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The Comic-Con Museum, located in Balboa Park, San Diego, California, is a museum centered on comics and popular arts. It is a part of San Diego Comic-Con International. [1]
The Comic-Con Museum is a year-round experience focused on comics and popular arts, similar to the annual Comic-Con International convention. The Comic-Con Museum replaced the former San Diego Hall of Champions Museum, located in Balboa Park. The building was offered to Comic-Con by the City of San Diego in March 2017. The museum opened in the summer of 2021 and will be completed in phases until the year 2024. [1] Many popular characters have been featured in the museum's exhibitions, including Batman, Wonder Woman, Pac-Man, and Spider-Man. Although there are no specific criteria for which characters or series are selected, the museum chooses its exhibits based on all forms of art, such as film, the written word, original art, scripts, and more. [2]
In 2019, on Comic-Con's 50th anniversary, Batman was the first inductee into the San Diego Comic-Con Museum’s Hall of Fame. Adam Smith, the museum's executive director, stated, "We needed to start somewhere, and the 80th anniversary of Batman made it a good 2019 choice." At the opening, the DC Comic publishers, Warner Bros, the artists and writers, and Michael Uslan were in attendance. Michael Uslan was the executive producer of the 1989 Batman movie and is often credited for being responsible for the transformation of Batman from a comic series into a pop culture phenomenon. [3]
On July 1, 2022, Comic-Con Museum opened a new exhibit—Spider-Man: Beyond Amazing -- The Exhibition—created by Semmel Exhibitions and Marvel Entertainment dedicated to Spider-Man. The exhibit includes artifacts from Spider-Man comics, movies, animation, toys, video games, and merchandise from the 1960s to the present day. As co-curators, Dr. Ben Saunders and Patrick A. Reed designed the exhibit to showcase Spider-Man’s appearances with real-world events, the creators, and the history of Spider-Man. Their three-level approach included the cultural history of Spider-Man throughout the years and how the character has been incorporated into real-world social issues; the publishing history and creative team behind creating the comics, which includes Steve Ditko (artist) and Stan Lee (writer); and a look at the evolution and expansion of the multiverse that was created around the character of Spider-Man. [4]
The Spider-Man Exhibit highlights the relatability of the superhero. When the topic of Spider-Man came up during C.B. Celuski and Nick Lowe’s visit to the Comic-Con Museum, Celuski cited how "Luckily, Spider-Man has a mask, so anyone can see themselves in that, but the more we do this sort of thing, these characters will resonate with people." Celuski, an editor-in-chief at Marvel, believes that things like the Comic-Con Museum’s Spider-Man Exhibit are a reminder of why fans of movies and superheroes seem to relate to the characters in the Spider-Man universe, whether that be the original Peter Parker from the 1960s to today with representative characters such as Gwen Stacy and Miles Morales. Co-creator of the exhibit, Patrick Reed, stated the museum's focus was to "create massive immersive experiences that combine physical objects and high-resolution digital imagery, "selfie moments" featuring life-sized foam sculptures produced by Gentle Giant, and other cutting-edge features." Viewers can guide themselves throughout the exhibit, analyzing a wide range of artifacts, original art, and digital canvases. Featured artists include Sara Pichelli, John Romita Sr, John Buscema, and Gil Kane. [5]
The Hemingway in Comics exhibit highlights Ernest Hemingway’s presence in comics, including more than 120 appearances from 18 countries. Inspired by Robert K. Elder’s book of the same title, the exhibition explores what it means to be a pop-culture icon and how that image can change over time. The museum showcases 40 pieces of original artwork from various artists that are featured in the book. The exhibit emphasizes Hemingway’s flaws and complexities, both as a person and as an icon; some depictions are reverent, some love Hemingway, and others make fun of him. Some of the works highlight instances of his anti-semitic, sexist, and hyper-masculine vision of society from the perspective of the artists. The exhibit depicts Hemingway’s inconsistent personality through both mockery and realism to make known what it means to become an icon and how a person’s image can change over time. [6]
The Comic-Con Museum collaborated with Feeding San Diego to launch a competition for K-12 students to design hunger-fighting superheroes. The winning designs were turned into costumes by prop designer Allan Lavigne and are now on display at the museum. [7]
Frank Miller is an American comic book artist, comic book writer, and screenwriter known for his comic book stories and graphic novels such as his run on Daredevil, for which he created the character Elektra, and subsequent Daredevil: Born Again, The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One, Sin City, and 300.
Todd McFarlane is a Canadian comic book creator, best known for his work as the artist on The Amazing Spider-Man and as the creator, writer, and artist on the superhero horror-fantasy series Spawn, as well as being the current President and a co-founder of Image Comics.
The Silver Age of Comic Books was a period of artistic advancement and widespread commercial success in mainstream American comic books, predominantly those featuring the superhero archetype. Following the Golden Age of Comic Books, the Silver Age is considered to cover the period from 1956 to 1970, and was succeeded by the Bronze Age.
Colleen Doran is an American writer-artist and cartoonist. She illustrated hundreds of comics, graphic novels, books and magazines, including the autobiographical graphic novel of Marvel Comics editor and writer Stan Lee entitled Amazing Fantastic Incredible Stan Lee, which became a New York Times bestseller. She adapted and did the art for the short story "Troll Bridge" by Neil Gaiman, which also became a New York Times bestseller. Her books have received Eisner, Harvey, Bram Stoker, Locus, and International Horror Guild Awards.
Klaus Janson is a German-born American comics artist, working regularly for Marvel Comics and DC Comics and sporadically for independent companies. While he is best known as an inker, Janson has frequently worked as a penciller and colorist.
Joseph Quesada is an American comic book artist, writer, editor, and television producer. He became known in the 1990s for his work on various Valiant Comics books, such as Ninjak and Solar, Man of the Atom. He later worked on numerous books for DC Comics and Marvel Comics, such as Batman: Sword of Azrael and X-Factor, before forming his own company, Event Comics, where he published his creator-owned character, Ash.
Nelson Alexander Ross is an American comic book writer and artist known primarily for his painted interiors, covers, and design work. He first became known with the 1994 miniseries Marvels, on which he collaborated with writer Kurt Busiek for Marvel Comics. He has since done a variety of projects for both Marvel and DC Comics, such as the 1996 miniseries Kingdom Come, which he also cowrote. Since then he has done covers and character designs for Busiek's series Astro City, and various projects for Dynamite Entertainment. His feature film work includes concept and narrative art for Spider-Man (2002) and Spider-Man 2 (2004), and DVD packaging art for the M. Night Shyamalan film Unbreakable (2000). He has done covers for TV Guide, promotional artwork for the Academy Awards, posters and packaging design for video games, and his renditions of superheroes have been merchandised as action figures.
Archie Goodwin was an American comic book writer, editor, and artist. He worked on a number of comic strips in addition to comic books, and is known for his Warren and Marvel Comics work. For Warren he was chief writer and editor of landmark horror anthology titles Creepy and Eerie between 1964 and 1967. At Marvel, he served as the company's editor-in-chief from 1976 to the end of 1977. In the 1980s, he edited the publisher's anthology magazine Epic Illustrated and its Epic Comics imprint. He is also known for his work on Star Wars in both comic books and newspaper strips. He is regularly cited as the "best-loved comic book editor, ever."
In American comic books and other stories with a long history, first appearance refers to the first issue to feature a fictional character. These issues are often highly valued by collectors due to their rarity and iconic status.
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Ryan Ottley is an American comic book artist, best known for work on Image Comics' Invincible and Marvel Comics' Amazing Spider-Man.
Michael E. Uslan is an American lawyer and film producer. Uslan has also dabbled in writing and teaching, he is known for being the first instructor to teach an accredited course on comic book folklore at any university.
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Notable events of 2009 in comics.
Stan Lee was an American comic book writer, editor, publisher and producer. He rose through the ranks of a family-run business called Timely Comics which would later become Marvel Comics. He was Marvel's primary creative leader for two decades, leading its expansion from a small division of a publishing house to a multimedia corporation that dominated the comics and film industries.
Lego Super Heroes is a theme and product range of the Lego construction toy, introduced in 2011, owned by The Lego Group and licensed from DC Entertainment, Marvel Entertainment, Warner Bros., The Walt Disney Company and Pixar.
Jey Parks is an American comics artist, fan artist and scientific illustrator. Parks is most known for their fan art pieces Doctor Mew and The Catvengers and their books Star Trek Cats and Star Trek: The Next Generation Cats.
Ben Saunders is a British-born academic and in 2011, founder of the first ever in the world Undergraduate Minor in Comics Studies at the University of Oregon in Eugene, Oregon. He holds a PhD in English Literature from Duke University, a Masters in Philosophy in English Renaissance Literature from University of Cambridge and a Bachelor of the Arts degree with First Class Honors from the University of East Anglia.
Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy was an art exhibition held 7 May - 1 September 2008 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art featuring clothing inspired by superhero costuming, along with actual costumes from superhero films. Sponsored by Giorgio Armani, the exhibit was curated by Andrew Bolton of the Costume Center, and author Michael Chabon wrote material for the exhibition catalog. Backdrops for the exhibition were derived from Alex Ross's Justice, Jamie Rama, Nathan Crowley, Dermot Power, Gary Frank, and photographs of Thomas Jane as The Punisher, Nicolas Cage as Ghost Rider, and Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman.