Comic-Con International is the world capital of fandom. Every year, 130,000 people flock to San Diego for a five-day marathon of Hollywood star power, sensory overload, gigantic shopping bags, grand feats of imagination, tacky nostalgia, very long lines, and people dressed up as Princess Leia. It's the place where people who love the fantastic side of culture go to express that love, and where the companies that want to sell them fantasies in every possible medium try desperately to woo them. Douglas Wolk (author of the Eisner Award-winning "Reading Comics: How Graphic Novels Work and What They Mean") plunges into Comic-Con's bizarre collision of fans and franchises, and looks at what happens when the marketers of movies, TV shows, comics and games meet their most devoted, most demanding consumers.

Amazon.com Review

Each July the city of San Diego fills to the brim with science-fiction, fantasy, and comic-book nerds. Batman and Star Wars fanatics roam the streets in costume, D&D gamers spend hours in huddles, and die-hard fans of certain movies, comics, and books revel in fandom. Douglas Wolk, a journalist and critic who writes on comic books, expresses it this way: "Comic-Con is a bacchanalian 100-hour orgy of fandom, and fandom is all about cathexis: investing one's energy and identity in a particular idea or person or thing." In this Kindle Single, Wolk explores both the culture of enthusiasts and the big business of extending a comic book into a novel, and then into a movie, and then into merchandise, and then into a massive branded franchise with an endless array of things for fans to buy. Wolk expertly guides readers through the alien terrain of the convention floor and back-room industry discussions. His writing is fluid and elegant, his observations are acute, and his explanations of what drives both the enthusiast and business end of this subculture will lead readers to one "aha" moment after another. If Yoda were a writer, he might be Douglas Wolk, initiating readers in the Force that drives American entertainment. Highly, highly recommended for Comic-Con fans, and for people like me, who have never understood Comic-Con, its devotees, and people who wrap their identities in fictional others. --Paul Diamond