A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF COMIC-CON

1COMIC-CON 50www.comic-con.org

Comic-Con moved into the brand-new San Diego Convention Center in 1991, beginning a three-

decade period of growth in its new home. Everything old—including nostalgia—

seemed new again.

THE NEW AGE OF COMIC-CON

1990sThe

A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF COMIC-CON

3COMIC-CON 50www.comic-con.org2 COMIC-CON 50

2019 Souvenir Book

COMIC-CON 21

AUGUST 2–5

Convention andPerforming Arts

Center, Downtown

Attendance: 13,000

This was Comic-Con’s last year at CPAC, with a new home at the just-built San Diego Con-ventiion Center on the horizon. To make room for a growing convention, a food services and lounge area was set up on the plaza area outside the CPAC

1990

Captain America TM & © 2019 MARVEL

buildings. The blood drive expanded to two days (Thursday and Friday), with the BloodMobile parked outside the center’s lobby on First Avenue. A welcom-ing night party was held at the Kingston Hotel (now the Bristol), saluting the 50th an-niversary of Will Eisner’s The Spirit. The after-banquet par-ty featuring Seduction of the Innocent was prematurely shortened because of noise complaints from the hotel. In programming, fans got to hear all about a new TV show, The Simpsons, created by long-time Comic-Con at-tendee and exhibitor Matt Groening.

COMIC-CON 211990

Souvenir Book cover art © 2019 Bill Morrison; characters © respective copyright holders • Captain America TM & © 2019 MARVEL • Love and Rockets art © 2019 Jaime Hernadez

PETER DAVIDComic book, fiction writer,

Incredible Hulk, SupergirlStar Trek novels

CARL MACEKScreenwriter, producer,

Robotech

GRANT MORRISONComic book writer,

Doom Patrol, Arkham Asylum

JOHN ROMITA JR.Comic book artist,

Amazing Spider-Man, X-Men

MARK SCHULTZComic book writer-artist,

Xenozoic Tales

VAN WILLIAMSActor,

The Green Hornet TV series

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: One last look at the Comic-Con Exhibit Hall at CPAC.

BOTTOM LEFT: George Pérez’s Souvenir Book con-tribution salutes the 50th anniversary of Captain America.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Stan Lee seems shocked at the appearance of Spider-Man. Spider-Man is always at Comic-Con!

THIS PAGE, TOP: Bill Morrison’s amazing Souvenir Book cover evokes the “big letter” greetings from postcards of yore, this time filled with a plethora of com-ics and animation characters.

BOTTOM RIGHT: The official Comic-Con T-shirt featured Captain America’s 50th anniversary with art by Kevin Maguire and Terry Austin.

BELOW: Hopey by Jaime Hernadez.

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COMIC-CON 22

JULY 4–7

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 15,000+

In February 1991 the Con commit-tee experimented with putting on a smaller winter comics and SF convention, Con/Fusion, with spe-cial guests artist Steve Rude (Nex-us) and SF author Tim Powers. That turned out to be the last Comic-Con event held at CPAC. The big news was Comic-Con’s move to the San Diego Convention Cen-ter, using Halls A and B and some programming space upstairs. The July 4 weekend made the move even more special: An Indepen-dence Day party was held on the back patio, with a great view of local fireworks. Fans also got to see an advance screening of Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer movie, a performance of the play American Splendor (based on Harvey Pekar’s comic and starring The Simpsons’ Dan Castellaneta as Pekar), and the first Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards presentation under the auspices of Comic-Con, with Jack-ie Estrada as the awards adminis-trator, a role she continues in to this day. And Martin Jaquish took over as the Masquerade Coordina-tor, starting a continuing run in that position for 28 years.

1991

Archie TM & © 2019 Archie Publications, Inc. •Wonder Woman TM & © DC ComicsMarvel characters TM & © 2019 MARVEL

COMIC-CON 221991

Souvenir Book cover art © 2019 William Stout • Rocketeer TM & © Dave Stevens Estate • X-Men TM & © 2019 MARVEL

CLIVE BARKERAuthor, movie director,

Books of Blood, Hellraiser

DAN DeCARLOComic book artist,

Archie Comics

NEIL GAIMANComic book writer, author,Sandman, American Gods

KEITH GIFFENComic book writer-artist,

Legion of Super-Heroes

LYNN JOHNSTONSyndicated cartoonist,For Better or For Worse

DON MAITZScience fiction & fantasy

Illustrator

JIM LEEComic book artist,

Marvel Comics,X-Men

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: The Archie gang visited Comic-Con for the second time (they also appeared in 1989 and would appear again in 2003), and Ve-ronica tells it like it is, Archie.

MIDDLE: A Mt. Rushmore of great comic creators, circa 1991:(left to right) Frank Miller, Neil Gaiman, Bill Sien-kiewicz, Bernie Wrightson, and Dave Gibbons.

BOTTOM LEFT: A beautiful Souvenir Book submission from Barb Rausch, saluting the 50th anniversary of Wonder Woman.

BOTTOM RIGHT: A different kind of “swimsuit edition” as these Marvel (male) characters welcome attend-ees to the 1991 event.

THIS PAGE, ABOVE: Artist Bill Stout’s dystopian Souvenir Book cover, patterned after classic ACE science fiction paperbacks (note the logo in the upper left corner).

BELOW: TWO official T-shirts for 1991! Dave Stevens’ The Rocketeer tied into the Disney movie, and Jim Lee’s X-Men was hot, Hot, HOT for Marvel.

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COMIC-CON 23

AUGUST 13–16

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 22,000

This was the year that standing in line hit full force. Both Image and Valiant had burst onto the scene, and fans waited patient-ly for hours to get autographs from Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Rob Liefeld et al. Fantagraph-ics threw a party for the 10th anniversary of the Hernandez Brothers’ Love and Rockets. Dark Horse published its first issue of San Diego Comic-Con Comics, which would be published an-nually through 1995. A highlight for many was the 75th birthday party for Jack Kirby, with a rous-ing speech by Frank Miller. Ban-ners graced Harbor Drive for the first time, and everyone in San Diego saw Comic-Con bus ads. The Comics Art Conference debuted and presented an aca-demic look at the medium; it’s still going strong today at both Comic-Con and WonderCon, and has programs every day of each convention. Phil Foglio began his long run as MC of the Masquerade, which was held at Symphony Hall.

1992

Kirby tribute art © respective artists • Characters TM & © 2019 MARVEL • SDCC Comics characters © 2019 respective copyright holders

COMIC-CON 231992

Souvenir Book cover art © 2019 Ken Steacy • Lobo TM & © DC Comics

FRANCIS FORD COPPOLAFilm writer, director,

The Godfather, Dracula

BILL GRIFFITHUnderground comix writer-artist, Zippy

CREIG FLESSELComic book artist,

All-Star Comics, Superboy

GILBERT SHELTONUnderground comix

writer-artist, Freak Bros.

TODD McFARLANEComic book writer-artist,

Spawn, Amazing Spider-Man

WILLIAM SHATNERActor, author,

Star Trek: The Original Series

ROWENAFantasy book cover

artist-illustrator

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP LEFT: Jack Kirby’s next-to-last appearance at Comic-Con was marked by the happy occasion of his 75th birthday and tons of special tributes to The King in the Souvenir Book.

TOP RIGHT: Dark Horse Comics and Comic-Con teamed up for this first of four issues of San Diego Comic-Con Comics, given free to attendees. The second issue in1993 showcased the first appearance of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy.

MIDDLE: Kirby tributes by (left to right) Bill Stout, John Buscema, and Will Eisner.

BOTTOM: William Shatner and direc-tor Francis Ford Coppola made Comic-Con appear-ances.

THIS PAGE, TOP: Ken Steacy’s cover featured a kid and his dogs, both in capes, and the magic of make-be-lieve combined with the fun of comics.

BOTTOM: Lobo was big in 1992, and he proved it with this official Comic-Con T-shirt!

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COMIC-CON 24

AUGUST 19–22

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 28,000

Comic-Con expanded its Exhibit Hall to fill out the entire ground floor of the San Diego Conven-tion Center (Halls A through C), instituting an autograph sign-ing area and plenty of room for portfolio reviews. DC wowed everyone with its megabooth (dubbed “Wayne’s World” af-ter DC’s director of sales Bob Wayne). Independent publish-ing was the new thing, with creator Dave Sim (Cerebus) on hand, along with Scott McCloud (Zot!), Larry Marder (Tales of the Beanworld), and Jeff Smith (Bone). The Eisner Awards were held on Thursday evening, draw-ing a large crowd that saw Frank Miller and Neil Gaiman garner the lion’s share of the plaques. The Will Eisner Spirit of Com-ics Retailer Award was added at the urging of Eisner himself, saluting the best comic shops in the world and their connec-tion between creators, publish-ers and readers. The first year’s recipients were Moondog’s in Chicago, IL, The Beguiling in To-ronto , Canada, and Comic Relief in Berkeley, CA.

1993

Usagi Yojimbo © 2019 Stan Sakai • Lobo TM & © DC Comics

COMIC-CON 241993

Souvenir Book cover art, Sin City © 2019 Frank Miller

MURPHY ANDERSONComic book artist,

Hawkman, The Spectre

JIM APAROComic book artist, Batman,

The Brave and the Bold

DANIEL CLOWESComic book writer-artist,

Eightball, Ghost World

DON MARTINCartoonist,

MAD magazine

OLIVIAFantasy illustrator

ROGER ZELAZNYScience fiction author,

Chronicles of Amber series

VINCENT SULLIVANComic book editor,

Action Comics

OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: John Byrne made an appearance at the Dark Horse Comics booth to promote their new comics line, Legend.

Grrr . . . Stan Sakai’s Franken-Usagi GOOD.

One of Marvel and DC’s greatest artists, Gene Colan.

Betty rocks out at the Archie Com-ics booth.

An official Comic-Con membership card. Don’t leave home without it.

The main entrance to the Exhibit Hall.

DC Comics’ Lobo invaded Comic-Con in the one-shot Lobo Con-vention Special by Keith Giffen, Alan Grant, and Kevin O’Neill (it didn’t end well).

THIS PAGE TOP: Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s Souvenir Book cover.

BOTTOM: We doubled down with Miller and his new creation, Sin City, for the of-ficial Comic-Con T-shirt.

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COMIC-CON 25

AUGUST 4–7

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 31,000

Comic-Con celebrated its 25th event and exhibitors took a cue from DC and set up much more elaborate booths. The Tekno Co-mix booth featured a rising fist gripping the company’s logo and guest appearances by Mick-ey Spillane, Leonard Nimoy, and Majel Barrett Roddenberry. Val-iant had a two-story booth. Jim Shooter’s new company, Defiant, had a medieval tower, while Full Moon had a jungle-style movie set. At the other end of the spec-trum, the first Small Press Area was created in the Exhibit Hall for publishers with small press runs and a limited number of titles. There were special screen-ings of Natural Born Killers and The Mask, and on Saturday a gala Monte Carlo night was held under the sails on the top level of the San Diego Convention Center. Manga superstar Rumiko Takahashi (Urusei Yatsura) made a rare U. S. convention appear-ance, and a “new” artist named Alex Ross took home multiple Eisner Awards for his art on Mar-vels.

1994

Batman TM & © DC Comics • Spider-Man TM & © 2019 MARVEL

COMIC-CON 251994

The Simpsons TM & © Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp. • DC characters TM & © DC Comics

MIKE ALLREDComic book writer-artist,

Madman

AL FELDSTEINComic book writer,

artist, editor, EC Comics, MAD magazine

ROBERTA GREGORYComic book writer-artist,

Naughty Bits

CHAD GROTHKOPFComic book artist,

Golden Age comics

RUMIKO TAKAHASHIManga writer-artist,

Urusei Yatsura, Ranma 1/2

JEAN-CLAUDE VAN DAMMEAction movie star,

Timecop

J. MICHAEL STRACZYNSKITV writer-producer,

Babylon 5

OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Tou-can marks the 25th Comic-Con.

These banners lined Harbor Drive and other areas of San Diego, like Seaport Village, for many years during Comic-Con.

You knew Comic-Con was coming when you started to see these ads on San Diego buses.

Jean-Claude van Damme came to Comic-Con to talk about Timecop, the Dark Horse Comics movie production.

Sergio Aragonés and Groo’s doggo, Rufferto, also celebrated the Con’s 25th anniversary.

The DC Comics booth changed the way big publishers presented them-selves at Comic-Con.

Leonard Nimoy at Comic-Con for Tekno Comics.

Manga legend Ru-miko Takahashi.

THIS PAGE TOP: The Simpsons graced the Souvenir Book cover with a giant Comic-Con cake. Art by Bill Mor-rison, Steve Vance, and Matt Groening.

THIS PAGE BOT-TOM: The official T-shirt promoted DC Comics’ summer miniseries, Zero Hour.

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COMIC-CON 26

JULY 27–30

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 34,000

The name of the event was of-ficially changed to Comic-Con International: San Diego, and the new “eye” logo, designed by Richard Bruning and Josh Beat-man, was introduced (much to the Toucan’s dismay). The Eisner Awards ceremony was moved to Friday night—where it’s remained ever since—and combined with the Inkpots, so the banquet was no more. Neil Gaiman was the keynote speaker at the newly combined ceremony. The Independent Publishers Pavilion, instituted on the Exhibit Hall floor in 1994, featured such self-publishers as Jeff Smith, Terry Moore, Batton Lash, Paul Pope, Linda Medley, Charles Vess, Don Simpson, Marc Hempel, and Mark Wheatley. Frank Frazetta made a surprise appearance as a guest of Glen Danzig’s new Verotik line. Magic: The Gathering was big among gamers, and Lloyd Kaufman brought lots of Troma films.

1995COMIC-CON 261995

Sandman and Death TM & © DC Comics

CHARLES BURNSComic book writer-artist,

Black Hole

RAMONA FRADONComic book artist,

Aquaman, Metamorpho

TIM & GREG HILDEBRANDT

Fantasy illustrators,Lord of the Rings trilogy

RYOICHI IKEGAMIManga artist,

Crying Freeman, Mai the Psychic Girl

JOE SINNOTTComic book artist, inker,

Fantastic Four, Thor

JEFF SMITHCartoonist, creator,

Bone, RASL

IRV NOVICKComic book artist,

Batman

OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Batman Forever Batmobile in the DC Comics booth.

Giant robots never really loomed over the San Diego Convention Center, but this ad that appeared in Dark Horse Comics sure made the possibility of it happening look cool.

Marvel artist Joe Sinnott made a rare West Coast conven-tion appearance.

Artist Ramona Fra-don was an Inkpot Award recipient.

Marvel characters Spider-Man and the Thing made new friends at Comic-Con.

Neil Gaiman and Jeff Smith were Eis-ner Award winners.

THIS PAGE TOP: The Toucan went gently off into retirement with the premier of the new Comic-Con Interna-tional logo, but . . .

BOTTOM: He did make a cameo appearance on the official T-shirt, featuring Death and Sandman with art by Chris Bachalo.

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2019 Souvenir Book

COMIC-CON 27

JULY 4–7

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 36,000

For the second time, Comic-Con fell on the Fourth of July week-end. This time it was because of the Republican National Con-vention, held later that summer in San Diego. Themes included a salute to 1986 (the publication year of Watchmen, Dark Knight, and Maus), the 30th anniversa-ries of Star Trek and the Silver Surfer, and Saturday morning cartoons. By this point there were seven main programming rooms on the Mezzanine and Upper Level, plus three rooms devoted to workshops and seminars. Programming high-lights included a special tribute to Superman co-creator Jerry Siegel (who had recently died), “Meet the Batwomen” with ac-tresses Yvonne Craig (Batgirl) and Julie Newmar (Catwoman), and a panel on “Social Change in Comics” with Ed Brubaker, Tom Hart, Joe Chiappetta, and oth-ers. In addition to the regular Art Show, Kevin Eastman’s Words & Pictures Museum set up a spe-cial exhibit of comic art.


Souvenir Book cover art © 2019 Dave McKean • Captain America TM & © 2019 MARVEL

MORT DRUCKERCartoonist,

MAD magazine

DAVE GIBBONSComic book artist,

Watchmen, Give Me Liberty

DAVE McKEANComic book artist,

Sandman, Arkham Asylum

KURT SCHAFFENBERGERComic book artist,

Superman’s Girlfriend Lois Lane

MARIE SEVERINComic book artist, colorist,EC Comics, Marvel Comics

OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: The Golden Age Flash and Hourman cosplay (before the word was invented).

Popular comic book artists Michael Wm. Kaluta and Bill Sienkiewicz.

The Dark Horse Comics booth with a special appear-ance by actor Mark Hamill. Dark Horse was publishing his comic book series, The Black Pearl.

Writer Mark Waid and artist Alex Ross signed at the DC Comics booth for their new series Kingdom Come.

THIS PAGE TOP: Dave McKean’s quirky Souvenir Book cover was missing something: Somehow the Cyan plate got dropped from the final printing! Luckily it still made a great-looking cover.

BOTTOM: It was big news when some of the Image Comics founders went back to work at Marvel. Here’s Rob Liefeld’s version of Captain America on the official Comic-Con T-shirt for 1996. FRANÇOIS SCHUITEN

Belgian comic artist,Les Cités Obscures

JIM MOONEYComic book artist,

Supergirl, Amazing Spider-Man

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COMIC-CON 28

JULY 17–20

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 40,000

A whimsical addition to the Ex-hibit Hall was the Trilogy Tour tree, featuring the characters and works of cartoonists and self-publishers Jeff Smith (Bone), Linda Medley (Castle Waiting), and Charles Vess (Book of Ballads and Sagas), who had banded together to do a summer con-vention tour. A number of ce-lebrities came to Comic-Con to promote upcoming films, from Paul Verhoeven (Starship Troop-ers) and David Hasselhoff (Nick Fury) to Michael Jai White and John Leguizamo (Spawn), plus martial arts favorite Sammo Hung. The 20th anniversary of Star Wars was a big theme, with lots of programs and a gala par-ty under the sails on Saturday night, and a Dave Dorman paint-ed Souvenir Book cover. Fans boarded buses to pack the audi-ence for the Masquerade, held in Golden Hall at the old CPAC, where increasingly sophisticat-ed costumes and presentations garnered prizes from sponsors, a preview of the modern-day Comic-Con Masquerade.

1997

Mutts © 2019 Patrick McDonnell

COMIC-CON 281997

Star Wars TM & © 2019 Lucasfilm Ltd. •MAD and DC characters TM & © DC Comics

DICK AYERSComic book artist, inker,Sgt. Fury, Fantastic Four

RALPH McQUARRIEMovie designer, futurist,

Star Wars films

LINDA MEDLEYComic book writer-artist,

Castle Waiting

MICHAEL MOORCOCKFantasy author,

Elric of Melniboné stories

KEVIN SMITHFilm writer, director,Clerks, Chasing Amy

GEORGE TUSKAComics artist,

Buck Rogers, Iron Man

ALEX ROSSComic book artist,

Marvels, Kingdom Come

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP ROW LEFT: Comic book art-ists and longtime friends Ramona Fradon (left) and Marie Severin.

RIGHT: A huge Spawn inflatable in the Sails Pavilion for the 1997 movie.

MIDDLE: A look from above at the Comic-Con Exhibit Hall.

BOTTOM LEFT: Patrick McDonnell’s Mutts salutes the 20th anniversary of Star Wars.

BOTTOM RIGHTT: This large figure of Bone played look-out at the top of the tree in the Trilogy Tour booth.

THIS PAGE, TOP: Twenty years of Star Wars was the theme, and this triptych of three of the big original characters by Dave Dorman was the Souvenir Book cover.

THIS PAGE, BOT-TOM: You got two big images—front and back!—with this year’s Alfred E. Neuman meets the DC Comics Trinity official Comic-Con T-shirt!

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COMIC-CON 29

AUGUST 13–16

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 42,000

A panel and signing by Joss Whedon and most of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer cast attract-ed mobs of fans. Similarly, fans of Sailor Moon creator Naoko Takeuchi were out in full force—and in cosplay. Themes included the 20th anniversary of Elfquest, Superman’s 60th birthday, and Comics for Girls and Boys. Di-rector John Carpenter talked about his new film, Vampires, and fan-favorite star Patrick Mac-Nee discussed The Avengers (the popular 1960s British TV series). The International Pavilion in the Exhibit Hall focused on Italian comics, helping to emphasize Comic-Con’s worldwide scope. The Eisner Awards moved up a notch in sophistication, with a multimedia slide show and live video, while the Masquerade had a record turnout for its first pre-sentation when it moved “home” to the Convention Center. One of the first successful Marvel mov-ies, Blade, held a party Saturday night after the Masquerade. Charles Brownstein was hired as Comic-Con’s first full-time direc-tor of programming.


Superman and Green Lantern TM & © DC Comics

JOHN BROOMEComic book writer,

Flash, Green Lantern

NICK CARDYComic book artist,

Aquaman, Teen Titans

LORENZO MATTOTTIItalian comic writer-artist,

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde

TERRY MOOREComic book writer-artist,

Strangers in Paradise

NAOKO TAKEUCHIManga artist, creator,

Sailor Moon

CHRIS WAREComic book writer-artist,

ACME Novelty Library

JOHN SEVERINComic book artist, inker,

EC Comics, Sgt. Fury

OPPOSITE PAGE, TOP: DC Comics Silver Age greats (left to right) Murphy Anderson, Julius Schwartz, and John Broome.

SECOND ROW: A trio of 1998 Masquerade contestants.

THIRD ROW: Chris Ware with Fanta-graphics editor/pub-lisher Kim Thompson and a piece of Ware’s Comic-Con 1998 badge art.

BOTTOM: A bird’s-eye view of the constantly-growing Exhibit Hall.

THIS PAGE, TOP: Alex Ross’s Superman cover celebrated the Man of Steel’s 60th birthday.

MIDDLE: 1998 also marked the 40th an-niversary of the Silver Age Green Lantern with this official T-shirt.

BELOW: Cast mem-bers from Buffy the Vampire Slayer caused quite a stir when they made a panel appearance at Comic-Con; left to right: Charisma Carpenter, Alyson Hannigan, and Nicholas Bren-don. It was a portent of things to come in the Hall H era.

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COMIC-CON 30

AUGUST 13–18

San DiegoConvention

Center

Attendance: 45,000

1999 marked Comic-Con’s 30th event. Programming themes in-cluded the 50th anniversary of Walt Kelly’s Pogo, the 60th an-niversary of Batman, the 10th anniversary of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman, “The Graphic Novel Comes of Age,” “Comics Verité” (nonfiction comics), and “The Animation Renaissance.” Hol-lywood continued with its in-creased interest in reaching the show’s attendees. Presentations included a look at The Blair Witch Project with actress Heather Donahue, behind the scenes of Farscape, and a program on the making of Iron Giant, with direc-tor Brad Bird and a relatively un-known actor named Vin Diesel (the voice of the Iron Giant), just a few short months after he first became fast and furious. Mark Evanier kept expanding the number of panels he hosted, in-cluding several Golden and Sil-ver Age panels, guest spotlights, and the annual Jack Kirby trib-ute, a feat he magically performs to this day, 20 years later.

1999

Big Guy © 2019 Frank Miller and Geof Darrow • Sandman TM & © DC Comics • Elfquest © 2019 Wendy and Richard Pini

COMIC-CON 251999

Souvenir Book cover art © 2019 Steranko • Batman and Wonder Woman TM & © DC Comics • 30 Things art © 2019 Scott Shaw!

SAMUEL R. DELANYScience fiction author,

The Einstein Intersection

LARRY GONICKComic writer-artist,

Cartoon History of the Universe

IRWIN HASENGolden Age comic book artist,

cartoonist, Dondi

MIKE MIGNOLAComic book writer-artist,

creator, Hellboy

BRUCE TIMMArtist, animator, director,

Batman: The Animated Series

BARRY WINDSOR-SMITHComic book writer-artist,

Conan, Wolverine: Weapon X

JILL THOMPSONComic book writer-artist,

Sandman, Scary Godmother

OPPOSITE PAGE, CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: This huge inflatable pro-moted the cartoon adventures of Frank Miller and Geof Dar-row’s Big Guy and Rusty the Robot.

Writer-artist Kyle Baker at his table.

Wendy Pini finishes an Elfquest painting for the Art Auction.

Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve) at his table.

Indy comics car-toonists (left) Daniel Clowes (Eightball) and Chester Brown (Yummy Fur).

The 1999 badges featured Neil Gaiman’s The Sand-man, with Death on the receipt portion.

THIS PAGE TOP: Steranko’s noirish cover for the Souve-nir Book.

RIGHT: Adam Hughes’ Wonder Woman graced the official T-shirt and also advertising, including the buses.

BOTTOM: An excerpt from Scott Shaw’s “30 Thing I like About Comic-Con!” from the Souvenir Book.

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2019 Souvenir Book

“WE HAVE A HULK TOUCAN.”According to Wikipedia: “Toucans are members of the Neotropi-cal near passerine bird family Ramphastidae. The Ramphastidae are brightly marked birds and have large, often-colorful bills. The family includes over forty different species.”

Sometime in the mid-1980s, Comic-Con adopted the Toucan as an official logo. As artist Rick Geary explained: “I was asked to do a logo of some kind, and I came up with the Toucan. Actually, it wasn’t meant to be specifically a toucan, just a funny bird with a big beak.” Rick’s “funny bird” was a part of Comic-Con until 1995, appearing in publications, the occasional embroidered sweatshirt, and in ad-vertising, both locally and in comics. In 1995, Comic-Con added “In-ternational” to its name and the iconic eye logo was created.

In 2009, for the 40th anniversary of Comic-Con, we asked Rick to bring back the bird, and he was featured on the cover of the Souvenir Book, perched atop the El Cortez Hotel (now a condo building) in his newly-adopted superhero garb. And then in 2012, when our official website, www.comic-con.org, was redesigned and revamped, Toucan became the name for our new official blog. Rick generated a whole slew of new drawings (some of them seen here for the first time), and the Toucan once again became a part of the Comic-Con family. (Someone in the office actually named him, too: Stan.) Since emerging from his self-imposed exile, Stan the Toucan has appeared on official Comic-Con T-shirts, pins, tiki mugs, and—of course—on our blog on a regular basis.

TOP: A 1983 ver-sion of the Comic-Con logo.

ABOVE: Geary re- fined the Toucan logo in 1988, in this drawing showing both B&W and colorrenditions.

ABOVE: Geary’s first version of the dancing Toucan, created for Comic-Con’s 25th anniversary.

LEFT: A 1995 Comic-Con Holiday card (in snowless San Diego).

RIGHT: The 25th anniversary logo for Comic-Con 1994.

All artwork by Rick Geary © 2019 SDCC

TOP TWO ROWS: Comic-Con’s favorite bird made a comeback in late 2012, when the company launched a blog called simply “Toucan.” This was the first set of new draw-ings Geary did, including both pencil sketches and finished color art.

RIGHT: Don’t tell HBO, but we call the one with the sword the Game of Thrones Toucan.

BELOW: The comics-loving Toucan was adopted as the official symbol of the Comic-Con Graphic Novel Book Clubs, now 11 groups strong in the greater San Diego area. (See pages 236-237 for details.)

24 COMIC-CON 502019 Souvenir Book

TOP ROW: Other Toucans created by Geary include (left to right): Movie Toucan, TV Toucan, and Book Toucan.

ABOVE: A button given out at a panel during Comic-Con in 2013, commemorating the launch of the new blog.

MIDDLE: One of our favorites: Spaceman Toucan.

BELOW: Two versions of Professor Toucan: (left) “I will be in my office on Wednesday, but not Thursday” Ivy League Professor, and Graduation Professor. Plus Cosplay Toucan on the far right.

A PICTORIAL HISTORY OF COMIC-CON

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