This Memorial Day weekend, the Phoenix Convention Center is home to the Phoenix Comi-Con; a seemingly insurmountable heaven for geeks and nerds alike.
The State Press will be highlighting the four-day-event with coverage ranging from guest speakers, to exhibits, special announcements, and competitions.
Winding down
As Phoenix Comicon came to a close Sunday, attendees diversified their time between the final few events.
Many of them spent the afternoon listening to lectures from George Takei and Billy Dee Williams, others posed questions to anime voice actors, and the exhibit hall was flooded the entire day with people purchasing discounted memorabilia.
George Takei was the first spotlight speech and largest event of the day with about 2700 audience members.
The famed actor and political activist took the stage at 10:30 a.m. and split his hour between a speech about his life, and questions from the audience.
Takei began by speaking about is how positive he feels the future is going to be.
“We have a great future and we are going to work together as Gene Roddenberry envisioned,” Takei said. “Because he said, ‘the Starship Enterprise was a metaphor for Starship Earth and the strength of a starship lay in its diversity, and working together and working in concert as a team for a common goal,’ and that’s what I sense happening here.”
He quickly went on to speak about his “It’s okay to be Takei” campaign that is fighting a law proposed in Tennessee which makes it a criminal offense for middle and elementary school teachers to use the word gay and discuss homosexuality while instructing.
“Now certainly there is age-appropriate conversation, but to try and pass a law criminalizing speech is outrageous because we have the Constitution of the United States,” Takei said. “The best way to fight this kind of ignorance is to make a mockery of it, so I said in this YouTube PSA, ‘my name Takei rhymes with gay so in Tennessee if teachers want to use my name as a substitute for gay they are more than welcome to do that.”
Takei also spoke on the four years he spent as a child in two American internment camps, and how he is turning the experience into a dark toned musical called “Allegiance.”
Billy Dee Williams took the stage 15 minutes late at 12:15 p.m. to an audience of about 1000.
He didn’t give a speech, but instead had an assistant run the spotlight segment and took questions from the audience.
Williams’ answers were short, and usually consisted of little more than, “it was good.”
Most of the questions centered on his notorious character, Lando Calrissian.
However, one person did ask “boxers or briefs,” and Williams replied “boxers.”
Other popular events included cosplay skits, a question and answer segment with a panel of three voice actors, and a look at upcoming video games with a former developer.
The voice action session featured Mary McGlynn from “Naturo,” Wendee Lee of “Cowboy Beebop,” and Vic Mignogna from “Full Metal Alchemist.”
Questions posed to the three actors varied from favorite characters they have played, preferred studio to work with, and future aspirations.
Reach the reporter at tdmcknig@asu.edu
