The Marvel booth at San Diego Comic-Con is predictably focused this year on “The Fantastic Four,” which arrives in theaters on Friday, July 25.
There’s a meet-and-greet station with H.E.R.B.I.E., the retro humanoid robot who works for and with Fantastic Four members Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Human Torch and the Thing. There’s merch, of course, too.
And around back of the booth on Thursday, we ran into the actual Fantastic Four, though in this case, “actual” means very good cosplayers and the Fantastic Four only adds up to Three. Human Torch hadn’t shown up yet, perhaps detained by the fire marshal at the San Diego Convention Center.
“We were at the Los Angeles premiere on Monday,” says Trevor Newton of Murietta, who was dressed as Mister Fantastic, played in the movie by actor Pedro Pascal.
“People were impressed by what the Thing can do,” says his wife, Wendy Newton, cosplaying as Invisible Woman, in reference to their friend Tony Armatys’ elaborate cosplay as the Thing. “And everybody says (Trevor) looks like Pedro Pascal.”
Suddenly, from a corner comes a towering Galactus, the planet-eating alien being whom the Fantastic Four must stop.
“Ok, that is badass,” Trevor Newton says admiringly of the 15-foot-tall purple-armored villain his character is sworn to stop.
Not on Thursday, though. Today, the Fantastic Three and their foe call a truce to pose for fan photos until Galactus, powered by an actual human somewhere inside the work, created by Extreme Costumes.
A star-struck moment
Graphic memoirist Craig Thompson had just packed his pens after a signing at the Drawn & Quarterly booth when a fan, Michael Morales, arrived disappointed because he thought he’d missed Thompson.
When Thompson introduced himself and offered to sign a copy of his 2003 graphic novel “Blankets,” Morales was momentarily speechless.
“This book changed my life,” he told Thompson, as the artist began a sketch for Morales inside the book. “I’m so starstruck to meet you.”
The book is a memoir that revolves around Thompson’s coming of age as he realizes that he no longer wants to follow the devout Christian faith of his parents.
“It kind of encouraged me to come out to my folks,” Morales said.
“That’s huge,” Thompson replied.
“Your book was maybe the first time I ever considered comics could be more than superheroes,” Morales added.
Later, Thompson said he’s often heard coming out stories like Morales from gay readers, seeing in his strength to speak about his spirituality as an analog for their journeys to live openly in their sexuality.
At Comic-Con, Thompson had multiple signings booked, including some for his newest graphic book, “Ginseng Roots.”
“It’s half memoir about my childhood growing up in ginseng agriculture, which I started when I was 10,” he says. “The second part is documentary from interviews I did with growers, practitioners, some from a trip I made to Asia.”
Thompson worked in the ginseng fields near the small Wisconsin town in which he was raised from 10 to 20. “It’s my longest job I’ve had outside of cartooning,” he says.
The book is also a kind of sequel to “Blankets,” Thompson said. “It’s about finding one’s sense of roots and where we belong in an age of globalization,” he adds.
Going solo
Cartoonist Luke McGarry has exhibited at Comic-Con for more than a decade, sharing space at the National Cartoonists Society booth.
This year, though, the Los Angeles artist moved up to a booth of his own in a prime row that includes such well-known artists as Scott Shaw, one of the early cofounders of Comic-Con, and Tom Richmond, whose work filled the pages of Mad magazine for years.
“It’s a bit of an effort,” McGarry said, explaining that to get a booth like his, “someone has to die or retire.” “The guys from Mad magazine were pulling strings for me.”
McGarry, who grew up in Huntington Beach and graduated from the Orange County School of the Arts in 2005, works mostly on comedic pop cultural things.
When the Roxy Theatre turned 50 in 2023, McGarry was hired to paint a mural of cartoon versions of musicians who’d played the iconic venue over the years.
“It was there a couple of months,” he says. “Funny story. My parents finally came up to see it, and it had been replaced with a Jameson’s ad or something. I do have a photo of my dad next to that.”
Bottoming out
One of the longest lines on the floor Thursday snaked its way down one aisle and up another, with staffers keeping the queue in order by holding up signs that read “Butt Line.”
Approach from the rear of the line, and you’ll come to the Butts On Things booth, which sells stickers and pins of exactly that.
Want to see the Ghostbuster ghost’s bottom? They got it! An In-N-Out burger backside? Coming right up! So many cute little butt cartoons, you can see why so many people are fans of artist Brian Cook’s art.
“It’s just fun,” said Tatiana Baes of Temecula, who with boyfriend Louie Reyes had just scored the comical cartoon keisters of R2D2, Stitch and the video game character Kirby.
“I think it has to do with how obscene having butts on things is,” Reyes said, though really, it’s more absurd than obscene.
‘Sisters’ act
The creative duo known as Greg and Fake were at the Fantagraphics booth with their first hardcover collection of their “Santos Sisters” comic books for anyone who wanted to get a signed copy on Thursday.
Greg Petre does the art, Fake — no last name — writes the stories, which were originally published by Floating World Comics before Fantagraphics took notice.
“It’s two sisters, Ambar and Alana,” said Fake, who’s known and worked with Petre since high school in Downers Grove, Illinois. “The origin is that one day they were at the beach,” he continued. “They find a beautiful medallion and everything changes.”
“It’s like a sitcom, like ‘Seinfeld,’ with superhero drawings,” Petre adds.
The hardcover recently got a starred review in Library Journal, Fake said, and now libraries are adding it, something “floppy” comic books never get, and something that makes these creators happy, both said.
A serious endeavor
Sculptor Joe Mullins worked patiently with clay, which he added and shaped over a 3-D printed skull on Thursday.
But this is no monster maquette or superhero skull he’s creating. Mullins is a forensic sculptor, and the facial reconstruction he was making at Comic-Con is an attempt to identify an unidentified boy whose body was discovered near San Diego two decades ago.
“I don’t want to brag, but I’d say this is the most important booth at Comic-Con,” said Callahan Walsh of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, who, with his father John Walsh, the center’s founder, cohosts the long-running series “America’s Most Wanted.”
“There’s always the possibility that someone here at Comic-Con could help us identify this person and help give his name back,” Walsh said.
This is the fourth year the center has teamed up with Adobe, in whose booth Mullins was working, to try to identify unidentified victims of murder in the San Diego area, Walsh said.
They know that this victim was a boy somewhere between two-and-a-half and three-and-a-half, possibly Hispanic and definitely non-White, he said. “Joe is reading the bones,” Walsh said. “The bones tell us everything we need to know.”