To heck with awards shows...how will the strike affect Comic-Con?
Jan 8, 2008, 11:41 AM | by Marc Bernardin
Categories: Comic-Con 2008, I'm Just a Geek, Writer's Strike
With people wondering what the WGA strike is going to do to the Oscars now that it's scuttled the Golden Globes, geeks like me have a far more pressing concern: If the strike lasts through July, what'll happen to the San Diego Comic-Con?
Peter Sanderson, who writes comic-related books like The Marvel Travel Guide to New York and a critical column called Comics in Context, thinks aloud to The Beat:
- What effect does [the writers, actors and, potentially, directors guild strikes] have on the San Diego Con, which has increasingly become a showcase for movies and TV shows? Sure, producers and PR people will still hold panels in Hall H to preview new product. But don’t the fans go to these panels to see the actors and the “star” directors and writers? [snip] In other words, just how many of the 100,000 plus attendees at Comic-Con come for the media other than comics? We may find out this year.
And Sanderson's right. Comic-Con is gonna get slammed this year, one way or the other. Even if the strike is over by the third week of July, the TV season's shot to hell and if production doesn't start toot sweet, next season will follow suit. And TV is a big part of what pushes the media stuff at Comic-Con: Heroes, Battlestar Galactica, Lost—even perennials like Babylon 5 and Buck Rogers still draw modest crowds.
But what would Comic-Con look like without the casts and crews of flicks like Harry Potter & the Half-Blood Prince, Watchmen, Star Trek, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Spirit, The Wolfman, Land of the Lost, and G.I. Joe—all of which could be expected to strut their stuff in San Diego?
How will Hollywood court the viral-geek demographic without this monster of an event, which has eclipsed everything else in the landscape? My gods, could there actually be a San Diego Comic-Con where the big draw is...comics?
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