German Comic Con Dortmund 2022

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Arrival - our biggest adventure so far (2nd December 2022)

The biggest Comic Cons in Germany always take place in Dortmund in December. Until now, I could only participate in exceptional cases, because my K.I.T.T. had seasonal license plates and was therefore only registered from April to October. Since September 2022, however, it now has a historical licence and is registered the whole year. So the winter edition of the German Comic Con is no longer a problem for me.
So I went to Dortmund again on 2nd December 2022. As a little surprise, Petrus had thought about starting the day with about 10 cm of fresh snow. This is not nice, but thanks to permanent winter tires at least not a major problem for my K.I.T.T. - I decided to leave a little earlier to still arrive in Dortmund in the early afternoon.
The Thuringian roads had already been cleared and further west there should even be no snow at all...

About halfway along the route - shortly after Kassel - there were problems after all. However, there was no more snow here, but K.I.T.T. himself made problems and after short strange noises something seemed to flutter in the engine compartment and the car could no longer be steered normally!
Fortunately, the whole thing happened just before an exit to a parking lot, so I didn't have to stop on the highway. I took a look in the engine compartment and quickly discovered the problem: The V-belt had snapped and was wrapped around the alternator. This was definitely the end of the ride at this point!
I called the German car club ADAC, where it was quickly determined that they would not repair the car, but only bring it to their headquarters. From there I could get a rental car home and K.I.T.T. would be brought to me a few days later, if there was enough transport capacity. Comic Con would definitely be done with that. Unless I could find a local garage that would repair the car for me on Friday afternoon. This quickly proved to be a vain hope. Neither did anyone have a suitable V-belt, nor the capacity to carry out a repair at short notice. In addition, the V-belt tore for a reason - the idler pulley of the water pump wobbled, because this was also gone.
I informed Susanne and Heiko from the Project-K.I.T.T. e.V., who also wanted to go to the Comic Con - They offered me to drive by a US-Car dealer, who was only 20 km away from them, and to bring me the parts to Kassel if necessary. It was worth a try.
In the meantime, the ADAC also arrived. The driver said that if necessary they could take me to Dortmund instead of taking me home. So if I could organize a repair there, at least the weekend would not have run after all...
Long story short: Susanne and Heiko got a new water pump + V-belt. My buddy Christian from the PKeV offered to come to Dortmund and repair the car on site and the ADAC managed that they could still drag me to Dortmund in the afternoon! This saved the weekend and I decided to take the risk that the repair on site might not work out after all. If necessary, there would also be workshops there that could take care of the problem after Comic Con. So we went to Dortmund on the ADAC truck.
By the way: In the ADAC's internal magazine "Mobility Partner Report", which is sent to all ADAC mobility partners, there was a full-page article about my experience in issue 03/2023 from December 2023! (» see article)

Day 1 - Saturday (3rd December 2022)

Since I arrived on Friday evening only after 18:00, I had no leisure to connect the car to the power supply and to attach my barrier tapes on the floor. I cleaned the car only roughly, since I also could not drive to the car wash anymore.
I started detailing on Saturday morning.
Admission should already take place at 08:00, so I started already at 06:30 with the preparation and managed everything in time.
K.I.T.T.'s location in Hall 7 was once again very good. I had also stood here at the Spring Edition 2019 - and also this time the autograph tables of the stars were in the immediate vicinity. Maybe one or the other star guest could be persuaded to take a photo with K.I.T.T.

Of course, I also had various photoshoots on my schedule today. In total, I had 20 appointments, all of which I wanted to take this Saturday. Thanks to "Fast Lane" bracelet it should theoretically be possible without any problems, although I had a full program. But then I would have no more stress on Sunday.
I started with Charlene Tilton ("Dallas", "Silence of the Hams", "Love Boat"), Linda Gray ("Dallas", "The Bold and the Beautiful"), Patrick Duffy ("Dallas", "Step by Step", "Man from Atlantis") and Rose McGowan ("Charmed", "Grindhouse"). I also met Jean-Claude van Damme ("No Retreat, No Surrender" and many more), Hayden Christensen ("Star Wars - Episode I-III", "Jumper"), Rupert Grint ("Harry Potter"), Andy Serkis (Gollum in "The Lord of the Rings", "The Batman"), Tom Cavanagh ("The Flash", "Scrubs"), Carlos Valdes ("The Flash", "Arrow", "Supergirl"), Lance Henriksen ("Terminator", "Alien 3") and Elden Henson ("Daredevil", "The Butterfly Effect", "Mighty Ducks").

In between, I dropped by K.I.T.T. from time to time. Once I spotted a camera team and met German comedian and TV host Sebastian Pufpaff, who was filming for "TV Total" as the "Dönerman" together with Mathias Mester. Both were willingly available for photos and even recorded a video message for my wife. Before they had to move on, they also quickly posed for a photo with my K.I.T.T. - since I always watch the show myself, that was a little highlight on this day.

Then I continued with my hotoshoots: Robert Patrick ("Terminator 2", "Sons of Anarchy"), Adam Baldwin ("Independence Day", "Chuck", "Full Metal Jacket"), Casper van Dien ("Starship Troopers", "Beverly Hills 90210"), Simon Helberg ("The Big Bang Theory").
The latter had already caught Susanne and Heiko's eye this morning when he arrived, because he seemed to be quite interested in K.I.T.T.
So I thought about offering him to sit in the car later. Unfortunately, the photoshoots are always timed pretty quickly, so there wasn't really time to ask. However, it turned out that this wasn't necessary at all, because Simon's security asked me after my photo if K.I.T.T. was my car (my myKITT.de T-shirt was probably a pretty good indicator for that). Simon was VERY interested in the car and he would like to have a closer look at it. So we arranged to meet later and I left my cell phone number. More later ;)

Then there were 3 German actors: Radost Bokel ("Momo"), Martin Semmelrogge ("Das Boot") and Ralf Richter ("Was nicht passt, wird passend gemacht"). My last shoot of the day was the already 91 year old Barbara Eden ("I Dream of Jeannie").

At the last photoshoot I also met Kathy and Markus from the ZIDZ.COMmunity again, who took their photos in matching cosplay outfits and kindly lent me their magic lamp for my photo.
Also K.I.T.T. caught the attention of some celebrities: I intercepted Alvaro Morte ("Money Heist / La casa de papel") as he was taking photos of K.I.T.T. himself and Ralf Richter strolled through the halls alone towards evening.

Then Simon Helberg's security contacted me on my cell phone. Simon (known as Howard Wolowitz from "The Big Bang Theory") had expressed interest in taking a closer look at K.I.T.T. during the photoshoot, so he showed up shortly after. He told me that he has been a fan of the series since his earliest childhood and always wanted to see a car like this.
He took a seat in the car and posed for photos. I told him that my wife is a big TBBT fan and will probably "kill" me when she hears that I met him. He then had me record a video message for her asking her not to kill me ;)
Since the other visitors had also noticed Simon, the area was filled with onlookers. Therefore, Simon said goodbye again quite soon, but also posed in front of the car. His security thanked me again afterwards and invited me to get an autograph for my wife tomorrow. I'm happy to do that, of course.

In the afternoon Christian and Sabrina from PKeV arrived. Christian had spontaneously agreed to repair K.I.T.T. on site and had traveled 100 km especially for that. Of course they got free admission to the con (thanks again to the organizers) and we actually managed to get K.I.T.T. up and running again within about 2 hours of work after the show had closed. The patient lost about 5 liters of cooling water, but could be reanimated and refilled. Thus my journey home was safe again.
Of course took over the costs incurred and invited both Christian and Sabrina as well as Heiko and Susanne for dinner. After all, they had saved my weekend. It's always nice to know that you have friends you can rely on :)
Since it was already late, we ended up at McDonald's, but this was also quite tasty after the exhausting day.

Day 2 (4th Descember 2022)

On Sunday morning, I always like to stroll through the halls and take photos with the props on display. A booth with original film props was also very interesting.

Today, I mainly wanted to stay at K.I.T.T. to take pictures with cosplayers.... and maybe even some star guests.
At first, 2 German dubbing voice actors came by: Marios Gavrilis and Marieke Oeffinger both dub main characters in "Money Heist / La casa de papel", of which 2 actors had their signing tables right next to K.I.T.T. - but since they weren't there, there was time for some photos with K.I.T.T.

Later I went to Simon Helberg's autograph table, where I was allowed to pick up an autograph for my wife (as promised yesterday). Simon wrote "Your husband is a good man!" Whether my wife agreed with it, is unfortunately not known :D
Just kidding, she was of course happy about it ;)

Today also some cosplayers came by K.I.T.T., so I was able to take some photos.

Even some star guests stopped by as well: Tom Cavanagh ("The Flash," "Scrubs") and Carlos Valdes ("The Flash," "Arrow," "Supergirl") gladly posed for a photo with K.I.T.T.
Hayden Christensen ("Star Wars - Episode I-III", "Jumper"), Charlie Cox ("Daredevil") and Rupert Grint ("Harry Potter") passed K.I.T.T. several times, but unfortunately did not want to take a photo. But of course you can not force anyone ;)

The German dubbing voice actors were more willing. With Ronald Nitschke (new voice of David Hasselhoff in "Hoff The Record" and "Ze Network") and Peter Flechtner (voice of Knight 3000 in "Knight Rider 2008" and K.I.T.T. in "Ze Network") there was at least a direct reference to "Knight Rider". Ronald is also known as the German voice of Tommy Lee Jones, Peter as the voice of Ben Affleck, Phil Dunphy from "Modern Family" and Hopper from "Stranger Things".

Also Fritz Rott came by - the German voice of Patrick from "Spongebob Squarepants"... and also more cosplayers

Shortly before closing time, I went once again to the autograph table of Patrick Duffy. Unfortunately, he had looked quite grim on my photoshoot photo yesterday and I wanted to ask whether we can perhaps make a selfie, on which he laughs. Patrick actually found it funny and agreed. Afterwards, he even took my photo and signed it... before he painted himself a laughing mouth ^^
At the very end I also got a photo with Elden Henson ("Daredevil", "The Butterfly Effect") with my K.I.T.T.

And with that my 9th German Comic Con ended again. It was by far the most adventurous event so far because of my car breakdown. I don't necessarily need to have that again... but it all turned out well.
In fact, I got home on Sunday evening without any problems. Despite fog and winter weather at home.
The con itself was great as always. We have experienced a lot and are looking forward to the next con on May 7 + 8, 2023.

Previously on 2022-10-01:
Season Final Meeting 2022

Next on 2023-05-06/07:
German Comic Con Dortmund 2023 - Spring Edition

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