Willamette Geek: Rose City Comic-Con Schedule Released

Because the weekend of September 8 isn't busy enough between MusicfestNW and TBA, here's another item for the calendar: Rose City Comic-Con

Does Portland really need another comics or pop culture festival? Organizer Ron Brister certainly thinks so—I spoke to him last week, and he told me he thinks Rose City will bring something new to the table:


"We didn't have a mainstream pop culture convention here in town," Brister said. "We have Wonder Northwest, Stumptown, Kumoricon, and all those kind of cater to different genres... they deal with different subcultures. We wanted something that was more mainstream pop culture, kind of your traditional Spiderman, Hulk, things that 6-year-olds, 12-year-olds are into, rather than it just being an art celebration, for example, or entirely an anime celebration. This is really an all encompassing event." 

More of our discussion will be in an upcoming edition of WW.

So what's on the table? You can download the full schedule here, but it includes an advanced screening of Lloyd the Conqueror, a Q&A with Axe Cop creators Ethan and Malachai Nicholle, Magic and HeroClix gaming, a costume contest, and a modest but eclectic lineup of "media guests": (original) Battlestar Galactica's Richard Hatch and Noah Hathaway ("Atreyuuuuu!"), Cathy Coleman from '70s kids show Land of the Lost and Jessica Rey, who is apparently a Power Ranger. For the most part, the comic artists and writers are familiar (but no less great) Pacific Northwest names. 

Brister has pretty ambitious plans for this con, and it will be interesting to see if it can ever rival something like Emerald City. If nothing else, though, you don't have a lot to lose in giving it a chance: tickets for this first year are $12.50 for one day, or $20 for both days. 


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