did that. We also, there were no, you know, Dave Garcia was another really good friend of ours who created a comic called Panda Khan, and we were able to bring him into the Turtle line. And there were others.
Stan Sakai:
A lot of people had been introduced to Usagi through the Ninja Turtles, which I'm eternally grateful for, but it came about because of Comic-Con. We met each other at the San Diego Con, we, and we made the initial deal at the Comic-Con. So it was wonderful.
Kevin Eastman:
That's the best part is meeting and making lifelong friends. I mean, Stan just moved, but for a while, he didn't live too far from where we live here in Southern California. So we would get together pretty regularly. And the camaraderie we shared with a lot of up-and-coming creators, especially Stan Sekai, uh, was just something that I felt like we were all on the same journey and, and that was a love and appreciation for comic books, wanting to dedicate your life to, um, a medium that, it's not a “get rich quick” scheme, you know, anything like that, but we're doing it for the passion and the love for it. And, uh, when Peter and I had opportunities with the Turtles, um, you know, the, the toys that came along, and the cartoon shows and things like that, that we wanted to bring some of our friends along, um, if they wanted to. And that was one of those things that in addition to just being artistic friends and creators, that we were also owners of our property.
Joe Russo:
I mean, every time we went back there with another movie because they got each subsequent film got bigger than the last, the crowds got bigger, the noise got louder, the insanity got higher. And until this point where, you know, I think we're there for, um, with Winter Soldier, right?
Anthony Russo:
Marvel was announcing Winter Soldier, that they were going to make it, and we were directing it. That was the first time.
Joe Russo:
Yeah. Which is interesting because the, you know, you have no thumbprint in the Marvel universe and then you're being thrust into this insane judgmental crowd of folks. Uh, and everyone's wondering, “Well, what the hell are these guys going to do with Captain America: Winter Soldier? Aren’t they comedy guys?”
Anthony Russo:
There was a lot of anxiety in the air in that room.
Joe Russo:
To watch the trajectory and the love and how we got embraced over time there was the most special point of our careers. I don't know that we'll ever be able to replicate the feelings that we got showing up there to present new material to that crowd.
Frank Miller:
When I first came back after a fairly, you know, an absence of a few years, I was afraid that it would have gotten too commercialized and so on. And, and, uh, it was, it was during the flush of, of like Marvel movies and all of that that were coming out right and left. And at first, the slickness of it really did strike me, but the, but the, the, you know, the, the sweetness became very evident right away. There were still the moms with their little kids, and they wonderful congregations that we'd all have, you know, in the lobby, you know, me and other artists. So it definitely has not lost its soul, even though it's, it's, it's, it's got a little bit of a fever.
Neil Gaiman:
My most interesting exit from stage was around 2004, 2005, 2000 … somewhere around there. When, uh, Dave McKean and I were doing a panel together. I think it was a Sandman panel. And we were in the middle of this room. It was full. There were maybe 2000 people crammed into the room and the people whose job it was to get us to and from the panel realized there was a problem. And the problem was the way that this room was set up, they couldn't get us out without us being literally surrounded by people who would want things signed, and they had to get us to the next thing. So what they did was what anybody at Comic-Con who was inventive and brilliant would do, which is they brought in a horde of Klingons. We're talking on stage and I'm starting to notice out of the corner of my eye, that an awful lot of six-foot-five, six-foot-eight, leather-clad, uh, crinkle-foreheaded Klingons are slowly edging in on the right-hand side of the hall. And the panel finishes. And suddenly there is an armed -- they weren't particularly armed -- they were just huge. There was a wall of Klingons between us and the people who wanted us to sign something. And we were ushered out behind a Klingon wall. And that has to be the best exit from any interview I've ever done. And it's so Comic-Con: Here is your own guard, ‘cause we have to get you offstage somehow.
Maggie Thompson:
40 years after we took our nine-year-old and our four year old, who enjoyed things but didn't fully grasp it, I got to take my grownup daughter and her son then in his mid-teens to Comic-Con for the first time for him. And he got his own pleasures out of it. It used to be that conventions were for the grownups. And now it’s conventions are for the family. And Joye Murchison Kelly, who was the first ghostwriter on Wonder Woman, walked through the crowds at Comic-Con, and the little girls in their Wonder Woman costumes, posed with her. It was magic. The joy experienced by all has simply grown exponentially over the years. And one of the challenges for the event has been, everybody wants to go.
Brinke Stevens:
With more than 125,000 attendees crowding into the San Diego Convention Center each year, there's obvious issues with population control at the Con. Even getting a ticket can be an issue if you're not fast enough on the draw. You've probably seen the episode of The Big Bang Theory where that geeky gang had trouble getting their Con credentials.
Brinke Stevens:
In 1970, our problem was worrying about or not we'd be able to get enough people to come. We had enough trouble even getting the word out in San Diego. Has the Con now become too big for fans to comfortably make it inside?
Scott Aukerman:
For awhile. I went with Paul Scheer for a few years, and I remember Aziz Ansari was there with us one year and he tried to jump the line in Hall H, by saying like, “Hey, you know, I'm kind of famous. And I'm getting bothered out here in the line,” and the security guards were not having any of it. And were like, “We don't care. Get to the back of the line!” It was true, too. I mean, like, ever since then, Comic-Con has taken a little bit more care with celebrities who want to go down, who don't want to be bothered. I remember the year that Jack Black went, and I think he wore a Stormtrooper mask or something, so that no one would know who he is, and he could walk around freely. I've been down there with Jason Mantzoukas, who gets stopped a lot and has to kind of keep moving. I'm able to walk around unimpeded. I have a great level of fame, where maybe, like, over, over the day, six to ten people will come up and say, “Hi,” but they won't stop me or want to take a picture or anything. So that's, that's really great.
Brinke Stevens:
To help reconcile this issue, when we come back from the break, we'll hear about a little film franchise called Twilight, and what happened in the early 2000s, when it made its presence well-known at the Con.
[INTERMISSION]
Erin Hanna:
I don't think it's as productive to just say Twilight ruined Comic-Con. If you're going to make a criticism, it's probably more productive to say that Hollywood promotion at Comic-Con, in general, has taken something away. If you even think that Comic-Con has been ruined by those things.With Twilight brought a very visible vocal audience of women, young women. A lot of Twilight fans were women in that franchise, I think is kind of looked down upon in kind of a gendered way. So I think it's really interesting for Twilight to have caused that much of a stir at Comic-Con.
Brinke Stevens:
Welcome back to Comic-Con Begins. The voice you just heard was Dr. Erin Hanna, university professor and author of the book Only at Comic-Con. And the stir she is speaking of is the arguments that took place when some felt Twilight may not have belonged at the Con and was seen as taking over.But as our story has shown, this situation at the Con is far from unique. Remember the issues some took with Star Trek seemingly taking over way back in 1973. So what was the big difference in 2008? The proliferation of the Internet and cell phones.
Erin Hanna:
We were celebrating, just starting to celebrate how big Comic-Con had gotten and how important fans were and how fandom was kind of opening up and becoming more mainstream. And then along comes Twilight at Comic-Con, and some of the reactions to Twilight's presence there becomes this total case and evidence of like pushing back against that.
Len Wein:
I have mixed feelings about some of those fans who wait online for three or four days in the rain. I admire their, their determination. Absolutely. But there's an, a level of selfishness to some of it too, especially when it's Twilight's was coming out with those films, where there were thousands of people who just want to see what, what was really at Twilight panel, what is, you're going to show, what members of the cast are going to be there … And for the first couple of years, somebody figured it out and learned better. The panel's usually like three or four o'clock Saturday afternoon. And those fans would get into the room, which, whether it was Hall H or Ballroom 20, and camp out the entire day, waiting for their panel. They didn't care about the five or six panels that preceded theirs. They really paid no attention to what was going on onstage, but they were taking seats from people who really wanted to see those panels just so they can make sure they had seats for their panel.
Erin Hanna:
And I think it's really interesting that Twilight gets talked about as being this moment of a shift. Like that's when I also hear a lot of people say like once Twilight showed up, that's when Comic-Con kind of really sold-out and started to go downhill. You know, I don't, I don't think it's interesting necessarily that Twilight showed up at Comic-Con, ‘cause I think that actually makes total sense to me. I think what's really interesting is all the discourses about it and the consternation about it. And I think that's really telling. Because, Twilight, it makes sense at Comic-Con, you know? It was a huge blockbuster franchise. There's a lot of films prior to that, that had been promoted at Comic-Con that were not comic book franchises.
Tim Seeley:
You know, I had gone to Comic-Con every year and I always had a hotel in the Gaslamp. And, I remember the day I walked out and there was all these middle-aged women, and they're all like in their forties, standing in line all the way down, you know, one of those alphabet streets in the Gaslamp. And I walked there with my wife. I'm like, “Who the hell are these people? What are they here for?” Because they weren't in cosplay. Yeah, I mean, I was used to women being at conventions obviously, but not, you know, women in their forties without costumes, they were just waiting line. And someone said it was this vampire novel and it’s gonna be a movie, and I was like, and I was like, “I have no idea what the hell this is,” I did not, obviously, you know, it's YA book. It's not aimed at me in any way, shape or form. But I remember that being a sea change towards like, seeing that, you know, not only was Comic-Con opening up to mass studio releases and stuff, but it was also opening up to a whole new audience of people who were peripherally interested in genre, right? Like, I have a feeling that Twilight, I mean, as much as it's maligned, it introduced genre to a whole lot of people, I think. And you know, the, the way I always look at it is when you, you bring all those people in from something else, some of them are going to get turned on to the comics. I mean, not all of them, but I've certainly seen that be, you know, a way of us getting new readers into this medium. Someone went to San Diego Comic-Con. They wanted to see the vampire writer of the YA books, whatever. And then they went, “I'll go walk the floor and I'll pick up this vampire comic, ‘cause I'm sort of interested in this subject now.” So I think it, you know, it's always been to our advantage. Uh, I think people sort of lament that in this weird way, that they think their passionate dedication is being overtaken by someone else. But I always say that's horseshit. They're helping sustain, uh, the thing you love.
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Caseen Gaines:
For a long time, the assumption was that geek culture was mostly pimply white boys who like to read comic books under their blanket with a flashlight. And, over time, there have been more women, people of color, members of the LGBT community that have come forward and said, “Yeah, we also read those comic books too. We also watch those films too. We also enjoyed those stories too.” And what you find is that a lot of people of color, especially, identify with comic book characters, because a lot of comic book characters are misfits. You know, they're people that are sort of marginalized by society. And so what you're seeing now is a lot of those fans who have grown up saying, “Well, I actually want to tell stories that are more authentic to what it was like for me growing up, you know, for me as a misfit maybe is a little bit different than what it was for a Jack Kirby as a misfit.” It's great that we've sort of created this culture where more and more voices are being able to come into the forefront. And you see, you know, the Black Panther film is an excellent example where white people will also identify with these stories. It's not just stories for people of color. These stories can resonate with anyone because they're stories well-told and people of color, women, members of the LGBT community. We've been identifying with white stories all our lives. So, you know, it's a little bit of, um, an equalizer I think. And I think it's a great thing for everyone.
Ho Che Anderson:
The reason I thought King, Martin Luther King's life would work well in comics is first of all, because that is the job that was given to me. I was a cartoonist, a publisher approached me and said, “Do you want to tell the story of King's life?” When you were a cartoonist and a publisher says, “Do you want to do it?”, I mean, it's, you know, your, your thoughts immediately are “Yes, of course I'm going to tell King’s story in words and pictures!” The approach that I wanted to take to it that I thought might be a little bit unique. Um, and I'm not sure that it was, but I, I hadn't come across a lot of material that took the approach, was to, just to not sugarcoat who King was and to not to try to portray the myth as it had been presented to me in the eighties, uh, and in the early nineties, of this saint-like figure. So I felt presenting what was perhaps a more fair and balanced, fair to King, too. I don't think he wanted to be known just as some, you know, saint-like figure.
Sergio Aragonés:
You go there and immediately you start seeing friends, cartoonists who live all over the country. And, uh, later it became all over the world. And it’s a very small community. We are not that many in the world. Um, that was one of the great thing is meeting, meeting them. I remember late, uh, years later, um, giving the Inkpot Award to a great Mexican cartoonist, one of the early, early, early founder of the comic book industry in Mexico, Ramon Valdiosera. And I had the honor to give it to him and, uh, have a panel with him. And later you when it went to becoming international, I see that my, by my publishers in Germany, the people from France and Spain, they come to the table and then they invite you to their conventions. At San Diego. I've been invited to go to India, to Malaysia, all over the world, all because the people went there and met you and they knew your work and they had the chance to talk personally with you. That's another great thing that I, to me, that San Diego has been so, so important.
Brinke Stevens:
These are just a few examples of the innumerable ways fandom culture continues to strive to be more inclusive and to connect communities of all kinds together under the aegis of pop culture. The celebration of the arts is a celebration of humanity as a whole. It is a celebration of who we are as a people. What we can imagine. What we can create. And what we are capable of when we unite to make the impossible possible. It's no wonder scholars like Dr. Erin Hanna, pop culture historian Caseen Gaines, and pioneering fandom academic Dr. Henry Jenkins have spent so much of their time and energy on exploring that shrinking space that exists between fan and creator. As delighted as my friends and I are at that fandom has become such an intrinsic part of our society, I have to say, for us, a fan is a fan is a fan. My friends and I? We're fans. We love what we love. And it's made an incalculable difference on all of our lives these many decades later. Here's Comic-Con co-founder Barry Alfonso with more.
Barry Alfonso:
Believe me, the people that are around now, we're all good friends. We have no problems with each other at all. We all respect and really love each other.
Roger Freedman:
It is interesting to think about the folks who were involved in the early years of Comic-Con as sort of being a, um, that this strange organization of misfits who didn't quite fit in with the rest of the society. And there's certainly something to that now that all of us, we're certainly parts of society. We're doing perfectly socially acceptable things. You know, I was a science major in college for instance, but by the same token, we're doing this stuff that seems so bizarre and so out of left field that I think we can say with some confidence that the, uh, the misfits who helped create Comic-Con 50 years ago, um, we ended up conquering the world.
Scott Shaw!:
If I hadn’t been involved in Comic-Con, I don't think I would have made it into the business because I got to meet almost all the living greats and Bob Kane. Um, Bob Kane was another example of looking like, you know, picking up the rock and seeing the other side of comics. But seriously, everybody was so nice and helpful. And whatever time I invested in it was not wasted. Other than Shel, I don't remember any kind of problems between people. I really don’t.
Ken Krueger:
Is Shel around? That's not a valid question. Certainly Shel is round. Take one look at him!
Mo Alzmann:
We were in Delaware, I think, when, when, when the funeral was. He was in the hospital, when we were out there for the, one of the reunion conventions, we were there and Richard and I were both going to go. I think along with a couple other people would go see him in the hospital. But someone had come from the hospital from seeing him and they told us don't go.
Mark Evanier:
He was unable to talk. He was unable to recognize me. And he was dead by many definitions already. You knew he was not going to ever be Shel Dorf. And I'm standing there trying to get him to have a flick of recognition. They had put me in gloves and a mask, “And I’m saying, Shel. It's Mark Evanier. Remember? Mark Evanier?” And there was no response. And as I'm standing there, an orderly, a hospital orderly who is wandering in to clean up some things says, “Oh, Evanier! I loved your panel at Comic-Con the other day.” And I just, I kind of burst into tears that Shel was excluded from all of that. It's a shame to take that away from him. It was the thing that Shel did. That was most important in his life.
Mike Towry:
Now, with conventions, it's people that attend them, they're consumers consuming an event or consuming an experience or an entertainment. But in those early years, when we were getting going because of the ethos and Shel had a lot to with establishing, it was an event that people who attended were participants and they were all part of the same group, whether they were a writer or an artist, or a lot of the fans, they started out as fans. And then they became writers. They became artists and they felt they had a stake in it. And they were really involved in it.
Barry Short:
Today, we have social media where everybody's connected about everything. If you like 16th Century French China, you can find a hundred other people who are interested in 16th Century French China. In 1970, I mean, we, all of us comic fans were alone. Maybe we exchanged mail, or maybe we got on the phone with somebody once in a while, but it was a solitary thing. So creating community through Comic-Con, through all of these other activities, was just hugely important. 1974 was the first Comic-Con I attended. San Diego Comic-Con. To walk into a room, and there are thousands of comics? Unbelievable. Overwhelming. And to be in a room with a whole bunch of people like that? Man, it made you feel like not an outsider for a change. Made you feel like part of something that was actually happening and not just the freak or the geek.
Mike Towry:
I mean, there's a lot of people now that are on salary with Comic-Con, you know. So that since they're not making profit at it, it's still non-profit, but they're getting a living out of it, but they have to cause it, you know, in an event that size, you can't do it just at least, I don't know how you could do it on just a volunteer basis and have any kind of continuity and stability.
Brinke Stevens:
It was definitely a labor of love, because we weren't getting paid. And we were putting quite a lot of time into it. We would have meetings periodically. When I was doing the dances on stage, I would prepare for almost an entire year for the next year's Masquerade. Every other weekend, I would have rehearsals. A lot of times we would be in some private space that I could find. Sometimes we did it on the steps at San Diego State University. Wherever there was space. All the girls had to be responsible for their own costumes. That cost money. And, you know, just basically so much time we put into this, but we didn't think about it. Somehow we were able to go to college, I was able to make straight A's, and I was able to spend so much in my free time devoted to the convention. And it's amazing now. I certainly wish I had that kind of time on my hands.
Roger Freedman:
It's curious to think that as big a business as Comic-Con is today and people often ask, “Well, how much money did you end up making off of any of this?” And the answer is, “Not a dime.” Because to be perfectly honest, it never occurred to us at the time that this could be anything that could ever make any money. And it never occurred to us that in any sense, we were entitled to any sort of compensation for that. That's certainly something that in retrospect, never entered my mind whatsoever. I was just so excited that we were doing this sort of stuff and making it available to people, that the notion that there'd be any sort of profit motive to it, frankly never entered my young head at the time.
Richard Butner:
I'd love it if they'd hired me and Mo as consultants, so we could get some money to make our lives a little easier. I mean, we're living on social security basically. And I lost the job I had recently, and Mo's, she’s no longer managing fast-food places and is a driver for a non-emergency medical vans. And we know we get by, but we're not living the high life. Ask us for ideas. We've got lots of ideas, lots of suggestions. And they would be worth their while to do that. And it sure would help us.
Jeanne Graham:
Well, it stops being fun then I won't do it anymore. So far, I'm still having fun. Getting older is mandatory. Growing up is entirely optional.
Jack Kirby:
No, I think that everybody is fun to fool around with. I think we should all put on a costume. I think the clothes we wear today are very drab. I think we should all put on superhero costumes and have a real fine time. I think we ought to wear reds, and nice blues and, uh, rich colors and have a great time. And you know, just, you know, wear what we want to wear. And I don’t see why I have to wear a tie or I have to wear a formal suit. And a lot of other guys have to look like penguins. Just because it’s called-for. I think we oughtta have a good time, you know? Why not? That’s the only thing I can think of. Why not? So, you know, the other guy hasn’t got a tie. I’m not gonna run over to Emily Post and say, “I want to report him!”
Mo Alzmann:
Well, the 50th anniversary in 2019 was the first Con I had attended for 10 years. And it was huge, and it was great. And it was fun. I guess the bad part was that there were a few people who were missing, you know, because we all age and we all, you know, pass away eventually. So there were some people that were obviously missing. But other than that, you know, there was a whole new generation of people there. They were doing the same things that we used to do. So it was good.
Brinke Stevens:
We were just a bunch of goofy teenagers in the sixties and seventies when we came together to create the San Diego Comic-Con, back before we even had a name we could stick to. Back before anyone had even heard of San Diego. We had no idea the work we were doing to put on the Con each year would lead to where we are now. We did it for the love of the game. Science fiction, fantasy, comics, cartoons, magic, costuming. They were our passions, not our careers. For many of us, we were lucky enough to make our passions our business these many years later. We were lucky to stick it out long enough to see the Con grow into what it's become with all its ineffable advantages and disadvantages, its wonderful contradictions that make it the biggest pop culture gathering on the planet year after year. While some of us became creative professionals, others went on to achieve other goals. For all of us, though, there's no question Comic-Con was our special little place that we're so proud to now share with the entire human race. We're proud that it continues to endure, flourish, and evolve. We're proud that you're here to watch with us as the journey continues forward.
Jackie Estrada:
One of the things that people have asked me is, “Well, what was it about those early seventies conventions that made you want to get involved?” And I would say, “Just the nicest people, the nicest people.”
Bill Mumy
Long live, the Comic-Con. Peace.
Stan Lee:
I don't know where we'll be in a year or two, but I would think, that wherever we are, it's going to be at a most exciting plateau. And I hope that you're all going to be there with us. Now, let me close by saying that if you enjoyed this half as much as I do and did, you had a really good time, so I want to compliment you on your choice of speakers, and with one final !!EXCELSIOR!!, thank you all very much. Thank you.
Richard Butner:
Just hit the power button, right?
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