Denver Pop Culture Con 2019 Merchandise Spotlight

Written by Joel T. Lewis

Con Identity: A Subtle but Important Merchandise Statement 

Denver Pop Culture Con is right around the corner and we know what that means: New Year, New Con, New Name, and most importantly: New Merch! This past week DPCC unveiled its new merch and there are some sublimely nerdtastic designs. With T-shirts paying homage to their Back to the Future heavy guest lineup, Pokémon, and Harry Potter, plus some gorgeous riffs on the Pop Culture Classroom Logo and the shimmering design of this year’s convention Mascot the Night Lynx, it’s really starting to feel like the Con is upon us.
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But this year DPCC has one particularly understated design that speaks volumes as to its taking ownership of the convention’s rebranding this year. Though I have not been able to confirm that this year is the first that this particular design has been available, it’s inclusion under the DPCC rebrand seems particularly pointed. This year’s ‘Approved by PCC’ shirt strikes at the heart of the comic/pop culture con brand identity debate, by referencing the now defunct ‘stamp of approval’ used by the Comics Code Authority from 1954-2011 to censure and prohibit the content of comic books. The censorship of horror, gore, depictions of dubious established authority figures, or sexual content that occurred as a direct result of the CCA stamp’s enforcement by advertisers and comic book wholesalers inhibited the kind of stories that comics were able to tell, and dramatically crippled specific comics publishers.

The CCA was in essence about exclusion, about preventing the exploration of certain kinds of stories and images in comic book form. DPCC’s riff on the defunct logo, the way their own stamp of ‘Approved by Pop Culture Classroom’ is worn, weathered, and has the ink bleeding through reflects the convention’s evolution from a comic con into a pop culture con. This adoption of the CCA stamp is a clear sign that the organizers of DPCC understand their history, and the comic-centric tradition of the kind of conventions they’ve organized. But in the same way that the censorship brought about by the CCA silenced stories that it didn’t deem appropriate to be told, the comic-centric implication of the ‘Comic Con’ branded convention is exclusionary also. With explosion of fandom across all media and the way the convention culture has evolved, ‘Comic Con’ is no longer a true representation of the content of or attendee population for these kinds of conventions and serves as a semantic barrier for fans who don’t necessarily identify with comic books.

This design, subtle and understated as it may appear indicates to the comic book fandom that DPCC knows its history, and understands the comic book origins of the convention culture. It also signals their understanding that in order for that culture to grow in the ways it should, to become the inclusive safe space that it’s meant to be, defunct labels like the CCA stamp of approval, and the ‘Comic Con’ brand have to be abandoned.

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