Comic-Con 49th Robert A. Heinlein
Blood Drive 2025
Additional information will be added, and some information may change, so please check back as the convention approaches
Comic-Con’s Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive, San Diego Blood Bank’s largest and longest-running blood drive, returned for its 49th year, with donation areas located in the Grand Hall A at the Manchester Grand Hyatt Hotel and at San Diego Blood Bank Donation Centers.
The growth of our blood drive over the years has been phenomenal. The Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive began at San Diego Comic-Con back in 1977 at the El Cortez Hotel. That first year, 148 pints of blood were collected, and as the convention has grown, so has our blood drive. Our 2025 blood drive collected 15,216 pints of blood!
In our long history, a total of 108,420 pints of blood have been donated by Comic-Con attendees, exhibitors, professionals, volunteers, and staff! San Diego Blood Bank estimates that your donations have impacted more than 300,000 lives over the course of our 49 years hosting the blood drive!
Robert A. Heinlein’s 1951 novel, Between Planets, helped popularize the phrase “Pay It Forward.” Please make it a point to pay it forward in 2026 and save people’s lives at our 50th Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive. Donations are desperately needed.
All donors received a free Fantastic Four T-shirt from Marvel Studios, and other goodies including Eisner-nominated books, plus donors had a chance to win one of the many special prizes donated to the Blood Bank by our exhibitors and staff.
YOU CAN DONATE ANYTIME BEFORE THE CONVENTION
Attendees, volunteers, and staff! Donate before the convention and ask for a certificate of donation. Tell them your donation is for Comic-Con, and the group code is: CCON
On-site during the convention, bring your certificate to Comic-Con’s Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive at the Hyatt, pick up your T-shirt and giveaways, and see if you’ve won a prize! Sorry, only one certificate per person will be accepted.
PLEASE FIND THE TIME TO SAVE A LIFE! DONATE!
A Brief History of Comic-Con’s Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive
For science fiction fans, few names were as stellar as Robert A. Heinlein. From Starship Troopers to Stranger in a Strange Land, Heinlein was the dean of SF writers. Unfortunately, he rarely attended conventions, so his readers had few opportunities to meet the master in person.
Then in the early 1970s, Heinlein had a life-threatening illness and needed many pints of a rare blood type. He felt he owed his life to the donors, so when asked to be a guest at the 1976 Worldcon in his hometown of Kansas City, he agreed—but with one specific stipulation: that he would only sign autographs for people who donated blood.
Thus, longtime Comic-Con committee member Jackie Estrada approached the author with an offer to hold a blood drive in San Diego if he would consent to be a guest. He agreed, and in 1977 Heinlein came to Comic-Con. He and his wife, Ginny, had a great time and Heinlein even drew a picture for the Sunday morning Art Auction.”David Scroggy [who went on to be a VP at Dark Horse Comics before he retired] was the first blood drive coordinator,” recalls Estrada. “We also had Theodore Sturgeon there signing his book, Some of Your Blood, which he gave to all of the blood donors. We also had entertainment for the people while they were [donating blood]. I remember that Leslie Cabarga played the piano, and C. C. Beck played the guitar. It was a very fun event and Robert was delighted. We’ve had the blood drive every year since.”
A Brief History of Robert A. Heinlein
Robert Anson Heinlein (July 7, 1907 – May 8, 1988) was one of the most popular and respected science fiction authors of the 20th century. By setting a high standard for science and engineering plausibility, he helped raise the genre’s standards of literary quality. He was the first writer to break into mainstream magazines such as the Saturday Evening Post in the late 1940s with unvarnished science fiction. He was also among the first authors of bestselling novel-length science fiction in the modern mass-market era.
Four of Heinlein’s novels (Double Star, Starship Troopers, Stranger in a Strange Land, and The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress) won Hugo Awards in the years they were published. In 2001, another novel (Farmer in the Sky) and a novella (The Man Who Sold the Moon) received “Retro Hugos” for the year 1951, and the movie Destination Moon, which was based on a Heinlein story, received the “Retro Hugo” for Best Dramatic Presentation.
He was the first writer to be named a Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America for lifetime achievement.
Heinlein was known as the “Dean of Science Fiction Writers,” but he was much more. He was a philanthropist who helped many charitable causes and individuals. When asked how he could be repaid for his help, he would reply, “You can’t pay me back, you have to pay it forward.”
One cause that was of great importance to him was blood donation. Having a rare blood type himself (AB+), he was a frequent donor and a supporter of the National Rare Blood Club, which was an integral part of his novel I Will Fear No Evil. In 1976, at the 34th World Science Fiction Convention in Kansas City, he helped organize the first of many science fiction convention blood drives. In 1977, he did the same at San Diego Comic-Con.
2025 marked the 49th year of the Robert A. Heinlein Blood Drive as an integral part of Comic-Con, and the 17th year of the WonderCon Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Blood Drive.