On a brisk Thursday morning outside of Meow Wolf Denver, NORM, the intergalactic alien life form (think if Jim Henson and Basquiat collaborated to make a puppet) who travels between Meow Wolf’s quantum realms gave a press conference in the sci-fi, cyberpunk, trash-future aesthetic newsstand named Convergence Station. The newsstand is filled with space art postcards and comics (based on dreams of local Denverite writers) from artists around the world. NORM and Andrew Moyes, VP of FAN EXPO have good weird fun to celebrate their partnership for this weekend’s comic convention. Formally Denver Pop Culture Con and before that, and more simply named, Denver Comic Con, will now be going through its third transformation, and the first after the COVID pandemic shut everything down. Originally cancelled from it’s regular summer time event, FanExpo similar to New York Comic Con will be testing the waters under a post-vaccinated world of fandom.
Charlie LaGreca and others first conceived of Denver Comic Con eight years ago and brought a comic book convention to downtown Denver. The success of that first year was larger than anything expected and continued to grow with each passing year. The nerd force runs strong in Denver. The weight of the Con’s success also contributed to its behind the scenes implosion. A huge dispute broke out between LaGreca and the other founders. LaGreca would later create the independent comic convention, DINK while the remaining founders would continue the convention as Denver Pop Culture Con.
The aftermath left many of the local and independent comic creators feeling alienated and unwanted. There were constant grumblings of mismanagement of the convention, and seemingly abruptly before the pandemic, the announcement was that Fan Expo had taken over the reigns. So far, the word on the street has been favorable; actually paid interns and Pop Culture Classroom thriving since the new management. Oh, and they were able to book the likes of William Shatner fresh off his space trip. Like Meow Wolf, Fan Expo is looking to bridge both the big and small, the universal and esoteric. Time will tell if they are successful, but with the efforts of so many talented artists contributing to both endeavors there is more than ample reason to satiate one’s curiosity by checking out Fan Expo this weekend.
Fan Expo is happening October 29th-31st, 2021 at the Denver Convention Center
Meow Wolf has been a Suspect Press sponsor in the past.
