There’s a fake black dragon draped over Janet Alvarez’s shoulder.

Barf from “Spaceballs” is roaming around, and so is a child – with a plastic knife, splattered with play blood in hand and dressed as Chucky, that creepy doll that comes alive in horror movies.

After a one-year hiatus in Los Angeles, the popular WonderCon is back in Anaheim through Sunday, and that means fans are out in force for one of the largest comic, science-fiction and pop culture conventions on the West Coast.

“It’s hard growing up a nerd,” said Crystal Schaefer, 22, of Riverside.” You get bullied and harassed. But here, I feel free.”

She had on pointed dog ears and was carrying an empty Milk bone box, dressed as Barfolomew, the half-man, half-dog played by John Candy in the 1980s science-fiction spoof “Spaceballs.”

“I’m at home,” Schaefer said.

A smaller version of San Diego’s Comic-Con, organizers are expecting 60,000-plus to converge on the Anaheim Convention Center this weekend. Here, they’ll geek out on everything nerd – buying toys and the latest comic books, participating in panels, and learning how to expertly play a card game, Magic: The Gathering.

They will see a premiere of “Class,” a spinoff of the British sci-fi TV show, “Doctor Who,” and get a preview of what’s coming at Warner Bros.

“There’s a lot of camaraderie here,” said David Glanzer, a spokesman for WonderCon, in existence since 1987. “I’ve been coming to comic conventions since 1978, and these conventions … have grown considerably.

“It’s a place where people with the same common interest and appreciation can come together,” he said.

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The convention moved to Los Angeles last year because of construction at the Anaheim Convention Center. Glanzer said WonderCon will remain in Anaheim for at least the next couple of years.

On the exhibit floor, comic artwork and merchandise hang in various exhibit booths. A Newport Beach retailer, Toddland, has a booth decorated like the hamburger counter of the Fox animated TV show “Bob’s Burgers.” Indiana artist Terry Huddleston has his pop culture booth festooned with the colorful faces of comic book and video game characters.

Fans lined up with a toy in hand to grab a signature from Ashley Eckstein, the voice of Ahsoka Tano on “Star Wars Rebels,” an animated TV show and the founder of HerUniverse, a superhero clothing brand for women.

The Hollywood Science Fiction Museum decked out its booth like the Enterprise from “Star Trek”; fans can sit in the captain’s chair and take pictures with life-like wax models of Mr. Spock and Dr. Leonard McCoy.

Meanwhile, droves of fans walked around dressed in cosplay as their favorite movie or television character. Think three days of Halloween.

Wearing a blonde wig with curls and a red jumpsuit, Vincent Robinette, 54, came from Ogden, Utah dressed as Ralph Hinkley from “The Greatest American Superhero.”

“I’m here to show these youngin’s what a real American hero looks like,” said Robinette, an electrical engineer in real life. “Ralph Hinkley was a special-education teacher and helped saved the world.”

Alvarez, the woman with a dragon on her shoulder, wore a robe, a pointed hat and walked with an emerald-colored walking stick. She was a dragon wrangler.

At age 70, it’s never too old to dress up.

“I don’t believe in fairies and dragons,” said Alvarez, who lives in Santa Ana. “But I’d like to think if I were to ever go there, it’s a safe place, far safer than here.”

The backbones of WonderCon, and Comic-Con, too, are the artists and the comic books they produce, and those who buy them. Although some only know the characters from TV and the movies.

“People don’t really get to know these characters well, only from the movies they watch,” said Giovanni Borunda, 33, of Los Angeles, who started collecting comics at 9 and has amassed 3,000.

“But now, it’s more accepted,” he said. “I’m no longer the unpopular kid in the comic book store. Girls will actually talk to me.”

In the far end of the Convention Center, the lines weren’t as long and a small dedicated few gathered. Dustin Nguyen, an artist known for his work on Batman comic books, and Mark Waid, who made his name for his words for The Flash, Superman and Captain America, signed autographs.

Nearby is Gerimi Burleigh, a toy designer from Woodland Hills selling his self-published comic book, “Morningstar.”

Burleigh remembers as a four-year-old sleeping on Spider-Man bed sheets and nodding to sleep while reading a Spider-Man comic.

“WonderCon and comic conventions have become really popular,” he said, “There’s more fandom and movies but it’s expanding the world of comics to a wider audience. It gives kids and people a chance to explore art and opens a world of wonders.”

Contact the writer: 714-796-2443 or jpimentel@scng.com