Jaime Milner and the team behind the massively successful Wales Comic Con: Telford Takeover event took to social media to announce not only the dates for their big return next year – Saturday 24th-Sunday 25th April 2021 – but also the first names fans will be able to see at the show.
Returning to their new home of the Telford International Centre (the venue which WCC managed to get one show in before the country went into lockdown, due to the coronavirus pandemic), Wales Comic Con are determined to make Spring 2021 a massive return to some kind of normality for comic con fans.
Jaime and the team know they face an uphill battle; this effort has to go some way to restoring some kind of faith in the comic con community as a whole, with many event organisers having to postpone or cancel their shows relatively close to the show dates, in order to keep contractual and insurance obligations with venues and talent agencies and fans feeling like the rug has been pulled from underneath them too many times this summer.
However, the first four names will hopefully provide some kind of foundation for what’s to be announced between now and next April – fans of BUFFY, TRUE BLOOD, TEEN WOLF and, yes, THE A-TEAM may be happy with last nights revelations.
James Marsters – star of BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLAYER, ANGEL, TORCHWOOD and SMALLVILLE – is always a fun draw… and you can only hope he packs his guitar with him in case he feels like belting out a tune.
Holland Roden may have made a name for herself in the likes of TEEN WOLF (as Lydia Martin) and CHANNEL ZERO: BUTCHER’S BLOCK (as Zoe Woods) but she also has a couple of film projects waiting for cinemas to reopen and to see the light of day – fingers crossed ESCAPE ROOM 2 will have an audience by the time April 2021 rolls around, give Holland something fresh and new to talk about…
Dirk Benedict might not look like he does in this promo photo but the years have still been kind to the star of THE A-TEAM and BATTLESTAR GALACTICA, and IRL the man still has charisma pouring out of every pore: a consummate comic con mainstay and always a hit with fans.
And, last but certainly not least, Kristin Bauer Van Straten will be crossing the pond and having her TRUE BLOOD and ONCE UPON A TIME fans coming out of the woodwork to say hi as she charms the pants off a willing comic con audience. The start of a vampiric invasion? We’ll be watching the future guest announcements for the event over the coming months…
But there’s more! Literally, as I’m typing this on an early Thursday morning, notifications are popping up already – doesn’t Jaime ever sleep?? One for the comics fans…
James O’Barr is the original creator of seminal comic THE CROW and doesn’t often travel over to the UK so next April will be an opportunity for formerly tall, skinny gaunt goths dressed in My Chemical Romance t-shirts to step out into the Telford light and meet their hero (I say ‘formerly’ – that book did come out in 1989, after all! Time marches on, as they say…!)
Wales Comic Con is a long-running show that has always done its best to evolve and move with the times and pressures of hosting a modern comic con, even taking to the extremes of crossing country borders in order to do it. The show has become simply one of the largest pop culture conventions we have on this side of the pond – here’s to seeing what the face of comic cons in 2021 here in the United Kingdom will look like, with Wales Comic Con being one of the boldest and brashest of the lot.
We’ll be keeping an eye on further announcements as they drop, as well as making plans to have a presence at the show itself over the weekend. Watch this space.
Find out more and purchase your tickets for the April 2021 event at: https://www.walescomiccon.com/
