Artwork by Jeff Pidgeon
The San Diego Comic-Con is pushing forward with its misguided agenda of appeasing corporate interests at the expense of alienating the indie comic and animation community. Their latest bone-headed move is to increase the price of additional exhibitor Comic-Con badges to $200 each, up from $75 last year. As anybody who has ever exhibited at Comic-Con can tell you, artists typically don’t earn truckloads of money at the event, and when all the costs of booth rental, travel, and lodging are factored in, the obscene $200 exhibitor badge essentially guarantees that an independent artist will leave the convention empty-handed.
Considering the Comic-Con is a non-profit, it is inexcusable to increase the price of additional exhibitor badges by 266% in one year. Anecdotal evidence suggests that the artistic community is deserting the Comic-Con in record numbers. Even successful independent artists are fed up, like Flight and Amulet creator Kazu Kibuishi, who noted on Twitter today:
