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Review: Ottawa Comic Convention

Awww yeah, we all know you love it!  A convention of pop culture goodness…science fiction, fantasy, comic books, superheroes…you name it, they got it!

This was the lineup for an hour.  You can play a game of Where’s Waldo here!

Véro, Trish and I met at South Keys all decked out.  You see…I wasn’t planning on dressing up for Comiccon, but Vero insisted we do so!  So I decided on something easy enough…my red-shirt Star Trek outfit I made a few years ago for a work Hallowe’en function.  Vero went as Waldo/Wenda/Wanda which was my personal favourite of the show, especially when she was in a crowd of people!  Trish dressed up as Batgirl which was also an excellent costume!!  Benoit decided to wuss out and not wear much at all (in terms of costuming…I wonder how he’s going to fare being in the Trooper outfit for hours on end!)

 Not sure who the guy pushing around Prof. X is supposed to be!

We were surprised to meet up with Eric and Jason on the bus ride to the center.  We were also surprised to be in a lineup that circled the area a few times!  It took us an hour to get inside, but the sun was shining and there were some great costumes to check out while waiting around.

Luckily, I did not perish on this mission

All in all, the Comiccon exceeded my expectations.  I was expecting a gong show of an event considering it was the first year Ottawa was hosting an event like this.  20,000 people are a lot!  But in the end, I got to see all the panels I wanted to, I got to peruse all the merchandise I wanted to, I got to get an autograph from Neal Adams (but not Dale Eaglesham who I found out was only there on the Saturday and I missed him!  Dang!), I got to follow Benoit around who talks to all the people at the booths where I’m too shy to chat them up…it was a great experience.

One day, this will be Benoit and I

My only complaint is that the majority of the booths jacked up their prices during the Con so there were not many deals to be had.  That is a shame as I used to get some really good deals back in the day.  I think it’s time to start branching towards EBay for a lot of my purchases.

Waldo and her trusty sidekick Batgirl!

One day was definitely not enough and I’m glad to have gone for the entire weekend.  There is just so much to do when you include panels…if I wasn’t going to any panels, I would think one day would have been enough.  I will definitely be back next year!

Highlights

–        Benoit and I managed to get a spot in the Star Wars Armour Workshop which was AMAZING.  I really enjoyed seeing people who had WAY more dedication than Ben and I in building our Stormtrooper armour.  I really liked how someone managed to install magnets into the armour to snap together.  AWESOME.  I was really worried at one point because they said that the 501st was not allowing the FX Armour kits into membership and it wasn’t until I checked a few days later that I realized we did not own the FX Armour kit.  Phew!  We were disappointed that they said we could drop by their booth and ask questions but they were too busy posing for pictures to consider us.  However, they gave us a card, and it’s understandable that they are busy!

–        I went to the Neal Adams panel which was interesting.  He really enjoyed talking about the future of comics…motion comics, augmented reality…stuff that I’m really excited for.  It’s nice to see someone who still works towards the future.  He was a funny guy to see.

–        I met up with Vero and Trish and they said they were bombarded by people asking for their photograph!  That is amazing!  They had really great costumes.

–        Action Figure Improv was quite funny.  They basically have a video camera on a couple of action figures that the improv team act out and they draw different backgrounds that they enter once in awhile.  It was clever and entertaining.

–        John de Lancie was entertaining.  He had some good stories from back in the day of being in ST: TNG.  It was interesting to hear that he only appeared in nine episodes of the series as Q.  Really?  That’s it?  He’s made an incredible impression, considering.

–        Brent Spiner stole the show for me…he was off the wall hilarious…with his impersonations of Patrick Stewart, or how he handled a woman asking to have his babies.  He even phoned his mom on Mother’s Day from the stage!

–        We went to a panel to hear about Heroes of the North, a Canadian web series.  It was quite interesting to hear about how it’s hard to make an action film/series in Canada as people tend to think that’s an American thing.  I found them interesting and I’m sure Dad would have appreciated checking out Hornet from the series!

Hornet – Heroes of the North

All the photos shown here are from my friend Eric, other than the great one of Vero and Trish which I found on Flickr!