The Four Color Media Monitor

The San Diego Union Tribune's announced the not too surprising news that Comic-Con's been canceled this year because the Coronavirus pandemic's made it impossible for huge gatherings of their sort to take place:

Comic-Con, in an announcement that had been expected for weeks, said Friday that it is canceling its July convention due to the coronavirus pandemic, which is still necessitating strict prohibitions against gatherings of any kind in California.

With Gov. Gavin Newsom indicating this week that statewide restrictions on large events are likely to remain in place through the early summer months, it would be impossible for a convention the size and density of Comic-Con, which attracts 135,000 people over a four-day period, to move forward.

Organizers said they had hoped that the health and safety concerns surrounding COVID-19 would ease by summer but they could see this week that would not happen. This year marks the first time in the convention’s 50-year history that it has been canceled.

The next convention will not be until July 22-25, 2021. Comic-Con had earlier canceled its sister convention, WonderCon, which was to be held in Anaheim this month.

But is anybody truly missing anything? Let's remember how, over the last 20 years or so, the whole convention's been transformed into a movie, music and computer game festival, while comic books as the prime focus have been sidelined, taking up so little space, marginalized by their very own hosts. That the convention may focus on the comic-based movies is no good substitute. To make matters worse, leftist politics have been seeping into the content at their recent gatherings, along with feminism, and they may simultaneously have been allowing an apologist for sexual abuse to serve as director. If so, they haven't done much to make the sensible customer feel sorry to see them forced to suspend their convention for this year.

So it's not altogether a sad moment when a convention that does have a downside is calling off this year's show. They have a lot of soul searching to do, fences to mend, and maybe they could start doing it for the sake of next year's gathering. If there is to be one, that is.

Labels: conventions, politics