Ben Garbacz/Daily Mining Gazette The annual Geek U.P. allowed fans of multiple entertainment mediums to celebrate at MTU's Memorial Union Building Saturday.

HOUGHTON — Fans of television, gaming, comics and other entertainment flocked to the Memorial Union Building on the campus of Michigan Technological Unicersity for the seventh annual Geek U.P. Saturday. The miniature comic convention has provided Keweenaw residents and Michigan Tech students the opportunity to gather and share their fandom with one another while supporting local charity through ticket purchases.

Geek U.P. offered a variety of vendors to browse and games to play, but one of the main features of this year’s convention were visiting voice actors Patricia Summersett, Roger Craig Smith and Veronica Taylor. Attendees could meet the three actors, get autographs and, later ask them questions during a Q&A session.

Summersett is known for voicing Princess Zelda in the recent Legend of Zelda video games, and is very familiar to area fans as she grew up in L’Anse and attended Houghton High School. Summersett and Black Ice Comics and Books owner Shana Porteen came up with Geek U.P. to bring a convention to upper Michigan which can serve as a charity. This year Geek U.P.’s revenue went towards Copper Shores’ Meals on Wheels program.

“Patricia Summersett and I, this was an idea we had many years ago, and it’s just continued to evolve,” Porteen said. “And we love doing this for the community, and we always do it for charity. Our recipient this year is Copper Shores’ Meals on Wheels, and so it’s such a great way to engage the community and get everybody together and celebrate fandom and how fandom really brings us together.”

Summersett explained why Meals on Wheels was selected this year.

“We made this decision back in springtime when we were organizing all this, and at that time, we were looking at the general environment of what was happening in the US, and how a lot of food programs were losing a ton of money and a ton of funding, and there is already so much food insecurity in this area,” Summersett said. “So it seemed like a no brainer.”

She said she enjoys returning to the area and bringing back a convention when she has the chance.

“The phenomenon of the Comic Con is now popping up all over the world,” she said. “I think the benefit of doing it in a rural area is that you have an entire different group of people that maybe aren’t used to Comic Cons. It’s a Comic Con, but it’s also a public charity event. So it’s a hybrid that you can invite a new kind of audience into the space that isn’t necessarily used to or might not want to travel to go and see a massive Comic Con.”

Summersett added another important aspect of the convention is serving and bringing the community together though art, and the access to professionals at the convention can serve as inspiration for aspiring creators of all kinds.

Smith is known for his voice work in video games and television. He has voiced Batman in Arkham Origins, Sonic the Hedgehog in the Sonic games since 2010, Ezio from Assassin’s Creed II and Claggor from Arcane. Smith believes the convention gives people from rural areas which are unable to travel and college students the opportunity to participate in their fandoms.

“With Shana being savvy enough to help sort of facilitate all of this and thankfully with Michigan Tech providing like a like a nice space in which to do this, it’s a really unique opportunity for people that are from, say, smaller markets that wouldn’t necessarily get an opportunity to do something something like this,” he said.

Smith explained the event could be seen as a gateway con experience.

“You’re getting a sampler, a little appetizer sampler. A lot of people fly in from all over the country to go to certain cons, because of the the sheer volume and conventions are a thing to behold. And what’s neat is this pulls it off on a much smaller scale and right in the backyard for a lot of people here,” he said.

Taylor is known for her work voicing Ash Ketchem in Pokémon for the show’s first eight seasons. She held similar sentiments as Summersett and Smith, and enjoyed the fact with the convention being smaller, it gave her plenty of time to talk with each person who wanted to visit her. Taylor was delighted to be assisting the convention for charity and be able to experience the area.

“We get a chance to really see everything that’s so local, try local food and everyone has been so incredibly nice,” she said. “We heard music in the Mines last night at Quincy Mines. That’s one of the benefits for me as an actor, to get to go to conventions, is that I experience that local culture and the local food. It’s awesome. It’s amazing. It’s incredible. I’m humbled and honored to be able to come to this and talk to people, and especially talk to them about their childhoods and shows that they loved and experiences they had.”

Other activities at the convention included a cosplay competition where attendees dressed as characters from pop culture, cosplay performances such as dancing, tabletop gaming and figurine painting, video games, over 20 vendors selling art or pop culture merchandise and a gaming tournament. A silent auction was also available with autographs from numerous voice celebrities and other pop culture items. Summersett explained the prices on the items were kept low in comparison to larger and mainstream conventions so those in attendance had the chance to afford them.