How the first Wakandacon escaped the fan convention curse

“I’m a planner, and my dream, my whole life, has been to buy a house,” says Dave Barthwell while standing at a podium in front of several hundred mostly black attendees at the end of the first Wakandacon, a three-day convention of cosplay, workshops, tournaments, and panels, all celebrating the Afrofuturistic possibilities inspired by Marvel’s record-breaking movie Black Panther for black people. “I’ve been saving for it my whole life. And I emptied my savings