Last month’s New York Comic Con is traditionally the exhausting finale of the “big con” season, but as we know, comic and fandom gatherings are now a year-long, globe-trotting affair. LA Comic Con, which is becoming a pretty big show serving a pretty big market, just happened last weekend. The week before, I was in Pasadena for the art-oriented LightBox Expo. A quick glance at the FanCons.Com calendar shows a thick weekend schedule through the holidays and beyond.
For a long time, at least in the years leading into the pandemic, the scale of the big shows put pressure on the whole ecosystem to grow as much and as fast as it could. Some of that has carried over. But I think that we are slowly groping our way toward a new normal for cons, festivals and expos. It just might take perceptions and expectations a little bit of time to catch up with reality.
The Con Game. One of the ongoing complaints about the big shows is that they are squeezing out comics, squeezing out artists, cutting back on certain kinds of programming, and leaning hard into brand-building for companies in the space. What kind of comic convention is this when there’s barely a comic book in sight?
And it’s true. The term “comic convention” itself has basically become a branding term itself rather than a meaningful description. A “comic con” held anywhere, in the minds of casual fans, is associated with capital-C, hyphenated “Comic-Con,” and all the extravagant stuff that comes with it. It’s no wonder the good folks in San Diego trademarked the term.
Fans come expecting a bunch of things: celebrities, exclusives, previews of upcoming media, artists, collectibles, and a communal experience. The big shows try to deliver the best combination of those things they can muster, but there are always decisions and tradeoffs to be made.
Do we need aisle after aisle of the stuff for sale on most big show exhibit floors? No. But we do need tens or hundreds of thousands of people paying for tickets in order to afford the big name guests and create the buzz that brand partners expect. That means finding a big building, and you have to do something with all that space. Exhibitors are willing to pay to get in front of those crowds, and some are better at making the economics work than others.
In short, the logic of big show economics is a closed loop. Preserving the character of those shows is important but not urgent when organizers are under pressure to maximize profits and growth year after year.
Ex uno, multa! That’s Latin for “out of one, many,” the motto written on dollar bills in Bizarro world. But it’s a good lesson for the landscape of comics and pop culture events. If you’re looking for something special that speaks to your fandom or collector’s enthusiasm, don’t look to the big shows that have to be all things to all people. There’s plenty going on at smaller specialty conventions, which seem in many ways like better bets for fans, pros and exhibitors.
This weekend here in Seattle is the Short Run Comix Festival, a free one-day show held in a mid-sized space in the industrial Georgetown neighborhood. It focuses almost exclusively on indie creators and small presses. Fantagraphics is the big fish in this particular pond.
If that’s your thing, this is the place to be. Aisle after aisle in the curated artist area features self-published work, often affordable originals, and the opportunity to meet creators from the community and further afield. There are a couple of panels, a few workshops, and some social activities.
You can find this kind of show in cities and, increasingly, in smaller towns and rural communities all around the country. They don’t have costumes, superheroes, anime and branded merch, and they don’t need them. They’re also a place where publishers and creators can connect with readers and each other without having to compete with a lot of noisy hustlers.
If your jam is old-school comics, longtime conventions on the circuit like Motor City Comic Con coming up next week in Detroit, HeroesCon in Charlotte, or Baltimore Comic-Con are being joined by other mid-sized shows that invite comic creators spanning the generations, dealers rooms packed with white boxes, and content-based programming.
To me, this is a better solution for collectors than complaining that you can’t find comic dealers at big shows. Go to a smaller specialized show where the prices are better, the selection is better, and the creators sitting behind tables are the people you remember from the credit pages of the comics you read as a kid.
Some of my favorite emerging shows are dedicated to comic art. This week is the first edition ICON Comics and Narrative Art show in Los Angeles. It’s run by the organizers of the exclusive Lake Como Comic Art Festival, and features a bunch of top end artists and blue-chip original pieces for sale (see “A New Model for a Comic Convention“). These folks will be running another show in Hawaii in January. Later in March, along the same lines, is the OAX Show in Orlando which I attended last year (see “Kirby Awards“).
Tickets to these art events cost a bundle, but if you can’t afford the ticket, you probably can’t afford anything for sale there either. They are opportunities for well-heeled collectors to mingle with each other and with artists, in an environment that’s a little less hectic than the show floor of San Diego Comic-Con.
Keep expectations aligned with reality. Big events like New York Comic Con, the other ReedPOP shows, the larger FAN EXPO cons in Canada, Boston, Dallas and Denver, and the various manga/anime and other big comics-adjacent fandom shows have their place. There’s value to getting a hundred thousand or more fans in one place, especially to the big publishers and media companies that have to recoup their investments.
They also drive innovation in the industry. This is where companies are investing in new technology to streamline signups for autographs and panels, exclusives and other time-consuming activities so fans can make the most of their experience. I just saw FAN EXPO struck a deal with Showpass to streamline management on both the fan and organizer side, and I know ReedPOP has been using some good vendors for this over the years.
Those can help blunt some of the annoyances of attending the mega shows, but they can’t solve the bigger complaint that “this con isn’t all about me and the stuff I like anymore!” For that, maybe stop expecting every con to be all things to all people, and focus on the events that are out there for you.
The opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the writer, and do not necessarily reflect the views of the editorial staff of ICv2.com.
Rob Salkowitz (Bluesky @robsalk) is the author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture, a two-time Eisner Award nominee, and a proud longtime contributor to Eisner-nominated ICv2.
Source: ICv2
