Tag: Comic-Con

I just noticed this interview with David Glanzer, who's one of the main people who makes Comic-Con and WonderCon happen each year. David doesn't even know yet if WonderCon is going back to San Francisco next year but I know he'd like that to happen.

And I hear there are still some hotel rooms for San Diego available on the convention website. If you're going to need one, grab it now.

Also: During the Comic-Con this year, Petco Park next door will be filled with zombies and the walking dead. And this will be different from watching the Padres play the Colorado Rockies…how?

Hard to believe but it's 54 days until the 2012 Comic-Con International commences. Actually, it's 53 days until Preview Night when the hall is filled with attendees. I don't know why we talk of the con opening on Thursday when it's about as open as it gets on Wednesday evening.

I am in no way an officer or official or representative of the con. I'm just a guest and a guy who does a lot of panels. But I get a lot of questions and I'll try to answer some here…

If the con is sold out, how do I get tickets? It is sold out, true. If you keep your eye on the con website, you may see some more become available. Tickets are non-transferrable so if someone who has some decides they can't use them, they'll usually get a refund from the con itself which will then put them up for sale. You might also talk to exhibitors. Someone who purchases a booth gets a certain number of passes for those it will have staffing their exhibits. They may have more passes than they need.

What if I buy those super-expensive tickets on eBay? You'll probably regret it. Some of them are counterfeit and even the real ones are, like I said, non-transferrable. The con has turned people away who arrived with what they thought were legit tickets.

I have a pass. How do I get a hotel room? Keep looking. As with tickets, more may become available through the convention website. Another thing to do is to spend a bit of time on Google. If I needed a place to stay, I think I'd try that. The convention center is serviced by a very efficient trolley system and the Pacific Surfliner train on the Amtrak line can get you within walking distance (or a cheap taxi ride). I would look at those maps and see what's available along those routes.

Hey, have you heard anything about whether WonderCon is moving back to San Francisco next year and when it is? I've heard it's likely but not certain. For some reason, the Moscone Center in San Francisco won't commit to dates as far in advance as most other convention centers. The convention does want to return to that city by the bay.

Getting back to San Diego, what should I be doing now to prep for that convention? Firm up your travel plans, especially if you're flying. (Note that I've retired my usual joke about how if you need a parking space, leave now. But it's still applicable.)

Do you need any more nominations for the Bill Finger Award? Not for this year, thanks. The committee has made its selections and I'm very pleased with our picks. The names will be announced in the next week or so on the convention site and on this one.

How many panels will you be moderating at this year's Comic-Con? I'm currently at 13 and I expect to add a few more. They will include as usual: Two Cartoon Voice panels, another panel on how to break into that field, Quick Draw!, a panel with Sergio and me, Cover Story, the annual Jack Kirby Tribute and some spotlight interviews of guests. There will probably not be a Golden Age/Silver Age Panel because as I've explained here, there just won't be enough qualified people at the convention to populate such a thing.

If you have more questions about the con — and you probably do — I refer you again to the convention website. It's real good and full of useful info, more of which will appear there in the coming weeks. I highly recommend giving it a good once-over just before you attend. It's especially helpful to study the Programming Guide before you get there and I'll let you know when it's posted…probably 2-3 weeks before the con. Which (gasp!) isn't that far off.

A couple of folks have written me about what I wrote about Comic-Con International here recently. Some seemed to think I said that everything that has changed about it has changed for the better. No, I didn't say that nor do I think that. I just think that there's much to enjoy within the new stuff.

I received a couple of messages that said something to the effect that two things have unquestionably changed for the worse: The prices and the fact that it's difficult to get admission. The con sells out so quickly each year that longtime attendees sometimes find themselves shut out. They're right that neither of these is for the better.

The price of a badge has skyrocketed, true. And I could point out that the price of almost everything has skyrocketed but that would, I know, be small comfort. All I can say there is that the con is non-profit and that they spend a lot of money on programming and other benevolent purposes. It's not like the operators are pocketing vast fortunes. If a for-profit convention was turning away at least 100,000 people each year, I suspect they'd figure they could double or even triple the cost and still fill the hall.

That many folks can't get in at any price is troubling and I don't think there's any solution. I can write a longer post about this some day but after hearing all these rumors about the con moving to Anaheim or the con moving to L.A. or Vegas and learning many upsides and downsides, I'm convinced none of those locales are viable.

Meanwhile, the San Diego facility is expanding in size and will soon be able to accommodate more bodies. Alas, I sense the number of bodies that wish to attend is expanding at an even greater rate. If anyone has a solution other than to hold the con outside and just let it stretch to Tijuana, I'm sure the convention committee would be glad to entertain it.

In the meantime, watch this space over the next few days for some posts about and around this topic.

Hotel reservations for this year's Comic-Con International will open on Thursday, March 29 at 9 AM Pacific Time. You can get a sneak peek at what hotels will be available over on this page. Good luck.

Badges went on sale this morning at 8 AM for this year's Comic-Con International and sold out within, by some reports, 90 minutes. However long it took, they sold out…though more will become available later when there are returns and refunds.

From what I gather on the 'net, those who secured badges thought the process worked like a dream. Those who didn't thought it sucked and was unfair and faulty. It may be small comfort for those in the latter group but there's a certain numeric reality here which must be understood. The convention can only accommodate about 120,000-140,000 people each year. At least 300,000 (maybe a lot more than that) want to attend. Even if you had Buckminster Fuller assisting you, you couldn't design a system that wouldn't turn hundreds of thousands of frustrated con-goers away.

I would suggest to my friends on the convention committee that they do need to make badges available sooner next time. There are folks who for reasons of finance or life-planning needed to book their vacation time or their airfare and hotels for San Diego before they had the chance to secure badges. Some are now stuck with plane tickets and non-refundable hotel fees…but no admittance to the con. That needs to not happen.

Please, folks: Do not waste your time or mine writing to me to ask if I can pull strings and arrange for you to purchase tickets. I do not have that power and have never had that power. But I do already have a lot of e-mails from folks who think/pray I do.

If you didn't get in and want to, I suggest you keep a watchful eye on the con website for more opportunities. There will be some…though when and how many, I have no idea. If you know any dealers or exhibitors who'll have displays at the convention, you might try chatting with them.

One thing to avoid: There will be tickets for sale on eBay, allegedly from folks who bought and now cannot use them. Do not fall for that. Some of them are just plain counterfeit and the con does a good job of catching those and blocking admittance. And if the passes are legit, they're also non-transferrable and the con also catches most of those. People who buy badges and then cannot use them can secure full refunds and then those badges are sold via official convention channels.

To those of you who did score badges: Congrats. You're going to have a great time.

As we explained here in an obit, Richard Alf was the guy who put up the money to launch what we now know as the Comic-Con International. Here we have an article about him from a business magazine. Thanks to Lee Wochner for the link.

Richard Alf, whose obit ran on this site early last month, was one of the founding members of the get-together we now know as the Comic-Con International in San Diego. Another was Mike Towry. Mike has written a tribute to his friend Richard which doubles as a history of the early days of that convention. (By the way: I took the photo you'll see there of the 1972 convention committee in a stairwell at the El Cortez Hotel. Hard to believe that was almost 40 years ago.)

If you are planning to attend Comic-Con International this year — or if you think you might want to go at some future date — do yourself a favor and get yourself a Member I.D. It doesn't cost anything and you only have to do it once for the rest of your life. It will expedite matters when you do want to register for this year's or some future year's Comic-Con. And no, I don't know when registration for this year's gathering will occur. But it will be soon and when registration opens, you'll want to have your Member I.D. number handy.

The San Diego City Council has approved a $500 million buck expansion of the convention center. As this article notes, a significant concern is to keep the annual Comic-Con International in San Diego and not have it wander elsewhere after the current contract expires in 2015. The piece notes that Anaheim and Las Vegas are "beckoning" for the convention.

My understanding is that Vegas has done very little beckoning. Anaheim and Los Angeles have beckoned, as have some cities a bit farther off. Personally, I think Vegas and L.A. are ill-suited to host the event. We may find out on in March how suited Anaheim would be to it. The WonderCon in March is being held at the Anaheim Convention Center…and WonderCon is operated by the staff of Comic-Con International. (In case you missed early explanations, WonderCon is usually in San Francisco but this year, the Moscone Center up there is undergoing extensive renovations and could not offer WonderCon acceptable dates and facilities.)

I doubt that Comic-Con will move out of San Diego; not unless the city planners down there do something really, really stupid to drive it away. This expansion still has to be approved by a number of parties but assuming it goes through, it'll probably lock Comic-Con in for another 4-5 year pact. Fine with me. It's a great city and I like the idea that when we're there, we own it.