San Diego Comic-Con 2026 starts with Demon Hunters, a WWE star and Geoffrey

All morning long, an electric blue Porsche 911 with pink accents and, well, the eyes and fangs of a big cat, drew fans to a small patch of grass opposite Comic-Con International at the San Diego Convention Center on Thursday, July 23.

The grown men, and there were a lot of them, probably posed for photos because it’s likely as close as most of us will ever get to the 911 GT3 R model, which is priced at $289,565 at the Porsche dealership across town.

Even the Hot Wheels version, which sold out quickly at the Mattel booth inside the convention center, was going for as much as eight times its $25 sticker price online later Thursday.

Six-year-old Isabella Franco posed by the car in her “K-Pop Demon Hunters” T-shirt because it was Derpy.

As in Derpy, the lovable blue-spirit tiger from “K-Pop Demon Hunters,” which inspired the Hot Wheels car that inspired the life-sized replica.

“I liked it, and I was excited to see it,” Isabella said of how she managed to convince her mom to bring them from Santee to downtown San Diego on Thursday. “And I love Derpy.”

Isabella’s mom Nicky Franco said her almost-7-year-old daughter has watched the animated Netflix film more than 200 times since its release last year. They’re taking a break from it now but can’t escape the pit bull puppy that Isabella named Rumi after the leader of the movie’s demon hunter K-Pop trio HUNTR/X.

San Diego Comic-Con kicked off on Thursday with more than 135,000 expected at the convention center and thousands more in the city streets of the Gaslamp District and beyond. The Hollywood studios have returned in greater force than in recent years with panels on movies, such as the thriller “Onslaught” or the new Marvel TV series “Lanterns.”

Cosplayers showed up in force as usual, with every fandom imaginable represented in the walkways inside the convention center and the sidewalks outside.

Just inside the exhibition hall at midday on Thursday, a 9-foot-tall giraffe wearing a red polo shirt drew excited fans to his side for selfies. Everyone who ever shopped for a child’s toy in the past 70 years knows the big guy’s name is Geoffrey.

“I worked at Toys “R” Us,” Kyle Hudson of Los Angeles said from somewhere inside the giraffe’s neck. “I won it in a raffle. They literally raffled it off instead of sending it back to New Jersey to be destroyed.”

He’d done practically every job there was at the Toys “R” Us store in Alhambra and was training to be its manager when the chain founded in the ’50s closed down a few years ago. The fact that kids and parents alike have a nostalgic feeling for Geoffrey still today makes it Hudson’s go-to costume for comic-cons.

“It’s pretty exciting,” he said of what it feels like to walk around and be mobbed by people asking for photos with him. “They say things like, ‘Thank you so much for being here and bringing back our childhood memories.’”

Elsewhere, the designers chosen for the annual Her Universe fashion show made their final adjustments before it was time to send their models down the runway Thursday night.

Panels included everything from Pearl Jam guitarist Mike McCready talking about his new graphic novel and “lost” rock opera, “Farewell to Seasons,” to officials with the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art sharing insights into the museum created by filmmaker George Lucas, which opens in September.

And everywhere, fans looked for that one delightful thing that’s seemingly around every corner at Comic-Con each year.

For Vicki Henrich of Toronto, it was waiting at a table in the autograph area of the Sails Pavilion for 77-year-old Robert Remus, or Sgt. Slaughter, as he’s known from his long career as a pro wrestler and voice actor.

“I am still always a comics fan, but I just turned 50 and thought, what else is there? I thought of wrestling,” Henrich said.

“This guy’s a legend,” she said of Sgt. Slaughter, who sat at his autograph table dressed as always in military fatigues, a drill sergeant’s campaign hat, and dark sunglasses. “I grew up watching him when I was 10.”

She purchased a package that included an action figure, a photo with Sarge, and an autograph. “At ease, Vicki,” Slaughter had written on the plastic case of the action figure.

As she bounced away dressed in a WrestleMania T-shirt with wrestler C.M. Punk’s face on the front, she seemed anything but at ease yet. After all, Henrich told us, John Cena was supposed to be somewhere in the building this weekend.