Holy Ginormous Gathering of Geekery, Batman!

…or, Jarret’s ComicCon 2009 report.

ComicCon (formally known as the Central Canada Comic Con, or C4, clicky) has grown leaps and bounds the last few years, exploding out of the confines of the tiny Victoria Inn and onto the vast expanses of the Convention Center’s entire second floor.

Much like last year’s ComicCon (clicky) the place was chock-a-block full of games, toys, demonstrations, artists, cars, and being that it was also Halloween, that meant scores of superheroes, video game characters, and villains – or at least everyday Joe’s dressed up as those types of individuals – walking through the Convention Centre in all their geeky glory.

And here I am… having totally forgotten to wear my Christopher Reeve Foundation Superman dog tag. I’m such a superstar.

ComicCon is FULL of everything a geek could want. There’s action figures, sports memorabilia, books, comics, swords, clothes, the industry’s artists manning the floor signing autographs and doing sketches, television and movie stars doing the same thing (well, none of them did any sketches that I know of), famous movie props, live demonstrations, board and video game tournaments and demos, and more.

Basically, being there is like having died and gone to Geek Heaven.

So let’s start off with the costumes.

Note: All pics link to bigger versions.

First up, we had a great Doctor Octopus from Spiderman lore, and a second picture of Doc with a young lady dressed up as Storm:

There was also a tremendous Scarecrow, from the Batman series:

And keeping with the Batman theme, there were plenty of The Dark Knight, and various other characters from the show (with Spiderman thrown in a fight sequence for good measure):

The best costume of the show was this young man carrying his own head around (sorry for the blurriness), and an honorable mention goes to Pac-Man:

Two of the major attractions of ComicCon this year were for the vehicles. We had the pleasure of seeing the Batmobile from the original television series, and a restored Echto-1 from the Ghostbusters film series.

Echto-1:

The Batmobile:

Also, there was a gentlemen there with custom art on this motorcycle… oh my… this was some of the absolute best stuff I’ve ever seen.

 

And what would ComicCon be without the celebrities? Every year, C4 brings in many stars from the world of television, movies, pro-wrestling, as well artists from the Geekdom.

This year, we had the pleasure of meeting Alex Milne, who, if you’re a Transformers nerd like I am, this guy worked on several Transformers comic lines, and did the movie adaptation of the 2007 movie.

I bought a couple of his prints, and he also did a custom colored headshot sketch of G1 Optimus Prime. My very own! It’s AMAZING!

Here’s a shot of Alex signing my prints:

And here’s a shot of the Optimus Prime he did for me!

This year, celebrities included Peter Mayhew, the man in the Chewbacca costume in the Star Wars movies:

We also got a shot of Julie Newmar, who was Catwoman on the original Batman:

And here’s a shot of Steph and I with the Mayor of Quahog, the original Batman HISSELF: ADAM WEST!

An additional to all the glitz and glamour, C4 is also a gigantic retail space for vendors of all kinds, selling their geeky wares. I try to score a special Transformer this year, and boy did I ever score this year: A Takara Masterpiece Megatron!

Another huge success this year, and I can’t wait to see what they do next year!