With attendance over 100,000, Comic-Con's not just for geeks.

IT has become a rite of summer for Hollywood's sci-fi and fantasy crowd to make an annual pilgrimage down the freeway to San Diego and camp on the exhibit floor of Comic-Con International.

What has become the nation's largest gathering for fans of comic books and related art forms began in 1970 when several artists organized a one-day comic book convention at a local hotel. Today, Comic-Con International is a non-profit corporation that runs the San Diego event and two similar conventions, WonderCon and Alternative Press Expo, both in San Francisco.

Official attendance figures aren't in for this year's event, held July 26-29, but last year the total came to 96,300 fans and estimates for this year are well above 100,000. On the business side, last year's gathering had 7,700 exhibitors and this year's number is likely equal to or greater than that figure.

The event hooks up film studios, toy companies and publishers with their core fan base. The idea is to stimulate word-of-mouth by sharing a secrets with a few early adapters and letting them spread the news.

Major L.A.-based companies on the floor included Mattel Inc. and the Walt Disney Co. In years past, such players powered the confab by unveiling mega-budget films or new product lines. But this year, there were no major revelations.

Instead, the event reached its zenith.

The attendance figures bear out what several seminar speakers observed: Sci-fi and comic books have become so much a part of mainstream culture that the gathering is no longer seen as geeks on parade, or some sort of nerd coven. There are no more secret handshakes at the door. And there can hardly be insider secrets, when the broadcast, Internet and print media are out in full force. What transpires at Comic-Con makes headlines in the mainstream press.

This year, the spectacle that is Comic-Com was the most compelling aspect of the weekend, rather than the products it showcased.

While vendors come from all over the world, a large contingent comes from Los Angeles County. This year's L.A. contingent ran the gamut from one-man art studios to major corporations.

At the small end, entrepreneur Chris Sanders had a booth to market his new creation "Club Coconut." The main Coconut character resembles a sexy version of the female protagonist from "Lilo & Stitch," the 2002 film Sanders wrote and directed for Walt Disney Co.

Retailers ranged in size from small specialists like Hollywood Book & Poster Co., a favorite source of old TV and film scripts, to big specialists like Entertainment Earth, the Noah Hollywood-based clearinghouse for film-related action figures and mock props.

In the middle market, manga publishers dominated with TokyoPop Inc. representing Los Angeles. The growing market for Japanese-style storytelling lured Broccoli International USA, an L.A.-based producer of anime video games, to rent prime acreage in the middle of the floor.

Staff reporter Joel Russell can be reached at [e-mail] or at [phone], ext. 237.