For a weekend each year, San Diego becomes home to Conners, Twi-hards, a lot of people in Star Wars outfits – and the most important people in Hollywood. LIAM BURKEvisits Comic-Con to see how it became the centre of the sci-fi universe
FANS WALK THE same red carpet as Harrison Ford while Francis Ford Coppola hands out Edgar Allen Poe masks and Adam West is king. Welcome to the San Diego Comic Convention, or Comic-Con, the largest comic book fan gathering in North America. From inauspicious beginnings in a hotel basement to selling out 125,000 tickets, the four-day convention is now a mass-media event attended by Hollywood royalty, celebrated auteurs, pilot-flogging TV execs, cult authors, porn stars and pro-wrestlers, all hoping to solicit the increasingly important fanboy vote. Essentially, Comic-Con has become a pop cultural Petri dish in which anything can, and does, grow.
Why has Comic-Con become such an important stop in the US entertainment calendar? Despite its sell-out attendance, Conners can only ever make up a fraction of the audience needed to make these entertainments hits. Up until recently, mainstream producers ignored this cult audience.
However, in the mid-1990s, when most studios were battening down the hatches, comic book fans, applying the skills they honed through fanzines, were riding the crest of the digital wave. A watershed moment came in 1997, when film fan Harry Knowles' website Ain't It Cool News helped bury Joel Schumacher's Batman & Robinthrough negative pre-release buzz that was amplified by mainstream media.
Following that day-glo disaster, filmmakers realised that not only should they engage with these online enthusiasts, but they could also use them as a free press corps.
In recent years, hits that received a pre-release boost from convention floor word-of-mouth (or word-of-keystroke) include 300, Iron Man, Avatar, Lostand Heroes, with many more lining up each year to emulate these successes. Accordingly, a well received panel becomes a drop that creates digital ripples piquing fan and mainstream interest throughout the world.
On arriving at the mammoth San Diego Convention Centre attendees are given ludicrously oversized bags sponsored by Warner Bros that turn them into walking billboards, as each bag is emblazoned with logos for the likes of The Big Bang Theory, Batman: Arkham Cityand Thunder Cats. Fans are then corralled by humourless security into the 525,701 sq ft exhibit hall, where pop cultural icons from William Shatner to Lou Ferrigno (selling Polaroids for $40) share floorspace with DeLoreans, Droids and Daleks. Major entertainment companies host "displays" on the exhibit floor, a term that hardly seems apt when you are caught in the crosshairs of a 20ft Optimus Prime.
Now those massive bags make sense, as fans trick and treat their way from one exhibit to the next picking up free Styrofoam swords, Harry PotterLego, TV show shirts, signed posters, screening tickets and probably a blister or two. Welsh attendee Caroline Sultana had not seen her husband, Leonard, all weekend, and said that was a good thing, as they'd have "twice the swag". This was the couple's second Con – the first being last year for their honeymoon.
Disappointingly, the only area of this fan flea market not packed is the corner reserved for comics, where a dwindling number of retailers slash prices in an attempt to entice attendees back to the reason why the Con began.
Away from the centre's clogged central artery attendees flow into hundreds of presentations on everything from the military in film to Deepak Chopra discussing spirituality. However, dozens of parallel sessions result in some difficult decisions: does one attend the cast and crew panel for zombie series The Walking Dead, or Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson debuting footage from The Adventures of Tintin? Obviously you go with the beards, but these decisions abound at Comic-Con: Prometheusor Game of Thrones, Beavis and Buttheador Gears of War 3, Frank Miller or Family Guy?
Even after choosing which panel to attend, entry is not guaranteed – one disgruntled fan queued for five hours and didn't get into The Big Bang Theory.
While titans of the comic book industry speak in half-filled rooms, the centre’s largest venue, the 6,500-seater Hall H, is given over to first-run footage from blockbusters-in-the-making, with many fans annexing seats waiting for a particular panel.
No fans are more committed than the "Twi-hards". Twilightfans have become the bane of regular attendees, not because of the ear-shattering screeches that follow Robert Pattinson's appearance on stage, but rather they take prized seats at panels unrelated to their object of devotion to ensure their place when the sparkly teens take to the stage.
This year, Twilightfans started camping four days early, enduring the blistering San Diego sun and public ridicule to get into the panel, which organisers sensibly scheduled first. In the end, the combined might of the Twilight cast failed to fill the hall and attendees breezed in and out.
Despite the diversity of panels, a number of commonalities emerged. Many seemed to respect what Aardman Animation’s Peter Lord described as the “real-time feedback” online fandom offers, with self-described “Comic-Con virgin” Spielberg conceding, “you don’t always love me, but keep taking us to task”.
For many this was more than just lip-service. US chat show host Conan O’Brien, who quickly rebounded after being booted off NBC thanks, in part, to his rabid fanbase, booked out a gallery in the trendy Gaslamp District to exhibit fan art.
Another chat show host in transition, Jonathan Ross, was a regular presence on the convention floor with screenwriter wife Jane Goldman ( X-Men First Class). The normally extrovert personality only took to the stage once to wax lyrical about Fantastic Four co-creator Jack Kirby. Puerile as ever, he bragged about the size of his collection – incidentally, it's huge.
Similarly, Pan's Labyrinthdirector Guillermo Del Toro described how a number of his artists came from the convention floor – and when one teenage fan asked for the opportunity to bring him his coffee on-set, the charming Mexican said, "Why the f*** not", before calling out the email address up-and-comers could contact.
It’s abe_sapien@hotmail.com, in case you’re interested.
What we learned at Comic-Con
Every year footage from dozens of films is premiered at Comic-Con. Here are some of the highlights.
PROMETHEUS
Ridley Scott makes his long-awaited return to sci-fi with this thematic prequel to Alienstarring Charlize Theron and Michael Fassbender.
Footage tantalised and confused in equal measure.
IN TIME
Gattacacreator Andrew Niccol delivers a sci-fi take on The Fugitiveset in a near-future world where time is currency. Justin Timberlake leads an impressive cast with Cillian Murphy taking the Tommy Lee Jones role.
THE PIRATES!
Aardman Animation returns to rib-tickling stop-motion with Hugh Grant voicing a fame hungry pirate leading a crew that includes Brendan Gleeson as a “Pirate with Gout”.
DRIVE
Imagine an indie version of The Transporterwith Ryan Gosling at the wheel and Bronson's Nicolas Winding Refn at the helm.
THE ADVENTURES OF TINTIN: SECRET OF THE UNICORN
Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson use Avatar-style motion-capture to bring Tintin to the screen. Noir lighting and fast-paced action set a promising tone.
HAYWIRE
Steven Soderbergh directs mixed martial artist Gina Carano in this impressive action movie. In one particularly brutal Dublin-shot sequence, the ubiquitous Michael Fassbender gets his ass kicked in the Shelbourne Hotel.
THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN
Closer to the source and with a darker edge, this Batman Begins-style reboot distinguishes itself from the brighter Sam Raimi series; only time will tell if that's a good thing.
TWIXT
Francis Ford Coppola directs Val Kilmer as a “bargain basement Stephen King” investigating creepy goings-on in small-time America. This partly 3D, Edgar Allen Poe-inspired movie finds director and star in a playful mood.
COMIC-CON EPISODE FOUR: A FAN’S HOPE
For those will never brave the convention floor, this Con-set doc from Supersize Me's Morgan Spurlock will provide a taster. Promising film, terrible title.
