What we learned from Comic Con this year.

SDCC came and went. A lot of fun was had by all.  People Wanged.  People Chunged.  People took low-quality, shaky footage of exclusive media and immediately posted it online.  You know, everything we've come to expect from arguably the most popular entertainment convention in the country, if not the world.  The question of the moment is has SDCC hit a downturn?

The Good

Trailers, trailers, trailers!  Several major teasers dropped over the course of the weekend.  The most notable trailers are listed below.  The links are working at the time of this post, so if you find that any are not, that means lawyers probably got involved.

Star Wars; The Force Awakens (actually a behind-the-scenes reel, but cool none the less)

X-Men: Apocalypse 

Deadpool; probably the most well-received of the trailers

Superman V. Batman: Dawn of Justice (offical trailer)

Suicide Squad

Movie trailers aside, there are a ton of panel videos and Q & As available courtesy of SDCC themselves as well as organizations like The Nerd Machine who host their own events on the side.  The full listing of Nerd Machine panels can be found on YouTube.  

The Bad

There's chatter as to whether the golden age of San Diego Comic Con has come and gone.  In recent years, the convention has become a marketing gold mine for Hollywood studios and production companies to promote their upcoming properties,  Most notable of these is the Marvel Entertainment powerhouse and their Avengers franchise, which has made A LOT of money.  This year, three of the major players, Marvel, Sony & Paramount chose to not to participate.  Marvel recently held their own promotional event in Los Angeles following the convention to focus the crowd's attention.  Sony & Paramount, on the other hand didn't have any products to push or felt that this particular arena wasn't the appropriate avenue to promote their upcoming slate.

It's easy and accurate to say that San Diego has lost touch with it's original intent.  Based on 2014's ticket sales, attendance of the convention reaches in excess of 130,000 people but only a fraction of those attending are actually in it for the comics.  The majority of attendees go for the interaction with others, the opportunity to cosplay and the hopes of meeting and greeting whomever plans on making an appearance.  The convention has become "Hollywood-ified" and while this convention can still boast more comics and related programming than any other event, that's not what drives the boat.  Legitimate comic industry professionals are increasingly refusing to attend because because of crowds and the climate and a sense that the convention heads don't care about them anymore.  Here are a couple of articles that really get into the duality of SDCC. 

Reasons Why Comic-Con Is the Worst Place Ever - Vice Magazine, July 2014

What’s RIGHT and What's WRONG About the SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON  - Newsarama, July 2013

There's speculation that the convention might move out of San Diego once it's contract with the convention center expires in 2016.  Many cities have expressed interest in hosting and San Diego has expressed great interest in holding on to this mammoth cash cow.  It's difficult to say if the comic industry will continue to support the event, contrasting the amount of exposure they get through their involvement against the obvious shift in focus away from the industry towards more entertainment-based participants.

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