German Film & Comic Con Dortmund 2023

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Arrival & setup

The biggest Comic Cons in Germany always take place in Dortmund in December. Since my K.I.T.T. has an historic vehicle license plate and is registered all year round, I can also take part without any problems. Thanks to permanent winter tires, even at colder temperatures.
The December 2023 edition was renamed: German Comic Con became German Film & Comic Con. Otherwise, however, not much has changed, except that the focus will be more on cosplay, merch and fan groups in future - and instead of 60-90 star guests, the number of star guests has been reduced to around 30. On the one hand, this is a little sad, but on the other hand it means less stress for me and less risk for the organizers.
So I drove to Dortmund again on 01.12.2023. There was snow again this year, but the roads were clear. And unlike last year, K.I.T.T. survived the journey without breaking down 😉
As soon as I arrived, I noticed that more emphasis was placed on fan groups and props this year: The red carpet was also rolled out for K.I.T.T.!
On site, I met up again with Pepper and Drebin from Project K.I.T.T. e.V., who supported me with the set-up and were also supposed to take a look at K.I.T.T. whenever I was at the convention myself. Thanks to the red carpet, the set-up itself was limited to changing the steering wheel and connecting the power supply. I postponed the latter until Saturday morning. This time I was able to wash the car in advance at a car wash station so that it only had to be polished once.
I collected my exhibitor and fast lane wristbands and the vouchers for the photo shoots from the organizers and then we called it a day and ended the evening with a delicious meal in an Italian restaurant...

On Saturday morning, I then connected K.I.T.T. to the external power supply.
Thanks to Turbine Medien, I also had almost 900 artcards with a dashboard design by Michael Scheffe left over this year, which were part of the "Knight Rider: 40th Anniversary Edition" Blu-ray box and which I will be handing out free of charge at events. I also had a few hundred of them with me in Dortmund. But there are still enough left for other events. I also got various additional passes, which I was able to display in the car alongside the new smaller "Special Edition" Blu-ray box and the comlink from Doctor Collector.
I then visited Josef Hesse's BTTF DeLorean. Unfortunately, Josef couldn't be there in person this year. Instead, I got to know Maurizio and his team, who stood in for Josef during his absence and looked after the DeLorean.

Kevin Pike - Special Effects Supervisor

A highlight on the guest list was only announced shortly before the convention. I'm a big fan of "Back to the Future" and have been running the biggest German fan site for the time travel trilogy since October 2001: ZidZ.com! In addition to Christopher Lloyd (Doc Brown), Special Effects Supervisor Kevin Pike should now also be on site! I hadn't planned another photo with Christopher Lloyd as I've already met him several times and have various photos and autographs, but Kevin and his team were responsible for the construction of the DeLorean time machine and was therefore also supposed to sign one of my 3 movie posters
Thanks to my contacts at the DeLorean on display, I met Kevin there in advance and was able to talk to him briefly. He told me that he was also responsible for converting K.I.T.T.'s voicebox from a red flashing light (episodes 1-13) to the familiar 3 red bars (from episode 14). So it was clear that I also needed his autograph on K.I.T.T.'s trunk cover. He came with me straight away, but the sharpie I had brought with me failed, so we spontaneously postponed the whole thing until later...
Around lunchtime, I got the autograph on my poster for "Back to the Future III" that I had planned in advance. I also had the opportunity to chat with Kevin here.
Towards the evening, as promised, he came back to K.I.T.T. to complete the autograph on the trunk cover and take a few more photos with the car - also for his own archive.

David Faustino (Bud Bundy from "Married... with Children")

Another highlight of the convention for me was David Faustino aka Bud Bundy from "Married... with Children"! The series accompanied me in my youth and is still my absolute favorite series today! Originally, Katey Sagal (Peggy Bundy) and Amanda Bearse (Marcy D'Arcy) were also supposed to be guests, but unfortunately they were unable to attend in the end. At least I had already met Amanda in Berlin in 2016 and took her to K.I.T.T. for a photo back then.
By the way, Bud Bundy called himself "GrandmasterB" for many episodes of the series and thus gave his name to my online nickname "GrandmasterA", which I have been using for 25 years. So a meeting of GrandmasterA and GrandmasterB was definitely a must!
So I went to his photoshoot first and got 2 tickets this time. One for a normal picture and one for a "Grandmaster" pose 🙂
I was allowed to be the first in the queue and was therefore able to have a quick chat with him while the photographer was still taking test photos. David was in a very relaxed mood and found the Grandmaster A/B story funny, so he was very happy to join in with the pose.
Later, I also got 2 autographs from him: one was on a group photo of the Bundys, on which Amanda Bearse had already signed in 2016. I also brought a portrait photo with me, which of course included a dedication "for GrandmasterA from GrandmasterB" 🙂
I also told David that I had K.I.T.T. with me and he at least didn't seem uninterested in the car - a good basis for perhaps getting him back to the car later or tomorrow...

On Sunday, my friends Katja and Alex were also there at the Peggy and Al Bundy cosplay. I had also met them in 2016 in Berlin at Amanda Bearse and have met them several times since then. Now we paid David Faustino another visit to reunite him with his "lost parents", which he found very funny. Katja later had a photoshoot with him and had the photo signed.
I myself reminded him of K.I.T.T. once again and suggested that he might like to stop by K.I.T.T. in Hall 6 on his way back after his afternoon panel in Hall 7, as it was on the way to Hall 5 anyway, where his autograph table was located. He agreed 🙂
I met up with Katja and Alex again at the panel so that we could watch it together. Afterwards, David went to the Avengers live for a photo and then - as promised - came along to K.I.T.T. for a few photos.
Again, he was very, very nice and super relaxed, took his time and posed for photos and videos as GrandmasterB. We also chatted briefly about the star guests who were already in the car and I showed him the photo of Amanda Bearse (Marcy from "Married... with Children") on my photo board under the rear window.
David Faustino's Saturday panel at German Film & Comic Con
David Faustino's Sunday panel at German Film & Comic Con

Jens Knossalla aka Knossi (German YouTuber, TV celebrity, BTTF fan)

Another highlight of the con was actually Knossi, who is best known as a German YouTuber and reality TV celebrity. I have to admit that I wasn't really a fan of his shows before, but Knossi and I have actually "known" each other since he was 14 years old! As fans of "Back to the Future" we were already active together in various BTTF fan forums in 2001 and he had also registered on my own BTTF fan site ZidZ.com in 2004 and was at least somewhat active there until 2005, although not as much as in the old forums of HillValley.de
However, I remember that he also had a small BTTF fan site back then. His mother had also registered the domain ZidZ.de (ZidZ = BTTF in German) for him, as he was still a minor himself - so the name Knossalla remained in my memory for all those years, until I noticed a few years ago that the well-known Knossi from the media was actually the Knossi from our community (recognized by his mother's first name, which was also the domain name registrator).
A few months ago, Knossi fulfilled his dream of owning his own DeLorean and was back in the media a few weeks before the Con after he bought one of the original hoverboards from the filming at auction. It also became known that he wanted to attend Comic Con with his DeLorean to have the car signed by Christopher Lloyd. Maybe we would meet in person after all these years...
When I arrived on Friday, Knossi's DeLorean was already in the hall. However, he himself was already in Hamburg and was supposed to come back on Saturday. He did indeed turn up at some point and signed autographs for free and streamed live from the con. However, I didn't meet him myself at first.
However, I then waited with Maurizio and his friends from the BTTF DeLorean for Christopher Lloyd's photoshoot, which was due to take place at 2:45 PM. Since Knossi's DeLorean was parked right behind it, he would surely show up here... and so it was. When Christopher Lloyd arrived, Knossi followed him with his camera team and seemed to recognize me directly: "Hey, I know you!" he called out to me. It's kind of funny that it worked the other way around 😉
We talked briefly about "old times" and Knossi was totally excited about Christopher Lloyd, who was of course a childhood hero for him, too. He first got a photo with him on Josef's DeLorean. Afterwards, he had time to chat with us again and show me his DeLorean.
Unfortunately, he didn't have much time left, but he promised to come back to K.I.T.T. later or tomorrow. He kept this promise on Sunday afternoon. After he had driven his own DeLorean out of the hall, he came back in just to have a look at my car, even though he doesn't know much about "Knight Rider". As the series wasn't on German TV in the mid-90s, he had never actually seen it. But it was still enough for a few photos and a short video of my car on his Instagram channel.
I was very pleasantly surprised by the meeting. Even though I haven't really watched his shows before, I have to say that he was incredibly nice and down-to-earth, took a lot of time for his many fans, was friendly to everyone, took photos and video messages and pulled it all off in a very good-humored manner. So thumbs up! It was a great meeting and I was very pleased that it worked out after all these years - despite all the hype surrounding his person 🙂

Photoshoots with star guests

Of course I also had a few more photoshoots with the star guests this time - in addition to David Faustino:
- Kat Graham ("The Vampire Diaries")
- Tom Felton ("Harry Potter")
- Kenny Johnson ("Sons of Anarchy", "Bates Motel", "S.W.A.T.")
- Marina Sirtis ("Star Trek")
- Temuera Morrison ("Star Wars", "The Mandalorian", "The Flash", "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom")
- Daniel Logan (young Boba Fett from "Star Wars - Episode II")
- Dan Fogler ("Phantastic Beasts", "The Walking Dead", "Fanboys")
- Bob Morley ("The 100")

Other guests

I also had a few experiences with the other star guests. On Sunday morning, I got Christopher Lloyd to sign a replica of Doc Brown's glasses from 2015 for my friend Ormau. That wasn't a problem, even though I had to wait in line for 1.5 hours because Christopher arrived a little late. As I was the first in the queue and had nothing else important to do, I just waited.
Later I followed the voice actor panel on stage 2, which was right next to K.I.T.T., where I also briefly "kidnapped" Manuel Straube (German voice of Martin Freeman and Stewie Griffin from "Family Guy", among others) for a photo with K.I.T.T.
Christopher Lloyd's Saturday panel at German Film & Comic Con

In addition, Daniel Logan (young Boba Fett from "Star Wars - Episode II") happened to drop by on Sunday afternoon and let himself be carried away for a photo.
On Saturday, I also met Florian Goosmann, the author of the German book "Long live Knight Rider" from the publishing house "In Farbe und Bunt", which had its booth right next to K.I.T.T. again.

Another highlight for me was a meeting with Minamemory from Instagram. Mina runs a vinyl fan account and always takes very nice photos with record covers in suitable settings. We've known each other for quite a long time, as she met her now husband on a movie website that I ran from 2007-2014. I had therefore asked her in advance if she would like to take a few photos of K.I.T.T. with the soundtrack LPs for "Knight Rider" and she agreed. They are also big BTTF fans, so she came in a Marty McFly outfit. The trilogy connects 😉
Die Fotos mit Minamemory auf ihrem Instagram-Account

Cosplayers

Of course, there were also numerous cosplayers at the con again. However, because I was out and about a lot this time, I only managed to take a small number of photos and videos. One highlight was once again Tommy Nello, who I had already met at the Garthe-Knight cosplay in 2016. Since then, I've met him from time to time as Ghostbuster or last year as Johnny from the Flodders. This year he came as Michael Knight. So of course we had to take a few photos with K.I.T.T. again:

But there were also many other beautiful costumes to see:

Props

There were also numerous props and fan groups on display in the halls. In addition to the Avengers live, there were the Ghostbusters, Warhammer, Star Wars, Pink Star Wars and many more - unfortunately I didn't have time to see everything this time, let alone take many photos. So here is just a small selection:

Conclusion: The German Film & Comic Con 2023 was once again a complete success! K.I.T.T. had a great spot right in front of the photoshoot boxes, so it was very crowded there, especially on Saturday, and lots of people took photos with the cheeky supercar. I myself also experienced a lot again and met lots of nice people. K.I.T.T. was well received and survived its 11th GCC/GFCC very well. We love to come back 🙂

Previously on 2023-10-06:
Season Final Meeting 2023

Next on 2024-05-04/05:
German Film & Comic Con Dortmund 2024 - Spring Edition

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