The three-day Planet Comicon comic book and pop culture convention wrapped yesterday in Kansas City. The highlight of the day for thousands of attendees was the one-day visit to the show by Stephen Amell, star of the CW Network’s Arrow TV series. If you’ve been reading borg.com for very long, you’ll know I’ve been tracking the show as the world’s biggest Green Arrow fan, including spending the night with 7,000 other fans in San Diego for the show premiere with Amell and his co-stars back in 2012.
After hanging with his cousin (and CW star of The Flash) Robbie Amell last night at the Elite Comics after party at the Alamo Drafthouse, we got to meet Stephen today. As you’d expect, fans were happy to meet him, and he kept a cheery disposition throughout a whirlwind day of signing autographs and being featured on a panel at the convention.
Because he was only at the show for one day, that meant plenty of lines to get to see him–lines that barely even looked like lines.
But as typical with attendees at comic book conventions, everyone handled it all with great attitudes.
One of the first in line to meet Amell was our friend Mike Steinmetz, who also donned the best Arrow cosplay at the convention this weekend. Mike is the best at fabricating everything from Halo to superheroes. And of course it was great for me to meet the first actor to ever play Oliver Queen on film.
Planet Comicon also made it possible to meet Rachel Skarsten, who just wrapped her role as the Valkyrie Tamsin on the great Syfy Channel series Lost Girl we’ve raved about before here at borg.com. Skarsten previously played Oliver Queen’s long-time partner Dinah Lance aka Black Canary on the TV series Birds of Prey.
Skarsten was the most engaging of all the celebrities at the show this weekend, chatting with Elizabeth C. Bunce and me, talking about Valkyries, her coming appearance as Queen Elizabeth I on CW’s series Reign (she’s excited to be working with Anne of Green Gables’ Megan Follows on the series).
She also shared our enthusiasm for our commissioned Black Canary sketch by Philadelphia-based artist Phil Noto. As with past conventions, we sought out artists for either Green Arrow or Black Canary commissions. Noto’s superb work on the current Black Widow series for Marvel Comics, his retro style such as his work on Trigger Girl 6, and interior work on Birds of Prey several years ago made it a no-brainer to track him down.
Noto was happy to create this for us, and his work as usual is simply stunning. Noto was also interesting and eager to chat, and we hope he comes back to future shows in Kansas City.
C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com
