FanExpo Canada 2014

This past weekend, the third largest comic and fan convention in North America occurred. It started on Thursday, August 28th at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre in Toronto, Canada and continued until today (Sunday). Unfortunately, your humble blogger was only able to attend one day, but I was able to take a bunch of photographs for this photo-essay. Here it is: 

FanExpo Canada 2014. Normally this convention is the weekend before the Labour Day weekend,  but this year it happened to fall on that long weekend. And with Derek Jeter playing his last series against the Blue Jays, one felt there would be a lot of visitors from south of the border in town this time. Who doesn't love a double-header of Geek and Baseball, right?   

And this was the case: the crowds were massive! This is the pre-purchased ticket queue on Saturday morning. 

A few years ago the North Building of the convention centre was not used for FanExpo. Now it's packed at 10:00 am!

Horror masks.

North Building at about 10:10 am.

Into the South Building. Comics at a comic book convention??? Who would have guessed?!?

Darth Vader on holiday.

More sales in the South Building.

The DC Champions of Justice panel; Left to Right: David Finch, Brian Azzarello, Jeff Lemire, Greg Pax and Larry Ganem. The highlight of the listening to Azzarello talk about his (amazing) run on Wonder Woman. It ends later this autumn but has been a very soild three years. He also talked about how it, while being largely free of the larger DC continuity, was never-the-less true to the character. His advice to David Finch and his wife, Meredith, who take over the book in November, is to always keep in mind the passion fans have for that comic book icon. Jeff Lemire talked about Justice League United, his research into its heavily Canadian content and the personal inspiration for his new character Equinox, the aboriginal Canadian who features in the story. They also spoke about working together on Futures End. Pak spoke about his ongoing work on Batman/Superman.

Imperials of the 501th Legion.

The Marvel: All Access panel; Left to Right: Jeanine Schaefer, Charles Soule, C.B. Cebulski, Greg Pak, Ryan Stegman, Mahmud Asrar and Adam Kubert. This panel was more free-flowing than the DC with Kurbert talking about the upcoming Axis crossover, Soule, the upcoming She-Hulk courtroom drama with Matt Murdock and, of course, the impending death of Wolverine. Stegman spoke about Inhuman and Pak about his work on Storm. Jeanine was asked a "diversity in comics question" and she and C.B. spoke about how Ms. Marvel is the most popular downloaded book outside of North America, which has told Marvel that female lead characters are good for the bottom line. 

A Batmobile...of sorts.

The Batman: Arkham Knight Batmobile again. 

Vive la France!

A Nissan S130 painted up as the Autobot "Prowl".

Prowl Again.

This was interesting. This Deadpool-look-a-like is actually a police recruitment character named "United" who works for the York Regional Police, a force from a region north of Toronto. I certainly don't want to see local cops wearing that outfit, but it does show how pervasive geeky things are these days. 

Exterminate! I'm loving Peter Capaldi in the role, btw.

Boba Fett and Darth Vader

Commander Adama signing autographs along with...

...the incomparable Bruce Campbell. Hail to the King, baby!!!!

The Batmobile circa 1966.

The evening was capped off with a brief talk by William Shatner. The big event is An Evening of the Two Captains with Shatner joined by Sir Patrick Stewart on Sunday evening. In this short chat (30 minutes) Shatner spoke mostly of his early career, much of which was spent in Toronto after he first moved from Montreal. One notable story was about when he didn't have much, it was friendships (and that's not a euphemism) with "ladies of the evening" that helped him get through those tougher times. He was fantastic and even made a couple digs at George Takei, who doesn't seem to speak too highly of him these days. Shatner is always awesome to see, and brought the house down in only half an hour!  

So there you go: one day of FanExpo Canada. I hope you enjoyed it and we'll see you next year.

Fan Expo Canada 2013

I know its been a while since I've written on WGTB, but in my experience summer is prone to either a deluge of blog writing or very little. So to make up for the recent drought, I have a bunch of articles coming soon. But in the meanwhile, here are some choice photographs from Fan Expo Canada 2013 (August 22-25). Unfortunately, I was only able to attend the Friday of the four day show, but these pics should give you a sense of how Canada's largest fan and comics convention fared. It was pretty good, and certainly biggest and busiest I've seen yet.   

As usual, the Whovians and Deleks are out in force! 

As were the Trekkies as this convention featured some prominent Star Trek cast members. Here's the legendary George Takai signing autographs.

This year's Fan Expo was the first to use both halls of the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Early attendance figures put it at over 100,000 people.

Sons of Anarchy was featured prominently this year and anecdotal t-shirt evidence says the fanbase is growing. Here's a SOA-themed Harley-Davidson.

Dark Horse brought a booth. Unfortunately DC and Marvel did not.

And Marvel heard about this perceived slight at the Marvel: Infinity panel. Left to right: An unidentified fan, Marvel SVP, Publishing Tom Brevoort, editor Ellie Pyle and creators Stuart & Kathryn Immonen. Highlights of this panel included: 

1) Re: the Ultimate universe: We must continue to expect the unexpected. But there is no confirmed information about Hunger and any Ultimate characters coming over to Earth-616.

2) Brian Michael Bendis is heavily involved in the upcoming X-Men: Battle of the Atom crossover, so we can expect something tying that arch to the recently completed Age of Ultron.

3) There may be more New Universe characters coming to Earth-616. This shouldn't surprise anyone after Jonathan Hickman's use of Star Brand in Avengers. 

Friday also featured a great panel with Walt and Louise Simonson. Seen here are an unknown tech-guy and host (left), Walt (middle) and Louise (right). It was fun hearing about the creation of Beta Ray Bill, Walt's upcoming creator-owned work with IDW, writing the Star Wars comics of the early 80s and why he changed Warren Worthington III in X-Factor. Louise offered some great stories about working with Walt and how the DC editorial team came up with the idea to kill Superman in the early 1990s.  

After the Simonson panel, there was another with the always engaging Neil Adams. Here, Adams spilled the beans about the Silver Age with stores about the Comics Code, the famous Green Lantern/Green Arrow issue involving a drug-using Speedy, and how he didn't get to finish The Kree/Skull War to his satisfaction.

Avatar Comics had a great display booth.

The Toronto Lego Users Group had a presence with a Death Star trench display and...

...a Lego Serenity from Firefly. I asked if any glue was involved and the host (left) said no.  

The Batmobile circa 1989. Looks like a homebuilt, but it's still very cool. 

80s icon KITT from Knight Rider.  

The cockpit of KITT. How would one do a U-turn in that thing?  

George Takei talks about working on the set of Star Trek, past convention practical jokes, his use of social media and a musical he co-wrote called Allegiance. It's about the experience of Japanese-Americans during the Second World War. He's such an engaging speaker!

While fellow Star Trek alum Nichelle Nichols spoke about her family history, her father's early support and encouragement and being one of the first  African-American women on network television.

And finally Ian McDiarmid a.k.a. the Emperor from the Star Wars universe spoke about his casting break as the Emperor in 1982, working on the subsequent trilogy as Palpatine and what it's like being a pop culture icon. The Scotsman was great and he even did that evil voice!

All in all it was a great day spent, and another successful FanExpo Canada. 

Happy Canada Day!

Today Canadians around the world celebrate Canada's 146th birthday. And to celebrate here at WGTB, we've decided one of our "Top Five" posts is in order. This time it's Canadian characters in comics and hopefully there's a little something here to teach you about comics and that great country situated on the northern portion of North America.  

Quebec City's famous Chateau Frontenac as depicted in the splash of Captain Canuck #11 (Sept/Oct 1980)

 Let's begin...

5) Joe Shuster

We start our list with Superman co-creator Joe Shuster. Okay, we know it's a stretch to say this flesh and blood fellow and the first artist of the superhero responsible for defending "truth, justice and the American way" is a Canadian character, but we'll argue this by way of Toronto. Joe Shuster was born in Toronto and lived in Canada's largest city until he moved to Cleveland  when he was ten. Before moving, Joe worked as a newsboy for the Toronto Daily Star and used its former King and Bay street headquarters as models for the Daily Planet building in Metropolis. In his waining years he would also speak fondly of his Toronto roots and this is undoubtedly a source of pride for any comic loving Canadian. Joe Shuster: 5th on our list of Canadian characters in comics.

Toronto-born comics legend Joe Shuster, co-creator of Superman, holds a copy of Action Comics #1 (June 1938)

And from the Man of Steel's latest book, Superman Unchained #1 (June 2013)

4) Northstar & Aurora 

Alpha Flight's Quebecois contingent, the twin siblings Northstar and Aurora have long been two of Marvel's most innovative characters. Northstar was one of the first openly gay characters in comics, coming out of the closet in the early 90s and getting married in Astonishing X-Men #51 in June 2012. Aurora, on the other hand, has long battled various forms of mental illness, her own mutant powers manifesting as a teenager during a suicide attempt. These important and thoughtful attributes have meant that Northstar and Aurora have been two of Marvel's guiding lights (sorry I couldn't resist!) since first created in 1979 and have undoubtedly helped many young readers on their own journey of self discovery. As such, they get 4th place on our list today.   

Northstar and Aurora in Alpha Flight Vol. 1 #1 (August 1983)

3) Captain Canuck 

Captain Canuck is the ketchup chips of Canadian comics: invented in Canada; usually found only in Canada; and mostly red. Invented by Winnipeg's Comely Comix in 1975, Captain Canuck was published periodically (and with some very large gaps) between 1975 and 2004. The Captain inhabited a world where contact with extra-terrestial life gave Canadian Tom Evans space-born powers and much of the book's backdrop featured space and futuristic themed stories. The character has recently found new life in the form of an animated series which will debut today at the Silver Snail in Toronto. If you'd like to learn more about the latest incarnation of a Canadian funny book institution, please watch this YouTube video or visit this site.

Captain Canuck kicks robot butt in Captain Canuck Vol. 1 #11 (Sept/Oct 1980) 

 2) Vindicator/Heather McNeil Hudson 

The longtime leader of Alpha Flight, Vindicator was vaulted into the position when her husband died in an early issue of John Byrne's run on Alpha Flight. Never the shrinking violet, Heather Hudson threw herself into the role, taking up the mantle of Alpha Flight leader with gusto, soon becoming an important leader in her own right. This made her -- in a similar vein to her colleague Northstar -- a trailblazer as the first female leader of a major Marvel group. Because of this, she is a close second to the top Canadian character, someone Hudson counts as a close friend... 

At the funeral of James Hudson as depicted in Alpha Flight Vol. 1 #13 (August 1984)

Vindicator kicks butt and cracks wise in Alpha Flight Vol. 1 #89 (October 1990)

1) Wolverine 

...the Wolverine! One of the most popular characters in all of comics, this Canadian is the "best at what he does" and instantly recognizable not only to comic fans, but in wider popular culture as well. Created by the legendary Len Wein in October 1974, Wolverine was originally intended to be a one off character in an Incredible Hulk story. But the character proved to be too good for just one arch and a year later would resurface in Giant Sized X-Men #1, soon becoming an integral part of the X-Men line-up. He would also go on to star in a number of titular series, cartoons and even two feature films, one of which will be released later this month. Wolverine is hands down one of Marvel's most popular characters and in 2011 was named by IGN the 4th best comic book hero of all time, behind only Superman, Batman and Spider-Man. That is fine company and worthy of top pick in WGTB's Top Five Canadian characters in comics. Happy Canada Day, everyone!    

Wolverine a.k.a. Logan in Wolverine Vol. 2 #1 (Nov. 1988)

Wolverine in Alpha Flight Special Vol. 1 #1 (June 1992)