Back in 1970, some comic-book dealers in southern California got together to hold a three-day convention in the basement of a hotel in San Diego.
Three hundred people came. Like Topsy, it grew. The figures for this year aren’t out yet, but in 2019, 135,000 people came to the four day Comic-Con in San Diego’s huge convention centre. This year, I was one of them.
The first thing that hits you, apart from the heat, is the queue. It stretches for a good half a mile and moves very slowly, but everyone seems chilled and chatty and there are some very interesting characters dotted about. Cos-play comes into its own here.
This is the first full convention since 2019, and caution prevails. Attendees have to have shown proof of Covid vaccination prior to getting their tickets, which take the form of a personalised badge you wear round your neck at all times, and unlike anywhere else I’ve been since I got to the US, you have to wear a mask inside the hall. Which is vast. From where I enter I can’t see the far end.
I can see big signs for Netflix and Nickelodeon and Tamagotchi – good grief, are they still a thing? – and as I walk, Disney, Studio Ghibli, Marvel, Lego, Mattel ,Fox, and some names I don’t recognise. Tokidoki seems very popular. Everyone who is anyone in popular culture is here.
There are queues, sorry, lines, everywhere. Some are queuing for a selfie-op with one of the many stands designed for it, others to get some free stuff, others to buy merchandise, much of which is San Diego 22 exclusive, and may well be worth a lot more on ebay soon. The queues, sorry, lines, are usually managed by volunteers. I spoke to Brook, a native of San Diego who told me she did four, eight-hour days every year volunteering for HBO in return for a free ticket to the show. ‘But I’m off to my job in a bar as soon as I’m done here’.
The show is open from 9am till 7pm every day, which gives Brook two hours a day to explore. Badges for Comicon are sold via a lottery, and there is huge demand. A four day badge cost $254 this year and secondary market resellers were charging $1250. So maybe volunteering is worth it.
It’s not all big boys. Perhaps with a nod to its origins there’s a section called Artist’s Alley, where individual artists can sell their work and perhaps get noticed. Artists pay $350 for four feet of table, and places are allocated on a first come, first served basis as long as they fulfil the criteria. I spoke to Donny Tran, who told me he’d been coming for six years. I asked him what he did before that
‘I was a dentist.’
‘You gave up dentistry for art?’ I said, trying to hide my incredulity. Dentists earn a fortune here.
‘Yes, I felt my pen calling me. I had to do it.’
‘Do you have a contract with a publisher? Who do you work for?’
‘All sorts of people. Sometimes they commission me, sometimes I approach them. ‘
‘And it’s going ok?’
‘Oh yeah.’
‘So you still have the Ferrari, right?’ He grinned.
A bit further along I came across the much bigger stall for Cool Lines Art which has original comic artwork pinned along the back wall and on the tables. I glanced at the prices and gasped. I asked Bailey, the stall holder, where she got her stock, did she buy it at auction?
She says: “It started with my Dad, who just loved collecting comic book art. He spent the eighties going to artists and buying bags full of their original work which he brought home. When he died we went through it all and discovered these amazing things, and that’s how we got started. We do now go to auctions, though.”
And no, you’re not mistaken. That artwork for the cover of Marvel Team Up behind Bailey’s right ear is $69,500.00 The Spider man and She-Hulk Team Up cover next to it is $79,500.00
But among the book stalls and the art and the T-shirts and the major players, the big winner has to be Funko. They licence and make figurines of the major characters in most major pop culture brands, from Marvel and Harry Potter to Stranger Things and The Office. Known as Funko POPs, they are very collectible.
Ten years ago they had one small stall; now they have biggest stall in the room and they own two other brands, Loungefly and Mondo, each with their own stall. To buy anything at the Funko stall you have to get a badge and then take part in a lottery to get a timed ticket to attend the stall, which moves so much merchandise the display shelves are constantly filled from behind like the pass at a restaurant. Comiconners walk away from the stall with huge bags full of merchandise. I estimate Funko turn over $1.5 – $2 million dollars in four days.
And that’s just from their own stalls. Comiconners who didn’t win the lottery for a timed ticket still want to buy a Funko product or two, so they go to one of several Funko reseller stands around the concourse, which appear to be doing very well. Worldwide, and it is worldwide, there are at least sixteen Funko resellers in the North of England, it’s a £1.5 billion a year business.
I wonder, with all the obstacles, and the cost and the queuing, sorry, standing in line, what it is that brings all these people to this event, and why they spend vast amounts of money on what are, after all, useless plastic objects.
The only answer I have is the deep affection some people feel for the characters in their favourite stories. As someone who has worked in the entertainment industry for 40 years, I’m a bit cynical about this, but from my time on The Archers I know that even the British Middle Class are capable of forming strong bonds with ridiculous characters.
My brother has a slightly different take. He says that the Funko figures remind him more than anything of the British Museum’s collection of ancient Egyptian household gods.
San Diego Comic-con was held July 21-24, 2022
