In a single bound

The man who brought Tulsa a local comic expo

Tall but unassuming, Chris Rowe walks quickly up to me, greeting me with a confident smile and a firm handshake, single pump. We shoot the breeze for a few minutes and then, both being open nerds, immediately turn our conversation to Amazing Spider-Man 2, the newest film installment of the web-slinging superhero played by Andrew Garfield. Neither of us has seen it yet, but we both have high hopes.

“It’s gonna be great,” Rowe said. “I love where they are going with the [story] arc.” I smile in agreement. Chris Rowe and I are going to get along just fine.

I’m meeting with Rowe because he is organizing the Tulsa Comic Expo, coming May 9-11 to the Renaissance Hotel and Convention Center, a hodgepodge of the various and diverse interests of the comic and science fiction enthusiast, from cosplay (a linguistic mash-up of the words “costume” and “play”) to zombies to horror to heroes. This will be its inaugural year, and he is starting it off with a bang.

“We got Lando as a guest!” Rowe tells me, speaking excitedly of the iconic Star Wars character Lando Calrissian. Though Lando won’t actually be making an appearance—he means Billy Dee Williams, the actor who brought the character to life—Rowe’s enthusiasm is genuine, and his passion runs deep.

“My dad introduced me to Superman at the age of ten,” Rowe said, and after his introductory taste of the adventures of the bespectacled hero from Krypton, he was hooked. “I collected and devoured any comics I could get my hands on,” Rowe tells me, “from then on, all the way through my teen years.”

But Superman was the catalyst, mainly because of the close association the character has to Rowe’s own father. “[My dad] used Superman to explain to me a lesson I would never forget.” Rowe quotes his father: “One man can make a difference in the world. Never forget that.”

Rowe’s father always worked hard, putting his family first. He served in the Navy as a member of a search-and-rescue team, then went on to be a fireman before ultimately retiring from the Sheriff’s department. He practiced what he preached, Rowe said. “I guess I saw a lot of my dad in the character [of Superman],” he added.

It was that same internal drive that inspires Rowe as he takes on the Herculean task of creating the Tulsa Comic Expo, which has attracted marquee names like the aforementioned Billy Dee Williams, plus fan-favorite actor Doug Jones, voice actor and comedian Neil Kaplan, and, yes, Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo.

Rowe learned a lot about these conventions while working with Tulsa-based VCI Entertainment, which specializes in putting on events that cater to fans and enthusiasts. “I did over 30 conventions and started to notice that you rarely saw one that had it all,” Rowe says. “They were either all horror genre or all sci-fi or some other single genre. And I thought to myself, ‘It'd be great if one con had it all.’” The seed for what would become the Tulsa Comic Expo was planted.

“I’ve seen conventions come and go,” Rowe said, “and I wanted to create something that was lasting.” A mentor gave him a tip: plan well and book your celebrity guests in advance. Turns out, at least for Rowe, that’s a good tip indeed.

Despite the celebrities and fans, for Rowe it’s about his love of comics and that first lesson from his father. While in his twenties, Rowe stumbled into the world of martial arts. As with comics, he was hooked. That class turned into many more, until he worked his up to become a third-degree black belt, eventually opening his own martial arts studio.

“I knew I wanted to offer free self-defense classes for women,” Rowe said. “I just felt like I had a responsibility to help people with what I had learned.”

Like some kind of Superman.