Student organization Pick Your Potion presented Fresno State’s first comic convention this weekend on campus. The convention provided students, faculty and the general public a means to celebrate all things related to geek culture, from comics to video games.

FresCon was open free to the public and featured panel discussions about various topics, a cosplay costume contest, a screening of the animated film “Big Hero 6” and a “Super Smash Bros.” tournament. Many attendees cosplayed or dressed as their favorite characters ranging from the popular “Transformer” Bumblebee to a Klingon from “Star Trek.”

Liz Krulder, co-director of FresCon and vice president of Pick Your Potion, said it took about 10 months to plan the event. Krulder also added that the convention started out with the idea of getting more students involved on campus.

“It was just a lot of finding the right people to talk to,” Krudler said. “We had to get a lot of support from the university. Conventions are just a very popular place to express yourself, so a lot of people love to come dressed up as their favorite character from their favorite show.”

Margarita Marie Guzman participated as a vendor on Saturday and as a cosplay guest judge for the convention’s cosplay competition. Guzman also dressed as Misty from “Pokémon.” Guzman sold photographs of herself dressed in character and provided photo opportunities with attendees as Misty.

“The characters that I cosplay as are characters that kind of ”” I feel like they relate to me,” Guzman said.

Guzman said she does not cosplay characters just because they are popular; it is also a way for some people to relive childhood memories.

“For doing it for almost a year and a half, I really have grown to love it rather than it just be a hobby,” Guzman said. “I feel I’m more connected with it.”

Many lectures were given on Saturday. The first discussion was by sociology professor Andrew Jones, who spoke on the exploration of zombies in pop culture.

“You can see a diffusion of zombies within pop culture,” Jones said during his lecture.

Jones gave examples about how zombies have been recently trending with fans across different mediums with zombie fan pages on Facebook, on popular TV shows such as “The Walking Dead,” in Max Brook’s novel “World War Z” and through zombie merchandise.

Philip Cable led a discussion on the genre of superheroes and the current trend of film adaptations of superhero characters. Cable is a writer, producer, director and owner of a comic book company called AAA American Entertainment.

“If you’ve ever watched a movie as a kid, there’s always that defining moment where your heart just goes on fire and you see something extraordinary,” Cable said. “For some people it was ‘Star Wars,’ for some people it was ‘Star Trek’ or ‘Doctor Who.’ ”