The weekend’s inaugural I Like Comic Con was such a success, said Chris Simons, organizer and owner of the eponymous comics shop in downtown Vancouver, that he’s already planning for next year.
“It looked like we were going to be the ‘critical darling,’ you know? The one that everybody loves but they don’t really make any money,” Simons said.
The final count wasn’t available Sunday afternoon, he said, but Simons and his organizing partner Royce Myers estimated the two-day event at the Clark County Event Center saw 6,000 to 8,000 guests.
That level of success is unheard of for a first-year show, the two said, and it will definitely return next year.
“Thankfully, we have seemed to tap into some vein of fandom out there because our attendance has been really good,” Simons said. “People are really excited about it, and that makes all the creators and all the exhibitors realize, ‘Hey, this isn’t just like the cool factor you get from going to see a movie with subtitles, this is the real deal.'”
Fans mingled with other guests — some dressed as their favorite characters from whatever franchise; perused vendor booths — from mobile tattoo parlors to collectible toys and classic comic books; and, key to the weekend, mingled with comics artists and creators.
“A lot of shows are more pop-culture oriented, where they have all these really big name celebrities, and they’re really expensive to get into,” Myers said. “That’s fine. But we wanted to put on something that was comic-book friendly, not only just to the exhibitors and the artists here, but also to the people coming in, to where it would be affordable.”
Harry Starr, dressed as a stormtrooper — a First Order stormtrooper, specifically, from the new “Star Wars” movies — is a regular patron at Simons’ shop.
When he heard Simons was organizing a comic book convention, he organized a handful of his fellow troopers to suit up and come hype up the event.
“It’s great to have a kind of local, comics-focused event,” he said. “It makes it, I think, a really kind of special, new-for-Clark-County sort of event, and I think that’s fantastic.”
Indeed, the convention was distinctive in Clark County in that it’s really the only pop culture celebration of its kind locally since Kumoricon relocated to Portland following its final appearance in downtown Vancouver in 2015.
The heavily costumed anime and manga enthusiast convention started in 2003, with events in Springfield, Ore., and Portland, before moving to Vancouver, and eventually outgrew its longtime home at the downtown Hilton.
Simons said he understood the organizers’ decision, but it still made him sad.
“Vancouver is my home. This is where I’ve raised my children. This is where I will die, hopefully not today, but this is it,” Simons said.
It likely would have been easier to set up a similar event in Portland, he said. “But we’re not about Portland. This is our home, and this is where we’re going to keep growing this. We want to give something back to our community.”
Another part of that work, Myers said, is helping support comics as a whole.
He grew up poor, he said, and his mother would pick up free, unsold comic books — after the grocer tore off the covers to send them back for a refund — to help improve his reading.
Conventions like the weekends’, he said, help introduce new people into the art, as opposed to catering to 40-year-olds.
“We love this medium,” Simons said. “It’s our job to bring in new people who are passionate about this. We gotta get the kids excited about reading, we gotta get kids excited about the idea of heroism.”
Comics creators seemed to appreciate the comics-first approach of the convention.
One artist, Richard Crowsong, writer and creator of “Vile: Legends of Thunder Valley,” an end of the Old West series tinged with Native American myth, was impressed, despite the first-year learning curve.
“Kinda feel like this is an education year,” he said. “A lot of the people that are walking through, it’s their first time con, or they’re dusting off their T-shirts, which is super cool, so we’re kind of getting them introduced to it.”
A conventions like the weekend’s, he said, reveals to people the source material, or expanded world, of all the stories they’re seeing on TV or in the movies.
Cat Farris, a comic artist from Portland who does an online comic called “The Last Diplomat,” among other projects, said many of the big name, established conventions emphasize the actors, movies and other media from the pop culture universe.
“But the people that actually make the comic books tend to get kind of forgotten and shoved into a little corner, so it’s really nice to have a show where the people that actually make the comics that people enjoy, that are inspiring all these movies and TV shows are recognized for their awesome work,” she said, pointing to an artist who inked for legendary comics icon Jack Kirby, or another creator whose work was made into a Hollywood movie.
The weekend’s featured guests included multiple luminaries from the comics and genre fiction world, including Jim Steranko, an acclaimed comics artist who pioneered comic’s Silver Age in the 1960s and worked on projects including the X-Men, Captain America, The Hulk and Superman. He also collaborated with George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to design Indiana Jones.
Also invited were David Anders, who stars in the CW network TV show “iZombie,” based on a comic about a Eugene grave digger, and Deep Roy, a character and creature actor with a r?sum? that includes the Oompah Loompahs in Tim Burton’s take on Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, “Star Trek” engineer Montgomery Scott’s scaly assistant in the franchise’s recent films, and an uncredited Yoda in “The Empire Strikes Back.”
Roy, who was signing autographs, called the weekend’s scene gracious and positive, and was glad to hear the convention planners were already working on next year.
“I think you guys have planted the seed, I think it’s going to grow bigger and better,” he said. “Someone has to start somewhere, and I’m glad you guys did here, and it’s something for the community to look forward to.”
