San Diego Comic-Con 2023: dates, panels, guests, tickets
If you are a fan of the Marvel or DC universes or love indie comics, then you can't miss the news and events of the San Diego Comic-Con, which annually brings together the most important representatives of the comics industry. Here we prepared for you a guide to this year's convention.
What is San Diego Comic-Con?
Comic Con: San Diego (SDCC) is one of the largest comic book, film and TV events in the US and around the world. Its history goes back to 1970, when a group of comic book fans and enthusiasts decided to host the first festival in Southern California. Back then it was a small event and it lasted only one day, but now it is visited by more than 100 thousand guests every year, and the number of guests and the status of guest stars is constantly growing.
What are the dates of SDCC 2023?
Comic Con: San Diego 2023 will take place on July 20-23, and the opening Preview Night will be hold on July 19. The venue, as usual, is the San Diego Convention Center.
What is in the program of the SDCC 2023?
Since SDCC is one of the largest comic and movie shows, the giants of the industry will traditionally have their own booths and panels.
At the opening of the convention on July 19, DC studios will hold Preview Night screenings, which will show new episode of Cartoon Network's Teen Titans Go! and the first episode of Superpowered: The DC Story. There will also be special panels dedicated to Gotham City, ADVENTURE TIME: FIONNA & CAKE, Justice League: Warworld, a new animated series YOUNG LOVE, as well as other discussions and presentations.
Marvel Studios will host special events Designing the X-Men, Marvel and Proko Teach "The Art of Storytelling", Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game Live Play with Glass Cannon Network, Next Big Thing, Women of Marvel and others.
There are also niche-themed panels on the program: Manga Publishing Industry Roundtable, The History of '90s Horror, Underground and Outlaw Comics, Cosplay: Movement Inside the Costume, The Independent Filmmaker's Panel, Indie Filmmaker's Survival Guide, Nonfiction Filmmaking and many more. The convention is not only large circulations and million-dollar budgets. Special events will touch the history of art, cinema and other creative manifestations.
For example, at the Art From The Holocaust- The Tattoo panel, 95-year-old Holocaust survivor Ben Midler, Karin Babbitt (Dina Babbitt's daughter), graphic artist Edmundo Godinez and Sandra Scheller will talk about comics and tattoo graphics.
The opening hours of the 2023 Convention are as follows:
July 20 - 23, 2023
Wednesday (Preview Night)
6:00 PM - 9:00 PM
Thursday 9:30 AM - 7:00 PM
Friday 9:30 AM - 7:00 PM
Saturday 9:30 AM - 7:00 PM
Sunday 9:30 AM - 5:00 PM
Who will be the special guests this year?
The festival will bring together some of the brightest and most creative representatives of the comics, film and TV industries. There will be iconic figures such as underground comics cultist Bill Griffith, former co-editor of Arcade and The Comics Revue, creator of Zippy the Pinhead and recent graphic novels Invisible Ink, 2019's Nobody's Fool, and The Three Stones. Also attending the convention will be Frank Miller, artist and writer of Marvel's Daredevil, the samurai drama Ronin, as well as Batman: The Dark Knight, Batman: Year One, and The 300 Spartans graphic novels (Zack Snyder based his blockbuster 300 on Miller's book).
The list of the guests also include Barbara Friedlander, the first woman to create a character for DC, as well as Todd McFarlane, author of one of the world's bestselling comics, Spawn, and J. Michael Straczynski (Babylon 5 and Sense8, Clint Eastwood's Changeling, Thor, World War Z, Underworld Awakens and other comics for Marvel and DC). Straczynski's The new BABYLON 5 animated film will debut worldwide at Comic-Con 2023.
The younger generation of SDCC participants includes Becky Cloonan (DC, Marvel, Dark Horse), manga artist Junji Ito, Lore Olympus creator Rachel Smythe, as well as The New York Times writers and artists such as Garth Stein, Mark Tamaki and Victoria Aveyard. A complete list and biographies of guest stars can be found on the SDCC official page.
How to get a ticket to the convention? Badges
We must immediately say that all tickets for the Comic Con: San Diego are sold out. But still, we will tell you how the ticket system works so that you are ready for the future and buy them for the festival in 2024 as soon as they start selling on the SDCC official website this fall (usually the sales start starts in mid-October).
SDCC is an unusual convention also because you can't just buy tickets online or at the event itself. To enter the festival, you must first purchase badges for individual days through your comic-con ID. Adult badge prices range from $69 for a Thursday, Friday or Saturday badge to $47 for a Sunday badge. It turns out that the entrance to all four days of the festival costs $ 254. Children under 12 accompanied by adults are admitted free of charge, while teenagers from 13 to 17 years old have a discount, which is approximately half the price of a ticket for an adult.
How to follow the news of the Convention?
If you didn't make it to the festival this year, you can follow the SDCC 2023 on its Twitter. You can also check the convention's YouTube channel for coverage of the event.
Do you want to know and see what the SDCC was like last year? Here you can download the official Souvenir book.