LA Comic Con 2024: Headliners and Pop Culture Galore

2024’s LA Comic Con, held October 4 – 6, was three days of celebrities, talks, pop culture galore. The weekend included over 300 panels; celebrity photos and autographs from celebrities including Michael J. Fox, Ewan McGregor, Christina Ricci, Tara Strong, and more; over 800 exhibitors selling everything from comics to clothes; and – of course – cosplay a’plenty.

Founded in 2011 as Comikaze Expo, the convention has rebranded a couple of times and is considered a convention ‘created by fans for fans’. This year, they partnered with IGN to broadcast highlights of the event. This is my third time attending, and my schedule included programming, pretty costumes, and press options.

On Friday, my primary mission was to walk the exhibit hall. Filling two halls at the Los Angeles Convention Center, I managed to walk the floor taking it all in. I also managed to get great seats for the “Spotlight on Rosario Dawson” on the main stage, which covered her career from Rent to Josie and the Pussycats, to – of course – her turn as Ahsoka. (My favorite bit: her saying “DuJour means family!”) I also managed to make it to the Freeplay Zone, filled with independent games ready to be played. I tried out SWAPMEAT, a ‘co-op third-person shooter where you fight weirdo aliens and steal their meat’ from One More Game. While there, I interviewed Chris Heintz, who does the company’s marketing, and will hopefully get that out later this week.

Saturday was wall-to-wall busy, for better or for worse. I started out attending the “GeekFest Presents: Women of Horror” panel (you can see an excerpt from the panel on The Geekiary’s Instagram). This panel was fabulous: moderated by Vera Vanguard, it had Devanny Pinn, Gigi Gustin, Janeshia Adams-Ginyard, Michaella Russell, and Naomi Grossman talking about their work and how they are changing the industry. I did a bit of liveblogging of the panel on The Geekiary’s BlueSky, but my favorite quote had to be Gustin’s, “I kept dying by page 23,” as to why she’s creating her own horror projects. I got some of their contact information and hope to schedule interviews with some of them soon.

Following that, I ran to the main stage to catch the What We Do in the Shadows panel. While I never was a huge fan of the movie, I absolutely adore the television show and have quickly become a fan of Harvey Guillén, who plays Guillermo de la Cruz. While the panel originally was slated to have him, Kristen Schall, and Kayvan Novak, Novak apparently had to back out for some reason, so it was just Guillén and Schall. They both seemed shocked at the fan reaction to the show and to the con and seemed in awe during the hour on the stage. I liveblogged the panel on my own X account, with them both having a ball. On the silly side, the best part had to be the two of them singing the praises of poutine and talking about what they would’ve done had there been a musical episode of the series. On the more serious, it was definitely Guillén discussing the coming out of Guillermo’s character (“It shouldn’t be called ‘coming out’: it should be called ‘letting in’.”).

I tried staying for the “Spotlight on Ewan McGregor”, but the crowd was immense, and the sound was horrible if you weren’t directly in front of the stage. So after getting a few photos for a friend of mine who’s a huge fan of the actor, I headed to my next appointment.

While I missed the actual panel, I managed to get to the after-panel press for “Behind the Masks: Movement Performers’ Role in the Video Game Strike”. The panel was about the SAG-AFTRA strike, the rise of AI in video gaming specifically and entertainment overall, and how they do their jobs. Moderated by Linsay Rousseau, the discussion had movement performers Andi Norris, Seth Allyn Austin, Jasiri Booker, and Sarah Elmaleh. As with the SWAPMEAT interview, I hope to have the article about this panel done this week.

My final panel of the day was “Post-Production Workshop: Behind-the-Scenes of Film and TV”. Hosted by Impact24, creatives from Only Murders in the Building, The Silent Planet, and Tony Hawk: Until the Wheels Fall Off discussed what a post-production meeting looked like and delved into the hows of filmmaking. As with the “Behind the Masks” one, I didn’t have a chance to attend the actual panel but managed to make it to the press room after (where, trying to remember which press event I was at, came up with Only Murders in the Shadows, which I would pay good money to see!). This is also on my list of ‘things to do’ this week.

I’m not sure if it’s because I’m not as young as I was or if I was coming down with something, but I felt like crap on Sunday and ended up not going to the con for the last day. However, one of my press options had been Impact24’s “That’s a Wrap!: Filmmaking with Entertainment Creatives”. The discussion was about how to bring a project from development to post-production. However, since I had interviewed some of the people at their “Behind the Camera of Film and TV Shows” panel at this year’s WonderCon and had expressed interest, I managed to schedule a Zoom panel with panelist (and composer) Guy Moon and moderator (and writer) Victoria Male, which is on our YouTube channel.

LA Comic Con is often compared to San Diego Comic Con and is considered Los Angeles’ largest pop culture event of the year. On the good side, it was big in terms of getting names (where else are you going to be able to get a photo op with Ewan McGregor AND Hayden Christensen) and having lots of options for your entertainment and shopping needs. On the bad side, it was big in terms of that it was extremely crowded and was a ‘day of waiting’ if you wanted to see anything on the main stage and actually see something. It felt way too spread out, meaning most of my day felt like me running from one event to another.

While I enjoyed myself, as I mentioned, it wiped me out pretty quickly. It felt more like ‘work’ at times and less like fun. (It doesn’t help that LA Comic Con doesn’t give the press any special treatment aside from the free entry.) Unlike Midsummer Scream, their app was actually somewhat helpful – with a live map among the usual features like schedules and an exhibitor list.

They’ve already announced the dates for next year: September 26 – 28, 2025. More information can be found on their website. See a highlight reel of my experience below.

Author: Angie Fiedler Sutton

Angie Fiedler Sutton is a writer, podcaster, and all-round fangirl geek. She has been published in Den of Geek, Stage Directions, LA Weekly, The Mary Sue, and others.

She also produces her own podcast, Contents May Vary, where she interviews geeky people about geeky things. You can see all her work (and social media channels) at angiefsutton.com.

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