One week until Comic-Con photographs!

Just a week until the official start of Comic-Con 2026 in San Diego. I walked around downtown and the Gaslamp Quarter late this morning to see how everything is progressing outside the convention center.

Most of the preparation right now concerns putting up huge building wraps. Regular San Diego Comic-Con goers will see similarities with past years.

Workers were putting the finishing touches on the Pendry hotel wrap promoting The Vampire Lestat…

One of the hotel’s ground floor windows is wrapped, too.

The Lodge wrap is up for Paramount+ at Happy Does…

Wraps are starting to go up on the Fifth Avenue side of the Hilton Gaslamp. Words indicate that Prime Video’s Rings of Power is being promoted…

AMC shows are represented on the hotel side facing the San Diego Convention Center.

The Walking Dead: Dead City…

Also, what I believe is Yaga…

Turning toward the Omni hotel, I noticed the Marvel’s Wolverine wrap is done…

The hotel’s Funko POPs wrap is nearly done…

Meanwhile, The Rookie’s big wrap on Petco Park is finished, but not quite the smaller one…

Abbott Elementary’s big wrap on Petco Park is looking good…

I can’t wait to see what develops next!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

The Walking Dead invade San Diego’s Gaslamp!

During San Diego Comic-Con, for many years, Anne Rice’s vampires would gather at the Hilton Gaslamp hotel. For Comic-Con 2026, it’s zombies!

Cool building wraps are now going up on the hotel’s exterior. I see the prominent tagline “Run This Town.” That’s associated with AMC’s upcoming season of The Walking Dead: Dead City.

The city of San Diego will be very much alive in about a week! Pop culture fans will fill the streets during a con that promises to be epic this year!

On another part of the Hilton Gaslamp, a face materializes…

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Street artists paint all around San Diego for Comic-Con!

About 100 street artists from around the world have converged on San Diego before Comic-Con 2026. They’re painting a bunch of pop culture murals all over the city!

This special international gathering of artists is called Meeting of Styles.

The aim is to finish the murals before the start of Comic-Con. Some of the artists were already getting started today.

Colorful murals will be painted in Logan Heights, Barrio Logan, National City, San Diego International Airport…

I caught some of the action with my camera along Commercial Street, east of downtown.

These first photos are of the X-Men wall, at Millionaires HQ. Red Bull was there with a DJ providing cool beats during the big event.

As you can see, this wall includes Rogue, Deadpool and Gambit already. I was told Wolverine, Phoenix, Cyclops, Beast and other X-Men are on the way!

This is graffiti artist SEEKS619 working on Gambit…

Another wall several blocks to the west has a mural on the way. HERT1 was working on a cool Transformer…

KOOLS was there, too, making his own spray painted contribution…

I might return in a couple days to check on the progress of several murals!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Clash for the Stache at cool Comic-Con offsite!

There’s a super cool offsite activation at San Diego Comic-Con 2026 that has opened a week early! It’s called Clash for the Stache. It promotes the popular mobile game Clash of Clans.

I checked it out this morning!

The offsite, located in The Headquarters near Seaport Village, is super fun. Comic-Con fans can reserve a time online in order to participate here.

So, what is it all about?

After a 3 minute briefing, enter the field of play–a room with LED touch sensitive walls and floor. And for 8 minutes, enjoy a physical romp, following paths with your feet, tapping potions on the walls, stomping goblins that scamper about like a swarm of cockroaches…all the while accumulating gold and glory! Can your team end up tops on the leader board?

The folks I met running the activation were super nice, allowing me to take these photos. The game developer, Lee, explained that it took him 6 weeks to develop this super fun concept.

(Incidentally, you don’t have to buy a ticket to visit their merch store.)

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Addams Family artist exhibit at Comic-Con Museum!

Attending Comic-Con 2026 in San Diego? Got some extra time? You might want to head up to Balboa Park, where the Comic-Con Museum now features a number of cool exhibits, including a big one all about Doctor Who.

The Comic-Con Museum’s newest exhibit showcases the art of Charles Addams, who is best known for his popular creation The Addams Family. It’s titled Chas Addams: Family and Friends.

You’ll see a huge selection of his artwork. His wry, dark, humorous images might bring back memories of the Addams Family television show or the movie.

A variety of other subjects in his art might give you a chuckle, too!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Marvel Super Heroes inside a Comic-Con trolley!

Black Panther.

Look at this! Marvel’s superheroes have gathered together and boarded a San Diego trolley car! Those going to Comic-Con 2026 ought to be protected from the dastardly doings of supervillains…possibly…

Trolley cars wrapped for Magic: The Gathering | Marvel Super Heroes now have these cool interior graphics! Uh, oh. Heroes have been joined by Thanos and Doctor Doom…

Captain America.
Invisible Woman.
Doctor Doom.
Ms. Marvel.
Thanos.
The Incredible Hulk.
Daredevil.

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Vampires reappear in San Diego for Comic-Con!

The vampire creations of Anne Rice have returned for another San Diego Comic-Con!

In past years, these bloodthirsty creatures of the night have shown up at the Hilton Gaslamp. For 2026, I see they’ve begun to materialize over at the Pendry hotel–at least their images on a building wrap have! The wrap no doubt will promote AMC’s gothic horror series The Vampire Lestat.

Today’s the first day I noticed building wraps going up around downtown San Diego for Comic-Con 2026.

Getting excited!

UPDATE!

24 hours later, the two wraps look way cooler…

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Comic-Con 2026 building wraps begin to appear!

The first building wraps for Comic-Con 2026 are now being applied in downtown San Diego!

My first four photographs, taken early this afternoon, show graphics being applied to the Omni San Diego Hotel promoting Funko POPs.

The beginnings of another wrap on the Omni appear to have something to do with Marvel superhero Wolverine. It might be promoting video game Marvel’s Wolverine for PlayStation 5–we’ll see!

Park/12 is getting a huge building wrap, too!

It appears to promote upcoming animated feature film Avatar Aang: The Last Airbender.

UPDATE!

What I found the following late afternoon…

Looks like Petco Park is getting wraps that promote ABC’s police drama The Rookie…

UPDATE!

And the following morning (Wednesday), a wrap for the Paramount+ offsite The Lodge was going up at Happy Does…

It turns out the second Petco Park wrap is for Abbott Elementary.

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Blade Runner 2099 on a Comic-Con trolley!

Yet another San Diego trolley wrap has made its appearance in time for Comic-Con 2026, which is now a little over a week away!

Cool graphics for Blade Runner 2099 are running through the city!

The new trolley wrap promotes a sci-fi television miniseries created by Silka Luisa for Amazon Prime Video. The show is scheduled to be released next year.

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!

Awesome comics fanzine collection displayed at San Diego library!

Awesome examples from a collection of comics fanzines are now on display on the 2nd floor of San Diego’s Central Library, just in time for Comic-Con 2026!

This look back at comics history is courtesy of Larry Thomas, who’s been collecting for many years. You’ll see issues of Rocket’s Blast Comicollector, The Comic Reader, Outlooks, Star-Studded Fanzine, Vacation in Duckburg, The Golden Age, and various others.

Check it out!

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If you’d like to view my coverage of Comic-Con so far, which includes hundreds of cool photographs, click here!