That Rose City Comic Con magic casts a creative spell again

Published 12:00 pm Monday, September 14, 2026

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The inflatable unicorns made an appearance at this year’s Rose City Comic Con.
(Staff/John Baker)
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A little ‘Ghostbusters’ cosplay featuring plenty of creativity that included Slimer.
(Staff/John Baker)
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Hela from ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ was on hand to lend something special to Rose City Comic Con on Sunday.
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Classic pinball and arcade games always has a popular audience at Rose City Comic Con, as do console video games.
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Game play, both new and classics, are a big part of Rose City Comic Con each year.
(Staff/John Baker)

You couldn’t help but think a party had broken out at the Oregon Convention Center over the weekend as 60,000+ fans of pop culture descended on Portland in a three-day frenzy of geekdom.

Rose City Comic Con was back in town and visitors and fans from all over the west – and maybe even a little farther – were in town to celebrate their respective fandoms through autographs, meet-ups, vendors, music, and so much more.

In short, it was a building filled with reasons to smile, laugh and make new friends.

“This is my first Rose City and it has been fantastic,” said Hilary Levenseller, who joined the party for all three days from Tualatin. “I wanted to get the Star Trek crew (Anson Mount, Ethan Peck and Christina Chong) from Strange New Worlds and kind of see what all the fuss is about. Well, it’s really such a great vibe – so positive, so uplifting and caring. I can see why people come to these. I know I’m coming back.”

And that word – vibe – was thrown around a lot over the course of three days of panels, vintage video games, game playing, book selling, creativity galore, and more cosplay than you could shake a stick at.

“The vibe?” asked Hillsboro’s Carolyn Helms, who was cosplaying a character from anime. “It’s one of acceptance, love and respect for each other’s particular fandom. Look at all these fantastic cosplays and the work and passion that must have gone into them. The vibe is so positive and uplifting, it kind of stays with you for a while after. I like that kind of euphoric feeling you get from a comic con.”

The cosplay game was strong at Rose City Comic Con with odes to vintage shows like Doctor Who, Spiderman, Batman, anime, manga, video games and more. And that doesn’t count the many mash-ups – taking a couple ideas and putting them together – that were on full display.

As always, Rose City Comic Con offered people from across the spectrum a place to express not only their creativity, but their unique particular fan passions.

And it wasn’t just for the young, but young at heart.

“I heard about this meet-up on Friday night, the Grizzled Geeks, which was for people ages 50 and older,” said Bert Hymand, who calls Canby home. “It was a celebration of the older folks who kind of nurtured this revolution of pop culture fandom in its infancy back in the day. It would be fantastic to meet other people who were in my age range who remembered some of the things I used to love as a kid – Gilligan’s Island, the Banana Splits, Sid and Marty Krofft shows, that type of thing. Sounds like they’ll do it again next year and I’m excited to check it out. I think people tend to think of something like Rose City Comic Con as a young person’s thing, but if you look around the convention center, there are a healthy amount of older people attending. Celebrating them sounds like a great idea.”

And Rose City Comic Con will offer them the chance to do just that in 2027 with a Sept. 10-12 run slated once again for the Oregon Convention Center.