By Foster Nicholas | Reporter
On Saturday and Sunday Waco hosted the Central Texas Comic Con at the Extraco Events Center. A massive vendor hall with 125 booths, panels, autograph guests, cosplay contests and gaming tournaments, the convention had something for everyone.
Throughout the weekend hundreds of people flooded in the doors to attend another successful comic con in Waco. The 125 booths were larger than the last event by nearly double. Vendors had comics as well as collectables, minifigures, video games, shirts and much more. However, even with so much stuff to see, the biggest draw for many fans was the cosplay. Event attendee Jason Quill dressed as the Joker and he spent more than 36 hours creating his costume.
“This is the great escape. All nerds like me can’t wait until the time of year when we can unite with people who we can talk to about all the things,” Quill said after releasing his version of the Joker laugh.
The event saw more than 200 people attend dressed as their favorite anime characters, movie characters or even comic book heroes. Look-alikes included several people dressed as Spiderman, someone dressed as Ferris Bueller and many elves, goblins and ghouls.
“It’s so much fun to be myself and do the things I love to do with other people who love the same things,” Samantha Anderson, an attendee dressed as an elf, said.
In addition to the cosplay and the vendors, there were video game competitions and tournaments that included Sonic, several retro games and Super Smash Bros. Between Saturday and Sunday, hundreds of people competed in the tournament and had a good laugh as they battled their way to a good time.
In addition to the video game tournament, there were free board games for everyone who attended to play and a large Yu-Gi-Oh tournament.
The biggest draw for many fans and attendees was the celebrities and the panels. The celebrities were spread out over the weekend and each one had their own panel where they were able to share their experiences with fans and sign autographs.
Some celebrities included original Power Rangers actors Austin St. John and Karan Ashley, David Ankrum —actor of Wedge Antilles from the original Star Wars films — and Adassa, a voice actor in “Encanto.”
“It was so cool to finally meet my idol [Adassa.] I have watched ‘Encanto’ so many times and now that I got to actually speak to the beautiful voice before the characters I’m ecstatic,” con attendee Addison Huntly said.
