The continued growth of the San Diego Comic-Con seems to be the most-discussed aspect of the event, especially in light of the recent downsizing of E3. Heidi summarizes what the San Diego experience has become:

Since the broaching of Hall H a few years back the immense exhibit hall has become divided into regions, just like an archeological dig. The far end of the room, Halls A and B are basically the old convention, with dealers, back issues boxes the small press area and the DC juggernaut of a booth. Once you get past the old con, you enter the theme park section which, despite the absence of an actual LucasFilms booth, was wilder and crazier than ever before… It was raging off the hook like a combination of Disneyland and E3. Negotiating this area was my main occupation for four and a half days, as just getting from the press room to a panel became a half hour trek. I’m sure everyone’s experience was the same, so I won’t over dwell on it, except to say that the time and exhaustion factor from walking around is probably the main ingredient of the show now.

Theme park strikes me as the most apt way to describe it. In that sense, the Geek Vegas moniker seems fitting since the Con has a similar mix of spectacle, shopping, hype and exhaustion. The feeling of coming back from a San Diego Comic-Con is similar to the feeling I have after a trip to Vegas — a mix of tired and thrilled, a feeling that it’s about time I get back to reality. I know most people have complained about the crowds, but in those situations I’m usually okay (I walk like most people drive, making me more of a jostler than a jostlee) but it’s another point where the Comic-Con ends up feeling like Vegas.

From my limited experience, the transition between panels was where I noticed the increased crowds the most. Last year, I was able to get a good seat to hear the cast of Teen Titans perform a live script reading because I was willing to sit through the last half-hour of a Rob Zombie panel that didn’t interest me. This year, something like that wasn’t even an option for the Heroes panel which drew an SRO crowd, just like the panel before it. The larger crowds made clearing the rooms slower, as well and most of the panels I attended this year either went long or were delayed by the prior one. Attending back-to-back panels was very challenging.

Heidi also ponders the Con’s success:

I’ve often wondered why, of all fan-created events, comic book conventions have consistently mutated into general pop culture events. Some friends say it’s because comics are inherently weak – other say its because comics are a medium, not a genre, like science fiction and horror, whose own fanfest remain small and insular.

I’m about to write something which is the soppiest, dopiest thing I’ve ever written here, and I apologize in advance, but in some ways…maybe comics are imagination. Wait, hear me out! Dancing, singing, storytelling and creating art are all natural human activities, observable in small children of diverse cultures, and captured in primitive forms from Lascaux on. Using drawings to tell stories is simple, efficient and cheap—and natural. Maybe a lot of really, truly creative people are drawn to this medium because it IS special.

Despite the increasing artificiality of the con as a PR machine, I don’t think the creative spark will go away entirely. All the indie folks at the con had strong shows and made money, and enough ideas and deals were hatched that we won’t see the end of comics as a fountain of IP end any time soon.