Emily VanCamp SpaceCon 2026

After Olivier Ritchers, I got in Emily VanCamp’s line. When I handed over the photo, I asked for a darker blue. I told her I was trying to match the color of the jacket. I also told I didn’t want the color to ‘clash’. I‘m a guy. I’m not sure I used the word right or the context was right but I tried.

I thought she looked classy and elegant in the photo; I didn’t want the color choice to be distracting. She assured me it would look nice. I think it does.

Maybe I need to have my testosterone checked….?

AH

Olivier Richters SpaceCon 2026

Sometimes, I find a photo that really tickles me and I can’t wait to hand it over to the celebrity to see reaction.  Even though Alan Ritchson (Reacher) cancelled his con appearance, Olivier Ritchers still showed and I was excited.

Olivier is huge. I’m 6’ 3” and I’m dwarfed. He was all smiles and chatted with everyone. Someone was filming content and Olivier would pause and talk to the camera.

As I got to the front of the table, the handlers looked at my photo. Nothing but crickets behind their eyes. That’s okay. The photo ain’t for them.

Then it was my turn. We shook hands. I tried hard to give a strong handshake but I could tell, he never felt it. He didn’t squeeze back incase he hurt me. I was not offended.

He looked down at the photo and stepped back laughing. He looked over the tables photos to find it.  I mentioned I printed this one myself. He quickly said it was staged for a day that Alan was off set. It was something fun to do. He turned to the handlers and told them. He was happy to see this. I made him happy.

As he signed, I mentioned the video of him and his friend in black suits acting like body guards. Then he asked if he should do more. I, of course, said yes. He tuned to the camera and said the public wants more. They have to do more.

With my mission accomplished, I left for the next autograph.

AH

Tom Hiddleston SpaceCon 2026

The second and last autograph I had for Friday was TomHiddleston. That was supposed to be at 7 PM. The previous autograph was 5 hours earlier. Makes for a very long day of doing nothing.

When I got in line, I learned Tom was still doing photo ops (running late) and had about 50 or more people that he had not finished before the photo ops. They would be done before he started on us.

Not really an issue other than it’s getting to my bedtime. The wrinkle is Tom had a panel starting at 8 PM. There is no way he will get to me by 8 PM. At 7:30, Tom returned from the photo ops.  I’m checking the convention schedule to find if Tom is signing on Sunday. I don’t expect he will get to me. I really don’t want to at the convention until 10 PM or later. I’m tired and getting cranky…maybe I’m ‘hangry’ and need a Snickers. I rather leave and come back another day if possible.

As the line management people started checking tickets, I stopped a guy and asked if Tom was coming back after the panel to sign.  He said, no. BUT Tom would be signing for everyone before the panel started. They were delaying the panel.

To me that made sense as those people had places to sit. We were standing in place on hard concrete.

With Tom’s return, he was put into overdrive. He started signing and the line moved at a steady pace. Until your feet and back ache, you don’t appreciate how nice it is to move a step every 10 or 15 seconds. It took 40 minutes until I was in front of Loki himself and watched him sign my photo and thank him for coming to Texas.

He signed VERY thickly with the green paint pen. It took a long time to dry. The San Antonio humidity did not help. I left the photo out to dry for over 36 hours…just to be sure.

While a little too heavy handed, I like it. Even better, there was an extra charge for the character name. Tom added that without even asking, meaning I didn’t pay for it. While I really like having the character name or quote on a photo, I don’t like to pay for it and I really don’t like when that extra is almost as expensive as the autograph.

I left a happy albeit tire puppy. The car had a new tire and The Wife picked me up near the building. I didn’t even have walk far.

AH

Adrianne Palicki SpaceConSA 2026

Other than a tire blowout on I10, the drive to San Antonio was uneventful.  The Wife and I found a safe space to pull over (a few miles down the road) and had the joy of changing a tire in the heat and humidity of San Antonio. I thought I changed my last tire decades ago. Teach me to think.

Friday morning, The Wife went to Discount Tire and got that taken care of while I worked SpaceCon.

My first autograph was Adrianne Palicki. I usually think of Marvel Agents of Shield and Supernatural when her name is discussed. I think most people associate her The Orville.

She had a very pretty light blue pen I liked. I asked for it to be used in the sky but after she signed, I should have asked her to sign in the sand. My bad.

After she signed, I mentioned SDCC. Yes, I am bad about name dropping those adventures. I told her I was a lucky winner of a secret lottery at SDCC. She didn’t know what I was talking about. And I’m sure she didn’t. She had people taking her place to place at SDCC. It was all back corridors that the crowds never walked. None of the celebrities knows what happens on the floor.

I continued and mentioned I had a winning ticket to the signing for the movie, Legion. Yes, a long time again. She smiled.  I still have my signed poster with Bettany and Gibson, and her autographs.

She said she loved working with Paul Bettany. she had a few more accolades about Paul. Which is great to hear as I like his movies too.

AH

Pam Grier Comicpalooza 2026

This was my last autograph for Houston. I was tired. Not from standing in long lines but lack of sleep and the long drive. I was ready to go home.

Pam Grier had about 20 people in line. She was chatting with everyone. And she was inclusive with her chatting. Everyone in line was part of the conversation, not just the person in front of her. I heard a lot of what she was saying. It was interesting. She talked about growing on a farm in Wyoming and moving to Denver and riding a bike everywhere. Then going to college and the start of her career.  Even though I was tired, it was informative and entertaining.

AH

Marcus Chong Comicpalooza 2026

Marcus Chong was also in The Matrix and in Houston for Comicpalooza. At the time, he didn’t have a line and was busy straightening his table photos.

He signed in a neat green paint pen I wanted Laurence to use (get over it, I say to myself). Since he had a few seconds, I mentioned seeing Matrix at The Cosm outside of Dallas. He wasn’t aware of this immersive version. As I mentioned he needed to check it out, another fan came to the table and I wandered off.

AH

Laurence Fishburne Comicpalooza 2026

The big reason I wanted to be early at Comicpalooza was to ensure I didn’t miss Laurence Fishburne. He was the big headliner and I expected to wait hours for this one.  While I did wait, it wasn’t that bad. Based on the line and the size of the waiting area, they did not get the crowd they expected. Bad for Comicpalooza but good for me.

A few weeks prior, I found a photo I liked and printed it. at the show, the table photos had some photos which were similar but not as good as my photo and not cropped how I wanted.

The encounter with Laurence was brief and done before I knew it. I did get to say I loved Searching for Bobby Fisher. He replied the movie still holds up. I agree.

I wish he wasn’t so fast to sign. He had a nice green pen that would have given a neat Matrix green contrast to the black and white of the photo.  His black sharpie does look good and it’s a nice sized signature.

I’m happy.

AH

Matt Dinniman Comicpalooza 2026

After the late night at Frightmare Week on Friday, I got up at 4 AM to be on the road by 4:30 on Saturday. I wanted to be sure I got to Comicpalooza early to get close parking and get in line for Matt Dinniman.

I have to admit, I’m clueless. About 6 months ago, I saw a reference to ‘DCC’ on a DragonCon Facebook page.  I had no idea. After reading several comments, I learned it meant Dungeon Crawler Carl. Well, that didn’t really add much light. So, I googled that. That was more productive.

This is a fairly famous and popular book series. It seems to have some hard-core fans. I have been in the dark for a while. When I mentioned it to friends, it seems everyone is surprised I am living under a dark rock…or in a dungeon. Because of the hype, I felt I had to get this autograph. However, I was too late. The free tickets were gone. One of my friends that knew about DCC, mentioned the convention was doing wait list. I joined that. I actually was selected.

My plan of getting there early was to ensure I was toward the front of Matt’s line when the signing started. I had some other graphs I wanted and didn’t want to miss out on them. Turned out I was 3^rd in line. Yeah me!

I handed over my book and told him I hadn’t read this yet but EVERYONE is talking about it. He smiled and signed. He took a closer look at my shirt and asked if that was Arizona. Yes, I was wearing my obligatory UofA golf shirt. I smiled and nodded and asked if he went there. He stated he lived there. Then I said I was there for college and actually met The Wife there. She lived in a small town south of Tucson.  I told him the town. Now his smile got big and he said he lived there for a while too. We were BOTH speechless. He mentioned the community and it sounded very familiar. We both paused again. Do we investigate this further. Do we leave it as it is. Do we exchange numbers.

Then the handler stepped up and said Matt had a LOT of people in line. And he did. Hundreds. She said they all wanted to see Matt and talk about Carl.  She was correct. I had taken more time than I expected.  Matt was great and said to the handler, that he was asking the questions and it wasn’t not my fault. We both knew we needed to move on. We shook and I went on to the next autograph.

When I got home, The Wife said Matt lived was very close to her. His neighborhood was built after she left. They never crossed paths.

AH

Gina Gershon Texas Frightmare Weekend 2026

The other autograph I wanted from Texas Frightmare was GinaGershon. She has been in a lot of movies. She normally portrays a very sexy or sensual woman. And the photos I found for her represented that. I don’t have an issue with that but I was hoping for something a little tamer for my blog. Afterall, my Dad will occasional read this.

So, after searching, I found something I liked. I think it’s a nice compromise.

After completing my Warwick marathon, I found Gina. Just 2 people in front of me. I handed over the photo and she laughed. She said she remembered this.  I told her I actually watched the series and I liked it. It was silly but fun. She said it was only on for one season.

And like a fool, I corrected her. I said ‘Tripping the Rift’ was on for 3 seasons but she only was only on it for 1. I got a frown.  Oops. She recovered and found a dark blue pen that was better than the one I had and signed. Gina’s pen matched the hair tint on the animated character.

She mentioned she forgot the character name. I told her. She wrote the numeral. Then she realized it was written as text and not a number. She apologized. For me that was a bonus and I didn’t mind.

I left and it was now close to 10 PM. My Frightmare was over.  I was already thinking about the drive to Houston for Comicpalooza the next morning.

AH

Warwick Davis Texas Frightmare Weekend 2026

This autograph I have wanted for a long time. Mostly because of scarcity…not because I’m a Willow fan. When Texas Frightmare announced WarwickDavis, I was excited.

Since I did not have a VIP ticket and I really wanted/needed to get this signature on Friday as I had other plans for the weekend, I got in line 6 hours before the doors opened. That is 6 hours in the hot Texas sun. If a buddy didn’t sit with me and share water and umbrella for shade, I would have died. Not literally died, but I would have been very sunburnt and extremely dehydrated.

After 6 hours of torment, I entered the air conditioned building and made my way to the Warrick line. Not too bad, about 150 people in front of me. Now we waited until he showed up. Which wasn’t too long after I sat in my little camping chair.  Warrick arrive riding a mini-Segway or maybe it was a hover board with a steering bar. He arrived in style.

I’m in line at 6 PM. He arrived about 6:15 PM.

About 7 PM he took a short break.

Then there were photo ops. A few more VIPS arrived and were placed in front of the general admission people like me.

At 9:30 PM, I’m about to enter the room where he was signing.  The aches and pains are dulled from the adrenaline rush of being so close. When I handed over my photo, he knew the exact color pen and where to sign. He added a quote and character name without being asked. Very cool.

Then I thanked him and left. It was 9:45 PM.

A very long day for an autograph.

AH