On the floor, Comic-Con International 2023 seemed prefer it did in years previous. Throngs of followers, many in costume, crowded intersections beneath shiny commercials for tv exhibits dozens of tales excessive. Inside the conference middle, folks inched by way of the packed exhibition ground, lining up for unique merchandise and collectibles and work from their favourite artists. Across the conference’s many panel websites, consultants mentioned a variety of popular culture and style fiction matters. Some attendees performed tabletop video games; others met for anime-viewing periods. Comic artists and publishers gathered for the Eisners, their {industry}’s most prestigious award.

But a visit into Hall H Saturday afternoon underscored the strangeness of this 12 months’s conference, which fell two and a half months into the Writers Guild of America (WGA) strike and only a week into the parallel strike from the movie and tv actors of Screen Actors Guild—American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA). In an odd 12 months, Hall H’s 6,100 seats would have been stuffed by individuals who’d actually waited all day (or evening) to get inside, and networks and studios would have proven them unique footage accompanied by A-list expertise onstage—a uncommon alternative for followers and the leisure {industry} to face one another straight. This 12 months, you can merely stroll into the partly empty Hall H; on the Star Trek presentation, leisure journalist Scott Mantz stood alone on the dais, queuing up sizzle reels and calling out absent actors’ names for rounds of applause. In that room, it was manifestly apparent that this was a San Diego Comic-Con with out Hollywood.

There have, after all, been many SDCCs with out Hollywood—the “comic” in its title is a reminder of its origins because the Golden State Comic Book Convention, which a couple of hundred folks first attended in 1970. Over the many years, the occasion’s scope steadily expanded, however the studios and large style franchises solely started to dominate the area previously decade and a half. That dominance outlined the conference’s position within the leisure {industry} in flip: a spot for trailer drops and main bulletins, and for a lot of industry-side folks, an opportunity to see a bodily embodiment of “fandom,” even when solely a tiny slice of fan tradition is represented there.

Some of Hollywood’s main gamers have been pulling again from SDCC for the reason that top of the company saturation of the mid-2010s; Star Wars, for instance, hasn’t had a lot of a presence in years, as Disney shifted fan-facing exercise to their very own occasions like Star Wars Celebration and D23. But this 12 months, with the writers already placing and a SAG-AFTRA strike looming, many studios and networks started to cancel their scheduled programming; when the actors’ strike formally started and SAG-AFTRA forbade members from doing any promotional work, the SDCC schedule turned a sea of cancelations. In advance of the conference, there was speculation that Hollywood’s withdrawal may imply a return to its roots—that maybe comics might as soon as once more be the star of the present.

But even in absentia, Hollywood nonetheless hung over a great deal of the conference, which is as a lot an entertainment-industry occasion as a fan-oriented one. Many WGA and SAG-AFTRA members have spoken about this 12 months’s strike motivations as “existential”: the sensation that it is a main inflection level, for the leisure {industry} particularly and for staff broadly. 

That feeling was palpable in San Diego, and never simply from the actors and writers who attended in a non-promotional capability. Since the strikes started, the studios have seemingly labored to pit followers in opposition to the individuals who make the issues they love, framing delays because the fault of the placing writers, slightly than unwillingness from the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, which represents the studios, to provide writers a deal they discover honest. Online, this framing has been largely rejected by followers, and that spirit appeared to hold over to SDCC, too. There was a way that an uncommon—and sure, for some, disappointing—Comic-Con was a completely mandatory one, as a result of the way forward for leisure media on all sides of the equation was at stake.