Fandom Unleashed In The Capital

As I have just started a series in my photoblog on our Tulip Festival, I'm posting today here. Last weekend Ottawa saw its annual Comiccon, a three day event at the EY Centre for fans of comics, movies, television, sci fi, and much more. Celebrity guests and artists were on hand for meet and greet sessions and events over the weekend. Merchandise was on sale from exhibitors and craftspeople. And there were no shortage of those in costume, walking about. As for me, well, put me in a suit and I could get away with posing as Lex Luthor.

This Darth Vader was walking about with R2-D2. There was no sign of an annoying and worrisome protocol droid.

Among the exhibitors was a business called Sparx and Mace, which specializes in period cosplay clothing for women and men- corsets, lace, scarves, and items that might be considered a bit racy.

One of the cosplayers, with a zombie look. We'll see more of her in our final shot.

This sort of merchandise appealed to me. Among my purchases were comic book t-shirts and some prints from artist Geof Isherwood (an Avengers group shot, a solo Thor in stormy weather, and a dramatic Wonder Woman). I chatted with Mr. Isherwood, as well as Nick Bradshaw, another well established artist nearby.

I liked this formidable armour, though I have no idea who the character is supposed to be.

I took some perspective shots. The place was exceptionally busy, with people coming through. The EY Centre, located near the airport, is larger than our convention centre downtown, and someone I chatted with during the day noted that it's easier for exhibitors to load and unload here than it would be downtown. 

This vendor included some pillows in their wares. One guess as to why this drew my eye.

Among the cosplayers were plenty of Negans (including a woman) wielding barbed wire bats, a good many Deadpools and Spider-Men, more than a few Harley Quinns, and plenty of Star Wars related people. Ottawa has a local chapter of Star Wars cosplayers, the 501st Legion, and they had a specified area in the building.

I believe this is a Doctor Who villain, but the whole franchise gets me a bit dazed and confused, so perhaps someone can verify that.

I stopped by this booth, for Wasteland Artisan, which specializes in handcrafted masks and accessories.

This trio caught my eye during my wanderings. Here we have Colossus with the silver skin, Professor Xavier in the wheelchair, and a young woman playing the part of Negasonic Teenage Warhead, all from the X-Men franchise.

This wall caught my eye too. It was for a business specializing in makeup effects.

Two of our national museums here in the capital region had a shared booth, which makes sense as they are run together by the same organizational leadership. The Canadian Museum of History and the Canadian War Museum are presenting a pair of related exhibits beginning in June. Medieval Europe will be shown at the former, while the latter hosts an exhibit on Armour- from knights to superheroes. While the suit of armour in the background was stationary, the soldier and Iron Man were in fact cosplayers who were part of the booth. I'm looking forward to both of these exhibits and will be documenting them in the photoblog.

One of my favourite cosplayers of the event- this fellow was in costume as Groot, walking about on stilts, and when I caught him here, he had a t-shirt from the nearby shirt vendor with the only three words the character ever says in the Guardians of the Galaxy films.

More cosplayers. I find it fascinating how much attention to detail these people pay to their costumes, and the enthusiasm is infectious.

Out in the entry corridor, I photographed some more. The Dark Knight certainly fits the part. His companion... a bit of looking about suggests she was taking the part of She-Ra.

This robot costume really caught my eye. I had a chance to speak with the person in the costume a few minutes later and complimented her on the costume.

A zombie bride had quite a few onlookers gathered around.

I liked the costume of this woman, playing Cruella De Vil. Aside from the smile (unthinkable in the original character), she definitely looks the part. She graciously held a pose for me.

I finish off with this set of three women in different costumes posing for photographers. The last one includes our zombie from earlier in this post. If you get a chance to go to one of these conventions, take it. These are a whole lot of fun.

A Day In The Life Of A Vulture

6 AM. Time to wake up. Feeling hungry. Sun coming up to east. Will look about for anything that died during the night.

6:45 AM. Circling overhead awhile. Have spotted dead raccoon. Breakfast time! Always did like the taste of raccoon first thing in the morning.

7:15 AM. Satisfied with breakfast. Will do until mid-morning snack. Off soon to visit with friends.

8:10 AM. Met Charlie and Dolores at their perch on the cliffside. Chatted about what we've had for breakfast. We vultures do tend to eat a lot of dead things.

8:30 AM. Charlie and Dolores mention watching human reading in park four days ago during their last trip. Apparently one of their younglings reading what's called a comic book, featuring a human being calling himself the Vulture. Discussing why humans would want to take on our attributes, and by extension, why such a person is a quote... villain, unquote, rather then the hero. This starts off an existential discussion on the meaning of life and death. Talk of death makes me peckish.

9:20 AM. Charlie, Dolores, and I go off in search of a snack.

10:45 AM. Success at last. Discovered elk, freshly killed by wolves. Wolves have left area, but we'll be watchful for their return. In the meantime, we can dig in. We all do so love the texture and taste of freshly killed elk.

11:20 AM. Finished eating our fill of elk. Charlie, Dolores, and I talk about that time last fall when we hadn't had any dead thing to eat in a day or two and came across that freshly dead skunk roadkill. Eating that was something of an ordeal. Took weeks for the stench to wear off. Note to self: only eat skunk in dire circumstances. Meat tastes good, but the smell is atrocious.

12:10 PM. Bid goodbye to Charlie and Dolores. Off to find lunch.

12:50 PM. Success. Have found dozens of lemmings at base of cliff. Rumors that they do commit suicide in mass numbers are in fact true. All the better for me. Always did like the taste of dead lemmings. Even better dipped in a lemon sauce, but since I'm a vulture and can't make lemon sauce, will have to eat them as is.

1:20 PM. Finished eating. Quite tired. Feel like a nap. Will snooze a long while.

3:40 PM. Wake up from nap. Descending from cliff to look for afternoon snack.

4:05 PM. Come on. Where can a hungry vulture find a tasty morsel?

4:45 PM. Somewhat annoyed. No sign of anything dead to turn into snack.

5:50 PM. Finally found potential meal, but may have to wait. Was almost set to start panicking when I came across stranded hiker in woods. Waiting for him to expire so that I can start eating. Hiker is prone on his back, unresponsive to pecks, but I can still see breathing going on. Hiker must be five days away by foot from civilization. Wondering if hiker would be missed. Impatient for hiker to stop breathing. Don't want to start on him while he's still alive.

6:40 PM. Hiker finally dead. Confirmed heartbeat no longer occuring. Unresponsive in all other ways. Dinner time is long overdue. Have compensated for lack of afternoon snack by getting full sized freshly dead human all to myself. Yum yum.

8:00 PM. Gorged myself on dead hiker. Ate my fill until fully stuffed. Still much of him left. Wondering if there will be any more of him left in the morning when I come back. Thoroughly delicious. Contemplating standing guard over food for the night. Don't want my prize picked over by other scavengers.

11:45 PM. Kept guard over remains of hiker. Chased off Frank, who's an annoying vulture to begin with and never shares anything anyway. No one likes him, so he won't bring backup. Time to settle down for the night. Well, maybe a few bites more for a late night snack. Yum yum.

Marketing Chimps And Editorial Gorillas

For a good long while, I've been a staff member at Comixfan (totally shameless plug here). Among the things I manage there is a weekly column we call Pick Six, which you can find right here. Each week, we do quick blurbs on six of the week's releases. For awhile now, I've regularly made references to marketing chimps in my blurbs, which is drawn out of my dismay at the direction of certain books that seem to be run not by the writers, but by marketing idiots who like to think they know everything about everything. The phrase has stuck in my head, and is a fairly good catch-all, I think, for marketing types in general. They do tend to make a lot of noise and fling a whole lot of crap around. It seems entirely reasonable, therefore, to add on the second primate. Editors, by extension, are editorial gorillas.

Yes, I know, I do some editing myself. I can see the irony.

Anyway, as such, I thought I'd share a couple of blurbs from recent weeks, which I wrote in the form of a conversation between two marketing chimps over two new releases. Enjoy, and let me know what you think!

Avengers Assemble #1

A conversation overheard at Marvel between two marketing chimps....

"Hey, Bob, we've got that Avengers movie coming out in May."

"That's right, Jack. Looks like Herr Oblast Quesada wants to have a tie-in somehow to the comics."

"Well, we can't just go with renumbering one of the series again for the 47th time, can we? We just did that last year. Or was it the year before? It's really hard to keep track of these things what with all the extra issues we do."

"Maybe we can have yet another book with the Avengers. We've only got four of them right now. And to make it even better, have the characters from the movie on the team, only make them the regular Marvel Universe characters."

"Genius! That's brilliant! And to make it even better, we'll have Bendis write it!"

"Great idea! Herr Oblast Quesada's favourite writer! Oh, sure, he annoys a bunch of readers with his complete disregard for continuity and anything done by any other writer..."

"Not to mention his tendency to write all characters as if they're just parroting his words and his way of making characters talk on and on and on for no reason at all. And we've got all this hate mail about him making his Mary Sue character Jessica into the center of the universe."

"To hell with all of them, Bob. We'll just bring in Mark Bagley on art. His sheer awesomeness will more then compensate, right?"

"Great idea. Now what about the title? We can't really use Mighty Avengers again, can we?"

"No, and by the same token, Avengers: Squeezing Every Cent Out Of The Reader would be pushing it. Same with Avengers: Yes, These Are The Same Characters From The Movie, Just Not The Same Continuity."

"Oh, I know! How about Avengers Assemble?"

"I love it! Let's talk to the head Editorial Gorilla... er, I mean Axel."

Avengers Versus X-Men #0

A conversation between two marketing chimps at Marvel...

"Hey, Jack. You hear the news? Herr Oblast Quesada wants the Avengers and X-Men to star in this year's big crossover."

"Wow, Bob. Who are they going to team up against? Kang? Terminus? Doctor Doom? Doctor Bong?"

"No, he wants them to fight each other."

"Each other? Who wants to see heroes fight heroes? We already did that a couple years back with Civil War, and look how that turned out! I take it there's some big misunderstanding that gets them all in each other's faces before they have to team up to stop Galactus or the Celestials or the White Rabbit?"

"No, he just wants them scrapping it out with each other. Seems he wants the Phoenix to be the sort of kind of Big Bad that divides them."

"Oh, I get it. Herr Oblast Quesada does have that seething hatred of redheads, after all. That's why he had the Parker marriage obliterated, after all. I'm just surprised he's bringing back Jean Grey. Didn't he issue the Jean Grey Will Stay Dead As Long As I'm In Charge edict five years back?"

"Apparently the Phoenix isn't going to be tied into Jean. It's that Hope kid who's the target this time. You know, that baby that was born a year ago in Marvel time and is now all grown up into an annoying fifteen year old?"

"Good God, not that pain in the neck! Hmmm, well, who's he going to have write this thing?"

"He wants all of the Architects to take turns. That's what he calls the Inner Cabal, remember? So Bendis and that whole lot are going to take charge. It also means lots of crossovers into lots of titles. And he wants to kick it off with a Zero issue prologue, and a tie in miniseries or seven of them. Lots of different ways to drain money out of the fan's wallets. No word yet if there'll be an Avengers vs X-Men Frontline miniseries featuring that Sally Floyd character getting all sanctimonious again."

"I hope not. The fans hate her."

"With good reason, my friend."

"I wonder how this whole event will end."

"The same way all these events end. Just as mere setup for next year's Big Event."