Comic-Con at 50 — SDCC 2019

This is what I always tell people about San Diego Comic-Con: it’s the Iowa caucuses of popular culture. Those people who didn’t sit at the cool table in high school? These are the passionate, fearless fans who will be shaping what those cool people will be talking about in two years. They come to Comic-Con to learn more about the popular culture they love and to see what’s next, because they do not wait to be told what is great. They trust their own instincts and though the rest of the country might not realize it, we do, too.

It began with a small group of fans swapping stories and comic books in a hotel room. It has now grown to extend beyond San Diego’s convention center to take over much of the surrounding neighborhood, with about 130,000 attendees and the biggest stars of television and movies there to reveal their latest projects. Famously, a movie no one knew anything about decided to premiere its trailer at Comic-Con back in 1976. It was “Star Wars.” Now “Star Wars” continues to produce blockbuster movies plus books, games, and a big attraction at Disney World, movies based on comic books are a multi-billion dollar industry, and Comic-Con includes anything that fans feel passionate about: movies, television, games, books, and of course comics. Comic-Con always has a place set aside for portfolio review. You can arrive as a fan who draws and leave with a job that can have you on a panel at Hall H some day.