This year will see the 40th anniversary of the first San Diego Comic-Con to be hosted at the legendary El Cortez Hotel. That con, which was held August 18-21, 1972, set the pattern for a string of memorable Comic-Cons throughout the rest of the ’70s, all of which, with one exception, were at the El Cortez. For many longtime attendees, the El Cortez cons are a fondly-remembered golden age of Comic-Con.
To coincide with this year’s El Cortez Comic-Con annivesary, some early Comic-Con co-founders and committee members agreed it would be a fine idea to have a new “old-school” San Diego comic convention and thus was born the San Diego Comic Fest. We think it will be a lot of fun to have a relatively-smallish con at which we consciously try to foster the spirit, or “vibe” as we used to say, of those early fan gatherings. The 1972 Comic-Con had between 900 and 1,000 attendees, which is around the number we’re looking at for at this year’s event. The Fest intends to bring creators and fans closer together, to create an environment of creative exchange in a fun, inclusive environment, much as the El Cortez-era Comic-Cons did.
If you’ve been missing the early, intimate con experience or never got to experience it but wished you had, then we hope to see you in San Diego over the October 19-21, 2012 weekend.
For more information, please visit www.sdcomicfest.org.
