This weekend is the Toronto Fan Expo, which basically brings together every excuse for nerd-dom that there is: Comics, Science Fiction, Horror, Anime, and Gaming.  There will be merch to buy, artists to see and meet, a few movie screenings, cosplayers, the 501^st Legion, celebrities of varying degrees, and generaly geektasticness.

I have enjoyed Fan Expo the last few years I’ve gone, and expect that I will enjoy it this year as well.  I enjoy watching geeks of all stripes come together in one place.  I love watching the cosplayers strut their stuff, and how a great costume will make everyone geek out.  I love seeing merch that you can really only find at a convention like this, the kind of nerd specific stuff that you can’t walk into a store to find.  I love that exhibitors range from people hawking hand-made merchandise, to publishers like Udon, to independent new media like Team Epic.

This year, I intend to take in more than just the merch floor and the cosplayers.  I intend to go to some panels (a few look interesting) and meet some people.  I even have a business meeting on Sunday before the con opens (that’s a first for me).

The weekend can’t come soon enough.

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I was going to write a long post about my Toronto Fan Expo experience, but then I saw this video. It does a far better job at capturing the fan expo experience than my blog post would have.

[via Next Gen Player]

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The Toronto Comic Arts Festival (TCAF) was this weekend.  Of the comic-centred conventions I have been to, TCAF is most certainly my favourite.  Its the only one with free entry, and its artist focused, so instead of being ruled by Marvel or DC or other companies, you get a lot of independent artists showing off their comics, and selling artwork.

I thought I’d take a moment to share with you some of the things I picked up this weekend.

First was the only comic I picked up (that was not by design, that’s just how it worked out). Its called “Pang: the wandering Shao-Lin monk”.

I encountered the artist, Ben Costa at his table, and he gave me his pitch, and I had to admit, he had me at “Wandering Shao-lin monk”, so I bought it. I quite enjoyed it, and discovered afterwards that its a compilation of a webcomic that can be found at http://shilongpang.com/. I highly recommend checking it out.

I also picked up some Adventure Time art.  If you don’t know Adventure Time, you should.  It is awesome (and strange).

Jim Zubkavich (of Skullkickers fame) was drawing monsters, and I couldn’t resist picking up “Sad Monster Time”.

Finally, I was enamoured of Dylan Meconis‘ “Family Man” tarot prints, so I had to pick those up.

All of the artwork I picked up will be finding its way on my wall (as soon as suitable frames are acquired). I’d love to show you the amazing artwork, but…well, you really should have been at TCAF to see it.

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