These hipsters are doing the same to “comics” that they did to music (oh I’ve downloaded all of it, haven’t listened to it though, but I got there before YOU, push glasses up bridge of nose) and food ($20 “lobster roll” sandwiches served on an ironically named food truck, $11 hamburgers, etc).
Fandom is getting up on 90 years old. Costumes were part of it dating back to the 30s (Forrest J. Ackerman dressed up as a man from the future).
It’s taken over the thing. Nobody there reads. Too busy blogging their own celebrity.
They aren’t hipsters. There aren’t enough hipsters out there for Phoenix Comicon to have 77,000 attendees. These are fans, regular fans.
And as you point out. Fandom has been around for a long time, the hipsters wouldn’t get to be first.
Nobody in America reads. We’re in the post literary culture.