West Tennessee Comic Con Attracts Fans from Across the Area
The first annual West Tennessee Comic Con was held on Saturday, September 7, 2024, in Jackson, Tennessee at the Carl Perkins Civic Center. From the look of the line that wrapped around the civic center for more than four hours after the doors opened, the event was a highly anticipated one.
The West Tennessee Comic Con is one of three of its kind of events held by Middleton residents Austin and Julie Bell. The Bells, who own Corinth Gaming Center and Video Game Corner both in Corinth, Mississippi, have presented comic cons for nine years. Their resume of experience includes the annual cons they hold in Corinth and South Carolina, and previously in Huntsville, Alabama. The couple combined their prior professional experience with a personal love of Austin’s – video games, comics, and more – and came up with the perfect event concept to share with others.
“My prior professional experience has been in marketing and advertising. My wife’s prior professional experience had been in event planning for weddings and corporate events. We basically took my hobby and decided to make these events,” said Austin. “Because of our family’s backgrounds and our child, we decided to take what is popular in pop culture with Marvel, Star Wars, and video games, and really put a family focused spin on it. We wanted to make it a very fun and inviting, clean environment for families to come enjoy these different and fun things.”
Austin describes their comic cons as “a family-friendly pop culture community event”.
“We really design it to be very mainstream. It is for the people who enjoy super hero movies, enjoyed cartoons while growing up, playing video games, grew up reading comic books, and those that want to have a some of that nostalgia,” said Austin, who shared nostalgia for him is Gilligan’s Island and Donkey Kong Country. “Although it is all very mainstream, you will get those very hardcore fans that attend. We really like to focus on the attendee experience and want them to truly feel like they got way more than the value of their ticket in the value of entertainment.”
Individuals and families came with more than 2,800 in attendance. Some of the featured guests included Jason Marsden (Boy Meets World, Full House, and Hocus Pocus), Stephanie Nadolny (voice actress and vocalist), and Kenny James (Bowser in Mario Brothers). There was a gaming area, cosplay contest, show by magician and illusionist Braden Foster, who had a theatrical performance later that evening, panels, wrestling, bounce house, and more than 100 vendors. Attendees included die hard comic con people to those attending for the first time. Many people stopped by the ticket table to express how much fun they had attending the West Tennessee Comic Con.
West Tennessee Comic Con Photo Gallery
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“The convention was a huge success! The support from the West Tennessee community has made us excited to start planning next year’s event and hope to make it even bigger and better,” said Austin.
The West Tennessee Comic Con will return to Jackson, Tennessee in September 2025. You may learn more on the event website and by following the West Tennessee Comic Con Facebook page.
Make plans to attend the Corinth Comic Con that will be held on Saturday, November 2, 2024.
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