Empower comic con is a comic con that is minority based. This is the first annual con and the theme is women empowerment.

“It’s funny because I’ve had so many guys say “Well can I come” and I’m like yeah because empowering women is everybody’s job, it’s not just women’s job it everybody’s, Charity DeLay, said.  

On Friday February 19 there will be a special VIP dinner where people can meet and take pictures with the celebrity guests and cosplayers, get their caricature drawn and participate in a silent auction. Tickets for the dinner are two hundred dollars for individual seats and one thousand for a corporate table. The proceeds from the dinner and the con are a fundraiser for Connie’s Closet, a closet for students grade six through twelve who are in need of clothes. According to DeLay there are four hairstylists who have agreed to donate a haircut a month and a Mary Kay sales woman is willing to donate makeup. Accessories will be donated by DeLay from her store Wantz. A donation table will be set up at the con, donators will receive a ticket for a prize drawing.

“We want to be able to make a full wardrobe for these kids and so yes a lot of it will be donated clothes, but for example if we get a kid who has size 15 feet chances are we won’t have that item in there and so we want to make sure we have enough of a budget, from what money we have raised we can go get that child shoes, ones that they would actually feel comfortable wearing,” DeLay, said.

There will be a presentation by Lindsay Wagner about being more than the Bionic woman. Also, an award presented to a local young person who has empowered the community, the name of the award is the JoAnne Empowerment award.

“We named it after my grandma is because she has done so many things in Topeka and Kansas that really no one knows about. She’s been in the newspaper dozens upon dozens of times, she’s done so many amazing things and she inspires my family in many different ways. And so it’s something very special to us,” Brooke Lynn Tilton, daughter of DeLay, said.

There will be a variety cosplay and celebrity guests. Cosplayer guests are Doodlespork [Sloane] mainly dresses as female characters from Disney, comic books and movies. Mamabutterfly and Mr. J, they have been cosplaying for four years and tend to cosplay as The Joker and Harley Quinn, Star

Wars characters and more. Jess from Lady Red Cosplay, who tends dresses as Jedi, Merida, and Batgirl. And then the Iron Brothers of Topeka (IBOT), three brothers who have formal educations in art, computer graphic design, business, mechanics, and drafting, and use those skills to create their costumes.

For the celebrities attendants Lindsay Wagner, from the Bionic Woman, Naomi Grossman from American Horror Story, and Gigi Edgley from Farscape and Jen Henson’s Creature Shop Challenge.  

The event will take place on Saturday February 20 to Sunday February 21. On Saturday, anyone who has purchased a VIP ticket can get a head start and go through the con at nine am while general admission opens at ten. There will be a number of activities throughout the day, panels with a variety of topics, a cosplay contest, a children’s room with tea party and toast to victory party. The times for these activities have not been officially announced but may require special tickets, such as the tea party.

“At noon on sunday we’re trying to see how many deadpools we can get in location and we’re going to do pictures and we’ll have a back drop and where’s Waldo is coming so we can put him in there, if anybody wants to they can  bring their cameras out and take pictures.”

The event goes until seven pm both nights, but on Saturday there is an after hours party at 8:30 for those who bought special tickets, a drag king and queen show as well as a burlesque show.

“One of the girls from Kansas City is a Trekky and for example she’s wearing a Star Trek uniform and she’s all blue,” DeLay, said.