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Alamo City Comic Con in San Antonio is one of a plethora of fan events in Texas, but it’s a popular, well liked one, with more than 70,000 attendees in the last few years. And for this years show – held October 26-28 – they’ve snagged perhaps the biggest comic con guest yet: Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Governator himself. Show runner Apple de la Fuente was very excited by the get:

Earlier this afternoon, ACCC officially announced that action superstar and former Governor of California Arnold Schwarzenegger has accepted his invitation to make an appearance at this year’s event. According to ACCC founder and CEO Apple de la Fuente, this will be Schwarzenegger’s first-ever comic convention where he will interact with fans to give autographs and pose for photos. He will be at ACCC on Saturday, October 27. 

“This is the Holy Grail of comic con guests,” de la Fuente told the Current this morning. “We will have the No. 1 all-time action movie star here for ACCC.” 

Arnold joins a list of heavy hitter nerdlebrities at the show:  including John Cusack, William Shatner, Michael Colter, Neve Campbell, Michael Rooker, Paul Reubens  and so on.

However, Schwarzenegger will not come cheap: a VIP package for a photo and autograph will cost $1250, which, as far as we can tell, sets a new high water mark for an autograph signings at a comic con. Per the Tickets page:  

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To be fair, Schwarzenegger doesn’t do personal appearances, so for this once in a lifetime opportunity it stands to reason it would cost quite a bit.

As an old timer, I actually recall that Arnold made an appearance at the one day Shrine show in Los Angeles back in the early 90s, promoting, believe it or not, Terminator 2, then considered a niche SF film. He also made an appearance at the pre Hall H at San Diego around the same time, in Room 6 – maybe to promote Last Action Hero? At the time the con would have maybe ONE spectacular Hollywood guess and one year it was Arnold. And of course, he’s been a Hall H regular for the Expendables movies. But the ACCC appearance is his first time signing autographs.

Schwarzenegger, 71, may have retired from politics, but he’s still busy, working out,  – now sporting a fetching elder statesman type beard:

Enjoying a fine German beer

And joking with Mark Hamill:

Given his personality, I could definitely see him doing more cons if shows can put together the cash.

On one of the message boards I frequent, there was fretting over the high price, thinking it would lead to other celebrities upping their guarantees (the amount a con must pay them, usually taken out of the autograph fees). Still, the general feeling is that Arnold is in a class by himself, and no one else could command such a high rate.

Of some amusement to myself: although the show is billed at a comic con the artist guests page has only five people – although one is Jim Lee, sho has his own VIP package. The show is a few months out, though, and I expect more names will be added as we get closer.

 

1 COMMENT

  1. 2002 at CCI, he made a cameo. He was filming T3 at night. I think this was Hall 20, pre-H. The Warner’s panel also featured Dreamcatcher and Ecks vs. Sever.

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