See You at San Diego, Mathew Klickstein
See You at San Diego, Mathew Klickstein
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See You at San Diego
An Oral History of Comic-Con, Fandom, and the Triumph of Geek Culture

Author: Mathew Klickstein, Jeff Smith, Stan Sakai

Narrator: Hillary Huber, P. J. Ochlan, Scott Shaw, various narrators, Tim Paige, Simon Vance, Lisa Flanagan, Feodor Chin, Curt Bonnem, Grover Gardner, Eunice Wong, Jim Meskimen, James Anderson Foster, Dion Graham, Joe Hempel, Eric Jason Martin, Liam DiCosimo

Unabridged: 19 hr

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/20/2022


Synopsis

A comprehensive chronicle of Comic-Con International and modern geekdom itself as told through countless intimate, hilarious, and often thought-provoking stories by nearly fifty of the most integral members of today’s convention and fandom community.See You At San Diego is the comprehensive chronicle of Comic-Con International and modern geekdom itself as told through countless stories by nearly fifty of the most integral members of the Comic-Con and fandom scene. This full-fledged oral history—bursting with intimate reflections, hilarious observations, and at times, heartbreaking stories—is about how the geek at last inherited the earth and the story of the transformation of mainstream American pop culture into comic book culture over the past century.Join some of the biggest names in fandom as they launch off at ludicrous speed into the spiraling galaxy of geek culture through the kaleidoscopic lens of the planet’s biggest pop culture gathering worldwide (clocked twice by Guinness!): the San Diego Comic-Con. With such special guests as: Neil Gaiman, Frank Miller, Kevin Smith, Bruce Campbell, Felicia Day, Scott Aukerman, Stan Sakai, Sergio Aragonés, Trina Robbins, the Russo Bros., Lloyd Kaufman, Tim Seeley, Kevin Eastman, and many others.The audiobook also features forewords by Stan Sakai (Usagi Yojimbo) and Jeff Smith (Bone), plus an afterword by Wu-Tang Clan’s own uber-nerd mastermind RZA.

About Mathew Klickstein

Mathew Klickstein is a longtime writer, producer, and instructor who specializes in arts and culture reportage across all platforms. He was named “Humor Writer of the Month” via the prestigious Erma Bombeck Writers’ Workshop. His writings have appeared in Wired, the New Yorker, New York Daily News, and Vulture. He’s the writer of numerous nonfiction books on such topics as The Simpsons, Nickelodeon, and so-called “geek/fan culture.” Klickstein has worked extensively in all facets of live theater, film, and TV, and has recently entered the comic book creation field with his highly acclaimed series You Are Obsolete, currently being developed for television. Comic-Con Begins, his six-part audio documentary about the origins of the San Diego Comic-Con and the rise of modern fandom, was released via SiriusXM/Stitcher throughout Summer 2021. His recent middle-grade reader The Kids of Widney Junior High Take Over the World! received a 2021 Independent Publisher Book Award and is also available as an audiobook from Blackstone Publishing. www.MathewKlickstein.com

About Hillary Huber

"Hillary has recorded close to 700 audiobooks spanning many genres.  She is a multiple Audie Award finalist, multiple Earphone Award winner, Voice Arts Awards winner and one of Audiofile Magazine's best voices.  Hillary has a BA in English Literature and is a voracious reader and listener.  Likes: yoga, hip hop dancing, baking sourdough, bourbon. Dislikes: liver. Raised in conservative Connecticut and hippy Hawaii, Hillary now splits her time between Santa Monica and New York.   Most of that time is in a 4x4 padded room. Er...booth. Her superpower is reciting the alphabet backwards. Created with WordToHTML.net trial."

About P. J. Ochlan

P. J. Ochlan is an Audie Award–winning, multiple Earphones Award–winning, and Voice Arts Award–nominated narrator of hundreds of audiobooks. His acting career spans more than thirty years and has also included Broadway, the New York Shakespeare Festival under Joseph Papp, critically acclaimed feature films, and television series regular roles.

About Tim Paige

Tim Paige is an audiobook narrator with a passion for rom coms, superheroes, and telling stories that provide an escape from the world (or a new lens with which to view it). A former full-time touring musician, Tim has played on some of the biggest stages in the world. He is the voice of "The More You Know" on NBC, and has provided voice-over for many national commercials, promos, trailers, and video games. When he's not narrating audiobooks or voicing fun projects, you'll most often find him playing pretend with his two sons, shouting at the television during Syracuse Orange basketball and football games, or cooking up tasty vegan treats.

About Simon Vance

Simon Vance is an award-winning actor and an AudioFile Golden Voice with over fifty Earphones Awards and thirteen prestigious Audie Awards. He was named Booklist’s very first Voice of Choice in 2008 and an AudioFile Best Voice of 2009.

About Lisa Flanagan

Lisa Flanagan is a classically trained soprano, comedian, voice-over artist, and Earphones Award–winning narrator.

About RZA

RZA (aka Robert Fitzgerald Diggs) is one of the foremost bellwethers of modern hip-hop, having led and produced for the pioneering collective Wu-Tang Clan. The Grammy, BAFTA, and Emmy nominated artist has also composed soundtracks for such films as Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill and Jim Jarmusch’s Ghost Dog. He is the writer/director of the 2012 film The Man with the Iron Fists, co-written by Eli Roth, and starring Russell Crowe and Lucy Liu.

About Feodor Chin

Feodor Chin, an AudioFile Earphones Award–winning narrator, is an actor classically trained at the American Conservatory Theater and UCLA. His acting career includes numerous credits in film, television, theater, and voice-over.

About Curt Bonnem

Curt Bonnem is an award-winning, professionally trained multi-media performer, traversing the globe between stage, screen, and booth for almost four decades. From Shakespeare to musical theater, comedy juggling and magic, fronting a rock band to narrating audiobooks, Curt's skills are wide-ranging. With an aptitude for character voices and accents, Curt's storytelling abilities transport the listener and transform text from imagination into reality. In 2019, Curt was selected as Mark Twain Narrator scholarship winner to the Hear Now Festival in Kansas City and mentored by the "Ginger Yoda" and prolific narrator, Sean Allen Pratt.

About Grover Gardner

Grover Gardner is an award-winning narrator with over a thousand titles to his credit. Named one of the “Best Voices of the Century” and a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, he has won three prestigious Audie Awards.

About Eunice Wong

Eunice Wong is a classically trained actor who works extensively in professional theaters across the United States and in New York City, as well as having appeared on HBO, NBC, ABC, Comedy Central, and in various independent films. Eunice is a graduate of the Juilliard School Drama Division Actor Training Program and has also studied piano and singing at the Royal Conservatory of Music of Toronto. A first-generation Chinese Canadian, born in Toronto to Eric and Eleanor Wong, who immigrated to Canada from Hong Kong, Eunice grew up with her brother Eugene in Toronto and thanks her family for their constant love and support.

About Jeff Smith

Jeff Smith is an American artist and the award-winning creator of the bestselling comic books Bone and RASL. Smith has received numerous awards, among them ten Eisner Awards and eleven Harvey Awards. In 1995 and 1996, he won the National Cartoonists Society’s award for Comic Books. Smith helped found the annual Cartoon Crossroads Columbus festival, which debuted in 2015, and he serves as its artistic director. He lives in Columbus, OH.

About Jim Meskimen

Jim Meskimen is a stage, film, and television actor who has appeared in many well-known movies and television shows. He acted in Apollo 13 and Frost/Nixon for director Ron Howard, both of which were nominated for Best Picture Oscars. His television appearances include The Fresh Prince of Bel Air, Friends, Lie to Me, Criminal Minds, and Parks and Recreation. He is also a painter, award-winning audiobook narrator, and audiobook director for Galaxy Audio.

About James Anderson Foster

James Anderson Foster, an Earphones Award–winning narrator, has narrated audiobooks for a variety of publishers, across nearly all genres, both fiction and nonfiction. In 2015, he was a finalist in three categories for the Society of Voice Arts and Sciences Voice Arts Awards—mystery, science fiction, and fantasy.

About Stan Sakai

Stan Sakai is a Japanese-born American artist and comic book creator. He is a multiple Eisner Award–winning cartoonist and the recipient of numerous national awards including an American Library Association Award and a Cultural Ambassador Award from the Japanese American National Museum. In 2020, Sakai was inducted into the Eisner Award Hall of Fame. He lives in Pasadena, CA.

About Dion Graham

Dion Graham is an award-winning narrator named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine. He has been a recipient of the prestigious Audie Award numerous times, as well as Earphones Awards, the Publishers Weekly Listen Up Awards, IBPA Ben Franklin Awards, and the ALA Odyssey Award. He was nominated in 2015 for a Voice Arts Award for Outstanding Narration. He is also a critically acclaimed actor who has performed on Broadway, off Broadway, internationally, in films, and in several hit television series. He is a graduate of Rutgers University’s Mason Gross School of the Arts, with an MFA degree in acting.

About Joe Hempel

Joe Hempel, best known for his rich narrations, has entertained listeners with over one hundred audiobooks in genres ranging from horror and mystery to science fiction, romance, and personal development.

About Eric Jason Martin

Eric Jason Martin is an Earphones Award–winning narrator. He has narrated many dozens of audiobooks in fiction and nonfiction. He is also the host and producer of the award-winning This American Wife, a popular podcast, and now web series, that features original comedy and stories, as well as interviews with authors such as Robert Greene and Amy Tan.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Shayna

Pros: - Treasure trove of first hand accounts and interviews - Great read for those interested in comic con history Cons: - The loose organization of quotes were too loose. More headings other than the occasions "Part One" sectioning would have made it easier to follow. - The quotes chosen from differen......more

Goodreads review by William

An incredibly well researched, entertaining and informative look at the origins of SDCC and how it's grown into the power house that it is today. Featuring interviews with those still alive who helped found and run the convention, you can feel the love for Fandom and for the convention itself, it's......more

Fantastic oral history of the creation of San Diego comic con. Excellent history and interviews. If you have any remote interest on what goes on behind the scenes of a comic convention I strongly recommend this book.......more

Goodreads review by Jasmine

A little repetitive and some quotes felt a bit redundant but otherwise a great read, felt like a little treasure trove of inside secrets and anecdotes.......more

Goodreads review by David

I’ve never been to Comic-Con, and after reading this I probably never will. The time when I would have really enjoyed it is long gone. But this massive book is a compelling story about a bunch of geeks and weirdos that created something truly special for themselves and eventually brought the masses......more


Quotes

“Epic.” Los Angeles Magazine

“A loving oral history.” Chicago Tribune

“A fantastic, exhaustive look at the rise of geek fandom and culture over the past century through the lens of San Diego Comic-Con.” Boing Boing

“An essential and defining resource of the forces that have transformed popular culture over the course of the past century.”  Fangoria

“Put this on your bookshelf to thumb through to remind yourself of where fandom has been and where it could go from here.”  Multiversity Comics

"The multitude of perspectives arguably gives you a much better overall feel for what it was really like than just plain cold hard facts could ever have done.” Forces of Geek

“Finally! An unexpurgated history of Comic-Con and fandom that comes directly from the horse’s mouth…as pleasantly chaotic as the con itself.” Scott Shaw!, Comic-Con cofounder and cartoonist

“This amazing book about the secret origins of the Comic-Con is a fascinating deep-dive into the first generation of pop cultural fandom! (Full disclosure: I’m in it too.)” Kevin Smith, filmmaker, actor, comedian, and comic-book writer

“These wild and wooly origin stories of San Diego Comic-Con and fandom take us back to the thrilling days of yesteryear…when San Diego Comic-Con was the ramshackle creation of first-generation fans, teenagers, and stoners. All of this makes for a colorful oral history, especially from the mouths of the people who lived it firsthand.” Rob Sakowitz author of Comic-Con and the Business of Pop Culture