Embroidered Collage

This year's vacation was a trip to the San Diego International Comics Convention, the largest and the industry standard for debuts and new releases, more than five times the size of the Philadelphia Wizardcons that I've written about each May/June.  It was more my husband's vacation than mine, although I do read comics as well, but I certainly found plenty to interest me and had a good time.  For one thing, it was visually overwhelming.

The exhibit hall was huge and in the central area were the most dramatic booths of the larger companies.  The Sci-Fi Channel had this twisty sinuous plastic structure with inset tvs and display areas lit by blue lights.  To see the Snakes on a Plane exhibit you had to walk through a very very large snake.  Banners hung from the ceiling over many booths.  Gentle Giant, which makes statues and busts based on characters from movies, had a multi-pronged set of displays, little windows in walls and rocks displaying the rotating pieces while above were mounted huge replicas of some of the popular pieces.

A significant percentage of the congoers wore costumes.   Some were purchased, some were obviously hand-made, both not so well and extraordinarily well.  It was interesting to see the variations on a theme of the most popular characters, as each creator used what they had available.

Comics are, at their heart, sequential art, a merging of words and pictures.  There were booths and panels on the expected superhero comics and the huge movies made from them.  There were smaller booths for individuals making their own small series, either with a traditional look or a very untraditional one.  There were panels ranging from the academic side of the experience to the most mainstream.  I'll be adding some more specific comments over the next few days.