KPBS at Comic-Con: From the floor to the fans

Beyond star-studded panels and immersive brand activations, community connection is at the heart of Comic-Con. So tell us: Why does Comic-Con matter to you?

This story was first published in 2019, marking the 50th Comic-Con in San Diego. We're bringing it back in 2025 to celebrate the fans who helped shape the convention into what it is today.

The Kumeyaay have long told stories through rock art, vivid images carved into stone that preserved culture, memory and meaning. Today, that tradition continues in a new comic book created by Kumeyaay educators and historians to challenge the erasure of Indigenous history in California classrooms. Co-written by SDSU professor Ethan Banegas, a member of the Barona Band of Mission Indians, the book brings Kumeyaay life — from ancestral knowledge to colonization and resistance — into a format designed for students and teachers.

" Oftentimes history is written as: We are victims, we are passive. And what I like about this page, in general, is this is us creating and fighting for our own future. So I think that's why this comic is a real game changer for people like me growing up in today's world," Banegas said. "You just know these things are true, but you don't have any way or material to support it. They have this comic now to go to bat for 'em."

Blending community memory, academic research and lived experience, the comic is both a resource and a tool of reclamation. It replaces silence with story, and invisibility with truth.