I wandered into the Vancouver Convention Centre, apprehensive about attending my first-ever comic book convention. However, the crowd was as diverse as they come, and the enthusiasm and good nature demonstrated by attendees was out of this world. The cosplaying was as epic as expected. The best cosplayers inhabited their characters’ personalities. This full committal to their role separates the pros from the amateurs — well, that and comically large weapons.
Of the many quirky goings on at the Expo, the one that stood out the most was a spontaneous rendition of the Rocky Horror Picture Show classic “Time Warp,” dance included. This was done in the middle of the vendor stalls and amongst the participants were two Deadpools, a Poison Ivy, and a cosplay Jesus. No word yet on how real Jesus felt about this.
During the course of the Expo I had the chance to speak with two artists working in entertainment; John Gallagher who is a concept artist for television and video games, and Nathan Fairbairn, a comic book colorist.
Gallagher has worked on games such as Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, and television programs like The Flash. Speaking to his creative process when creating concept art, Gallagher said “I’m creating the page everybody has to be on. And I’m also dealing with a broad range of visual literacies. I have to draw the page so that everybody knows what it looks like.”
He also spoke about how the creative process in his industry has shifted. “We had a fairly kind of elliptical process of creating things, and now from what I understand it doesn’t work like that at all. But in the early days we were free to inform the game with things we thought were cool, and the other way around.”
Nathan Fairbairn is a colourist for comic books and graphic novels, frequently collaborating with Bryan Lee O’Malley on series like the wildly popular Scott Pilgrim. Said Fairbairn, “I think the colourist has a lot of jobs, but I think you can distill it to three things: colourists need to add mood, focus, and they need to add depth to the images.”
He elaborated, “If it’s a very intense fight scene or full of rage, you’re going to want to use a lot of red. . . to kind of amplify that mood. If it’s a very sombre page, you want to have very cool, desaturated tones.”
While trying to bask in the nerdgasm that is the Expo, I decided to try my hand at Archery Tag, which uses foam tipped arrows launched at dizzying but definitely not fatal speeds. As I was next in line, I was interrupted by a posse of Expo employees accompanying Scott Wilson and Chad Coleman, who portrayed Hershel and Tyreese respectively on The Walking Dead. I was delayed 10 minutes while waiting for their photo-op to conclude. I snidely remembered that their characters had been killed in the show. Clearly their archery skills were not up to par.
The Q and A sessions for the day were packed. The one that appeared to attract the largest audience was that of actor John Barrowman, who stars in Arrow. Barrowman was a hit from the moment he stepped on stage, cracking obscene but hilarious jokes. The audience showed interest in Barrowman’s work against bullying and his advocacy for LGBT rights.
This year’s Fan Expo was an exhilarating, if slightly overwhelming, intersection of a wide variety of fandoms all coming together with a single purpose in mind: to celebrate popular culture and nerd culture. And also to be a little weird. Stay weird, nerds. Stay weird.
