'Texas Confidential' Author Speaks at Comicpalooza 2011

Author Michael O. Varhola gave the first presentation on his latest book, Texas Confidential: Sex, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in the Lone Star State, at the Comicpalooza (http://www.comicpalooza.com) fan convention in Houston, Texas, over Memorial Day weekend. During the talk, Varhola revealed some of the most interesting things he discovered while researching and writing the book and took a wide variety of questions from attendees.

Varhola also gave Comicpalooza’s first-ever presentation on the paranormal, “America’s Haunted Road Trip.” This talk tied took its name from series of books by Clerisy Press dedicated to haunted sites people can visit of which Varhola’s Ghosthunting Maryland and Ghosthunting Virginia are a part. The interactive presentation was very well attended and included lots of questions and comments from attendees, prompting convention organizers to begin looking at ways to include an expanded paranormal track at Comicalooza 2012.

Some 10,000 people decided to spend a big part of their Memorial Day weekend at Comicpalooza, a relatively new fantasy, sci-fi, and comic book convention in Houston that has quickly become the biggest and hottest event of its kind in Texas. The fourth-annual event was held May 27-29 at the George R. Brown Convention Center and was attended by many people from the San Antonio area, who made the relatively short road trip down IH 10 to the Lone Star State’s biggest city.

“It’s really been amazing,” said John Simons, the “guilty party,” as he puts it, behind the organization of Comicpalooza. “We’ve had a lot of great events, a lot of them you don’t see at other cons. Edward James Olmos, for example, playing laser tag against some storm troopers.” (For the less nerdy who might be reading this, Olmos battled the robotic Cylons in his role as Admiral Adama in the popular Battlestar Galactica series, while storm troopers are from Star Wars, making for amusing cross- franchise interaction.)

Olmos was only one of the popular guests at the convention, and others included Sam Trammell (True Blood), Tony Todd (Candyman), and Marina Sirtis (Star Trek: The Next Generation).

Simons also said that the convention was used as a venue for making several significant industry announcements.

“Bob Layton wrote a screenplay and Olmos Productions is going to film the movie,” Simons said. “There’s a new feature-length animated movie that’s going to be based on Tad Williams’ fan-favorite book Tailchaser’s Song and that was announced here. Steve Jackson Games, the largest game manufacturer in Texas, made some announcements here. We had a lot of that sort of thing going on.”

Other features of Comicpalooza included a sci-fi/horror/adventure film festival running across all three days of the convention, panel discussions, Q&A sessions, demonstrations, a huge dealers room with hundreds of exhibitors, and dozens of artists showing off their work.

“We had a lot of things you don’t see at other cons, like indoor Quidditch matches (ala Harry Potter), roller derby, professional wrestling matches. Crazy stuff!” Simons said. “It was a fantastic con.”

Comics, as suggested by the name of the convention, were also a theme of the event, and a number of significant comic creators and artists were in attendance, including Larry Elmore, Athur Suydm, Brian Denham, and many more. Gaming, the spiritual cousin of comics, was also represented with industry guests that included legend Steve Jackson, Chris Perkins, Hyrum Savage, and Chris Syms.

Comicpalooza was first held July 19, 2008, in the lobby of the Alamo Drafthouse Theater in Katy, Texas, as a simple signing event set to coincide with the release of “The Dark Knight.” Comicpalooza was conceived as a means of helping local comic creators reach the media and the public. It was fun for all dozen-or-so comic creators who showed up.

Comicpalooza 2009 was re-imagined as a two-day comic book festival set in a local mall, again with a strong emphasis on promoting creators, connecting with the media, and fostering new growth in the fanbase. It featured guests like David Mack, Terry Moore, Steve Scott, Tom Hodges, Mat Johnson, Andy Kuhn, Dirk Strangely and others, and added events like special screenings, Q&A sessions, and the charity live art benefit. It drew more fans than any other Houston comic convention in 15 years.

Comicpalooza was re-invented again in 2010 as a multi-format convention celebrating not just comics, but also sci-fi and fantasy, horror, steampunk, new media, movies, film, and gaming of all types.

According to its organizers, Comicpalooza's mission is to provide the best and biggest annual multi-format pop culture convention in the southwest region of the United States, serving not only the fans of comics, science fiction, fantasy, video and table top gaming, anime, music and film, but also as a trade show and showcase for the studios, publishers, and manufacturers in those industries. And in 2011, it certainly hit all of those marks.

“Two years ago, this was the largest sci-fi and comics convention in Houston in the last 20 years,” Simons said. “Our lowest growth since then has been 83 percent, so we’re growing really fast. The area we now have for all our functions and activities is almost 300,000 square feet. So, Comicpalooza is now by far the biggest convention of its kind in Texas.”