Alamo City Comic Con grows the geek love beyond San Antonio

Faye Mortis (left) as Beetlejuice and Shauna Mobley as Lydia at Alamo City Comic Con, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016. Faye Mortis (left) as Beetlejuice and Shauna Mobley as Lydia at Alamo City Comic Con, Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016. Photo: Alma E. Hernandez, For The San Antonio Express News / Alma E. Hernandez / For The San Antonio Express News Photo: Alma E. Hernandez, For The San Antonio Express News / Alma E. Hernandez / For The San Antonio Express News Image 1 of / 27 Caption Close Alamo City Comic Con grows the geek love beyond San Antonio 1 / 27 Back to Gallery

You know you’ve reached the ultimate cross section of pop culture geekery and puro San Antonio charm when SpongeBob SquarePants himself shares his love for conjunto great Flaco Jimenez.

“Flaco is bigger than any rock star to me. I’m honorary Tejano,” said Tom Kenny, who in addition to voicing the title cartoon character of “SpongeBob SquarePants” also voices the Ice King in the hit animated series “Adventure Time.” Oh, and just happened to have Jimenez play at his 50th birthday party.

Such big geek love with S.A. flavor was in full effect Saturday at Alamo City Comic Con, the locally-born pop culture and comic book extravaganza. ACCC opened Friday and wraps Sunday at the Convention Center.

RELATED: All the celebrities coming to S.A. for Alamo City Comic Con

ACCC continues to draw bigger names from the big and small screen, with Kenny one of several new famous faces to ACCC, or “Nerdi Gras: Mardi Gras for nerds,” as he likes to call such events.

This year’s biggest ACCC star by far was David Tennant, best known to “Doctor Who” fans as that titular Time Lord from the British sci-fi series, though equally familiar to Netflix watchers as the villainous Kilgrave from Marvel’s gritty superhero series “Jessica Jones.” Other previous “Doctor Who” stars on-hand included Billie Piper and John Barrowman, who was expected to arrive later in the day.

Speaking of Netflix stars, Millie Bobby Brown and other kid actors from the hit series “Stranger Things” also charmed con-goers. As did stars from Netflix’s “Daredevil,” such as Charlie Cox, who plays the title hero and his blind lawyer alter-ego Matt Murdock.

Cox said he loved “breakfast down by the canal” — as in the River Walk — likening it to Venice, Italy. The English actor also recalled how jealous he was of his friend Andrew Garfield for landing the role of a different superhero he always thought was cool: Spider-Man.

“I never thought that I would get an opportunity to have a similar kind of role,” Cox said.

ACCC also welcomed it share of famous faces from much closer to home. Take San Antonio native and sci-fi luminary Summer Glau of “Firefly,” “Arrow” and “Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles” fame.

“It’s the only convention in the world where I can sleep in my own bed and just come in to town,” Glau said. “I’ve been looking forward to doing Alamo City Comic Con for years, and I’ve had a wonderful reception so far. It’s great, great to be around all of my hometown friends. And I think it turned out great this year.”

Greeting fans the next table over: only the Alamo Heights High School graduate most likely to succeed as a cyborg police officer. That would be Peter Weller, best known as RoboCop from the beloved film franchise.

Putting the comic in Alamo City Comic Con were numerous professional sequential art talents, including famed “Batman” artist Greg Capullo and legendary DC Comics writer Marv Wolfman.

Even on that end ACCC had its share of San Antonio standouts, with the likes of Godzilla comic artist and S.A. native Matt Frank and San Antonio-based comic writer and novelist David Liss.

Liss was part of a new ACCC feature called Young Adventurers, a gathering of scribes who pen imaginary adventures for kids and middle school-aged readers. ACCC also introduced the Worlds Beyond Gallery, a handful of professional fantasy and science fiction illustrators that include San Antonio’s own Hugo Award-winning artist John Picacio.

“Nobody could have imagined this 10 or 15 years ago that cons would be something you could do with your kids on a weekend,” said Liss, promoting “Rebels,” the second book in his “Randoms” sci-fi trilogy. “You see whole families here, and it’s great to have content that appeals to people of all ages, or different ages.”

Of course, the real stars at any comic con have to be the cosplayers — the many attendees who dress up as their favorite characters like every day is Halloween. Especially when that insatiable appetite to play dress up is shared by parents and their kids, too.

ACCC welcomed cosplayers of all sorts, with tons of Batman, Harley Quinn and the Joker cosplayers in attendance, along with several spins on Negan, the sadistic villain with the barbed wire-wrapped baseball bat from “The Walking Dead.” Though with Tennant on the scene, plenty of con-goers also rocked the sonic screwdrivers and other outfits and accessories of their favorite “Doctor Who” Time Lord and his supporting characters.

Desiree Marciel from Austin dressed as Donna Noble, one of several companions who traveled with Tennant’s Tenth Doctor on “Doctor Who.” Her 2-year-old son Joey, dressed in the pinstripe suit of Tennant’s Doctor, nestled in a stroller designed to look like the iconic blue police call box known as the TARDIS from the sci-fi series.

Did we mention Marciel’s husband, also named Joey, came up with the design? And that he was dressed as the stocky Sontaran warrior Strax from “Doctor Who,” too?

“We’re all going to go up there (to meet Tennant),” Marciel said. “My husband’s in line since we couldn’t fit the TARDIS in there.”

Meanwhile, Carrie Routhier from Boerne, at her first-ever comic convention, bore the garb and curly wig to match “Doctor Who” heroine River Song, while Routhier’s 11-year-old daughter Amelia, also at her first comic con, didn’t need such hair supplements to sport the look of the red-headed “Doctor Who” companion Amy Pond.

They were joined by Amelia’s sister Dahlia, dressed as the furry Eevee from the Pokémon franchise, and Amelia’s fellow Girl Scout Samantha Lowry, dressed as Rey from “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

“The girls and I actually discovered ‘Doctor Who’ together,” Carrie said. “So that was really fun.”

That fun should only get bigger, and even beyond the Convention Center. ACCC founder Alfredo “Apple” De La Fuente plans to expand the event virtually online.

But ultimately, the Alamo City Comic Con experience comes down to experiencing first-hand what makes it so San Antonio.

“You know, one celebrity had said it and now most celebrities are starting to say that thing about Alamo City Comic Con — that it’s the show with heart,” De La Fuente said.

rguzman@express-news.net