FanExpo 2014: A Recap
During the Labor Day weekend of this year, nerds from near and far flocked to the Metro Toronto Convention Centre for FanExpo 2014. People partook in the sights, sounds, costumes, comics and much more! I went to cover the event with my fellow Geekpr0n-ers, Andrea and Jon, and as you can see we had a busy time indeed.
Andrea fearlessly covered all the happenings from the comics side of the con, and had a lot of exciting super-news to report on:
“This year’s comic presence at Fan Expo was mostly concentrated in Artist’s Alley. While both Marvel and DC ran All-Access panels, the real treat was the amount of time creators spent interacting with fans. Artists like Dan Parent, Marco Rudy, Ramón Perez, Leonard Kirk and David Finch were on hand all weekend sketching, signing and speaking in panels. Marvel and DC also offered portfolio review for up and coming creators. Stan Lee may have revealed that The Black Panther movie is in production by Marvel studios during his panel, and Marvel revealed that Charles Soule and Mahmud A. Asrar will be taking on the Inhumans and expanding their universe. Soule also talked about Death of Wolverine, saying that he was proud of his work and he feels that it will send Wolverine off in a fitting way. Meanwhile, over at DC, the publisher was focused on celebrating the 75th anniversary of The Dark Knight. DC revealed that both Bruce Timm and Darwyn Cooke have created animated shorts for the milestone anniversary, an announcement that raised a cheer from the crowd. There will also be a direct-to-DVD animated film, based on Assault on Arkham.”
This year’s convention also had so much promotion for cartoons and upcoming animated series, that I feel like I should have showed up to FanExpo wearing pajamas. I was treated to an exclusive press screening for Seth Meyers’ superhero parody The Awesomes, as well as joining the crowds of fans for the new Star Wars Rebels series. I also got to be in the presence of visiting royalty by chatting with Hynden Walch, the voice of Adventure Time‘s Princess Bubblegum. So, maybe it was good that I didn’t wear pajamas after all.
No convention is complete without amazing cosplayers, and FanExpo was no exception! Our own Jon got a bunch of photos of fantastic and talented costumers showing off their stuff, so be sure to check out his galleries from each day!
Thursday | Friday | Saturday | Sunday
Speaking of amazing cosplayers, we had them in abundance at our party on Friday night! We took to the mod club with adoring geeks and rocked the joint with some mind-blowing performances! If the party you went to didn’t have aerial performances and a fire sword fight, where the heck were you on Friday?
We were also treated to a star-studded weekend with the likes of Doctor Who stars Arthur Darvill and Matt Smith. Despite the heart-breaking last-minute cancellation of Karen Gillan, the boys still wowed their fans with charming and hilarious anecdotes at the exclusive Whovian event on Saturday evening. Matt was still in high spirits from his solo Q&A on Friday and had just as much wit in his answers. Matt expressed his desire to be a Time Lord in real life, gushing about how if he could, he would “Get in the TARDIS, pick up Frank Sinatra and Marilyn Monroe, go see some dinosaurs, get Frank to sing and then maybe go to the World Cup”. Arthur balanced out his co-star with quiet dignity, stating his desire to live in Narnia and play Jabba the Hutt from Star Wars one day. But then, it does take a person with a healthy amount of weirdness to perform on Doctor Who and do it well. “It was like massively weird group therapy.” asserted Matt.
Thanks for another crazy year, FanExpo. We’ll see you next year!
