San Diego Comic Con Update
Thursday, July 19, 2001

Well, the preview evening was a hit! As I related in yesterday's report, I was very concerned that the first-ever San Diego Comic-Con preview night go well. It was originally my idea to have an evening at the convention when dealers and comics professionals could get together without the usual conflicts of programming that have kept us all apart. To add spice to my idea, the convention staff also invited the 8,000 convention attendees who pre-purchased 4-day memberships to attend the preview night.

To make a long story short, there were approximately 5,000 attendees last evening. In an exhibit hall with 200,000 square feet, that's not a huge crowd, but it was enough folks to keep all the dealers busy. I don't think that anyone grossed huge bucks, but everyone I spoke with was happy with the additional revenue, and with the relaxed atmosphere in the hall. I'm certain that this is the beginning of a long and positive new tradition at San Diego.

Today has been a continuation of last evening, with nice steady traffic throughout the hall all day. On several occasions, while visiting other parts of the hall, I had to bypass certain aisles because they were too crowded with fans. What was particularly interesting to me was that the traffic was not concentrated in any one area, but was instead spread throughout a variety of genres. I saw large clusters of fans around stands featuring comics, toys cards, manga, videos, popular culture items, and original artwork. The beauty of San Diego is that it has become a gathering of the clans of all sorts of collecting and popular media genres. We all come together in a kinship of spirit and enthusiasm that creates an incredible vortex of positive energy. Coming to the San Diego convention truly is the highlight of any collector's year!

For those of who would like to see them, I have some photographs to share of this year's convention. Pam worked her wiles, and got a cool picture of the TIME MACHINE prop from the upcoming movie from Dreamworks. A larger version of this picture can be reached by either clicking on the following HTML link, or by typing in the specific address (for those of you who's e-mail browsers don't support HTML links)

Time Machine, from Dreamworks, larger image

Here are more convention photo links:

Photo #1: The massive crowd outside the convention at 9:30 AM

Photo #2: CrossGen booth

Photo #3: DC Comics booth

Photo #4: Dark Horse booth

Photo #5: Elvira drew a huge crowd at the Claypool booth

Photo #6: Marvel Comics booth

Photo #7: Top Cow's booth

That's it for today. I'll be back tomorrow with more convention news and photos.

Happy collecting!

Chuck Rozanski,
President - Mile High Comics, Inc.