A FanExpo Experience

A sci-fi fanatic gets starry-eyed at the "nerdgasm" that was Toronto's FanExpo 2010.

“Sci-fi fans are the most passionate and intelligent fans around. And I'm not saying that because I am one.”

– David Blue of Stargate Universe

The FanExpo at the Metro Toronto Convention Center is a huge happening. I attended it last weekend and came away with a flood of impressions. While I was there, it looked like hundreds of small brush strokes; it took a couple of days for these to coalesce into a big mental canvas, a Renoir or Seurat painting that I’ll share with you now.

First, the basics. The FanExpo is for fans of “genre” books, games, films, and TV shows. It’s the third-largest such fair in North America, the leader of the pack being San Diego’s Comic-Con. Yet it’s really five fairs stapled together – expos for science fiction and comics (my main interests), along with horror, anime, and gaming. The main elements of the expo are first, the exhibition floor, which is jam-packed with comics and media companies promoting their wares (along with individual local vendors selling books, DVDs, action figures, and fan paraphernalia), and second, a series of “meet the stars” presentations and Q-and-A sessions in separate rooms on the first and second floors. There’s also a series of game rooms, smaller presentations, and after-hours events such as James Marsters’ (Spike on Buffy the Vampire Slayer) no doubt bloodcurdling concert and a steampunk fashion show.

Although the expo is clearly a nerdgasm, one thing that struck me about it was how radically different it is from my usual haunts – academic conferences – and how much it bucks the stereotype about genre fans seen on shows like The Simpsons, where the Comic Book Guy is presently as an obese, anal retentive, pathetic loser.

The Expo was chock full of fit fans wearing bright and usually skillfully crafted costumes of their favourite comic book, sci-fi, manga (Japanese comic books), or anime (Japanese animation) character. At every turn one ran into a Batman, a Supergirl, a Phoenix, a Joker, or a mob of manga princesses. Incandescent brightly-coloured wigs were the norm. And some of the costuming showed me subcultural worlds I didn’t know existed, such as the Gothic Lolitas – Nabokovian teens clad in 19th-century garb.

I attended a number of the Q-and-A sessions, mostly to do with sci-fi actors and comic-book writers. These can be divided into two categories. First there were les grandes étoiles, the big stars of genre entertainment. One panel reunited Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar, who played Batman, Robin, and Catwoman respectively on the 1960s TV show Batman. Though Ward tried to regale the audience with amusing stories from his glory days, West and Newmar seemed more jaded, having perhaps seen one too many fan expo mornings.

William Shatner was much more coherent, on top of his game as he told the audience a long story about how he finagled four tickets to the Olympic hockey finals in Vancouver by threatening not to perform at the closing ceremonies. He went on to do a bit of theater of the absurd as he answered fan questions. One young woman, who timidly introduced herself as a journalist, led Shatner to mockingly riff on the question, “What is the truth of an event?”, bypassing her question entirely. He also talked about his role as the politically incorrect lawyer Denny Crane on Boston Legal and his work on the current series Sh*t My Dad Says, barely touching on his most famous role as Captain Kirk on Star Trek.

Next to Shatner, David Cronenberg presented a study in contrasts. The famous horror director offered a studied and thoughtful meditation on his career, highlighting his difficulties in getting financing for his films. He also discussed his current project, A Dangerous Method, a movie about the lives and loves of Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung. I asked him whether the bleak final shots of all his films were intended as a Cronenberg trademark, and if he was influenced by existential drama. He said that he didn’t aim to impose such endings on his films if they didn’t call for them, preferring to let the material tell him what it “needs and wants,” and he admitted to being a natural existentialist. The event ended when veteran English director Ken Russell presented Cronenberg with a lifetime achievement award. Hopefully that’s not a kiss of death for Cronenberg’s career.

The most interesting sessions, though, were those in the smaller rooms, where we got to meet such genre actors as Tahmoh Penikett of Battlestar Galactica and Dollhouse, David Blue of Stargate Universe, and Ryan Robbins of Sanctuary. All three were enthusiastic about the event, happy to be working in the television industry and to answer fan questions. I asked Penikett in his Q-and-A session about the attitude of the Canadian actors who worked on both the grimly realistic Battlestar and more fantastic shows such as Smallville: were they struck by the differences, or was it just another job? He replied that even the Battlestar miniseries was “badass,” and that it “broke that stereotypical mold about what a sci-fi show is.”

On the last day I got a chance to interview both Blue and Robbins. Blue was friendly and effusive about his role as Eli Wallace on SGU (read the full interview here). Robbins talked at some length about how he got into acting, Sanctuary, and his love of comic books (read the full interview here). All three actors – Canadians Penikett and Robbins and the honorary (since he’s such a nice guy and signed a photo for me) Canadian Blue – seemed delighted to have jobs in television shows about hairy monsters, killer cyborgs, or lost alien space arks.

The giants of the comics industry, Marvel and DC, had large booths, but they didn’t seem to offer much in the way of entertainment besides a chance to hold Captain America’s shield or stare at a 15-foot picture of Superman.

Other smaller comic publishers such as IDW, Aspen, and Zenescope had substantial displays of their products. Zenescope beckoned customers with fetching women dressed as characters from their series Grimm Fairy Tales: none other than Sleeping Beauty – ironically, wide awake – and Little Red Riding Hood, who offered passersby a basket of comics instead of goodies for Grandma. I talked with Zenescope co-founder Ralph Tedesco in some detail on the first day of the fair (read the full interview here). There was also an “artist’s row” of about 20 comics artists sketching images off and on throughout the weekend.

In the horror quarter of the expo in the main hall, one encountered several rows of blood-drenched posters, T-shirts and DVD displays. After briefly meeting director Lonnie Martin on the exhibition floor, I interviewed his wife Cindy Martin, a producer at their company Ningen Manga Productions. Cindy is also a co-star of their new indie horror film Women’s Studies (read the full interview here). The film features psychotic academic feminists as villains. As Teal’c of Stargate: SG1 might quip: “Indeed”.

The FanExpo was a big canvas, too big to paint in one article. But a fascinating retreat from the dull vagaries of everyday life all the same.