tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22906998.post8035190811907198652..comments2024-03-26T22:42:06.412-07:00Comments on TAG Blog: The Growth (and Influence) of the Comic ConventionSteve Huletthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05537689111433326847noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22906998.post-22041800052662252922014-07-27T21:45:17.283-07:002014-07-27T21:45:17.283-07:00Dear Subset Members-
It's taken awhile (about ...Dear Subset Members-<br />It's taken awhile (about 45 years) but you've finally made an impact on the universe of pop culture. Congratulations!<br /><br />According to fivethirtyeight.com, the seed for the San Diego Comic Con that was planted back in 1970 has given rise to a convention that represents billions of dollars of pop culture, entertainment, movies and merchandise. <br /><br />"Only recently did these conventions, which originally appealed to a small subset of media consumers, begin to get coverage in the mainstream press. Comic-Con started with 300 people in the basement of a hotel in 1970. Today’s Comic-Con is a hive of commercialization;"<br /><br />Current attendance for the San Diego Comic Con hovers around 130,000 or more, creating a huge bonanza of welcome income for San Diego's hotels, restaurants and cultural attractions. <br /><br />Shel Dorf, one of the founders of Comic Con, died in 2009 but lived long enough to see his efforts grow from a one-day convention in March, 1970 (with an attendance of about 100 fans) followed by another convention in August of that year, (attended by over 300 fans,) to become one of the biggest comic conventions in the world today. <br /><br />According to the San Diego Convention and Visitor's Bureau the convention had a regional economic impact of $180 million in 2011. Surely it was more than that this year. <br /><br />Hollywood, and everything connected to it, has thoroughly embraced Comic Con. All you subset writers, artists, fanboys and fangirls who spent years and decades grinding away creating comics for embarrassing pay and no ownership or royalties have changed the game dramatically. Looking back at the history of comic books and the legendary characters created by writers and artists at DC Comics (Superman, Batman), Marvel Comics (X-Men, Spider-Man, Iron Man), Dark Horse (Hellboy, Sin City), to name a few, thanks and congratulations are due for hanging in there and providing the fodder for some great entertainment, sometimes decades after it was originally created. Bob Fosterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02862976271114958923noreply@blogger.com