2021, marketed as "Comic-Con Special Edition". Comic-Con, as its former pre-pandemic self, returned to San Diego in July 2022 after a two-year hiatus. The next scheduled Comic-Con will begin on July 20, 2023. History and organization The convention was founded in 1970 by Shel Dorf, Richard Alf, Ken Krueger, Mike Towry, Ron Graf, Barry Alfonso, Bob Sourk, and Greg Bear. Initial comic book and sci-fi club meetings would be held at Krueger's Alert Books in Ocean Beach, where much of the foundation of the early Cons coalesced. In the mid-1960s, Dorf, a Detroit-born comics fan, had mounted the Detroit Triple-Fan Fairs, one of the first commercial comics-fan conventions. When he moved to San Diego, California, in 1970, he organized a one-day convention (Golden State Comic-Minicon) on March 21, 1970, "as a kind of 'dry run' for the larger convention he hoped to stage." Dorf went on to be associated with the convention as president or manager, variously, for years until becoming estranged from the organization. Alf co-chaired the first convention with Krueger and became chairman in 1971. Following the initial gathering, Dorf's first three-day San Diego comics convention, the Golden State Comic-Con, drew 300 people and the venue was held in the basement of the U.S. Grant Hotel, having been secured by Graf, from August 1–3, 1970. Other locations in the convention's early years included the El Cortez Hotel, the University of California, San Diego, and Golden Hall, before being moved to the San Diego Convention Center in 1991. Richard Alf, chairman in 1971, has noted an early factor in the Con's growth was an effort "to expand the Comic-Con [organizing] committee base by networking with other fandoms such as the Society for Creative Anachronism and the Mythopoeic Society, among others. (We found a lot of talent and strength through diversity)." In a Rolling Stone article about the origins of Comic-Con, it noted the work of Krueger, who handled early business matters, and worked to get the event to be organized by a non-profit organization. By the late 1970s, the show had grown to such an extent that Bob Schreck recalled visiting with his then-boss Gary Berman of Creation Conventions and reflecting, "While [Berman] kept repeating (attempting to convince himself) 'This show's not any bigger than ours!' I was quietly walking the floor stunned and in awe of just how much bigger it really was. I was blown away." From