Things have been a little quiet on the
Trust The Dice front for just a little bit, but I can assure you that
we haven't thrown in the towel. Selina and I remain dedicated to
bringing our readers the perspective of our fan-girling and love for
cinema, games, and general geekdom.
Speaking of geeks, part of the reason
we had some crickets chirping over here was that my family and I were
basking in the glow of the melting pot of geekery that is our annual
stint at Geek'd Con here in Shreveport. We do our best to never miss
a year – whether helping behind the scenes or giving the convention
as much support as we can.
This year, I had more of an attendee's
experience, rather than my old post at the official convention merch
booth. I walked around, perused the vendors, said hi to old friends,
and made some new ones.
2024's Geek'd
Con was a little different than the years that have come
before. This time around we had a combined experience of a sports
card & collectibles expo with professional athletes along side
our standard fare of Hollywood celebrities, anime and comic talent,
and cosplay. I'm not even talking about our professional wrestler
guests. We had football and baseball Hall of Famers as well as a
Heisman Trophy winner, among others. The weekend of August 16th
to the 18th was packed with a plethora of opportunities
for geeking out for just about everyone.
That said, the turn-out wasn't as big
as I would have hoped. There are several factors that likely impacted
this. Last year was GIANT with the majority of the View-Askew crew
here. It's generally hard to top that for a convention of our size.
Our guest list for 2024 was
nothing to sneeze at, but I can see how the comparison would have
felt like a step backward and lost some potential interest. I can
certainly walk a mile in those shoes.
The thing is, though, that even if the
convention scales back a little in waves, it NEEDS the continued
support of community and attendees in order to thrive and continue
moving forward. Even if I'm not able to work behind the scenes in the
years ahead, Geek'd Con is a special experience for me every year.
It's our home-town grass-roots-grown convention, and I'm passionate
as hell about it. (Bonus that we don't have to take a road trip or
pay for a hotel to participate, and it's always held around my
daughter's birthday so it's traditionally worked into her
celebrations as well.) I am hoping that we can turn this around and
pack in the numbers better in the future.
It was not entirely lack of interest or
wherewithal to participate that impacted this year's convention,
however. We had an unfortunate coincidence of timing. You see, Curtis
“50 Cent” Jackson has come to Shreveport to make this a
primary hub for his G-Unit Studios. He threw a humongous festival
together to celebrate everything he's hoping to build here – as a
charity event. It just so happened that Humor
and Harmony happened the weekend immediately before Geek'd
Con. Aside from celebrity perfomers, he also had guests with high
star-power set up at his car exhibition which was part of the event.
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| Image (c) visitshreveportbossier.org Humor & Harmony Article |
The two shows were vastly different in
scope; but all the same, it's possible that those that might have
come to spend money attending Geek'd had already drained their
available funds at Fifty's amazing weekend-long party. Don't get me
wrong – I am NOT, and I repeat NOT, hating on the
Humor and Harmony. There's a place for all of us in the entertainment
landscape. That festival weekend was unreal. There were THOUSANDS of
people downtown filling the event venues and the streets. Some areas
were standing-room-only even outside at 3AM. There weren't any
incidents of major crime or any of the stupid things that tend to
happen with large crowds, either. It was smooth-sailing, well
organized, and everyone that I know that attended (as well as some of
the celebrity guest attendees) have had nothing but good things to
say. I hope it does become an annual thing. I just hope they shift
the dates a bit so (A) it's not happening at the hottest time of the
year for outside venues, and (B) that it doesn't happen immediately
before or after Geek'd Con. That way there's a little bit of a time
buffer so people can get paid again and can budget for both. I
digress...
Back to the convention, itself!
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| Image courtesy Man Made Soap |
In a year where Deadpool and
Wolverine (2024) is dominating the box office, I feel it's
appropriate to note that comic artist John Lucas (who has worked on the actual Deadpool comics)
was a returning guest in attendance and responsible for one of the
poster-prints available this year, as well as the badge art for the
convention.
Another convention poster was the
cover-art of Brian Steward's
new comic, The Clod. He specializes in horror comic art and
gets extra bonus points from me because he and his wife are bunny
parents, too. They're both great people and you can usually find them
together at his booth. I highly suggest checking out his work!
Next door to Brian's booth was my good
buddy and regular convention guest, Roland
Paris. I love catching up with him in person and sometimes
watching in awe as he works on commissions at his booth. He's been a
comic artist guest at Geek'd Con since pretty much the beginning and
we look forward to seeing him every year. He worked on a commission
comic cover one year for my daughter, and it was amazing. He's been
in the biz for over 20 years and has worked on more titles than you
might realize – and a good chunk of them have been Marvel, too. (I
found a great interview with him here.)
I could ramble on forever about our
comic guests, but I'll spare you. I do encourage you to look up our
lineup and check out who we've worked with both in current and
previous years.
Having social anxiety and also a
burning desire to talk to these talented guests whose work I adore
creates a strange and sometimes awkward battle of emotions within me
at these events. I want to throw myself out there and just go say hi.
I try to remember that these celebrities are just people, too.
Sometimes it works, and others, I just get so tongue tied and awkward
and nearly panic when I don't know what to say. I generally like to
have my silver-tongued husband along with me to break the ice, since
everyone generally sees him running around while working the
convention in years past. This year wasn't that much different. I got
a bit star-struck and at a loss for words around Billy Zane
(Tombstone, Titanic, MacGruber), Dee Wallace (E.T. the
Extra-Terrestrial, Critters, 3 From Hell), and Henry Thomas (E.T.
the Extra Terrestrial, The Haunting of Hill House, The Fall of the
House of Usher). Every year there ends up being a few guests I am
excited to see in-person at the convention but I get so in my head
about not knowing what to say to them other than “HI,” I end up
not stopping by their booth. For the aforementioned guests, I did
eventually stammer out awkwardly my appreciation and they were very
gracious.
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| Image courtesy Man Made Soap |
I had a blast, however, visiting with
Efren Ramirez (Crank: High Voltage, Trafficked, Lightyear) and
briefly discussing Satanic Hispanics (2022),
which we reviewed here at
Trust The Dice. He was a joy to talk to and watch interact with
people – especially the kids whose parents mainly knew him from
Napoleon Dynamite (2004). Not far away from him was the voice
of Goofy, Bill Farmer (Mickey Saves Christmas, Minnie's Bow-Toons,
Mickey Mouse Funhouse). My daughter had a memorable experience
talking with him, and he even did the voice from his character
Hop-Pop from Amphibia (2019-2022) for her. Scott Innes
(Scooby-Doo on Zombie Island, Scooby-Doo, Shakespeare's Mummy),
radio personality and none other than the voice of Scooby Doo
dating back to the 1990s was also fun to visit with. He's got some
exciting things in the works for the future – stay tuned to his
social media for more info before the end of the year!
The anime talent had a strong presence
at Geek'd Con and it was fun to visit with the artists and watch my
daughter interact with them, too. She impressed them with her range
of knowledge of titles, etc. We had actors representing many
well-known productions, and even a director.
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| Guest images (c) Townsquare Media |
At the top of my list this year,
though, were Annabeth Gish (SLC Punk!, Sons of Anarchy, Mayfair
Witches), Kevin Durand (The Strain, Abigail, Kingdom of the
Planet of the Apes), and David Morrissey (Doctor Who, The
Walking Dead, Britannia) (not necessarily in that order). I
actually managed to not trip over my own tongue so much while
chatting with them. They were wonderful to talk to and absolutely lit
up my convention experience this year with joy. Kevin Durand's smile
is also quite infectious. You just want to give him a hug – from
tiptoes – he's very tall. He tends to play intimidating characters
but in person, is anything but. I can't wait for the new Naked Gun
movie he's worked on to hit screens and he mentioned something about
a horror movie coming up involving clowns and corn. Better yet, he's
directing a movie in the new year! Annabeth Gish was just so warm and
approachable, and I was able to talk Whovian with David Morrissey.
Those were the highlights I was
anticipating. What really got me and was, honestly, the unexpected
highlight of the whole show for me – was getting to visit quite a
bit with Barry Hanley (Red Notice, Emancipation, Mafair Witches).
He doesn't have a household name – but that tends to be the case
for those in the stunt profession. He was involved in some fight
scenes inside a costume (or under prosthetics) in The Mandalorian
(2019-) and was this year's Star Wars franchise
connection. Given I had recently reviewed TheFall Guy (2024)
here and my family and I were still in awe of the stunt-work in that
movie, I wanted to express to him my gratitude for his profession and
willingness to throw his body around and put himself in crazy
situations for his job.
It turns out that Hanley is from none
other than Ireland. He had been toning down his accent, but I could
still hear it around the edges. When I mentioned it (and proved my
husband's guess wrong, as well as mine right) he dropped into a more
comfortable speaking pattern and I got to bask in the glow of an
Irish brogue. The silver lining to the fact that traffic inside the
convention hall wasn't as packed as it could be was that we had
plenty of time to just visit and talk about so many things from
Ireland, some Irish musicians, to buddies he knew working on the
filming of The Fall Guy in Australia. While I got an autograph
from most of my must-see guests this year, Barry was the only pic I
took with a guest. (I didn't have the funds to pay for the selfie
prices, unfortunately, and I didn't want to put the celebs in an
awkward position asking for more than their signature when I wasn't
officially on staff – so if they didn't offer, I didn't ask it of
them... save the one.)
Needless to say, Geek'd Con has
remained an amazing experience every year. The vendors are always
interesting, and we've developed friendships with several. The guests
have (more often than not) exceeded expectations. Cosplayers are
always fun to see showing out with their latest build, or returning
with their tried-and-true favored persona. The sense of community has
been strong with the force of geekdom during the week leading up to
the convention and the weekend-of – from cosplay karaoke and
costume competitions, special movie screenings at The Robinson Film Center, to Dungeons & Dragons tavern crawls.
We just need to take it one step
further and keep showing up for Geek'd Con so it can keep showing up
for us.
P.S. - My buddy Chris Graham with Man Made Soap gave me permission to use some of the pictures he took during Geek'd Con this year. I was so busy I rarely had my phone out to take my own! Man Made Soap is a regular vendor touring regional conventions and our local farmer's market. Also this soap company is family owned soap business located in Bossier City, La. Providing quality soap: https://manmadesoap.net/
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| (C) Townsquare Media |
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