Check out our day one coverage here!

Day two of Dallas SciFi Expo didn’t start off on the right foot. As you can hear on this week’s episode of FUNNYBOOKS, there was a situation in the parking garage that definitely led to some frustration. That being said, the parking garage being oversold definitely surprised us, as it was just at the opening of the Expo, and we expected Sunday to be less crowded. Not at all! In fact, some vendors even noted that lackluster sales were made up for on Sunday.

We went in a little more open-ended on Sunday, without too many definitive plans past going to the Lee Majors/Lindsay Wagner Q&A at the end of the day. We started the day hitting up Cully Hamner immediately, as Aron wanted to get a Hamner Green Arrow piece to add to his growing collection of superheroes smoking cigars.

We perused the dealer room for a bit before attending our first Q&A of the day, the…

Karl Urban Q&A

Lemme tell ya…Karl Urban comes across as a tired, grizzled guy in all of his movies, but he is not that AT ALL in person. Led out by a group of cosplayers dressed as Judge Dredd, Urban came out on the stage, grabbed a microphone, and started talking, without having a moderator. He was lively and hilarious, telling stories about the ongoing prank wars he’s had with Simon Pegg and Viggo Mortensen. He also told some touching stories about the friendships he’s gained working on the Lord of the Ring movies, and touched a bit on his work on Almost Human. He hinted that there was definitely some behind the scenes drama there (perhaps because Fox is playing the episodes out of order, but he didn’t clarify past saying he “had issues”), but not between him and co-star Michael Ealy, who he said he would try to talk into coming next year.

Urban fired on all cylinders, playing up to the fans, reading comics in his Judge Dredd voice, and really being the highlight of the con for me. Definitely a guy I’ll be keeping an eye on should he attend any other events I go to and, should you see him on the guest list, definitely go out of your way to meet him.

After Karl Urban, Aron and I ventured outside to hit the food trucks. There were three – one with shaved ice (it was in the 40’s/50’s outside), a greek wrap place, and a slider place called Easy Slider…where the line was. Apparently on day one there was also a pizza food truck, which I was sorry to have missed. Still, the sliders we had were delicious!

Lee Majors and Lindsay Wagner Q&A

After perusing a little bit more (we were never able to get NEAR the free movie swag room), we hit the “Bionic Double Q&A,” and got front row seats! Sadly, the session started about 15 minutes late because the “Warehouse 13 Q&A” ran long (though Lindsay Wagner came out for the last bit of that). Not being a huge fan of The Six Million Dollar Man or The Bionic Woman, it’s hard for me to speak of how successful the session went. Lindsay Wagner was graceful and sweet, and the fans really seemed to love her. Majors, on the other hand, was a little bit grumpy, but still told a couple of fun stories.

At the end of the Q&A, a clip of the show came on, and Lindsay Wagner stayed to watch it while Lee Majors left. He didn’t really seem engaged in general, but again, that’s really more Aron’s interests than mine. He seemed to really love it.

After the Q&A, we hit the dealer room one more time before show closing. Aron was able to get some great deals on some Marvel Select figures (talking down one from $35 to $20). I, on the other hand, didn’t really have much luck. The dealers seemed to really not be good at negotiation – in most cases, I’d make an offer (in the LAST FIVE MINUTES OF THE EXPO), and they’d just say “no,” with no counter offer. So, sadly, they lost a sale. I was actually quite surprised there wasn’t more negotiating going on, especially late in the show. That being said, perhaps it was because everyone was pretty successful in sales, and not willing to take less than ticketed price if they didn’t have to.

Overall

Aron and I had a blast at Dallas SciFi Expo and my only regret is that I didn’t have even more money to spend than I did. I do think the autograph prices were a bit high, and there were definitely some crowd control issues but, if I could swing it, I’d absolutely go back for Dallas Comic Con in May, which I hear is FOUR TIMES THE SIZE! I did hear that ownership of the Expo was recently purchased, but if future iterations can have a guest list as strong as this years, I’ll be there.