Comic Conventions are old hat for We❤️Music, but I confess, dear reader, this was my first. I was unsure of what all I would run into at the 2025 Twin Cities Con at the Minneapolis Convention Center, but I headed into day one prepared for just about anything.

If you know anything about these events (and I would put myself right about there), you know that a significant part of this is the costumes that the attendees are in. And even in the first hour, it was a tremendous variety of characters strolling around. After a bit of wandering the exhibit hall, I made it to the first panel called On Anime Voice Acting, with Kyle Phillips and Aaron Dismuke. It was interesting to hear the actors discuss their careers, which shows & characters they thought would be big or not, and how that did or didn’t match up with reality. The other fascinating aspect I enjoyed was the description of the development of anime in the US. The main part of session was really a peek behind their approach to the whole job: preparing for auditions (now only remote), deciding on how to create the voices for characters, similarities and differences with anime and video games, etc. Dismuke had some insightful comments on how to add emotional feeling on top of the base vocal characteristics, based on the physical drawings.

I headed back out into the exhibit hall, which quickly became my routine between panels. I was effin pleased to run into Aaron Reynolds’ Effin’ Birds station. His work is profane, but it was a pleasure to see how caring and careful he was as he signed purchases of his calendars and field guides. An “Is it ok is I sign (explicitly offensive thing) on this one?” was the standard in his interactions, as was asking in detail how every name was spelled. It must be that effin polite Canadian culture.

There was a pretty sizeable audience for Marty Grabstein, the voice of Courage the Cowardly Dog, a show that ended in 2002, which speaks to the enduring popularity of the character. His first time in Minnesota, Grabstein was clearly touched by how the show positively impacted a number of people’s lives. Noting early that he had recently had a stroke, there was a quick connection between Grabstein and the crowd. He was just as excited to hear stories from the audience and it felt like one of the most real interactions that the whole weekend would hold.

The World Monster HQ panel was a group of local Twin Cities comic and comic adjacent creators who work in a shared studio space. It was nice to hear the same return to office issues that many of us face: a space to concentrate, having other artists to bounce ideas off of, and keeping a schedule. An interesting discussion on the advantages of physical or digital media (or often, both) was pretty insightful on the various approaches to the creative process.

A Batman Through the Generations had a great group of creators, but was highlighted by Paul Dini, one of the creative forces behind the acclaimed Batman: The Animated Series from the 90’s, and a co-creator of the iconic character Harley Quinn. The first question of “describe Batman” gave some interesting answers, including “the boogeyman’s boogeyman”. Talking about the malleability of the character was a good discussion, with a lot of love for the return to the noir feel with the Tim Burton movies and the animated series. An amazing tidbit from Dini was that his father was an entertainer and had performed with Frank Gorshin (The Riddler on the 60’s Adam West TV show) and that was really an early introduction for Dini to Batman.

A Q&A with actor Ahmed Best was great comedy and some of the stories from his Stomp days were both hilarious and good biography. It was also fun to hear his entry into the Star Wars universe (he plays the part of Jar Jar Binks) and the audience questions, particularly younger members was extremely cute. Example question: “How does it feel to be the coolest character in Star Wars?” Best’s answer: “Not as good as hearing you ask that”.

The panels started to transition more to events and I took a final run through the exhibit hall to see all of the audience and the joy as passing people would call out each others’s costumes. More to come on Day Two!