Superheroes and Assorted Mayhem

You all know I’m some kind of low-grade pop-culture dork, yes? Even just based on my posts here?

I’ve been to Video Games Live (once in Edmonton, actually, and once in Calgary) and I’ve got a stack of Conan and Thor comics next to my bed; I have a book listing the 500 Greatest Marvel Villains; there are four vintage sci-fi movie posters above my bed; I have an embarrassingly large number of Batman and Earthworm Jim action figures in a shoebox that I absolutely. cannot. give away. (I’ve tried. I ended up fishing it back out of the storage tote. Sorry, kids whose moms shop at the Goodwill by my house!)

So it may seem odd that I’ve never been to a comic expo till a couple of weeks ago, and in fact I hadn’t even planned the trip around going to said expo, even after I found out William Shatner was going to be there. But my road treep partner got tickets for Sunday, so I did end up spending most of the day there.

It was unexpectedly awesome! I did a lot less sniping at geeks than I expected, even though they gave me ample opportunity (about every ninety seconds, on average). This was because after a while I released my deathgrip on Dean’s arm and tried to give in to the geekery. The camera finally came out at that point and I started appreciating the time investment that went into some of the costumes, displays, dioramas, merchandise, and comics. There are a lot of talented people in this community, and I don’t just mean people who can draw comics, though they were my favourites. I  mean people who sculpt, weld, sew, paint, knit, forge, and LOTS of craft forms I’d never considered.

I didn’t take many pictures, though many encouraged photo ops – after all, if you spend hundreds of hours on a costume and only wear it once, you want to be the centre of attention, right? Also, I felt awkward about photographing the statues and comics and whatnot at peoples’ booths. I didn’t see any ‘No Pictures’ signs…I just felt weird.

(Not taken at the expo, obvs. I do recommend the crab cakes at Catch though. This was scrumptious.)

A stupendous amount of work went into this Ghostbusters setup. The traps, decals, stickers, lights, everything. This guy stayed COMPLETELY in character, too. We chatted for a few minutes about the Ghostbusters of Alberta and their mission, etc. I seriously wanted to ask him out but thought it would be gauche, and distract him from his important work.

“Jesus. I think I’m hallucinating, man. I keep thinking I hear R2-D2.” “No, you’re OK. Turn around.”

I thought it was funny that this Joker came up behind this Batman and started randomly stabbing at him. They didn’t come together, so basically Joker would have been hoping that Batman stayed in character and didn’t just turn around and go “Fuck off, you mook!”  They had a little mock fight; Wonder Woman, hilariously, was no help at all. As we were leaving she was saying “Do you have a medium in this?”

Dork highlight for me, of course, running up to this guy and screaming “ARE YOU A MAN?” and him screaming back “I AM DEVO!”  (Other big dork highlight: getting a commissioned piece from the creator of Earthworm Jim!)

(I did take more pictures than this but I don’t want y’all to get geeked out and most of them are on Dean’s Facebook album anyway because he’s not slow like me.) (Also, can I just add, Tia Carrere is a freakin’ BABE still. I don’t know if it was a heavy layer of slap or just good genes but she looks like a million bucks in real life. No joke.)

This is definitely something I would consider doing again next year – and I would be more prepared, too (bring a backpack, snacks,  poster tubes, more cash, etc). Who’s with me?