Poplar Bluff saw it’s second annual SEMOcon over the weekend with a variety of events between three days for attendees to enjoy.
SEMOcon is a Comic Con-style convention that serves as a gathering for people interested in topics from anime and manga to comic books and superheroes. Another staple of these kinds of conventions is people attending in costumes of specific characters, also known as cosplay.
SEMOcon organizer, Bill “Mr. Bill” Drake said conventions are like a fraternity because a lot of the same people attend the conventions in the area. Along with organizing SEMOcon, Drake runs a comic book booth at the event.
“It's a tight fraternity and we watch out for each other,” he said. “We see the same people, show after show after show and they come in 'Mr. Bill have you got anything new,' and I'll say no and they'll say 'I didn't get all the stuff I wanted last time anyway' and they'll start looking through the boxes.”
The convention came about after Drake attended the indoor yard sale three years that's hosted at the Black River Coliseum the first weekend in February. He set up a booth of his comic books and other comic-related items.
He saw more response to his items then he expected there and toward the end of the day Black River Coliseum administration approached him about the idea of hosting a Comic Con-style convention at the Coliseum.
“Coliseum management comes walking out … they come up to me and say 'we'd like to have a Comic Con here, would you organize and run one?'” Drake said. “I said, 'oh, man, I don't know. I'm going to have to think about this. Yes.' That's how long it took me.”
After agreeing to organize it, he reached out to the organizers of Cape Comic Con both to get “approval” for it – which he said he didn’t really need, but called it the polite thing to do because of proximity – and get advice about planning it.
Drake said he wanted to have it after school started so that he could have school groups come, something that did happen this year. He said several schools including Sikeston and Clarkton student groups attend along with others.
Drake said attendance for the second year has been bigger than last year’s con.
“It's crazier, busier, more fun, I think better attended,” he said. “Every vendor I've talked to this afternoon has given me a good report of 'yes, I've made money.' So, people have come and they spend money and they leave happy.”
For instance, Drake was selling dollar bills with comic book characters on them for $1 a piece, something he said he's not going to get rich selling, but it's something small that he's seen some of the kids in attendance enjoying. He's been a vendor at conventions for 20 years.
“Selling this little stuff always covers my booth fee wherever I go,” he said.
Along with the vendors, the event included a number of activities from a Star Wars-themed escape room sponsored by Poplar Bluff Municipal Libraries, a cosplay photo booth and contest, video game tournaments, panels with Heroes for Kids and several celebrities.
William Dean said he attended the event mostly for the Yu-Gi-Oh! contest that was during the day Saturday. This was his first time attending a con, which he went with several of his friends, and he considered it a “one chance experience.” Although he did say he's hoping to go to other cons in the area in the future.
Along with the contest, he said, he was interested in some of the celebrities in attendance such as three-time Eisner artist Rich Burchett, who works on DC comics such as Batman, actor John Anderson who has been in “Stranger Things,” and voice artist Tiffany Grant who is best known as Asuka from “Evangelion.”
Andrew Steward attended the convention in cosplay as his Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) character Sithik Shadowborn. He was also promoting the work he's been doing with leather. While the leather armor he wore wasn't one he'd made himself, he makes leather D&D dice bags and is working on expanding into bigger pieces.
“It came from an interest in D&D and I thought making the dice bags would be a good way to give back to that community,” Steward said. “Some people use cloth dice bags, but I think leather looks better and it lasts longer.”
Drake said the con is a chance to give the area a culture that it isn't normally exposed to. Some of the next closest cons are in Cape, St. Louis, Memphis, Tennessee and Little Rock, Arkansas, which can be far away for people from Poplar Bluff to be able to attend.
“Everybody relates comic cons with 'Big Bang Theory,'” he said. “No, not really. That's just a front. They make it sound nerdy so they get people watching the show. In San Diego, there's a 100,000 people who go to that event. It's shoulder to shoulder … Who's going to have the chance to go somewhere like that? For most folks in this region, that's six month salary if they've got a job at all. So I've tried to make this family-friendly and price-point friendly so that anybody can come.”