Welcome Back Crunchyroll and Comic-Con Museum Admirers!
In the afternoon of Tuesday July 18, 2023 WormholeRiders was granted the extraordinary honor of meeting the fabulously talented Mary Franklin, Head of Events for Crunchyroll, and Rita Vandergaw, the Director of the Comic-Con Museum who coordinated the Crunchyroll exhibits at the museum!
During our terrific time at the Comic-Con Museum we were given the privilege of interviewing these two fabulous individuals about their involvement in bringing “Cowboy Bebop 25th Anniversary Art Exhibition” to their membership and the general public at the marvelous museum that has been renovated to the state of the art beginning in 2021 and opened last year in 2022 with their first exciting event, the sixtieth anniversary of Spiderman and this years “Excelsior! The Life and Legacy of Stan Lee” exhibit! We include our interesting interview with Mary and Rita conducted at the museum, and the Cowboy Bebop trailer below for your enjoyment.
About Mary Franklin at Crunchyroll:
Mary Franklin is the Head of Events for Crunchyroll, the world’s most popular anime brand with more than 70 million registered users and over three million subscribers. In this role, Franklin is responsible for driving the overall events strategy for the platform, including the execution and operation of more than 20 domestic events and Crunchyroll’s yearly flagship convention Crunchyroll Expo often presented at the San Jose Convention Center near San Francisco, California.
A veteran in the fan event space, Franklin joined Crunchyroll from ReedPOP, where she led Comic Con teams outside North America, as well as the team that produces Star Wars Celebration in cooperation with Lucasfilm. In the global arena, Franklin led Comic Con launches in Vienna, Jakarta, Beijing, Shanghai, Paris, South Africa, and Seoul. Prior to ReedPOP, Franklin spent fourteen years at Lucasfilm, where she was Head of Events & Fan Relations, and the Lucasfilm lead on Celebration. Referring to the fan festival as Lucasfilm’s “Love letter to Star Wars fans,” Franklin cares passionately about creating events that are milestones for attendees. Lucasfilm recruited her from the fan community after following her leadership in one of the first Star Wars online fan-run organizations. In addition to events and fan relations, Franklin has enjoyed careers as a professional cowhand, commercial fishing boat deckhand, bartender, and weight training instructor, as well as a stint in Antarctica working with penguins.
About Rita Vandergaw and the Comic-Con Museum:
Rita Vandergaw is the Director of the Comic-Con Museum, a division of San Diego Comic Convention (SDCC) a California Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation.
SDCC and Comic-Con Museum are organized for charitable purposes, and dedicated to creating the general public’s awareness of and appreciation for comics and related popular art forms, including participation in and support of public presentations, conventions, exhibits, museums, and other public outreach activities which celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.
In addition to its San Diego Comic-Con convention each summer (the premier comics convention of its kind in the world), SDCC organizes the Anaheim-based WonderCon each spring, and the SAM: Storytelling Across Media symposium in the fall!
We will continue reporting on our adventures in San Diego for Comic-Con 2023 so check back soon! In the meantime, please feel free to share this article with your friends, co-workers and or family and leave your comments! We look forward to you visiting our dedicated review and analysis web site here in the future! Or as many of our readers and visitors often do, visit TeamWHR on Twitter, or visit me on Twitter by clicking the text links or images avatars in this news story. I and TeamWHR look forward to Seeing You on The Other Side!“
Thank you. 
Best Regards,
Kenn of #TeamWHR
