You all know my love for comics, and more specifically, Marvel Comic books. Well, there’s no one more important to Marvel Comic books (in my opinion) than Stan Lee, creator of many of our favourite super heroes that we know and love today.
My friend Nat was heading to Fan Expo and I didn’t really put too much thought into going until there was chatter about bringing Sierra on a road trip to road test her. Then I realized that Stan Lee’s final Canadian appearance would be at Fan Expo so I decided it was due time for Stan and I to hang out. I mean, the gentleman is 93 years old! I’m assuming he’s going to retire some day!
I left Sierra and Véro in good hands for the day and I hopped on the Go-Train along with a bunch of other geeks in search for adventure. The only adventure I was NOT in search for was the god awful smell that the kid next to me was emitting. I can honestly say that this was the first time in my life where I have experience the ‘body odour’ so strong that I was contemplating just jumping from the train! The woman across from me had to pull out a gas mask from her purse!
Fan Expo was super well organized considering they had upwards of 75,000 people down there. I have to say that while my cohorts in crime (Benoit, Nat and Mel) had some issues getting to and from the North and South building due to so many people, I had a completely opposite experience and I’m glad the Fan Expo gods (Thor?) were smiling on me that morning. I got in line and managed to get into the venue 30 minutes before the ‘official’ opening. I managed to score some Astro City books I’ve had my eye on for a few years as well as some other Excalibur comics. I was on a good roll for the first hour.
But I only had one mission. Get a photo with Stan Lee. I’m scoped out the venue first to make sure I didn’t miss my 11:45am time slot. I went to the Stan Lee booth in the South building only to find out that this is where he provides autographs but the photos are taken in the North building. I went back there and found out where to line up and went perusing the wares from merchants. Fan Expo was definitely a larger experience than the Ottawa Comic Cons in that they have mammoth booths set up by Lego and Hasbro and TV studios all over the place, inter mixed with the general merchants of geek.
How awesome is this Lego statue?!
Around 11:15am I decided to head back over to the North building to ensure I made it to the photo session on time. Essentially, you buy a pass to the Fan Expo for the day, but you also have to buy a photo opportunity ticket to get a photo with Stan Lee. When you print out your ticket, it gives you a time slot to arrive at. I arrived with plenty of time and they even told me that I was way too early and there is no need to line up at that point. Luckily I had packed a few peanut butter sandwiches for the day (with 75,000 people in attendance, it’s kind of hard to get any food!) so I munched on one while I waited and read a copy of Angloman which Trish had picked me up for my birthday. It’s a funny Canadian comic based in Montreal.
I finally got to line up for Stan Lee. They shifted us behind some curtains and we waited patiently. 45 minutes later the line started moving and then stopped again for awhile. I wasn’t really sure what the hold up was, but so be it.
But then the line started moving, and moving FAST. I was getting pretty excited to shake the hand of an idol and chat with him and tell him “Thanks”. But the experience was entirely different than what I had in my mind.
With the line moving fast, we finally got towards a break in the curtain and there are a dozen people there and they are telling me to pass me my backpack to them fast and keep moving. I did so and it was like an assembly line of photos being taken. Person runs over to Stan Lee, smiles, snap, picture is taken, move along. The poor guy in front of me had the same idea as me as he wanted to shake his hand and talk to him but there was none of that. The people running the show just moved him along. So here came my big moment. I rushed up, and you can see the results of the photo. There was no way that I was going to leave it at that so I stopped and this was our interaction:
Me: “Stan, thanks for everything.”
Stan: “Good work.”
Stan “The Man” Lee
Then I was whisked off, they passed my backpack back to me, I walk down a corridor of felt rope and lo and behold, 10 seconds later, they have my picture printed out, I pick it up and throw it into my University of Ottawa diploma case (Trish had a good laugh when she saw that the photo of Stan Lee now takes place in that case instead of my actual diploma!).
“Good work”? GOOD WORK! I don’t even know what that means but I have a good laugh remembering that moment and the hilarious response he gave. It’s a story for the ages.
With that mission done, it was time to enjoy the rest of Fan Expo. I still hadn’t met up with Nat, Mel or Benoit at that point as they were traipsing around and it was hard to really meet up with anyone as it was like a herd of cattle moving to and from point A to point B. I headed down to an excellent Q&A session with Joe Quesada, chief creative officer of Marvel. If Stan Lee was the original creative genius of Marvel Comics, Joe Quesada certainly carries the torch nowadays. He chatted about everything Marvel…he doesn’t just look at the comics, but works a lot on the TV series on Netflix and the films as well. An interesting comment he made was how the films were meant to be global in nature (Avengers saving the world), whereas the Netflix series was more focused on heroes saving a neighbourhood (Daredevil). It was a great Q&A session and I’m glad I got the chance to attend it.
Joe Quesada Q&A
I also went to the Hayley Atwell Q&A session with Mel and Nat which was an example of what I hate about comic conventions sometimes. I enjoy behind the scenes stories from film a TV show like Agent Carter, but I do not like questions like “Do you think Agent Carter would have ended up with Guy A or Guy B if the series continued?” I mean…you are asking a question to an actress who doesn’t even write the stories! So there were a bunch of questions like that peppered with some fun behind the scenes commentary which was fun.
One day I will build this proton pack as my Hallowe’en costume!
After that point, I decided to enjoy the rest of Fan Expo going around Artist’s Alley with Benoit, Nat and Mel and taking it all in before the day ended. It was a long day, but it was incredibly fun and I ended up getting a boatload of Marvel Epic collections at the BMV Books booth at the end of the day so I was very happy with my day.
I love how I just happened to be walking by this awesome Boba Fett and Han Solo combo that I just took a picture of someone’s selfie without thinking of it.
<insert Imperial March theme>
The funniest part of the day was seeing a Deadpool do some breakdancing and then Nat and I were leaving and we heard some music and Nat said something like “Where’s the dancing Deadpool when you need him?” and there was literally a Deadpool next to us who started dancing. We had a good laugh.
I give Fan Expo two large thumbs up. They had a good selection of horror movie booths, some great deals to be had on comics (which is sometimes rare to find), and some great guests for Q&A sessions.
Back in Ajax, Vero was having fun with Sierra and the family.
