Montreal Comiccon 2012 Preview

Montreal is known for its major festivals, if you’re a local you know them all. From Francofolies to Nuits D’Afriques and everything before and after, the city is pretty busy. But every year as students come back to town, there is one more event that pushes festival season over the top. Some of you may think I’m referring to Pop Montreal, that’s for the music fans, I’m talking about Comiccon. 

Imagine a world where seeing an ogre is the norm, one where comic book characters come to life, and your favourite artist, writers, actors and Sci-Fi attractions are all in one place. Well for a geek like me that’s the dream. I’ve covered the Toronto Comiccon, better known as FanExpo, for some years now and every year was a more amazing experience.

I’ve met Stan Lee, Joe Quesada (former Editor-in-Chief of Marvel Comics), Axel Alonso (current Editor-in-Chief), Matt Fraction, Alex Maleev, Marko Djurdjevic, John Romita Sr. & Jr. and those are just the Marvel people. I also met Dan Didio, who is known more for his DC work but for us Canadian’s he’ll always be the man who help create Reboot. Some of those names might not mean much to you, but if you are a comic book geek like me (2010 Marvel Comics FanExpo Trivia Runner-Up), meeting some of them is almost impossible to put into words. 

With Toronto’s con continuing to be a Canadian comic convention mecca, it was sure to inspire other cities to make their mark and Montreal’s comic convention took a page from the Fanexpo books and got their "Eh" game on. Last year’s major get was none other than the creator of the X-men and Spiderman; Mr. Stan Lee along with the original dynamic duo; Mr. Adam West and Burt Ward. Plus a replica Batmobile from the 60’s series and the Delorean time machine of Back To The Future fame. With a year one that rivaled Fanexpo, I decided to not even attend the Toronto con this year and focus solely on what I expect to be an amazing Montreal Con weekend. 

This year’s major guests are William Shatner, a Montrealer himself; known the world over for playing the first Captain to explore new life and new civilizations; James Tiberius Kirk of Star Trek fame and his successor Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Jean-Luc Picard for seven seasons on Star Trek: The Next Generation and Professor Charles Xavier in the original X-Men trilogy.

Stewart recently had to withdraw from two other conventions on the east coast, making his Montreal appearance an important event. If that wasn’t enough this year will also feature Malcolm McDowell, known for his role as Alex DeLarge in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and most recently as Stanton Infeld on TNT’s Franklin & Bash, Adam Baldwin of Firefly fame, fellow Star Trek: TNG starts Brent Spiner, Wil Wheton, and John De Lancie (best known for his role as Q).

There are a lot of names I could throw out (Saul Rubinek, Aaron Ashmore and Eddie McClintock of Warehouse 13, James Marsters and Nicholas Brendon from Buffy and Hercules’ Kevin Sorbo) to try and entice you even more, but at this point I think I’ve made an argument for why you should be hitting up this year’s Comiccon and if that wasn’t enough... they have the 1989 Batmobile, the Batmobile Michael Keaton drove in as Batman in the Tim Burton films, the Batmobile that could cloak, the Batmobile that had armor shielding.. yes that Batmobile. 

Hope to see you there, follow me on twitter (@PhantastiqCypha) for updates and make sure to catch The Onomatopoeia Show on Sunday from 3 – 4pm as well as follow CJLO’s resident Comics and Graphic Novel specialist Robin Fisher on twitter @Cartoongal

Montreal Comiccon will take place at Palais Des Congres (1001, Place Jean-Paul-Riopelle Montreal Canada) from September 14 - 16th visit Montrealcomiccon.com to get your tickets before they sell out.

-Brian 'Doc' Holidae hosts The Phantastiq Cypha on Tuesdays from 6-8pm