Last Saturday, in a galaxy far, far away – OK, Downtown Renton – imperial stormtroopers marched down South Third Street, picking up strewn roadside trash as part of a Chamber of Commerce Downtown Clean Up Crew.

It’s a stunt to help spruce up the city, but also a marketing ploy to awaken the local Star Wars fandom and geeks alike and get the word out for Ren Con, coming to the city this fall.

This year is the dawn of Renton City Comic Con (“Ren Con” for short), the local version of ever-popular comic book convention that seeks to celebrate everything comic books, films, art, video games, technology and more held by the chamber.

According to Ben Andrews, director of special events of the Renton Chamber of Commerce, the convention was birthed out of the chamber’s rebranding strategy.

“We had a stretch of suffering and we wanted to rebrand a lot of the things we do,” Andrews said. “One of the ideas that was thrown out was to have a comic book convention at Renton.”

The convention team is aggressively trying to get the word out there, including partnering with 501st Legion —a Star Wars-inspired costuming organization— for monthly downtown cleanups leading up to the convention and their notable presence in this year’s Renton River Days.

Andrews added the convention is “branded like most comic book conventions, but we’ll have our Renton flavor to it,” adding that it’s not just for comic book readers.

“This comic book convention can be labeled as a genre-convention because it’s not exclusively leaning toward comic books or fantasy or sci-fi,” Andrews continued, “It’s all genres mixed into the same stew. We’re going to have panels and keynote speakers and guests that come from all across the boards.”

While the convention team is still working on finalizing their guest list, so far, they have confirmed cosplay artists Jesse Lagers, Sugarbot Cosplay and Ryan Wells as guest speakers.

Tom Cook, who has worked on animating well-known works such as Godzilla, Scooby Doo and Smurfs, the Flintstones and more, will also be attending the convention.

Attendees will not only have a chance to enter the cosplay competition, but will get an opportunity to audition for a locally-produced TV pilot. A late night superhero burlesque show is also planned for the weekend.

“We’re trying to bring a lot more excitement to Renton,” Andrews said. “There’s a growing contingent of people who feel like there’s a lot of excellent people in the city but that it’s been a mediocre place for a while. Now, with Seattle and Bellevue pushing out people out of the developer’s market, we believe that Renton’s the next exciting hotbed. So we’re really trying to build that foundation for the next few years.”

Ren Con will be Oct. 28-30 at the Red Lion Hotel, 1 S. Grady Way.

For more information or to purchase tickets, visit www.rentoncitycomicon.com.