Bookmark Collector

When hobbies collide!

For those who know me well, the statement “I have a lot of hobbies” is cause for laughter. Collections are a significant part of my hobby life and include bookmarks (obviously) and comic books. These two collections come together when I get the chance to attend a comic convention.

These are the bookmarks I collected when I recently attended the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con. As you can see, bookmarks are a very popular method of promotion at the convention. There are 54, non-duplicate bookmarks shown here (if you look carefully, you will find a duplicate image).

The San Diego Comic-Con International is the biggest comics related convention in North America. It’s about a lot more than comics nowadays, and is more properly referred to as a pop-culture convention. My day by day write ups and photos from the event can found at my personal blog: Day 1, Day 2, Day3, Day4, and Day5.

I thought I’d gathered every bookmark available, but I’ve recently seen some bookmark sets for sale on eBay that include items I don’t have! Some of the larger movie promoters only give out a few of their items at a given time. That’s their way to get you to come back to the booth several times over the course of the convention.

You’ll see quite a range of items being promoted. There are traditional, mainstream comics as well as independent comics. But you’ll also see books, toys, TV shows and movies, retailers, organizations, other conventions and events, web comics, and a variety of websites.

The numbers describing this convention are impressive. Over 125,000 attendance; four regular days of the convention, plus a preview evening; passes sold out in advance for each day of the convention; and the entire San Diego Convention Center filled, with overflow events at some of the major hotels. For me, the event is both exhausting and energizing. And I get the chance to make a significant deposit into my collection, along with some cool duplicates for trading.

I’m occasionally asked why I collect bookmarks, and although my answer has become more refined with time, it’s basically always been the same - bookmarks capture bits of culture. I’ll expand on that idea in a post sometime, but in this instance I believe the statement is self-evident. Each of these bits of ephemera represent a piece of our popular culture.

And all together, they’re just cool.