Nexus Con, a one-day pop culture convention with a range of activities, panels, competitions and special guests, is being held at the Coffs Harbour Education Campus on Saturday September 7 from 10am until 4pm.
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This fun, affordable and inclusive day radiates the friendly and enthusiastic atmosphere that anime and comic conventions are known for, and now in its fifth year, it has grown to be a significant regional event bringing both economic and social and benefits to the Coffs Harbour area.
Approximately 1500 people attended Nexus Con last year from the Mid North Coast and further afield.
Once the gates open, young people and families can enjoy a range of activities including a Cosplay competition, a children's costume parade, video game tournaments, tabletop gaming, zombie extraction runs, guest panels, Artist's Alley, Pixelmon Minecraft, E Sports featuring Smash Bros and Mario Tennis and much more.
Nexus Con is excited to be hosting a huge list of special guests this year to engage with the fans, including Chris Wahl, Danielle Debs Cosplay, Phantom Strider, Soylent Cosplay, Chris Heinicke, Darren Close, Dean Rankine, Anime America, Andrew Connolly and 501st Legion. There will also be professional gamers, and over 30 stalls to check out, including game sellers, collectables, food and face painting.
To find out more, including how to purchase tickets go to our Nexus Con Facebook Page or Instagram or visit Nexus Con website.
See below for bios of our special guests.
Chris Wahl
Chris Wahl is an Australian illustrator and comic book cover artist whose eclectic pop culture-inspired drawing style has seen him work for many big names in the entertainment industry including Marvel, DC Comics, Titan Comics (Tank Girl, Dr. Who, Vikings, Dishonored), The Phantom, MAD Magazine and Star Wars. If you look closely, you can even spot Chris's Chewbacca artwork on Leonard's bedroom wall on The Big Bang Theory!
Danielle Debs Cosplay
Danielle was initially drawn into cosplay in late 2012 by a love of Sci-Fi armour notably the Halo franchise, and a general love of creating things. She has always been artistic, with a graphic designer mum and a handyman dad; artistic expression, construction and creativity filled her childhood, and cosplay was the next logical step. Danielle began with no prior trained skills in crafting or sewing, and learned through trial and error, with a side of stubbornness. She continues to hone her existing skills and is always learning new ones. When she's not building or wearing cosplay you can find her out exploring the world or playing games and looking for her next project.
Phantom Strider
This friendly YouTuber is a Top 10 list video creator whose listicle content focuses on cartoon television series. Some of the most-watched videos on his PhantomStrider channel include "Top 10 Worst Cartoon Network Shows" and "Top 10 Worst Modern Cartoons." Contrary to the aforementioned videos, he does post "Top 10 Best" lists as well.
His PhantomStrider YouTube channel has accrued 440,000 subscribers. He has a secondary channel called LiveStrider to publish more lists as well as Let's Plays. He uses an avatar of a South Park character to represent himself.
Soylent Cosplay
Soylent Cosplay also known as Jen began cosplaying in 2010 when she started seeing some amazing cosplays online and seeing how fun it looked! Jen loves doing anything creative and found a great love for the transformation into fictional characters, falling especially hard for the SFX makeup and body painted looks, and has been developing her skills for many years to try and make her looks as believable as possible. Jen is a huge pop culture fan, starting in anime and extending into video games and movies, so she finds cosplaying a great way to be both creative and to show her love of fictional media!"
Soylent Cosplay will be a judge for the Cosplay Competition at Nexus Con 2019 and will also be doing a makeup demonstration.
Chris Heinicke
Although working as a baker for many years, writing has been a passion for Chris for some time, starting in high school and reigniting again in 2006, when he first got the inspiration to begin writing 'The Man in Black.'
After completing that project, eight years later he took part in NaNoWriMo in November 2014, culminating in a project named '5PM'. Deciding to self-publish, '5PM' came out in February 2015, and then 'The Man In Black' in August.
2016 saw the release of '7PM', and in that same year, his writing path met with that of Canadian author Kate Reedwood. A mutual respect of each other's work ignited an interest in working together, creating the 'Legacy Hunter' series, the first of which came out in July 2017 and launched at Nexus Con. One year later, the fourth book of the series, 'Fatal Fortress', was released. Chris has also appeared at several Supernovas in 'The Alley' and looks forward to returning to Nexus Con in 2018.
Apart from writing, Chris enjoys travelling, reading, watching movies and all things geeky. He resides in Coffs Harbour with his wife and three children.
Darren Close
Darren has been around the Australian comics scene for over 15 years, initially with the formation of the 'OzComics' website (and subsequent drawing challenge) as well as the publication of his 'Killeroo' comic book series. With over a dozen books and counting, 'Killeroo' has become one of the most recognised and iconic Australian comic book characters, featuring the work of folks like Ben
Templesmith, Jon Sommariva, Andie Tong, Jason Paulos and Jason Badower. Darren will have the full range of 'Killeroo' books and merchandise available at Nexus Con.
He has also worked in collaboration with Jason Badower on international comic titles such as 'Wonder Woman '66' and 'Ipso Facto', as well as providing concept art for 'Waterborne', the first zombie kangaroo film. His 24-hour comic 'Struggle' was named Best Australian Original Comic Book of 2015 by Comicoz.
Dean Rankine
Dean Rankine is a comic artist and writer best known for his work on 'Simpsons Comics'. Dean's credits include: 'Simpsons Comics' 'Futurama Comics', 'Bongo's Two One-Shot Wonders in One', 'Bart Simpson's Pal, Milhouse', 'Simpsons Winter Wingding', 'Bongo Comics Free-For-All' 2013, 2014, 2016, 2017 & 2018, 'The Malevolent Mr. Burns', 'Bart Simpson Comics', 'The Greatest Bartman Stories Ever Told', 'Jimbo Jones', 'The Mighty Moe Szyslak', 'Krusty the Clown', 'Chief Wiggum's Felonious and 'The Simpsons' Treehouse of Horror'.
He has also contributed work to; 'Rick and Morty' (Oni Press), 'The Hellboy Winter Special' (Dark Horse), 'I Hate Fairyland' #13 (Image), 'The Beano and The Dandy' (DC Thomson), 'Mania' magazine and 'Australian MAD' magazine (Next Media), as well as illustrations to 'Bartman: The Superhero's Handbook' (Matt Groening Productions), 'The Mad Scientist' (Pearson), the 'Stuff Happens' series (Penguin Books) and 'A Funny Thing Happened to Simon Sidebottom' (Scholastic).
He is the creator of the Ledger Award winning 'Itty Bitty Bunnies in Rainbow Pixie Candy Land' and 'Itty Bitty Bunnies: Cavalcade of Contraband (TPB)' and 'Friendgasm (TPB)' published through Action Lab.
Dean will be available to draw participants in 'Simpsons' style, and for the right price will happily put participants heads in a jar à la Futurama.
Anime America
Robyn from Anime America and her friend Brad created a podcast in 2007 through which they would talk about new anime along with the friends they would invite. Once YouTube began to flourish they made a channel to advertise the podcast, turning it into the main network for their production. Now they entertain thousands of anime fans with reviews and Top 10 lists.
501st Legion
The 501st Legion is a volunteer organisation formed with the express purpose of bringing together costume enthusiasts under a collective identity within which to operate. The Legion seeks to promote interest in Star Wars through the building and wearing of quality costumes, and to facilitate the use of these costumes for Star Wars-related events, as well as contributing to the local community through costumed charity and volunteer work.
Andrew Connolly
Andrew Connolly appears at Nexus Con this year to discuss his 8 seconds of cinematic history created on the set of Star Wars Episode III - Revenge of the Sith. He appeared as an extra in this film and has been involved with a few other productions in Sydney in 2002 and 2003 including a Baz Luhrmann short film featuring Nicole Kidman.