Jack Kirby is enthroned on the Souvenir Guide cover

31 MAY 2017

100 years ago, someone named Jack Kirby was born to co-create the world of comic books and superheroes as we know them. To acknowledge his spirit birthday - and honor another famous comic book cover - Bruce Timm and Todd Klein offer us a Souvenir Book cover that's markedly different from past covers.

You can see the original cover they drew inspiration from below: #141 Superman's Pal, Jimmy Olsen, on sale for 25 cents! I love old comic books so I'm down with this.  What do you think?

 

First-timers, you may be wondering what a Souvenir Book is. The "Souvenir" part sounds a bit frivolous, as if this is just a glossy keepsake, but the annual Souvenir Book is something you'll enjoy reading - full of interesting articles and art. You'll receive your copy when you arrive at the Con.

We're finally past the aggravating part of Comic-Con season and into the good part. Can you feel it?

Comic-Con museum at Balboa Park? Why not.

8 JUNE 2016

Well, I guess we have to stay in San Diego now; CCI wants to install a Comic-Con museum at Balboa Park.

This would be in the San Diego Hall of Champions, which has apparently considered subleasing some or all of its location. Enter CCI, spotting an opportunity to make Comic-Con live year round.

It's not final yet by any means, but CCI sounds pretty stoked: David Glanzer said "Comic-Con has been working with the Hall of Champions as part of our continuing exploration of how best to ensure Comic-Con's legacy. Ar this time we are in talks and while no decision has been made, we are thrilled with the direction of those discussion."

That made me stop and think about if I've ever heard CCI use the word "thrilled." And that made me realize how many annoying battles they fight (granted, some are self-initiated, like the SLCC lawsuit) like the people against the contiguous expansion, or their negotiations with local hotels, or the group who slyly implied they were associated with CCI to promote their petition this winter. It's not like they ever get to settle back and just focus on the event itself.

Anyhow, this museum idea is still up in the air but I think we can agree it has compelling potential. I love SDCC history and give the drama of Con stories and the beauty of Comic-Con art, this museum could be masterful. But as with everything Con, it probably won't manifest for a while.

My origin story of SDCC insanity

20 FEBRUARY 2015

If this is your first badge sale (or if you're just an observer who thinks we're all batshit crazy), you might wonder how registration for a comic book convention got to this point. While I can't claim the serious veteran status that some attendees can, I have been going to San Diego Comic-Con for almost all of my adult life and remember when it looked quite a bit different. My SDCC life didn't start out with panic and anguish; I pretty much assumed back then that if I wanted to go to SDCC, I'd always be able to go. Years later, here I am. Here we all are.

This was my initiation into Comic-Con insanity.

2002: I had just moved to the west coast from NY and really wanted to go to SDCC. I was dating another comic book fan at the time so we called around Friday night, booked a room at a Comfort Inn and drove to San Diego. We walked in the doors late on Saturday morning and bought badges - not a line in sight.

2003: The next year we booked a room for 4 days - at a now-extinct hotel whose ghost hovers over Petco Park - and drove in. There was an incredible line for badges that we stood in for about 2 hours.

After that I bought badges online, usually at the last minute, until...
 
2007: I was waiting in a checkout line at Whole Foods when a friend called and said, "Did you hear that 4-day badges just sold out?" I apparently looked so distraught that the cashier gasped and asked if I was ok; she thought I'd been told someone died. I rushed home and bought the (also-extinct) 3-day badge: Thursday, Friday and Sunday. As soon as I arrived at the Con, I bought my badges for next year - like a jillion other people.

2010: I got my badge at the Pre-reg desk, right before it sold out onsite for the first time ever. I could see the future and it was ugly.

2011: CCI shifted 2012 Pre-reg to the Grand Hyatt down the street, announcing they would only sell a limited number of badges each morning. Everyone lined up in the pre-dawn hours on Thursday and eventually shuffled through a ballroom where huge monitors broadcast the percentage of each badge left - a meaningless statistic since we didn't know how many were on the dock to begin with. A weird hybrid of fatalism-hope-denial settled in as everyone tried to connect their place in line to the dwindling percentage on the board. Preview Night sold out about 30 people ahead of me. Everyone turned to each other and said, "Tomorrow I'll get here at 3 a.m. instead of 6 a.m.!" And everyone did, except for the people who arrived at 1 a.m., 11 p.m., etc. I skipped it and later prevailed in the online sale.

2012: SDCC announced there would be no onsite Pre-reg for 2013 at the Con - it would be an online sale. And the cycle of two online sales a year began, at first on a "first come, first served" basis and then as the lottery we have today.


So no - it wasn't always this bad. And when you hear old-timers grumble about how crazy it's gotten and how it's not worth going anymore because nothing can compare to the halcyon days of the past - know that they're not just bitter, they're kind of right. Obviously SDCC is still fun. But there was a time when it was guaranteed, too.