Motor City Comic Con, or why I hate Walter Koenig

Today we went to the Motor City Comic Con. It's apparently the biggest comic book convention in MI. But there weren't too many comic book people I was interested in there. However, there were a few celebrities I was interested in seeing.

After getting a late start due to last night's shenanigans*, we drove the hour or so and paid our $20 admission fees (thanks Jay!). We immediately saw the line for an autograph by Billy Dee Williams (you remember Lando Calrissian, right?). It was a very long line, so we did not partake. But we snapped this (and I apologize for the graininess):


But then something else caught our eye:


That's right, it's the Monkee Mobile. Mickey Dolenz was there too, but we didn't get his autograph either.

I'm not too much of a car person (yet - more details on that at a later date) but there was one car I was excited to see. Jay said "Oh look, it's KITT" and I said what? and he said "KITT! From Knight Rider!"
I turned around and saw the awesome black car and squealed something to the effect of "ohmygodIloveKnightRiderEEEEEEEE" but then caught myself, and in a very calm, demure fashion, said "oh, isn't that interesting." Then I took a bunch of pictures of it.


No, I couldn't touch it, and no it didn't talk. And there was no Hoff to be seen. But I was still excited.

You can see the General Lee in the background there, which had the photo ops of standing next to it ($5) or sitting in it ($10) which I didn't want. Actually there were 2 General Lees, but one of them had Ontario plates and that confused me. I shoulda gotten a picture of that, but I was too distracted by KITT.

And then - I saw Walter Koenig, aka Chekov from Star Trek. It was then that I realized I coulda brought my Star Trek photo that is signed by Shatner. Koenig coulda signed it too, I thought. Nobody is talking to this guy. So I walk right up and make small talk. It is then that I find out that Walter Koenig is a very grumpy man, and apparently he hates conventions. I also find out that it costs 30-something dollars to get an autograph, and $25 to take a picture of him with my own camera. I didn't find these things out directly from him, either. They were via his mouthpiece manager, who was sitting right next to him, also not smiling. I think I got "hi" out of Koenig himself, but since I was not willing to fork over obscene amounts of cash, that was all I got.

Throughout our romp at the con, I kept bitterly peeking over at Koenig. He was never smiling, even when someone did shovel out the dough to be in a picture with him. This was the happiest I ever saw him:


So I was mad at him. Why come to a thing like this if you're not going to enjoy it? Well I guess if you have nothing better to do...

Next to my new arch nemesis was Alan Ruck, aka Cameron from Ferris Bueller. Nobody was talking to him either. So I marched up, and he was smiling. Then I had the following conversation with Cam:

me: Are you having fun here?
Cam: Yeah, this is a blast! Who's not having fun?
me: Koenig. He's very grumpy.
Cam: Oh, he might pretend to hate these things, but he loves em. That's just him.
me: Well he does a very convincing job of it.

Autographs & pictures with Cam were also more than I could afford, but if I was going to spend that kind of dough on someone, it would be him. He was awesome and totally nice, and genuinely happy to see me. And I respected him so much for that, that I didn't even snap a cameo like with the others.

After a little while, we left. I didn't have any specific comics I was looking for, and all the celebs wanted crazy amounts of money (Lou Ferrigno and Erik Estrada, I'm talking to you too!). So we went home. There were lots of people in costume, but it wasn't as much fun as say, a sci-fi convention would be. So I'm sure I'll go to one of those soon and you'll hear all about how I had to fight Walter Koenig, and how George Takei would totally help me.




* By shenanigans, of course I mean that we stayed up late to watch Craig Ferguson, thus resulting in the oversleeping.