Rutherglen is braced for action this Saturday when fans will assemble in the town hall for a new comic and toy convention.
The free event will run from 10am to 4pm and promises something for all the family.
Optimus Prime, leader of the Autobots, will be rolling into the venue and you can also meet Pikachu and the Power Rangers.
Rutherglen comic book writer John Lees will be one of the creators there alongside a host of comic and toy dealers, while there will also be plenty of crafts and a series of talks.
Airdrie man George Lennox is the owner and publisher at Cult Empire Comics, and has put the convention together with his Excelsior Events.
He said: “It’s a comic and toy con. We wanted to reach out to Rutherglen and make the whole town feel part of something.
“We tied the comic convention in with Rutherglen Library. The comic guests are going to be doing some talks in the library. We teamed up with Adam Smith, who works in the library, and he’s been building a graphic novel section for Rutherglen, so everyone is going to be handing some book sin to him supporting the community.”
Adam will be doing live talks about creating comics with Lees and fellow Scottish creators Dave Cook and Neil Slorance.
George added: “In the town hall itself, we’re going to have character meet and greets with the Transformer, we’ve got Optimus Prime, and we’re going to have a Pikachu and we’ve got some cos players who enjoy reaching out, we’ve got the Power Rangers.
“We’re going to have a wee section for retro gaming for kids to get involved in proper old school stuff rather than the online stuff.
“We’re also going to be at the Rutherglen Exchange, we’re going to have a few tables in there with comics and toys and we’re going to have a few of the characters come over there as well. The Exchange wanted to be part of it, they wanted to work within the community.
“It’s become more of a pop culture thing so we have tried to embrace it, but at the same time we’ve definitely put comics to the front by having guests and we’ve created two areas. Downstairs in the Rutherglen Town Hall is going to be a creators’ zone, so we’ve got a mixture of independent comics, writers, artists, so they’re all going to be in the one room.
“People can come in and the creators can discuss their work and get introduced to people and it gives them an opportunity to pitch the books that they’ve created. In Scotland we’ve got a lot of good creators and some of the books are far better than the books that Marvel and DC are putting out.
“Upstairs, in the mezzanine bar we’re going to have the gaming area and a few traders around that, and in the main exhibition hall we’ll have mostly dealers in there with comics, toys, crafts and artwork. It’s a good balance of different people so that it’s not all the same and it gives people an opportunity to browse.”
As a comic book writer himself, George has travelled all over Scotland and hopes that Saturday’s event can be the start of something special for Rutherglen.
He said: “I think it’s important that local communities have got something to look forward to. I do a lot of big events and I enjoy them, but I do local events too and the communities need them.”
And while Rutherglen has hosted other comic conventions in the past, it’s been years since fans were able to get together in the town.
Saturday’s big day is the first from Excelsior Events, and organiser George is looking to build on it and return.
He said: “This is our first one. There was good events in places like Rutherglen before and it just kind of got left, but these communities need these things.
“Particularly the last five years I’ve been all over Scotland.
“You go into town centres now and you’re competing with Amazon and online so there’s a lot of businesses closing and unfortunately you see a lot of charity shops, betting shops or vaping shops and it’s quite sad that we haven’t got wee thriving business that can afford to keep that going.
“So I thought, well if we can reach into different town centres and communities and work with them, I did a lot of Christmas fairs there, promoting the event, so if we can get everybody involved and the town involved then it gives us an opportunity to give something back – and that’s why we made it a free event rather than paying on the door.
“Because as much as we respect the big events we realised there’s a lot of people that don’t have the money to have a family of three or four going, so we’ve made it a free event and it gives people the opportunity to come and see what we’ve got , and we’ve got other things on for families to give something back.
“So that’s our plan for Rutherglen and we’ll look to continue that, so if we get everyone on board then we can build on that and keep it in Rutherglen.
“It’s not something where we do one event and you never see us again, that’s not the plan.
“The plan is to work within the community and we’ve had a lot of really good response form the likes of the library and Rutherglen Exchange, the town hall as well has been very helpful.
“So that’s really positive for us. I just wanted to get in there and work with people and try and put something on for the community.”
Rutherglen Comic and Toy Con is a free event on Saturday, February 1, from 10am to 4pm in Rutherglen Town Hall. Head to the ‘Excelsior Events’ on Facebook for more details.
*Don’t miss the latest headlines from around Lanarkshire. Sign up to our newsletters here.
And did you know Lanarkshire Live had its own app? Download yours for free here.