SDCC2019 - One Day Out

Despite my initial post, and the fact that I’m up at 4am to have coffee before I head out for a run, I’m not in San Diego to check out all of their fitness studios. I’m here to take part in The Experience at Comic-Con field study program offered through Radford University under the supervision of Dr. Matthew J. Smith. You can read more about the program here and here, but (in short) the program aims to provides students with an opportunity to bring an academic lens to Comic-Con, and the study of comics and popular culture more broadly, as a participant observer. What this means is that we’ll taking part in Comic-Con as fans and as researchers, taking meticulous notes and conducting informal interviews while enjoying the sites, sounds, and panels of SDC2019.

Our program kicked off yesterday with a tour of the San Diego State University’s with a presentation on the history of Comic-Con by San Diego State University (SDSU) Popular Culture Librarian Pamela Jackson, who walked us through the 50+ year history of Comic-Con (if you didn’t know Comic-Con was started by a group of teenagers in the late 1960s!). We also saw a trailer for a project led by SDSU Library to collect the personal histories of that entrepreneurial group of kids (and one amateur graphic artist) who founded Comic-Con - Comic-Con Kids: Finding and Defining Fandom (I’ll be watching these interviews in their entirety when I get home!).

Our presentation took place in the Edward E. Marsh Golden Age of Science Fiction Library, home to a collection of rare science fiction works and memorabilia donated to the university. Particularly notable - although controversial - are the Dianetics and Scientology-related items. As a fan of Battlefield Earth (the book, not the movie), I enjoyed the artwork in the room tremendously. I also the original costume worn by John Travolta in the film (pictured below).

A photo of the real costume worn by John Travolta in Battlefield Earth. Taken at San Diego State University on July 16, 2019.