Comic-Con International convenes a week from today in San Diego. Preview Night used to be a not-as-crowded, more leisurely stroll about the convention hall but now there's nothing particularly leisurely between the time you cross the San Diego City Limits and the time you pass out of them. I find I don't mind the crazed, something-every-second pace as long as I expect it going in and I remember I can leave.
I'm getting a little weary of the complaint, "It isn't about comics anymore." Yeah, people make more fuss about the Avengers movies than they do about the Avengers comic books. That's the way it is, people. Everywhere, including the executive suites at Marvel Entertainment, there's more interest in the movies than the comic books, That doesn't mean there isn't plenty around about the comic books…and if you can't find it, that doesn't mean it ain't there.
Check out the programming schedule and count the number of events that are about comics. Just try to visit every dealer in that hall who's selling comic books.
Take a look at the list of people the convention chooses to invite as Special Guests. Huge movie and TV stars will be at the convention but that's because exhibitors brought them there. The con invites mainly people who work in comic books, comic strips, animation and print fantasy. And in fact, they're revising their rules as to who qualifies for a free professional badge to give more weight to folks who work in comics and animation.
Yeah, it's about a lot of stuff that only tenuously connects to comic books…but you don't have to go to the Indigo Ballroom on Saturday afternoon for the TV Guide panel with the hottest stars on the hottest shows on television. Come over to Room 5AB and watch as Trina Robbins and I interview the lady who ghostwrote Wonder Woman in the forties. Could there be an event more about comic books than that?