Comic-Con Throngs Get Eye-Opener at Airport: 20-Foot Graphic Cartoon Skewering SeaWorld

Comic Book Company Teams Up With PETA to Make Waves in SeaWorld’s Hometown

For Immediate Release:
July 22, 2014

Contact:
Shakira Croce 202-483-7382

As thousands of Comic-Con International fans deplane, the first thing that they’ll see won’t be a promo for the next Avengers filmor The Walking Dead but a huge graphic cartoon of a captive orca with SeaWorld’s CEO in his mouth. As reported in U-T San Diego,the provocative display, which urges conventiongoers to steer clear of SeaWorld because of marine-mammal cruelty and confinement, is a joint project between Bluewater Productions and PETA.

The massive $24,000 installation, which now greets passengers on their way to baggage claim at the center of Terminal 2, can be viewed here.

“Comic-Con fans love blood and guts when they’re fake, but at SeaWorld, it’s all too real for comfort,” says Bluewater founder Darren Davis. “The orcas are desperate to be free. That’s why trainers have been killed, and that’s what we’re depicting in this campaign with PETA.”

Bluewater, for its edgy spoofs of controversial topics, designed the cartoon in the wake of last year’s hit documentary Blackfish. The film—viewed by 21 million on CNN alone—explored SeaWorld’s cruel capture and devastating confinement of orcas, which led the whale named Tilikum to kill three people.

“SeaWorld has been in a free fall since Blackfish premiered—attendance is down 13 percent, investors are dumping millions of dollars in stock, and bands are canceling concerts at the parks,” says PETA Senior Vice President Dan Mathews.

PETA’s campaign against SeaWorld was profiled in Friday’s Wall Street Journal.

For more information, please visit PETA.org.