Comic Con keeps fans, stars coming back
“Norm!”
“Whoooo!”
“Did I do that?”
For this year’s Niagara Falls Comic Con, you won’t just hear these iconic pop culture catch phrases for three days, you’ll see the people responsible for them.
The seventh annual event at Scotiabank Convention Centre Friday to Sunday will include George Wendt and John Ratzenberger (Norm & Cliff) from “Cheers,” legendary wrestler Ric Flair and “Family Matters” star Jaleel White, along with dozens of other celebrities and artists.
It’s all part of one of the city’s biggest single events, one that attracts about 23,000 every year.
But for co-founder and coorganizer Chris Dabrowski, it’s a different landscape now. Since that first, modest event on Clifton Hill, Comic Cons have sprouted up in London, Windsor, Ottawa and Buffalo. There’s also the huge, ever-expanding Fan Expo in Toronto, which now runs five days.
While the competition for guests has grown, Dabrowski says he can always count on the one thing no other Comic Con can offer.
“We’re lucky in the sense that our Comic Con is in the most famous city in North America.”
For those other Comic Cons, Niagara Falls helped set the table: Most book the same guests and have a heavy wrestling presence like the Falls show, says Dabrowski.
The Falls event also features at least one reunion of an iconic movie or TV show every year. This year gathers “Revenge of the Nerds” stars Robert Carradine, Don Gibb and Andrew Cassese.
“We concentrate on four or five different genres,” says Darowski. “We try to keep working on things out of the box.”
After that first year at a Dave & Buster’s on Clifton Hill, the event moved to Scotiabank Convention Centre, using half of the floor space. By the next year it was using the entire floor, booking guests including William Shatner, Adam West and Henry Winkler.
Dabrowski, already working on next year’s guest list, says the Niagara Falls Comic Con could expand to four days as soon as next year.
This year’s Con includes genre stars Michael Rooker (“The Walking Dead,” “Guardians of the Galaxy”), Dawn Wells (“Gilligan’s Island”) and Ralph Macchio (“The Karate Kid,” “Cobra Kai”).
Comic guests include legendary Batman artist Neal Adams,
“Preacher” cover artist Glenn Fabry, and Marvel icon Jim Steranko.
Among the attractions will be the 1989 Batmobile, the Scooby Doo Mystery Machine and Witch’s Dungeon Classic Movie Museum.
Tickets are $24.95 Friday, $39.95 Saturday and $31.95 Sunday. Three-day passes are $66.95, or $199.95 for Deluxe Speed Pass. http://nfcomiccon.com