ke Towry’s goal is to make San Diego Comic Fest hugely successful without making it huge.
The fifth annual fest opens at 6 p.m. Friday and runs through Monday. Like its four predecessors, the 2017 edition features panels on comic books, an “artists alley” where fans can shop for autographed art, a film festival and a salute to a comic book icon — this time, it’s “Captain America” and “Iron Man” creator Jack Kirby.
In other words, it’s a lot like the annual San Diego Comic-Con International but without the Con’s superheroic crowds.
“Last year,” said Towry, the father of the Fest, “we had about 2,000 people total.”
Unlike Comic-Con, you can actually buy Fest tickets at the door — four-day passes are $25 to $50, and one-day passes are $7.50 to $25. They’re also available online at brownpapertickets.com.
Towry, 62, was among the first organizers of Comic-Con. While that show grew into a mid-summer blockbuster, Towry wanted the Fest to recapture the intimate feel of the early Cons.
This year’s guests include science fiction’s “Killer Bs,” novelists David Brin, Greg Bear and Gregory Benford; “X-Men: The Animated Series” producer/director Larry Houston; Disney animators Floyd Norman and Willie Ito; Mexican cartoonists Gaby Maya and Juanele; and William Stout, whose dinosaur art is seen in films, theme parks and museums, including the San Diego Natural History Museum.
Also planned is a mock trial of X-Men, pitting the mutants’ civil rights against the government’s national security powers. Imaginary defendants will be prosecuted and defended by real law students before an actual jurist, U.S. Magistrate Judge Mitchell Dembin of San Diego.
