By Jason Woods, News staff

This weekend the 6s mingled with the Joker, while Spock walked side by side with Iron Man. No, it wasn’t some strange movie. It was the Boston Comic Convention.
The annual event enticed 2,600 attendees for the two-day event, a record attendance.
‘We had to increase it to two days to meet the demand, because one would not do it anymore,’ said Jim Talbot, an organizer of the event, now in its third year. ‘We’ve gone from 700 at our first show, to almost 3,000 for our fifth.’
As the show grows in popularity, it has been able to bring more prolific guest stars, which this year included legendary artist Dick Ayers, a founder of the Marvel Comics bullpen. Other guests included Madman creator Mike Alred, and Jim Cheung, a Marvel Comics artist famous for Young Avengers and Avengers:’ Illuminati, as well as covers he has penciled.
‘As it gets bigger, we get better guests,’ Talbot said. ‘The guests all have a good time and tell us they enjoy themselves, and Ayers said he would mention our convention to [comic book writer] Stan Lee. So who knows, maybe one day we’ll have Stan Lee himself.
Comic-conventions, affectionately referred to as cons or comic-cons by attendees and die-hard fans, are a staple to the comic book industry. Large comic-cons such as the San Diego Comic Con International and Wizard World Chicago dominate the headlines and industry attention, but in recent years upstarts in cities like New York and Philadelphia have gained large followings.’ ‘
New York Comic-Con started at the same time as the Boston Comic-Con; this year 77,000 people attended the February event.
‘ ‘A lot of these conventions do start off small,’ Talbot said. ‘Comic-Con [International] started with a couple hundred people, but it’s huge now. We never want the Boston comic-con to be that. It would be cool for it to be that big, but we want to keep it more intimate, a quiet little show.’
Comic-cons are hardly known as quiet little shows in the industry. They are known for drawing fans of cult shows with diehard followings, and for drawing people who would more aptly be described as fanatics than fans.
‘ ‘I’ve been to a few comic-cons, and it’s very interesting,’ said Kyle Montag, a freshman philosophy major. ‘A lot of people are dressed up in anime outfits, or pretending to be certain characters. It’s fun, though it’s also a little ridiculous.’
Conventions have a stigma for attracting those attendees, who follow their subject religiously and zealously. Dressing up or emulating characters from the fiction is a large part of the comic-con culture.
‘The attraction is that here are 150,000 people just like me, and it’s rare to find that sort of collection of people with common goals and interests,’ said Marc Bernardin, a senior editor at Entertainment Weekly. ‘They read what you do, listen to the same stuff, it’s a community and a sense of belonging.’
Sci-fi and comic book conventions have long held a cult status in the world of entertainment, drawing particular types of fans. But the entertainment industry has recently discovered that exploiting these fans can lead to big bucks. Comic-Con International had nearly 130,000 attendees last year, its 38th year.’ It is now hailed as one of the biggest events of the year not just for comic books, but for the entertainment industry as a whole.
‘It’s ground zero in pop culture universe,’ said Bernardin, ‘These people are incredibly passionate about this subject matter, and vocal about it. If they love it, they tell their friends on their blogs, Twitter, Facebook or whatever. For Hollywood, it’s free viral marketing, a good way of testing their product.’
As the premiere comic-con of the world, Comic-Con International for example is no longer just a convention about comic books.
‘You walk around the convention floor, and it’s only 40 percent comic books,’ said Bernardin. ‘The other 60 percent is video games, dolls, toys, tanning beds, you name it.’
Major films previewed at Comic-Con International include Spiderman, Iron Man and 300. As adaptations of popular works, all were mired in negative buzz to some degree, but were pushed into the stratosphere by positive reactions from comic-con goers.
‘ ‘Comic-Con has really become this force in the industry, and as the studios and shows
start showcasing, more and more people come,’ said Matt Leeman of Comicopia, a local comic shop. ‘And as it gets bigger, its [not] just the diehards [attending], attracting new people to these conventions.’
Even products that don’t benefit from stellar reviews and name recognition have been able to draw buzz and success from conventions. ‘Heroes,’ one of NBC’s top shows, was screened at Comic-Con. Two months later, premiering to 14 million viewers, according to the Arizona Republic.
‘Heroes was really unique, because it’s a show that not a lot of people knew about at the time. The pilot was screened in its entirety at Comic-Con, something that really hadn’t been done before,” Bernardin said.
Bernardin noted that some people elect to stop going as the convention becomes larger and more gaudy.
Such a dramatic shift in focus isn’t in the cards for the Boston Comic-Con though.
‘We’re going to try and never let [comics stop being the center],’ Talbot said. ‘Some of these other shows have grown into other things and focus all on Hollywood, but we’re about the comic people.’
Bernardin said he believes that Comic-Con has asserted its dominance in pop culture – surpassing some major film festivals in importance.
‘It’s become the tastemaking event, where every studio puts their money,’ he said.
The Boston Comic-Con is held twice a year, in spring and fall, while San Diego Comic-Con International is held every July.