UPDATED: 7/30/24 with Fantastic Four fan giveaway added (scroll down).
I had a great time at Comic-Con 2024. The end.
Well, yeah … it’s never that simple, now is it? Comic-Con 2024 was complicated, due to the very fact that it was the first event in five years that felt like it did pre-pandemic. And even though—I’ve heard Covid was running wild (I was masked most of the time that I was in the building, Exhibit Hall and panel rooms included, and I had a booster shot at the end of June in preparation for this very event, so … here’s hoping!)—it felt busier than ever, even my last “real” show before retirement, the hallowed year of 2019, Comic-Con’s 50th anniversary.
In fact this year felt more crowded to me than ever before. The Exhibit Hall was almost impossible to navigate at times, much better later in the day, especially in the areas I was usually haunting (the old comics booths). After meeting a friend for dinner at Lou & Mickey’s on Tuesday night, I never once crossed Harbor Drive to visit the activations in the Gaslamp Quarter, or go anywhere else downtown other than the Convention Center. The area behind the Center, the Embarcadero, was packed—wall-to-wall people every day but Sunday, where it seemed slightly more manageable. And the activations back there—FX/Hulu, Abbott Elementary, and Voodoo Ranger, the latter which worked on the premise that it’s 5:00 PM somewhere, so come have a $6.00 beer at 10:00 AM, Pacific Daylight Time—were the noisiest areas of the convention. I get the ferry to and from Coronado back there, and had to wait in line by Abbott Elementary, and let me tell you—the kids at that school are the loudest little shits I ever encountered. But everybody seemed to be having a great time, so a free hall pass was granted, at least by me, even for the beer guzzlers on the pirate ship. And trying to find a place to have lunch outside the crappy and overpriced food at the Convention Center (I succumbed to the siren song of a soft pretzel one time), was next to impossible without a reservation, something I didn’t think restaurants did for lunch during Comic-Con. OOPS! My mistake … I fixed that for Friday and Sunday after a disastrous hunt for lunch on Thursday
(All photos by me; click on them to see them larger on your screen.)
I personally love the way the city gets all decked out for Comic-Con, and this year building wraps returned in a big way. Top row: Fox’s Animation Domination on the Omni hotel; AMC Anne Rice shows on the Hilton Gaslamp, facing the Convention Center. Middle row: AMC’s Daryl Dixon (The Walking Dead), further up in the Gaslamp; Marvel’s Google Play game on the Hilton Gaslamp, fronting a park with a ferris wheel. Bottom row: Marvel close-up and Paramount’s Star Trek wrap on the Marriott, next to the Convention Center.
It was Spongebob Squarepants 25th anniversary and Paramount—a company that was desperate to find a buyer just a few weeks ago—went all out to celebrate with this incredible wrap on the Hard Rock Hotel at the bottom of Fifth Ave.; it especially looked great at night.
My Panel and How it Went …
The thing that has haunted me in the month leading up to Comic-Con and which I flogged endlessly both here on my blog and on my two Instagram accounts, went exceedingly well. My panel—Tales From My Spinner Rack LIVE!, subtitled “DC Comics in the Swingin’ ‘60s: The Go-Go Checks Gambit—was on Thursday, July 25 at noon in Room 9. It wasn’t a packed house, but it was my best attended one ever (it’s only my fourth one), with about 40-50 people in the audience—a decent crowd for an early Thursday panel—most of whom seemed to enjoy the presentation. (A new YouTube version of the panel will appear in early August, on the official Tales From My Spinner Rack! channel.) I was a bit leery of the timeslot, but it worked out fine, and as one of my former co-workers in the programming department people said to me, I could relax after it was done early on the first day and enjoy the rest of the con … which was true, for the most part. I really enjoyed doing this panel—both creating and presenting it—and I hope if you had a chance to attend, you did, too.
That’s me at the podium for my Thursday panel, alongside the title slide. Special thanks to my pal Valerie for the photo, one of the very few of me that I actually like!
I Came, I Saw, I Shopped …
Yeah, I bought a lot of stuff … stacked vertically it would make a nice podium for a small toddler. Most of the stuff was 50% off, or—like the old comics—were purchased with a certain amount of wheeling and dealing. Let’s take a photographic journey through what I bought, shall we?
The stack … probably the most I’ve ever bought at any one Comic-Con. At right is a quartet of four romance books I dug up—they were particularly hard to find at the show—all of which show, in some form, the hand of John Romita on their covers.
Yikes, more comics. I’m fascinated with some of these DC books from the Silver and Bronze Ages. Black Cat is from Harvey Comics, and it was the only copy I saw at the show.
Left: All these books were ridiculously cheap. I finished my run of Not Brand Echh with these 7 issues. Right: I love those DC Tarzan 100 Page comics, and that’s a two-part Action Comics story with art by Swanderson (Curt Swan and Murphy Anderson), the Super-team Supreme art-wise.
I have a soft spot for these Curt Swan-drawn World’s Finest issues; sadly the only DC Treasury edition I picked up … these seemed to be in short supply, too.
Left: A new book and three new magazines from TwoMorrows. Middle: Three bargain priced DC hardcovers alongside the latest volume (3) of Fantagraphics ongoing Atlas Comics Library series. Right: Fantagraphics’ new Web of Horror book, TwoMorrows’ Don Heck monograph, and The Nancy Show from the Billy Ireland Museum show of the same name. I am developing a strange fascination with Nancy.
A few more comics and books: Left: A couple of batty Marvel Team-Up issues and a Daredevil Marvel 25th anniversary cover with Barry Windsor-Smith interior art. Right: A lovely slim volume collecting Carol Day British newspaper strips (also got a nice pin from these guys); the first issue of Oni Press’s new EC Comics line; and two half-price wonders, Showcase Presents Eclipso and a DC reprinting of the Marvel Comics Doc Savage with a Steranko cover, probably with the coloring redone the way the artist intended.
That Marvel Studios Panel …
I and a friend were lucky enough to get into the Saturday Marvel Panel in Hall H, and it was mind-blowing. Kevin Feige concentrated on four upcoming movies: Captain America: Brave New World, Thunderbolts*, Fantastic Four: First Steps (these three will release in 2025), and the first-ever announcement for the return of the Russo Brothers to direct Avengers: Doomsday, and Avengers: Secret Wars, releasing in 2026 and 2027, respectively. Cap was the lead-off feature and included Anthony Mackie, Giancarlo Esposito, Tim Blake Nelson, and Danny Ramirez (the new Falcon), and, oh yeah … some guy named Harrison Ford (I predict big things for this fella). Thunderbolts* was next with David Harbour roaming through the audience in costume as Red Guardian, suddenly crestfallen when he realizes other cast members are already onstage and NOT in costume, including Florence Pugh, Sebastian Stan, Hannah John-Kamen, Wyatt Russell, and Julia Louis-Dreyfus.
David Harbour and Julia Louis-Dreyfus for Thunderbolts* at the Marvel Studios panel in Hall H.
The Fantastic Four: First Steps logo up top; Vanessa Kirby and Pedro Pascal on stage, and the FantastiCar … I would have liked to have been a fly on the wall in Hall H while they were setting this up!
The big one for me was Fantastic Four, which starts filming on Tuesday, July 30 (today as I post this!) in London. The whole cast—Pedro Pascal, the aptly-named Vanessa Kirby, Joseph Quinn, Ebon Moss-Bachrach—and the director Matt Shakman, were present, along with a really great teaser reel put together specially for Comic-Con, which celebrated the retro-future look of this movie, and ended with a glimpse of ultimate baddie, Galactus—the “real” one, not some cheap-ass cloud of space-smoke, and a version of the Fantasticar, which floated above the stage. Also, the official name of the film was revealed: Fantastic Four: First Steps.
Nifty giveaway from the Marvel Studios panel (the other giveaway was a rather boring Captain America mini-poster which I didn’t take). This Fantastic Four fan has the movie’s retro/future vibe all over it and is nicely designed and kind of sturdy, too. But to be honest, I was hoping for a hat with the “4” logo on it, like Kevin Feige wore onstage.
But the biggest announcement was the return of the Russo Brothers to direct Avengers: Doomsday and Avengers: Secret Wars, and just when you thought the panel was over, out comes a whole herd of “Doom-bots,” as one of the Russos (I don’t know which is which, sorry), announces that they need the greatest actor in the world to play Victor Von Doom and out steps a more colorfully clad, all in green Doctor Doom, who promptly removes the hood of his tunic and the iron mask to reveal Robert Downey Jr. No one saw this coming, especially me, and while part of the Internet loves it, the part that hates it seems to think he’s playing some Tony Stark variant from another Marvel Universe. I don’t think Marvel will do that … I think he’s Von Doom, period, and we’ll never see Downey’s face as Doom, just the character in a mask (essentially a voice-over role for RDJ). I don’t think either the actor or Marvel would piss on the legacy of Iron Man. I think it’s a brilliant move, but I’m a little concerned that Downey may have fallen on hard times and needed Disney to back up the money truck to the chute in his house to replenish his cache by a few tens of millions of dollars, poor guy. Either way, I look forward to seeing this come true, and it would be very appropriate if Doctor Doom first showed up in the end credits of Fantastic Four: First Steps, which is the perfect place for Doom to be introduced.
The vibe in the room was electric for the entire panel, but the response to the Downey as Doom reveal was probably heard throughout downtown San Diego and as far south as Chula Vista. It was absolutely amazing to be in the room and witness that live. Sadly, I was so gob-smacked, I didn’t even grab a photo.
What Did We Learn, Kiddies? …
I learned a lot actually.
The Golden and Silver Age Pavilion continues to shrink. There were fewer old comics dealers at the show, but I still found some hard-to-find stuff, although very few booths had Treasury books, which was a disappointment. One booth had a whole long box full of DC Showcase Presents books, which are becoming increasingly hard to find (they’re the black and white, “phone book” reprints from 2005 or so through 2012, like the Marvel Essentials series, which reprinted multiple issues at a low price point, usually $15.99-17.99 and came in at 500 pages or more). I think some of the guys who deal in this kind of stuff—Golden and Silver Age Comics—are aging out, as are the collectors (myself included), who seek out this type of material. I know Comic-Con gets a bad rap for not being about comics anymore, but comics aren’t just dealers selling old comics in the Exhibit Hall; it’s about the length and breadth of the comics medium, including current publishers like Marvel, DC, Image, Dark Horse, IDW, BOOM! and more; historical books about the comics medium, published by companies like TwoMorrows and Fantagraphics (not to mention the latter’s incredible line-up of indy and art comics); graphic novel publishers like Abrams Comic Arts, 1st Second, and many more. Comic-Con still has an amazing array of comics across the board for all tastes and ages, but the shrinking of the old comics marketplace is very disturbing to me, personally.
The most important thing I learned is a personal one: I can’t do this show like I did in the previous 32 years I attended before this year’s event, 20 of which I was an employee of the Comic-Con organization. I don’t—and can’t—be there from the moment the Exhibit Hall opens to the moment it closes at 7:00 PM each day (5:00 on Sunday). I can’t walk miles and miles back and forth from the Exhibit Hall to program rooms. I can’t attend numerous multiple panels each day (although I did visit panels each and every day and enjoyed the ones I selected; I felt the programming schedule as a whole was the best one in years). I had some health-related problems leading up to the show this year, and that certainly slowed me down a bit. Most nights I left around 5:00 PM, with the exception of Saturday, when I went to the Marvel panel, which let out around 7:00, and Sunday, when I went to lunch with some friends at 2:00 and caught the 3:55 ferry home. Like Captain America, it’s a Brave New World for me at Comic-Con these days, one I need to embrace in a slower and more thoughtful fashion.
I had a great time at this year’s show and I love just about everything I purchased, especially this little Goon Plush. I don’t read the book, but I’m a fan of Eric Powell’s art (he received a much-deserved Inkpot Award this year) and I did buy his 2024 sketchbook. So let me leave you with this little guy (and his companion book) and say see you next year—I hope!—at Comic-Con 2025, July 24-27, with Preview Night on July 23 … or maybe at WonderCon 2025, March 20-31 (it’s not Easter!). Hopefully, I’ll have panel presentations at both, but in the meantime, please visit me on YouTube @TalesFromMySpinnerRack and subscribe and turn on notifications for my pretty-much monthly new videos devoted to the comics I grew up loving in the 1960s and ‘70s!
@innocent-bystander.com 
I thought about picking up those two Batman annual collections, wish I’d gone back for them now!
You’re actually the first person I’ve seen to posit the idea of Downey not showing his face at all in his portrayal of Doom. Whilst I think that’s a great way of getting around it, I’m sure you’d then have people complaining, “Why even cast him in the first place? Just because he’s a good actor?” I suppose you could disguise his face in heavily scarred makeup; but, alas, I think there is going to be some narrative explanation as to why Victor von Doom has the late Tony Stark’s face. Cosmetic surgery to fool people into thinking Stark never died, perhaps?
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Yeah, at 20 bucks each they were hard to pass up. I also got the Showcase Presents Eclipso and the Doc Savage TPBs at the same booth.
The Russon Bros. specifically said VICTOR VON DOOM, so I’m just guessing he is not playing Tony Stark or some variant or whatever. Maybe they’ll go with the Jack Kirby theory that Doom’s scarred face is just a tiny scratch and his ego won’t let him live with that flaw (as opposed to a horribly grotesque face), but I’m convinced RDJ returning has absolutely nothing to do with Tony Stark.
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