Storming Comic Con
Annual event reaches largest attendance to date, organizer says
Labor Day weekend turned the Texarkana Convention Center into a pilgrimage for science fiction buffs, action hero worshippers and comic book enthusiasts of all ages during the seventh annual Ark-La-Tex Comic Con.
The two-day event drew science fiction and action hero connoisseurs from as far away as Florida and Houston, giving the yearly gathering its largest attendance to date—possibly reaching 4,000 by Sunday afternoon, said Ray Couch, the convention’s organizer, promoter and founder.
After Comic Con’s first local commercial launch inside Texarkana College’s Truman Arnold Student Center in 2010, the event’s appeal grew steadily from
560 patrons and six vendors to 41 vendors and more than 3,000 attendees on Saturday alone.
Some of the hottest selling items at this year’s Comic Con included pillows, video games, costumes, jewelry, T-shirts, vintage comic books and assorted weapons such as swords and daggers. The event also featured costume contests, card games and games featuring table top miniatures.
“That first year I only expected only about a couple of dozen of people to show up,” Couch said. “I didn’t know that it was going attract as many as 560.”
Following its second year at TC in 2011 where it brought in 750 patrons, the event moved to the Texarkana Convention Center. There, the event swelled in attendance to 3,200 that year, Couch said.
“After the first three years, cities like Little Rock, Shreveport, Longview and Tyler started their own versions of Comic Con,” Couch said. “Now, Hot Springs has it’s annual Spa Con. For the last seven years, we’ve kept it very family-oriented and my whole reason for starting this was to share my enthusiasm with comic book collectors, costume collectors, science fiction movie buffs and action hero lovers. Plans for all this started one day on my kitchen table and it just grew from there.”
Besides offering a Labor Day weekend outing for the whole family, Couch added that Comic Con enables people to pursue a type of freedom unique to them.
“People get to come out and spend a couple of days getting to dress up and be the super hero they’ve always admired throughout their lives,” he said. “They get a chance to be themselves and be at one with their hobbies. This gathering provides people a childhood to come back to for a brief time.
Couch said Comic Con also gives him the chance to give back to his community.
“We choose a charity to give to every year, and this year we gave $1,000 to the Randy Sams’ Shelter for the Homeless,” he said. “We’ve also given a portion of annual proceeds to the Wounded Warrior Project as well as to other charities.”
Not only does Comic Con’s popularity reach across the region, it also reaches across generations of fans, Couch said.
“This year, we had a man as old as 81 show up here,”Couch said. “We reach everyone from toddlers to senior adults because action hero comic books go as far back as the late 1930s and throughout World War II.”
Couch added that he would one day like to see convention centers of both sides of Texarkana become involved in a joint Comic Con.
“If that could happen we could get as many as 10,000 to 20,000 people from out of town to visit and both cities would benefit from food sales, gasoline sales and hotel room business,” he said. “Tourism in general would boom.”
From an educational standpoint, this year’s Comic Con even drew college recruiters from the Shreveport-based Digital Media Institute at Intertech, a college that focuses on recruiting those interested in careers involving digital art and animation as well as digital game development. The school offers 12-month certificates in these three areas.
Looking back on what has evolved from his kitchen table planning more then seven years ago, Couch said he is more than satisfied with the way his higher education turned out.
“I got an economic degree from college and now I’ve been able to put it to work,” he said.