This past weekend saw a logjam of pop culture events the likes of which I never recall seeing.
Lexington Comic Con in Kentucky
MoCCA in New York (not the same kind of show, but yet another thing to do.)
And that’s not all Fancons lists several dozen events worldwide every weekend.
Clearly, we’re back at peak con following the COVID disruption. But back before the pandemic shut everything down, people fretted that there were just too many shows, and we seem to be reaching a saturation point once again. And talking to many people this weekend at WonderCon, I sense something….amiss.
NOW, you can’t take Threads as an accurate representation of sentiment about anything, since it’s where people go to complain, but recent cons have had some solid complaints.
MegaCon last weekend
C2E2 this past weekend
WonderCon this past weekend.
Planet ComicCon had some complaints about lax security, but sounds like that show was packed.
The Great Disgruntling actually started a few weeks ago with ECCC in Seattle. Creators were upset that Artist Alley was moved into the basement – and the space where it was previously located was given over to a stage where events like a Pokémon Live Cooking Demo and an Anime Spelling bee took place.
Several people complained to me about lackluster sales at ECCC, and showrunner Kristina Roger’s comment last year “We’re competing with Coachella, we’re competing with spring break and with all kinds of other big events,” was quoted by them all. I’m not sure an Anime Spelling Bee can compete with Sabrina Carpenter but to each their own.
I wrote about this quote when it first came out last year and noted:
Part of the reality, as Salkowitz and Rogers acknowledge in a longer version of the interview, is that comics publishers are not going to set up at any shows but SDCC and NYCC. And fewer publishers are showing up to these events. The cost of setting up a booth, paying for all the people to staff it, and all the materials that are needed to make a booth vibrant is just a lot of money. The cost at both SDCC and NYCC is exorbitant and doesn’t leave much for other shows.
Thus Artist Alley has become the life blood of other comics shows….and that’s really as it should be. Fans/consumers are more conditioned to meeting artists in the Alley than at a publishers booth these days anyway.
What’s different in 2026 is that Artist Alley is beginning to have the same problem as publishers: it’s just too expensive to set up at shows between table costs, hotel costs and flights. (And even getting flights is much harder: I usually fly directly to John Wayne in Santa Ana for WonderCon, but this year there were far fewer flights and they were prohibitively expensive.)
SDCC and NYCC remain the “super shows” that draw so much media and attention that they provide a good marketing opportunity for publishers. But selling books at the big regional shows (C2E2, ECCC, MegaCon, WonderCon) isn’t worth the cost any more.
Also, the elephant in the room is that people just aren’t spending like they used to. I heard that over and over at WonderCon. We might not be in an official recession but these are chaotic and uncertain times.
Now, of course, lots and lots of people had a blast at all these events, myself included. Cons are still fun, and the allure of a comic con is still strong. But why were so many events packed into one weekend? In the past showrunners had an informal agreement not to hold shows the same weekend, when possible, but post-pandemic this practice seems to have ended. I was told by one knowledgeable source that showrunners basically take what they can date-wise get these days. But obviously it was not in anyone’s best interest to have so many events the same weekend, whether it could have been avoided or not.
WonderCon seems to have lost the most guests and exhibitors. Once again, it was a vibrant event with lots to see and do, but many people were concerned about the show’s gradual dwindling. A lot of it has to do with Hollywood being on life support – that was another thing I heard over and over again. The Beat had a media room for interviews (check out YouTube in the next few days!) but it was notably less busy.
There’s also the matter of Fan Expo Anaheim, recently announced for June 26-28. The Fan Expo family of shows seems to be chugging along, but moving into Anaheim three months after WonderCon and a month before Comic-Con is a bold venture. It’s actually being held in conjunction with VidCon Anaheim, a show for content creators and their fans that’s also owned by Informa, Fan Expo’s parent company. That should be some culture clash.
Notably, it used to be that large venues like the Anaheim Convention Center had a six month gap for similar shows, but that is another courtesy that went away after the pandemic. You take what you can get.
In some ways, this is a self-correcting problem. If there are too many shows, some of them will go out of business, and the market will find its level. About 10-15 years ago there was an explosion of celebrity shows like Walker Stalker and Heroes and Villains, but with the fracturing of mono culture there are no massive hits like The Walking Dead to center an event or series of events around. Those shows and their garbage bags full of money faded away and nerdlebrity encounters have moved to Fan Expo, Galaxy Con and ReedPop shows.
Another thing people were talking about is the inflation in even comic book creator signatures. Artists like Clayton Crain now have a sliding scale changing more than $50 to sign popular series, and lots of other creators now have similar pricing. I’m all for comic book creators making money signing things like celebrities do, but it’s still a bit of a bummer when you encounter it in real life.
There’s also the matter of AI slop becoming more and more prevalent in Artist Alley even when cons specifically ban it. Comic cons have been turning into flea markets of stickers and posters for a while now, and AI is making it easier than ever to turn out tons of crappy merch that people still want to buy.
The world is changing and so are comic cons. They are still joyous places full of community and creativity, but between the speculation boom, the k-shaped economy and everything else, the economics are shifting fast.
A few more notes about WonderCon. Despite the worries about lowered attendance, it was still a lot of fun. The cosplay is absolutely outstanding. With so many guests going to other shows, they spotlighted legends like Willie Ito, Floyd Norman and Lee Marrs and getting to see them all speak was wonderful. It’s still a great gathering place for the animation industry, and it has a vast artist alley that even includes many comics makers.
I know people posted photos of empty spaces at the show, but I think those are misleading. The Anaheim Convention Center is huge, and there has always been a lot of breathing room there as long as I’ve been going. As the laid back little brother of SDCC, it’s a good place to have long conversations and stress free meals.
There was one very ugly incident however: a well known author was roofied, and had to go to the hospital. Based on the timing it looks like this happened Saturday night, and the bar scene that night was particularly hectic. With most of the bar given over to cosplayers, it was a pretty wild scene, including a few dozen folks all dressed as Mrs. Roper in colorful muu-muus. People seemed to be having fun, though, and that some asshole made it an unsafe place is truly despicable and infuriating. The incident has justifiably left some people unwilling to go to Barcon any more, and I can’t say that I blame them. This is a community policing and personal safety issue that needs to be taken very seriously.
A couple more links and I’m out:
Old fashioned con report! A reduced WonderCon 2026 returns to Anaheim with fewer attractions, but with nooks of interest…
LIke I said, don’t believe all the griping on Reddit and threads. There was fun to be had:
https://www.threads.com/@vacuumboy9/post/DWbvCMWESK0
View on Threads
https://www.threads.com/@trevoramueller/post/DWggRJpjbmJ
https://www.threads.com/@soggysockos/post/DWiBKuFjtSF
View on Threads
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Also, Vietnamese food at Brodard with Peter Nguyen and Amy Chu!
ALSO ran into the great Mary Fleener! She has a big book coming out next year!
While Artists Alley was great at C2E2, everything else was incredibly lackluster. I’m not kidding when I say there were, at most, a dozen booths dedicated to selling comics, and fewer than that selling action figures (the two things I go for, and the two things there are usually a lot of). I came in incredibly under budget, and considering this was my lowest budget in years, that’s saying something.
I’m local to the area, and I know of two local stores who usually show up, but they skipped this year because it cost too much. Two other local stores who were there also had a much reduced presence in the past, with my regular one (I’m not naming names) already talking about not showing there anymore, that it’s not worth the price.
Exhibitors also sucked. The only actual comics publishers I could see were Bad Idea and Boom; Bad Idea was selling very expensive variants, and I couldn’t even tell what was going on at Boom.
Everything else was cheap merch. Alibaba stuff, 3D printed cheap crap, dice, Funko Pops, stuff like that. There were at least a couple times where I thought I’d already done an aisle because the merch booths were so similar to each other.
Given that next year is going to be on Free Comic Book Day weekend (absolutely insane scheduling, but what do I know), I’m probably going to skip next year; I can’t imagine anybody with a brick and mortar store would give up that weekend to show at C2E2.
Multiple cons on the same date is also going to split up the comic book dealers that also go to various conventions. Cons are going to look light on dealers, publisher booths and guests. I noticed that a couple of weeks ago when Toronto Comicon and Megacon (both Fan Expo shows) were on the same weekend.