On Thursday, July 20, the annual Comic-Con International will return to San Diego for another round of the biggest comic convention in North America. Because of the respective actors’ and writers’ strikes, this year’s San Diego Comic-Con won’t have the star power of years past. But it remains the premiere destination for fans of all stripes, and there are still some great panels awaiting you.
For the moment, we’re going to focus on the past. Comic-Con had a modest beginning in 1970 when the first-ever Golden State Comic Con attracted 300 fans to the U.S. Grant Hotel. Attendance rose steadily over the years, and the renamed San Diego Comic-Con kept expanding in size until it became an event unto itself. In the present, Comic-Con takes over a good deal of San Diego’s Gaslamp District during the show, and it just keeps getting bigger.
Below you’ll find our picks for the seven best San Diego Comic-Cons of all time. I was there for all but one of our selections, so I can offer some additional insight into what it was like to watch Comic-Con evolve into what it is today.
7. San Diego Comic-Con 1977
In one of the last Comic-Cons held at the El Cortez Hotel, the convention reached a new height with over 4,000 attendees. And the featured guest list included some of the all-time greats including Jack Kirby, the co-creator of many Marvel heroes, C.C. Beck, the creator of Shazam/Captain Marvel, Starship Troopers novelist Robert A. Heinlein, legendary Mad cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman, DC’s most celebrated war comics artist, Joe Kubert, and more.
This was also a convention that featured Carl Barks, the artist and writer whose comics fleshed out Disney’s ducks by giving Donald Duck and his nephews high adventure tales. Barks also created their Uncle Scrooge and all of the citizens of Duckburg which provided the inspiration for both incarnations of Disney’s Ducktales. Additionally, Barks’ talent extended to his fine art skills, and his oil paintings of the Disney ducks helped make his first appearance at Comic-Con into one of the highlights of the show.
6. San Diego Comic-Con 2004
2004 was the first year of Hall H, the most famous (or infamous) room at the San Diego Convention Center. But in its first year, Hall H wasn’t a platform for movies and TV shows. Instead, it allowed the dealer’s room to expand to the length of the entire convention center. And that was just a prelude for what it became.
Featured guests that year included Hellboy creator Mike Mignola, The Boondocks creator Aaron McGruder, Watchmen co-creator Dave Gibbons, and DC scribe Geoff Johns.
5. San Diego Comic-Con 1987
This Comic-Con happens to be the first one that I went to, so it does hold personal significance to me. It also had a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Star Wars, complete with a screening of the film, in a time long before we knew the prequels were actually coming.
At this point in its history, Comic-Con was still held at the old San Diego Convention Center, which is now called San Diego Concourse. It was truly a different era for the con because comic book guests were still the primary focus and you could do it all in a single day if you didn’t feel like sticking around all four days.
4. San Diego Comic-Con 1992
What could bring out director Francis Ford Coppola to Comic-Con a decade before Hollywood invaded San Diego? Bram Stoker’s Dracula, of course. It was one of the big panels at the con, but far from the only one.
This was also the year that Image Comics was founded, and Todd McFarlane, Jim Lee, Erik Larsen, Rob Liefeld, Marc Silvestri, Whilce Portacio, and Jim Valentino came in like rock stars for their first San Diego Comic-Con under their own banner.
This was also the year that Comic-Con threw Jack Kirby a 75th birthday party. He passed away two years later.
3. San Diego Comic-Con 2010
In the Hall H era, few moments are bigger than the time that Marvel said “Avengers Assemble!” Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon was announced as the director of The Avengers, and he was joined on stage by Robert Downey Jr., Clark Gregg, Scarlett Johansson, Chris Hemsworth, Chris Evans, Samuel L. Jackson, Jeremy Renner, Mark Ruffalo, and Kevin Feige for one of the most famous Hall H photo ops of all-time.
Feige had brought Marvel Studios to Comic-Con before, but this was the start of Marvel’s semi-annual tradition of bringing out its biggest stars for surprise appearances.
2. San Diego Comic-Con 2002
I was there the year that Comic-Con officially “went Hollywood.” There was a rumor that Arnold Schwarzenegger would appear at the panel for Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, and the future governor of California did not disappoint us. At that point in time, Comic-Con didn’t typically land A-list guests on the level of Schwarzenegger. But in the wake of the success of Spider-Man and The Lord of the Rings, Comic-Con 2002 attracted Hobbit actors Dominic Monaghan, Billy Boyd, and Elijah Wood, as well as James Cameron, Bryan Singer, Ben Affleck, Lucy Liu, and more.
It was clearly a turning point for the convention and the moment when Comic-Con became the go-to destination for comic book movie fans.
1. San Diego Comic-Con 2015
Marvel isn’t the only company with some legendary Hall H moments. In 2015, during the run-up to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Lucasfilm brought out director J.J. Abrams, original trilogy actors Harrison Ford, Mark Hamill, and Carrie Fisher, as well as the new generation of stars: Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Gwendoline Christie, Adam Driver, and Domhnall Gleeson.
If that wasn’t enough, Lucasfilm debuted a behind-the-scenes video from the film, and at the conclusion of the panel, the entire audience was invited to attend a Star Wars music concert. Comic-Con just doesn’t get any bigger than that.
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