San Diego Comic-Con has come and gone and with it always comes a slew of news from all forms of media including Movie, TV, Comics, Toys, and more and each year 135,000 attendees from across a multitude of fandoms descend on San Diego to enjoy their favorites. Whether it is getting into panels to hear their favorite stars talk about a show or a comic creator discussing where their series is headed, a booth showcasing their newest releases, or a in demand new collectible there truly is something for everyone at this show.
As such the show floor of the convention center houses hundreds if not more than a thousand exhibitors and encompasses everything from the largest movie and TV studios and top comic publishers down to the smallest booths with artists showing off the newest thing they are working on. Attendees can get lost down the aisles and with so much going on there is no practical way to cover it all in any real detail; truly the only real way to get a sense of its scale is to attend one. I honestly wish I had the time, energy, and bandwidth to showcase more of the companies than I currently do but that is not feasible and I also tend to focus my coverage on the brands I am familiar with who I do have a bigger connection with. By no means does my coverage mean there aren’t other brands I am fond of and each year I try to slightly change-up coverage so that I am not always covering the same companies or ignoring others but invariably I will always return to a few for coverage.
Since the show floor largely encompasses everything from movie, television, comics, books, games, toys, collectibles, clothing, and more I usually have themed articles covering a specific aspect of the show. This year though I am skipping the themed article and am going with an overall coverage of booths on (and one off) the show floor. These booths represent the hottest toy companies, favorite apparel brands, and some unique jewelry and gem options. Feel free to take a look at some of my other Comic-Con coverage including separate Collectibles and Hasbro articles and lookout for upcoming coverage in Panels and Offsites, and After Hour Events.
Companies covered here include: The LEGO Group, Jazwares, East Continental Gems, RockLove Jewelry, Citizen Watches, and Yolopark.
A quick ctrl+f will shoot you over to the relevant company
The LEGO Group
https://www.lego.com/en-us
Arguably the best booth at San Diego Comic-Con this year was the LEGO booth. While the company no longer offers exclusive sets and minifigures, which I keep hoping they will change their minds over in future years, the booth paid homage to the convention in the most epic way possible by building a mini-convention center. Complete with an outside facade, exhibit floor, Hall-H, tons of attendees walking the halls, cosplaying, and taking photos the model perfectly captured everything going on around the area during the four event. The display was constantly surrounded by fans snapping shots at every single angle.
If that was not enough the booth had a display of numerous available and upcoming sets with highlights including a One Piece The Going Merry Pirate Ship, a Nintendo Gameboy, Batman Arkham Asylum, and the reveal of a full range of Wicked themed sets. Daily activities included a scavenger hunt offering a chance to win a prize pack, meet and greets, an area to build sections of the convention center, and full size models of Glinda and Elphaba from Wicked and K-2S0 from Star Wars.
Jazwares
https://www.jazwares.com/
Jazwares is definitely a force to be reckoned with. Offering a portfolio of products that rival other top toy brands their line-up includes original IP Squishmallows, All Elite Wrestling (AEW) figures, Pokémon, Fortnite, Bum Bumz, Halo, Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron ships, Avatar, My Hero Academia, and Hello Kitty. Addtionally, Jazwares entered the building block space earlier this year with the release of their BLDR line featuring sets across their various licenses. Exclusives for this year included a Pokémon Squirtle Squad Plush Set, a Star Wars Micro Galaxy Squadron Tie set with a Vader TIE Advanced Fighter, Stranger Things Demogorgon, AEW Unrivaled Swerve Strickland, and four different sets of food inspired mini-Squishmallows. The company also hosts panels to meet with fans which I sadly was not able to attend this year.
East Continental Gems
https://eastcontinentalgems.com/
Back in December I was introduced to ECG through a Den of Geek charity event that was held at then ECG headquarters in lower Manhattan. A fifth-generation luxury jeweler established in 1972 ECG has entered the comic and exclusives space through their collaboration with Marvel Studio which started off with the creation of a stunning scale 1-of-1 Infinity Gauntlet featuring over 150 carats of precious stones worth over an estimated $25 million. They have since continued to create other Marvel artifacts and have made other extraordinary 1-of-1 pieces using exquisite gemstones including Loki’s Scepter, the Eye of Agamotto, and the Power Orb.
Travelling to San Diego Comic-Con for the first time ECG took up space outside the convention center to show off their wares, though sadly the Infinity Gauntlet could not make it due to insurance reasons, the other pieces in their collection did. ECG were also selling various pieces including the mini gauntlets, pendants, tags, rings, stone sets and cover series (which bring to life classic covers with precious gems)!
RockLove Jewelry
http://www.rocklove.com/
Keeping up with the jewelry theme though this time with another Disney property – Star Wars – was Rocklove Jewelry. Handmade in NY by creator and designer Allison Cimino RockLove uses the highest quality precious metals, genuine gemstones, antique relics, and fair trade organic materials to create beautiful jewelry. While they do hit various other fandoms as the company sits in the Star Wars pavilion at SDCC their collections at the convention are only focused on the Star Wars license.
This year RockLove debuted their Galactic Forge Collection featuring a series of unisex necklaces, bracelets, and charms. Pieces in the collection were crafted to feel like they belong in the Star Wars universe with weighty chain weaves and distressed textures and featured uniquely sculpted clasps and links. Pieces were available in antiqued silver-plated brass or solid sterling silver.
The themed booth was decked out as a forge where fans were able to get a blank necklace or bracelet from the collection engraved live on-site with their name in Aurebesh, a feature only available at the show. For those not interested in custom engraving, or who were unable to attend the show, the option was there for pieces featuring iconic quotes already engraved on them. Finally as an add-on double-sided clip-on enhancer charms were available as an option to further customize their piece. Very impressive stuff from RockLove!
Citizen Watch
https://www.citizenwatch.com/us/en/
Citizen continues to make their presence known at some of the top conventions including New York Comic Con, Star Wars Celebration, and San Diego Comic-Con. Their limited edition timepieces from a host of fandoms including Star Wars, Marvel, and Disney continue to draw fans to their booth. Pieces in the collection are generally not cheap, but given the quality Citizen puts into their brand one would not expect anything less. The company manufactures all their components and runs through the entire production of their timepieces from crafting individual watch components to final assembly all in-house. The watches often carry themes showcasing characters, locations, or scenes from various properties. A Fantastic Four watch with a baby blue face was a hit among fans and sold out at the show!
Yolopark
https://shop.yolopark.com/
Yolopark, a Hong Kong based company, mainly offers model kits in the Transformers line in a wide range of scales. At Toy Fair earlier this year the company had debuted a new line of simpler Transformers that features a lot less connecting points as an introduction to their products for younger fans. In the AMK Series there were sets based on the Transformers One and Rise of the Beasts movies. For AMK Pro Series there was a Nemesis Prime, Optimus Prime, Megatron, and Starscream set on display. Nothing different was really shown off at their booth and this was more an opportunity to sell than to reveal but given I think these kits are very detailed I wanted to add them to my overall coverage.
Star Wars Costumes and Props
The Star Wars Pavilion always has a display of costumes, replicas, props, and set pieces, This year there were pieces from many of the more recent Disney+ series including The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka. Additionally, scults of various characters from the various animated series including Rebels and Star Wars Resistance were also on display.
