By this weekend you should be coming out of your turkey-and-pie-induced torpor enough to stagger down to Erie's first Paper Asylum Vintage Paper & Pop Culture Convention at the Bayfront Convention Center.
You might want to step lively, though. One of the event's special guests knows a thing or two about putting bullets in the brains of stumbling, slow-moving zombies. George Kosana played Sheriff McClelland in George Romero's 1968 classic "Night of the Living Dead," in which he advised survivors of the zombie siege, "If you got a gun shoot 'em in the head."
Kosana and "Living Dead" writer John Russo will be at the event all weekend, greeting fans and signing autographs (for a nominal fee). The film will also be featured during Saturday's classic film fest.
Those are pretty good gets, but there's a lot more to see than that. It will feature "movie posters, comic books, toys, advertising, photographs, autographs, prints, books, movie and TV magazines, board games, Disney items, DVDs, VHS tapes, vinyl records, sports memorabilia and much more," said Michael Pierce, president and founder of Monsters Among Us Inc., the mid-west-based company behind the event.
"I will be bringing an amazing Marilyn Monroe collection with me, along with Famous Monsters (magazines), rare Beatles records, Elvis items, and more."For Pierce, collecting has been a passion. "I have been a collector of horror and sci-fi magazines since I was 12 years old," he said, adding that once he began selling his duplicates in 1990 "from there I was hooked." That year, Monsters Among Us was born.
More than 60 vendors are expected to buy, sell, trade and exhibit goods. "We deal in items that range from $1 to items that cost thousands. ... It's for the novice collector as well, but I can say, for the serious collector, don't miss this one!"