Mathew Klickstein had a dream: To publish an oral historical past of San Diego Comedian-Con that preserved the collective reminiscence of the occasion.
Klickstein interviewed dozens of people that’d been a part of Comedian-Con over its half-century as a hub of popular culture fandoms. He talked to its cofounders and interviewed artists and writers, actors and filmmakers.
And when he was able to ship it to publishers, properly, the world turned the other way up. The pandemic, which stored San Diego Comedian-Con from happening in individual for 3 years, additionally prompted Klickstein to remodel his 70-plus hours of interviews right into a Sirius XM podcast.
“Comedian-Con Begins: Origin Tales of the San Diego Comedian-Con and the Rise of Fashionable Fandom” arrived in July 2021 to accompany the return of Comedian-Con@House, the digital Con created through the pandemic pause.
And that may have been that, besides Klickstein refused to let it's.
“See You at San Diego: An Oral Historical past of Comedian-Con, Fandom, and the Triumph of Geek Tradition” arrived in bookstores on Tuesday, Sept. 6. It’s a powerful quantity from Fantagraphics Books, the writer of other comics, collections of traditional comedian strips, graphic novels, and extra.
It makes Klickstein emotional as he recollects the primary time he held a bodily copy in his fingers.
“I’m tearing up proper now eager about it,” he says. “This has been such an essential a part of my life for the final three years. And so they have been three exceptionally tumultuous years. Like lots of people, I misplaced folks through the pandemic. Like, lots of people, I went by some actually horrifying moments personally, professionally, economically.
“One of many issues that stored me going and revivified me by all this was engaged on telling the story of how Comedian-Con occurred,” Klickstein says. “And the way geek tradition each supported it earlier than, throughout and after, and was supported by it within the final decade or two.”
“It’s fairly a doorstop,” he says of the 475-page ebook, which weighs three-and-a-half kilos and consists of greater than 400 pictures. “It’s one thing hopefully past its dimension and scope that may hit of us fairly laborious.”
Bookmaking
Although the podcast was about seven hours lengthy, Klickstein had recorded 70 hours of interviews and estimates that 90 % of that materials is included in “See You at San Diego.”
“In a variety of methods, it’s an prolonged director’s reduce of the podcast,” he says. “After which the added bonus was the entire images and artwork. That’s what the ebook is.”
Fantagraphics designer Jonathan Barli took Klickstein’s textual content, images and artwork and formed right into a enjoyable, inventive bundle. If you happen to flip the ebook sideways and riffle the pages it seems as in the event you’re flipping by manila file folders with the chapter titles on the tabs.
Not like the podcast, the place these talking weren’t at all times recognized, right here they're recognized by identify and job or title – “Scott Shaw, co-founder,” “Barry Alfonso, co-founder/publicity director” – with longer bios behind the ebook.
And the pictures and artwork Klickstein gathered present principally never-before-seen photographs of Comedian-Con all through its historical past, with an emphasis on the lesser-known earlier years.
“I labored very laborious on the images and artwork that I acquired, how I curated it, the place we put every part,” Klickstein says. “Similar to the ebook itself, I didn’t need it to be a simple generic begin to end. I wished it to really feel like a comic book conference itself.”
Which means there may be a black and white photograph from the pre-history of the Con alongside a extra fashionable shade photograph, he says. The photographs ought to work collectively due to the linkages within the accompanying narrative.
“It’s a variety of what the conference and the tradition itself is about,” Klickstein says. “The place you may have ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Star Trek,’ and comedian books and ‘Twilight’ and the ‘Twilight Zone,’ and every part is occurring round you suddenly.”
Telling their tales
For Klickstein, a variety of the urgency he felt in ending the ebook and getting it revealed was to seize the historical past of San Diego Comedian-Con whereas as lots of its early founders, friends and followers are nonetheless alive to share their tales and images.
“Probably the most priceless asset I had by this complete course of, since Day 1, was the relationships I established with everyone,” he says of the way in which he received the belief of his sources.
Wendy All, an early committee member and well-known artist, illustrator, author and toy designer, was the primary of these to embrace Klickstein’s imaginative and prescient and supply him entry into her community of Comedian-Con associates and colleagues.
“She’s my first acknowledgment, even earlier than my dad and mom and my spouse,” he says. “There’s no query that none of this may have occurred for me with out Wendy All. Wendy was my liaison, telling me who to speak to and connecting me with them. Saying, ‘That is the man we’ve been ready for.’
“It’s nice speaking to those folks and to share that pleasure, what it really means to be a geek, a nerd, a fan,” Klickstein says. “And provides the individuals who actually helped make it occur that showcase they deserve.
“Everybody is aware of who Kevin Smith is – and Neil Gaiman,” he says of two big-name creators who're a part of the oral historical past. “However not everybody may know who Scott Shaw is or Bjo Trimble or a number of the others.”
It was that thought, Klickstein says, that guided him all through the venture.
“I actually wished this to be their story,” he says. “And I’m so extremely pleased with, not solely the ebook, however all of the many individuals who helped to make it occur.”