Wales Comic Con: Homecoming Panels – Stranger Things, Arrowverse, Brian Blessed!

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This weekend marked a special day for Wales Comic-Com as the convention returned to its roots and Wales itself, bringing with it a great array of guests for the one-day event!

A couple of years ago, the organisers at Wales Comic-Com moved away from their home at Glyndwr University, Wrexham and took the event to Telford. Whilst the two-day “Telford Takeover” will return in December this year, this marked a triumphant return to Wrexham, their spiritual home, much to the delight of Con-goers.

This was the first time I’d been to the Wrexham version of the event, but it really had a wonderful atmosphere. Just incredibly friendly people, from the other con-goers to the staff, there was a definite excitement at being back at the Glyndwr venue. It would be fair to say, it is a smaller event than Telford and split over a number of different buildings. One building had the main theatre (where I spend most of my time recording panels) and a separate room for photoshoots. Another housed a gaming area, with a mix of new and retro games, alongside students from the University showing off some of the games they had been developing from their courses. Lastly, the main hall which housed the guest signing, along with a host of geeky merchandise for you to purchase.

As I mentioned, I mainly focused on the panels, as I do with Telford, so the only chance I really had to look around the main hall was during the Cosplay Masquerade. That, of course, means I didn’t get to video that, and also didn’t see much cosplay, as all of the cosplayers were in the theatre whilst I was outside! However, if you take a look around social media, there were some really impressive costumes!

The Guests

As always with Wales Comic-Com, they manage to get a really fun line-up of guests. People who were there but not doing panels included Peter Davison (‘Doctor Who’), Mark Lewis Jones and Alexander Vlahos (‘Outlander’), Hugh Spight (‘Star Wars’) and Jet from ‘Gladiators’!

There were five panels in total, however, two of the guests requested their panels not be recorded. One was ‘Red Dwarf’ star Chris Barrie, which I understand as he does a lot of Comic-Cons, and possibly didn’t want his best Con stories online! He was supposed to be doing a panel with co-star Danny John-Jules but ended up doing it on his own as Danny was feeling “a bit under the weather”… As Chris mentioned, if you’ve ever seen Danny at a show and how much energy he has, you know it takes a LOT to bring him down! Chris was great on his own though (and the interviewer did joke about actually being able to ask questions without Danny taking over and causing mayhem, as he has a tendency to do!) Chris did mention there are no current plans for a new season of ‘Red Dwarf’ although Doug and the cast are up for it. There are apparently some business things above his pay grade which need to be sorted out first. He did however mention something about them having done a table read of a script not directly ‘Red Dwarf’ but with the same cast which he hopes they can pull together… Which had me intrigued!

The other missing panel was for Stefan Kapicic, aka the man behind Colossus in the ‘Deadpool’ movies. I suspect his reasoning for not wanting it recorded was due to him having just come off two very turbulent flights, and being concerned about saying something which would get him in trouble with the Marvel overlords in his jetlagged state, which I totally understand! Stefan was lovely, really fun, and did a wonderful panel. He did mention that (assuming all goes to plan) they hope to shoot ‘Deadpool 3’ next year.

Brian Blessed Panel

The first of the three panels I was allowed to record was actor, writer, adventurer, and national treasure Brian Blessed. He was utterly delightful. There technically was an interviewer there to ask questions, but Brian just moved a chair to the front of the stage and monologued for forty minutes. We had stories about ‘Flash Gordon’, meeting the Queen, punching a polar bear, and becoming a cosmonaut, plus so much more! Check it out below!

Arrowverse Panel – Matt Ryan (Constantine) and Paul Blackthorne (Quentin Lance)

Another great panel with two wonderful guests. Matt Ryan talks about why Constantine was “removed” from ‘Legends Of Tomorrow’, the cancellation of the show, and of the love he has for the character. Paul Blackthorne talks crossovers, how he discovered Quentin was no more, and working on ‘Arrow’. A really interesting and entertaining panel all around.

Stranger Things Panel – Grace Van Dien (Chrissy) and Alec Utgoff (Alexei)

These two were wonderful together, only made even more surprising by the fact they had met for the first time in the green room before coming on stage! Grace Van Dien starred as head cheerleader Chrissy Cunningham in Season 4, whereas Alec played Russian scientist Dr. Alexei in Season 3. Lots of joking around about character deaths, and Alexei’s beloved “Slurpees” do make an appearance!

If you want to know more about Wales Comic-Con, you can find their website at walescomiccon.com. It’s a really fun event I can totally recommend, and well worth a visit if you can get to Telford (which, to be clear, is not in Wales) or Wrexham (which actually is in Wales!) The next event is in December 2022 in Telford, and I would urge you to go and get tickets!