Austin’s Captial City Comic Con Apologizes For Offending Fans With Fliers
Following complaints from bloggers and retailers, the organizers of Captial City Comic Con in Austin, Texas, have apologized for handing out a flier that depicted cropped, close-up art of Power Girl's breasts and had the slogan, "Everything is BIGGER in Austin."
On Saturday, Richard Neal of Zeus Comics in Dallas tweeted about the flier, asking whether he should refuse to display it or ask for another. That led blogs including DC Women Kicking Ass to bring further attention to the flier. The designer who made the ad has reportedly been fired.
Here's the con staff and management's apology, in full:
In response to our prior ad campaign, the proper steps are being taken in regards to this situation. Capital City Comic Con did not mean to offend or harm anyone, in any way. Our advertising department has been contacted and changes to our marketing material and plan are being made.
We respect everyone's opinion. We are glad this issue was brought to our attention. We want everyone to feel safe at our convention and not feel offended. As a comic book convention, it is primordial that we do not send the wrong message to fans.
We were contacted by a few female fans who wish to support the distribution of our initial flyers, to which we respectfully declined. As for our future plans, we will no longer use the image of superheroes (or any character) in such fashion. We wish to apologize to anyone we may have offended with our initial promotional campaign.
We would like to invite all of you to comment on our new campaign once released. Your feedback is greatly appreciated.
That wasn't the convention's first response, though. When one commenter on Facebook asked the convention page to explain the "massively inappropriate and misogynist fliers," someone writing on behalf of the con replied:
It’s one of many promotional fliers for the con. I like the idea of reaching out to many aspects of the community, and honestly this was one of more humor oriented ones. And if this bothers you, I have to wonder if you’ve even been to a comic con?
The staffer who wrote that response has also been terminated, according to organizers, and the exchange appears to have been deleted.
The convention is scheduled for July 11-13 and will feature guests including Kevin Eastman, Bernie Wrightson and Eddy Barrows.