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Christian Protesters Outside San Diego Comic-Con Joined By ‘Damien’ Marketing Picket

By Jovi Figueroa
Published on: 03:16 PST, Jul 10, 2015

Every year at the San Diego Comic-Con, Christian protesters are known to go out of their way and hold a protest outside the San Diego Comic-Con convention center. This year is no different since religious supporters again convened outside the Comic-Con convention center to hold another rally calling out to Comic-Con attendees that they still have time to be saved from eternal damnation.

However, this year at San Diego Comic-Con, the Christian protest gets a new twist as San Diego Comic-Con attendees notice that the protest did not only gather religious extremists, but also a couple of fake protesters marketing the Omen=inspired show Damien, disguising themselves amongst the religious picket, the Hollywood Reporter explains.

Amidst the placards and calls of “Receive salvation through Jesus” and “The blood of Jesus cleanses sin” are placards with the words “From flame Damien will rise” and “There is only Damien.” A lot of the attendees at the San Diego Comic-Con, instead of turning their attention and anger at the Christian protesters, found the upcoming TV series Damien creating quite a buzz amongst the protesters. Faux protesters were mixed with the religious protesters and carried Damien marketing materials and distributed Damien merchandise, something a lot of the Comic-Con goers found hilarious.

Indeed, it was a good call for Damien producer A&E to grab the opportunity at the San Diego Comic-Con to market Damien in a very quirky way, since a lot of the attendees of the San Diego Comic-Con noticed the Damien marketing ploy.

In addition to the Damien-related signs were the Damien marketing staff, also disguised as street protesters, handing out pins, stickers, and pamphlets. The leaflets read, “the end of days is near,” probably a parody of the call of the religious protest or another metaphor to direct the people to Damien. The pamphlets also read, “Atrocities fill our airwaves. Atrocities crowd out the Internet. Atrocities stain our history,” with an advertisement of the Damien TV show at the last page.

The Damien marketing scheme at the San Diego Comic-Con was genius, no question, but did it cross the line? While a lot of people may be offended by the religious protesters convening yearly outside the San Diego Comic-Con, it could also be held true that these protesters will feel equally disrespected by the Damien event. However, no official reaction regarding the Damien faux protesters has been heard from the Christian protesters who graced the San Diego Comic-Con.

Damien will follow the life of character Damien Thorn, the mysterious child that appeared previously in the film The Omen in 1976. Damien grew up in the series, unaware of the satanic forces that surround him, and equally unaware that he is the antichrist. Damien will premiere in 2016 on A&E.

[Image via Sam Zimmerman]

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