Comic-Con International is the world capital of fandom. Every year 130,000 people flock to San Diego for a five-day marathon of Hollywood star power, sensory overload, gigantic shopping bags, grand feats of imagination, tacky nostalgia, very long lin... Read more

Comic-Con International is the world capital of fandom. Every year 130,000 people flock to San Diego for a five-day marathon of Hollywood star power, sensory overload, gigantic shopping bags, grand feats of imagination, tacky nostalgia, very long lines, and people dressed up as Princess Leia. It's the place where people who love the fantastic side of culture go to express that love and where the companies that want to sell them fantasies in every possible medium try desperately to woo them. Douglas Wolk (author of the Eisner Award-winning Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean) plunges into Comic-Con's bizarre collision of fans and franchises and looks at what happens when the marketers of movies, TV shows, comics, and games meet their most devoted, most demanding consumers. Less