It's Throwback Thursday, which means I'm going to put you to sleep with my boring old man stories. Deal with it, fanboys.
As I said last Thursday, SDCC was held in the El Cortez Hotel throughout most of the 70's, and all of the old timers I've talked to seemed to really love those days. However by 1979 the organizers felt that attendance had grown too large for that venue so the show was moved to the old San Diego
Convention and
Performing
Arts
Center a few blocks away on C street.
And now we're in my era. My first SDCC was in 1982 at CPAC. It's hard to put into words what those days meant to me. All I can tell you is that I'll never forget them. It was like being in a weird dream. I got to meet and talk to the likes of Jack Kirby, Ray Bradbury, Will Eisner, Harvey Kurtzman, Carl Barks, Art Spiegleman, Moebius, Alan Moore, Frank Miller, Marv Wolfman, Gene Colan, George Perez, Stan Lee, Gil Kane, Dave Stevens, Al Williamson, Trina Robbins, Curt Swan and that, believe it or not, is just a partial list. I could keep typing names all day. Think about any work of comic book art that you loved that was produced in the 20th century and the chances are very good that I met the person or people that created it.
I think the aspect about those early comic cons that I will treasure the most was the fellowship. We as fans had a common bond that we all shared. A love of fantasy and art. No one would judge you there. No one would belittle you because you read comics or watched cartoons. You were among friends. In other words, if you loved comics and you were at the San Diego Comic Con, you were home.
CPAC was a great place to hold a comic convention. Besides Golden Hall, there was also the Civic Theater across the courtyard and across the street from that was the old California Movie Theater. As the con grew in attendance we took advantage of all that space. It was in the Civic Theater that DC and Warner Brothers held a panel to assure fans that the upcoming Batman movie with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson would NOT be a comedy. Jeff Walker, a WB studio exec, longtime DC editor Julius Schwartz and Batman co-creator Bob Kane were on hand to tell us to calm down. And it was in the California movie theater that I saw an English language translation of one of the greatest anime's of all time, Akira.
But all good things come to an end as the saying goes. We held the last convention at CPAC in 1990. In 1991 we moved into the then brand new convention center on Harbor Drive and we've been there ever since. Why the move? For the same reason we left the El Cortez: We were running out of room. There just simply wasn't enough space. In 1979 the attendance was 6000. By 1990 it had grown to 13,000. It was sad, but we had to go. But I have a lot of great memories of that place. It has sat empty now since the pandemic, but I understand the city has made a deal with the San Diego Community College District to redevelop it. That's cool. I hope it happens.
Now for a blast from the past:
Wonderful memories.
Mike
(
20 Days Until SDCC 2026!)
