Denver Pop Culture Con is about 5 months away, that may feel like a long way away, it’s going to come pretty fast. While there are no new celebrity announcements or any other announcements that I know of so far. I figured to keep the excitement of Con going since the Twelve Days of Geekmas by reminiscing about a past celebrity experience. The first one goes out to Khary Payton!
Khary Payton is an American actor and voice actor. Payton has done a lot of work, he has done about 174 roles in 74 titles in voice acting alone. His works range from General Hospital, Ben Ten: Alien Force, Transformers: Robots in Disguise the 2014 TV series. His more known works are Teen Titans and Teen Titans: Go! as Cyborg, Young Justice as Aqua Lad, and The Walking Dead as Ezekiel. I watched Teen Titans religiously as a teenager, I watched the entire series and it’s still one of my favorite shows. Sadly, I haven’t seen his role in The Walking Dead I stopped watching the show at that point but I know he’s super cool with his tiger.
Khary came to Denver Pop Culture Con (formally known as Denver Comic Con) in 2017, he was doing pictures, signatures, voice recordings and meet and greets. Though I didn’t get his signature, my friend and I went with our other friend who was getting his signature for her sister. This was the first celebrity meet and greet that I had experienced usually, the celebrities I meet are a quick signature a quick chat and they move onto the next guest. Khary was out from his booth standing off to the side that way each guest had semi-private time with him and he could interact with the fans. It was a short line and when it was our turn we walked up to him, he had the brightest-widest smile I ever saw, he threw his arms out saying “Hey!!”, and gave us all a big hug. Khary is one of the friendliest celebrities I’ve ever met, he is a very easy guy to talk to and cares about his fans. He could make the grumpiest person laugh, we made a joke about the tiger being at the con with him signing signatures too and he pretended to sign for the tiger. He even said a few Cyborg lines for us from Teen Titans and Teen Titans: Go!. My favorite memory from meeting him is somehow we got on the topic of old time Civil War letters and we as a group vocalized some letters to each other in the old English style.
What also was fantastic about meeting Khary is he knew how to handle fans. I won’t lie I was one of those people who really did not like Teen Titans: Go! at first, because I loved Teen Titans so I was confused and annoyed that they made this new show that is nothing like the original. Now I’ve accepted it and watch it from time to time. When we went to visit him we asked, “What did he like playing in more Teen Titans or Teen Titans: Go!?”. His response was, “Each show has each own unique aspects and that he likes both shows for how they are”. Khary is definitely aware of how fans feel about the shift of Teen Titans and he knew how to give the correct answer. True he couldn’t talk bad about the show he is still working for, but he gave the correct answer that would leave fans satisfied for his answer. If fans persisted for him to say an obvious answer they would like to hear from him, he could easily turn down the persistence by giving them a simple answer again.
For others who have met him, I hope it was just as fun and friendly as this meet and greet was. Maybe Khary will come back to Denver Pop Culture Con another time and I’d like to say hi to him again. Even if he doesn’t come back I hope he has fun with other fans at other conventions. In the meantime, you can check him out on Twitter and his Instagram.
Excuse Me, My Fandom is Calling 