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SALT LAKE CITY — With its latest FanX pop culture convention, Salt Lake Comic Con is aiming for an out-of-this-world event.
The guest of honor Thursday at a kickoff news conference for Salt Lake Comic Con's FanXperience was not the kind of celebrity that Utahns have come to expect from the event that has drawn stars such as Chris Evans, William Shatner and Stan Lee.
Wearing his Apollo 11 mission jacket from NASA and a T-shirt trumpeting a trip to Mars, astronaut Buzz Aldrin landed on stage with a grin and a wave for fans.
Aldrin was joined on stage by several other FanX guests, including fictional space travelers Sylvester McCoy and Peter Davison of the BBC hit "Doctor Who," and "The X-Files" stars Mitch Pileggi and William Davis.
They will be joined later by stars including Jeremy Renner, Kate Beckinsale and Gillian Anderson for the three-day convention that got underway Thursday at the Salt Palace Convention Center.
Salt Lake Comic Con co-founders Dan Farr and Bryan Brandenburg touted the guest lineup — depsite the last-minute cancellation by "The Walking Dead" star Norman Reedus — as one of their strongest yet, including partners such as DC Comics, Funko POP and SyFy.
"We feel like this is our best event ever," Brandenburg said. "You can be the judge of that on Saturday night."
Pileggi, known for his stoic role as FBI assistant director Walter Skinner in "The X-Files" series, was all smiles as he answered questions and posed for photos after the news conference.
"We have the best fans. Everyone says that, but the X-Philes, spelled x-p-h-i-l-e-s, they really are," Pileggi said.
Aldrin was presented with a large portrait of himself in his NASA spacesuit, hand constructed with Lego pieces by American Fork mom Jennifer Smart and her family. The piece is 6 feet tall and required more than 9,000 Lego plates, one of the biggest projects Smart has taken on.
A photographer, Smart started making simple Lego pictures years ago with her kids, then challenged herself to build a portrait of her son when a surgery kept the busy nurse homebound for several weeks.
"I wondered if I could do a face," she said, noting that she doesn't use any glue or paint for the construction. "How do you get a curved shape out of a square?"
The family also has a rule against pilfering from the children's Lego collection for the portraits, she said with a laugh.
The Aldrin portrait was commissioned by Brandenburg, who said he's been a fan of the astronaut ever since he watched his famous moon landing with Neil Armstrong as a child.
"I was truly honored to be asked to do this," Smart said. "It's pretty awesome. It's Buzz Aldrin!"
Smart also contributed a Lego portrait of Beckinsale and the FanX logo for the event.
