Comic-Con Museum
Balboa Park, San Diego
Opening (first phase) November 2021
We first learned about plans for the new Comic-Con Museum at the San Diego Comic-Con in 2018. There was a booth on the convention floor with general information, and a Q & A session we attended as well. The following year we attended a fundraiser in the museum building, with pop up exhibits and activities celebrating Batman.
The museum will be in the Federal Building, where the Hall of Champions was located for many years. The Comic-Con Museum has a 37-year lease on that building, which needs extensive renovations. When done there will be about 68,000 square feet available for the museum’s use.
Comic-Con announced this week that phase one of the construction will be finished in time for a November 2021 opening. The event will coincide with Comic-Con Special Edition, a reduced-sized fall version of the Comic-Con convention held each summer in San Diego.
The vision for the museum is that there will be both daytime exhibits, of the traditional museum sort, and nighttime programs. Exhibits will rotate every few months. The building has very little storage space so there will be a limited permanent collection, and the museum will rely more on loaned items. There are two classroom spaces planned for educational activities.
The museum is being founded by San Diego Comic Convention, the non-profit organization that produces the annual popular arts and culture celebration Comic-Con. The founders want the museum to appeal to all ages. They want to balance nostalgia on the one hand, and current artists and trends on the other. The museum exhibits will also explain sequential art for those unfamiliar with it. More information can be found here.
Money of course is needed to complete the construction, and donations can be made at the Comic-Con website linked above.