6. 2001: A Hollywood Odyssey

If you could point to any year that the floodgates opened for Hollywood's arrival at the Con, 2001 would be it.

Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, Spider-Man, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, and Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones all make appearances.

Hot on Singer's heels, almost every studio with a genre project (their numbers rose massively in the late 1990s and early 2000s as comic books, fantasy tomes and sci-fi became increasingly lucrative source material for movies and TV shows) showed up with exclusive peeks at the films and giveaway swag for the fans.

Realising they had a huge, captive audience (though still unprepared for how a bad reaction at Comic-Con can colour a project for the rest of the movie-going world), studios began to bring ever bigger presentations and stars.

Yet despite the increasing presence of the big boys, there was still a hefty comics presence, with Stan Lee, Will Eisner and regular Matt Groening (though he had a few more projects to promote than just Life In Hell by now...)

And there was still the chance of random celebrity encounters, with the likes of Weird Al Yankovic wandering the floor.

The 21st century would be a busy time...

Next: 2001 - 2005