Lou Ferrigno to make first Ohio Comic Con appearance

Nen Lin Soo
Thu, 19 Sep 2013 03:01:32 +0000
Campus

The Wizard World Ohio Comic Con is scheduled to take place Sept. 20-22 at the Greater Columbus Convention Center, located at 400 N. High St.
Credit: Courtesy of Wizard World Ohio Comic Con

For the first time since the Comic Con tour started making Ohio one of its stops, TV’s original Incredible Hulk is set to make a guest appearance this weekend at the Wizard World Ohio Comic Con 2013.

Lou Ferrigno, who played The Incredible Hulk in the 1977-1982 TV show of the same name, is set to join other film stars, comic book legends and pop culture icons such as “Star Trek” actor William Shatner and creator of Marvel Comic superheroes, Stan Lee, as Comic Con special guests. The guest appearances are scheduled during Comic Con Friday through Sunday at the Greater Columbus Convention Center.

Naming Columbus his second home, Ferrigno, who trained in the weight room at the Ohio Stadium back in 1973 and 1974 with some friends who attended Ohio State, said he has always been a fan of this annual pop culture convention.

“When I was young, I never had a show like this to go to myself, and I would have given anything to go to a pop culture show like this in Ohio. That’s why right now, I am giving back,” Ferrigno said in an interview with The Lantern.

Comic Con is a three-day convention that celebrates everything in the pop culture world from movies to TV shows to comic books to costume play.

“The generic term, Comic Con, dates back to comic conventions where folks interested in the world of comics got to meet artists, got to spend time with each other, and as time has gone by, it has evolved into adding the other elements of pop culture,” said Jerry Milani, public relations executive of Wizard World.

The organizers dabble into new projects for the convention every year to keep the spark alive among the regular conference-goers and to attract new faces to Comic Con to attend the event, Milani said.

One of the projects slated to debut at the Ohio Comic Con is the Wizard World Film Festival where independent filmmakers from all around the world were encouraged to submit feature length films, which are 30 minutes or longer, shorts, animation and music videos. Applications are set to be judged Saturday and Sunday during the event, and Comic Con attendees are all welcome to partake in the screening of these submitted works.

“Movies are a nice, common theme, and this is an opportunity where people can come and see films done by independent filmmakers, but it also gives those folks the chance to show their work in front of an audience that would really appreciate it,” Milani said.

The Ohio Comic Con is set to hand out limited copies of a variant cover of “The Walking Dead #1” comic to full-price participants in their goodie bags, and the cover artist of the Ohio Comic Con Version, Mike Zeck, is also set to be present to sign those copies.

Nicholas Huelskamp, a recent history graduate who has attended Comic Con for the past seven years, said he loves that the conventions always bring big names to the events.

“It’s cool stuff like that, that you wouldn’t get to experience anywhere else,” Huelskamp said.

Ohio Comic Con three-day weekend tickets are $65. One-day tickets for Friday are $35 each, $45 for Saturday and $40 for Sunday. All tickets are $10 more if purchased the same day at the event venue.

The convention is set to run from 3-8 p.m. on Friday, 10 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Sunday.

The Greater Columbus Convention Center is located at 400 N. High St.