Mix with like-minded fans, LeVar Burton and Lou Diamond Phillips at Santa Rosa Toy & Comic Con

A half-century ago, comic book and toy collector conventions were low-budget informal affairs that fans held in their parents’ garages, talking about their hobbies face to face and maybe trading a little.

Now cons, as they’re called, are often big-city affairs with huge crowds and high prices. The San Diego Comic Con, founded in 1970 as one of the pioneers in the genre, is now known primarily for bringing in stars from upcoming big-budget superhero, fantasy, sci-fi and horror films.

By contrast, Santa Rosa Toy & Comic Con, returning Sept. 22 for its sixth year, still retains the feeling of an old-fashioned, fan-based con with like-minded aficionados just hanging out, even though the event also will feature some film and TV actors, including LeVar Burton of “Star Trek: The Next Generation.”

“Actually, as many people know him from ‘Reading Rainbow’ on PBS as from ‘Star Trek,’ because we all grew up with that,” said convention founder Mike Holbrook, 41, of Santa Rosa.

Other headliners include actor Lou Diamond Phillips, who starred in the movie ‘La Bamba’ and had a five-season run on the TV series “Longmire,” and Adam Baldwin of the TV series “Firefly.”

At an event that boasts a Batmobile replica and cosplay crews dressed as characters from “Ghostbusters” and “The Avengers,” you might be surprised to find an actor from the hit crime TV drama “Breaking Bad,” but R.J. Mitte, who played lead character Walter White’s son, Flynn, will be there.

And as Holbrook points out, “Breaking Bad” did inspire a line of toys. One more intriguing example is the replica of White’s mobile RV meth lab, repurposed as an incense burner, priced online at $21.95. (But don’t count on finding that one at the con.)

“I got a call, and I said, ‘Yeah, I’d love to come up and meet the people and hang out and see what you’ve got,’ said Mitte, who will be traveling from his home in the L.A. area for the Santa Rosa event. “I enjoy the conventions. There’s always something new.”

Some of the convention’s guests don’t have so far to travel. Jon Provost, 68, who starred as Timmy on the hit TV series “Lassie” from 1957 to 1964, has lived in Sonoma County since 1970, and has appeared at every Santa Rosa Toy & Comic Con since the event started six years ago.

Lassie, the apparently telepathic wonder dog, could technically be considered a rural superhero of sorts and appeared in comic books for decades from a couple of different publishers, and there was a wide range of Lassie merchandise.

“I have dozens of Lassie comics, the books, the children’s books. We even had a line of Timmy and Lassie clothes that were sold at JC Penney’s back in the day,” Provost said.

Fans often bring Provost memorabilia from the show, which range from plush Lassie toys to lunch boxes to posters and lobby cards from South America, Asia and Europe. The main item he brings to the conventions is his autobiography, “Timmy’s in the Well,” with the title mocking the complex messages deciphered from Lassie’s barks in some episodes.

“The thing about these cons around the country is originally they just started out as comic cons, and then like horror cons or sci-fi cons, but what the they’ve done over the past 10 years is they’re injecting people that maybe don’t fit that certain bill, but they’re iconic to the generation,” Provost explained.

For Provost, the conventions are a pleasant social occasion as well as an exercise in nostalgia.

“Nobody has ever come up to me and said they hated ‘Lassie,’?” he said. “It’s always a good feeling. People come up and thank me, and tell me how the show helped them as children growing up because maybe their family was somewhat dysfunctional or they lived in the big city and they’d never seen a farm or a cow or even a dog.”

At big city conventions, guest celebrities sometimes seem to barely tolerate their own fans, Provost said, and that’s an attitude he can’t understand.

“Why are they there? I always have a good time,” he said.

Santa Rosa cartoonist and comic book artist Tom Beland, 56, who made a nationwide social media splash last fall with a Black Panther comic book cover inspired by the hit movie, has had a table at the Santa Rosa convention for the past three years, where he sells his original art and his own graphic novels, and takes commissions for drawings made to order for fans. One of his bestselling items is decorated cardboard coffee cup sleeves. For him, the conversations with fans are the high point.

“I just think it’s cool if you have some of the high school or college students who want to be an illustrator or graphic designer or comic artist,” he said. “It gives young people a chance to see people doing what they would like to do someday. A lot of young kids bring me their art to look at.”

You can reach Staff Writer Dan Taylor at 707-521-5243 or dan.taylor@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @danarts.