Sunday, December 29, 2013

Comic Con 1990



I attended my first San Diego Comic Con in 1990, the last year it was at the San Diego Concourse on C Street.  I had volunteered to be a projectionist (wow, real film back in those days) because I knew how to run a film projector.  I only had to do six hours of volunteering because of that, and all of us volunteers got this nifty shirt which was exclusive for us.  It's drawn by Michael Kaluta.  I have to admit, I'm not sure who it is- wasn't sure in 1990 and I'm still not sure now.  I ran the projector for the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie (which was also the first time I saw that film as well) and I forget what else, but that was the most fun.

I wore that shirt a lot.  It did, as t-shirts will, start to shred and I had to "retire" it before it disintegrated completely.

The front part of the shirt was still in good shape, so I saved it.  Didn't know what for, until Xmas of this year.  I had shown the remains of the shirt to my mother, and she snuck it out and turned it into this cool little wall quilt, complete with superheroes on the front and dinosaurs on the back.

Pretty nifty, huh?

In many ways that 1990 Comic Con is my favorite one I've ever attended.  I had no idea what it would be like, and the first time I saw the dealers room, full of comics and artists and a small selection of toys, VHS tapes and even some movie memorabilia was an amazing thing to behold.  There were cool films being shown, most from private collectors (the 60s Captain America cartoon was projected) and you could run into almost anyone connected in the industry at any given time.

After it moved to the new Convention Center the atmosphere changed a bit, and now it barely resembles the comic book convention it started out as.  I miss it and I'm glad that my small part of it is saved for me.

3 comments:

joecab said...

That was my first SDCC too! I really miss that smaller venue with its bigger concentration of actual comics fans and those interested in such where Hollywood didn't give a fig about that event. At night they ran movies in the basement I believe. I saw "A Clockwork Orange" there and dealt with my first annoying fanboy who wouldn't stop reciting all the lines during the movie. :/ They were also showing "Akira" at a local theater and this was so long ago there weren't even a dozen people in that theater.

C. Elam said...

Mike Kaluta is best known in comic book circles for drawing The Shadow comic for DC in the early 70s. I think the image on the shirt is a riff on Starstruck, a creator-owned series he did with Elaine Lee.

Good story. Best to focus on the positive, rather than the things we cannot change.

X7 said...

It staRTEd losing the comic book flavor about 1995 or so, I'd say.