Local PerryCon celebrates pop culture in Perry
PERRY -- By the age of 15, Chris Foss owned 10,000 comic books.
He was an industrious kid though, funding his habit by working various jobs, including a paper route. His parents thought it was a strange obsession, but he has turned it into a good living.
Today, Foss is 55 years old and the owner of Heroes and Dragons in Columbia, South Carolina, which he said is the largest comic book store in the nation. He was one of the vendors Saturday at PerryCon that 2,500 fans of comic books and pop culture are expected to attend this weekend.
And for anyone who scoffs at grown men collecting comic books, consider the first comic book price guide published in 1970 that Foss had for sale. Foss said the book listed a 1938 Action Comic No. 1, the first appearance of Superman, to be valued at $250. Last year a copy of that comic book sold for $3.2 million.
"You may pay a lot for (a comic book), but if you hold it long enough, it's a lot more reliable than the stock market," Foss said.
On Friday, the first day of PerryCon, Foss sold $2,000 worth of comic books to a 72-year-old man who was a knowledgeable collector.
PerryCon promoter Mario Russo, of Marietta, has held a comic book show in Warner Robins for the past four years, but this year he moved it to the Georgia National Fairgrounds and Agricenter because he had outgrown the space in Warner Robins.
Among the attractions this weekend are Catherine Bach, who played Daisy Duke on the "Dukes of Hazzard," and Ricco Ross, a film actor who played Private Frost, one of the Marines in "Aliens."
PerryCon also featured a replica of the 1966 Batmobile and Batcycle, as well as the actual Batcopter flown in a 1966 Batman movie.
Jack Orrell, an airman at Robins Air Force Base, brought a special treat for "Scooby Doo" fans. Orrell's hobby is replicating vehicles from cartoons, TV shows and movies. This summer he turned a rusty 1972 Dodge van he bought for $700 into a replica of The Mystery Machine. That's the Scooby gang's iconic, psychedelic-colored van. Orrell did most of the work on it himself, including the painting and interior. He had help only with some of the artwork.
Orrell also brought a 1977 Camaro to the show that replicates Bumblebee in "Transformers."
It's not so much that he is a big fan of those shows, he said, but it's the vehicles he likes.
"I'm an entertainment fan," he said. "Anything that has a vehicle in it, I love it."
Amy Steigerwald, of Warner Robins, came dressed as Katara, a character in the animated series "Avatar: The Last Airbender." She has been to the much larger ComicCon in Atlanta a couple of times, and was excited to see something like it close to home.
"I think it's pretty interesting," she said of the Perry show. "I can't wait until it gets bigger. Once it gets bigger it will be pretty great."
PerryCon continues Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
This story was originally published November 7, 2015 at 9:20 PM with the headline "Local PerryCon celebrates pop culture in Perry ."