Aspiration, Events, Living, Pulp Media
by Joe Wilcox

SDCC 2017 Open Registration Failure!

I would like to congratulate all the future San Diego Comic-Con attendees scoring passes today. You are worthy. My luck ran out during Preregistration last month and continued this morning. I had attended the geekfest every year since 2009, and with passes for the full four days and Preview Night.

Feeble chance remains. The deadline for press verification is April 28th, and I will apply. But for reasons unknown to me, without explanation, SDCC stopped validating my media credentials in 2015. Luckily—and gladly—I paid that year and the next. While I now hope to attend in 2017, legitimately, as working press professional, my optimism is faint. 

I shot the Featured Image during the Con two years ago, using Fuji X-T1 and 18-55mm f/2.8 kit lens. Vitals: f/4, ISO 250, 1/60 sec, 55mm; July 11, 2015, 10:40 a.m. I reedited this evening from the RAW in Adobe Photoshop Lightroom, correcting white balance (the wall skewed greenish). You may think me nuts, but in the spirit and tone of the “Deadpool” movie, I like this portrait for the unbecoming photo-bombing arm. Bomb is apropos for my Comic-Con pass failure. Besides, I’m in the dead pool now! Hehe.

May I show you more? Here are my past photo galleries:

Some time in the near future, I will abandon Flickr, which with AOL, under Verizon ownership, will be called Oath. Seriously? The links later will point to fresh galleries that (sorry) likely won’t be Creative Commons as these are. I am in process of reviewing and reediting pics as All Rights Reserved; but, on principle, freely available for non-commercial purposes as they are now.

Many deserving images are unpublished. For example, during 2013, I primarily spent time on interviews for then forthcoming ebook Comic-Con Heroes: The Fans Who Make the Greatest Show on Earth, which is now in the Public Domain and serialized from the link. There are only 13 photos in the Flickr gallery, but I discovered many more tucked away.

BTW, I have written regularly about SDCC over the years, not just the book. Some select essays you might find interesting:

My family is considering leaving San Diego, which, if so, would have made SDCC 2017 my last. Oh well. For once, I will have good reason for failing to get into Hall H.