Last month, I attended my seventh Toronto FanExpo, and after four days of sensory overload and noisy late-night shindigs, I’m just now finding the resolve to talk about it. Well, that’s not entirely true. It’s like this: I had the following week off (I spent the week before school started with my son) and two weeks of catchup hell at work after that as a result of my being away—but at last I can finally relate the events of my four-day adventure to you.

This report should serve as a handy little guide for those of you contemplating making the journey to FanExpo in the future (specifically Rue Morgue’s Festival of Fear portion), and perhaps you’ll see a picture or two you like. Hell, if you attended and were one of the four or five people at the entire con dressed in horror-related attire, you might even be in one of them.

I just recently discovered that FanExpo had been taking place for several years before the horror element was added the year before I started going. (I’d have gone to that one too, had I been aware of it). It was mainly sci-fi and comics before evolving to a quintet with gaming, anime and the reason I’m writing: horror.

For my first two years I would check out the con floor, sniffing around for freebies and getting a few autographed stills, until 2006, when I figured my son was old enough to get a kick out of joining me. Old enough to tolerate pushing through crowds of stormtroopers and Batmen to stand in 45-minute lineups to get a STAR TREK alumnus’ autograph. At least, he had to be old enough to allow a Gameboy to distract him while we shuffled inch by inch toward the front of the lines while getting jabbed with plastic swords and guns by jumpy cosplayers with no concept of personal space.

Yes, 45-minute lineups. Unlike any of the strictly horror-themed cons I’ve attended or heard about, this pop-culture mashup draws many tens of thousands of enthusiastic fans over the course of the weekend each year, causing massive lineups at the guest tables, congested laneways and packed restaurants after hours in the immediate vicinity.

It behooved FanExpo to introduce a couple of major changes this year to address the glaring concerns raised by the last two, mainly the overselling of the event to the point where thousands of ticket holders were shut outside the doors for hours to comply with fire and safety codes. As the fish had clearly grown too large for the tank, the party was moved back to the south building this year and the weekend was expanded to include Thursday. Security was noticeably improved, firm but polite with a very strict agenda for crowd control. (There was no access to the skywalk unless you were a guest at the adjoining hotel.)

It was still a busy weekend, Saturday being the major crush as always, but the larger venue certainly did help and there was better mobility for the most part.

My weekend began Thursday morning about noon, when I set out for the FanExpo customer service offices to pick up my press creds. There, I ran into my friend Jason Hooft of 3 Killa Bytes doing the same thing; he was obviously here for the gaming portion of the con. Fango has never opted to cover FanExpo in the past because of some perceived conflict of interest, due to Rue Morgue hosting the Festival of Fear, but this year I said to hell with it. I know several of those fellas anyway, and many of them are friends. By sheer coincidence, three other Fango press passes were released that weekend as well, though I didn’t run into any of those pass holders the entire time I was there.

So with a few hours to kill before the ribbon-cutting ceremony, Jason and I went off for a quick lunch and returned to find a huge throng waiting for the green light, a scene that always reminds me of the zombies hanging off of the compound fence in Romero’s DAY OF THE DEAD. Tattooed and dreadlocked last-minute vendors were hustling in past the lineup as the organizers sought the best place to set up the ribbon cutting. Guests Robert Englund and Lance Henriksen were slated to perform the ceremony, but after jostling and fighting for position with a group of aggressive and gossiping photographers, Jason and I decided to forsake the soggy photo op (it was raining on and off to boot) and head into the building. I must say, having a press pass hanging around your neck does make for a far better con experience. You’re given priority clearance, so there’s no waiting in lines, and people actually seem happy to see you. It puts a warm feeling in your tummy.

When we hit the floor, Jason and I parted ways. We each had our own interests to pursue, and mine began with locating a few friends I knew would be manning tables in the horror section.

My first order of business was to locate Canadian illustrator/author Richard A. Kirk somewhere in the artist alley. Richard is a remarkably talented gentleman whose intricate dark fantasy illustrations so impressed me when I met him a couple of years ago, he was the subject of my first full-length article in Fango (#301). If you ever make it to a FanExpo and don’t seek out this man’s work, you’ve robbed yourself. (He’s illustrated several of Clive Barker’s works as well as Korn’s eighth album cover.) After a visit with Richard and his family (I would go back and hang out with them for much of the con), I wandered off to say hello to a few more people and take pictures of the vendors before the crowds arrived, as my camera seems to be the perfect target for elbows and shopping bags.

I wandered off to find the booth of Black Fawn Films, great friends who make great Canadian indie movies (NEVERLOST, IF A TREE FALLS) to see if they had any plans after the con. I found Chad Archibald and Philip Carrer hiding behind a big stack of IF A TREE FALLS DVDs in a little wooden house about three aisles down from the guest tables. There were indeed plans for the evening: an Anchor Bay party at a bar close by. Excellent. Black Fawn and Anchor Bay—it doesn’t get better than that.

From there I went directly across the lane to see Darryl Magierowski at his Twisted T’s display. (Great obscure horror T-shirts—excellent quality and nicely priced.) His wife Bounmy and pal Cannibal Cam weren’t there at the time, but I’d catch up with them eventually. A couple of doors down, Reese Eveneshen and co. were housed in the DEAD GENESIS booth—which was mighty convenient, as I had intended on picking up that flick for myself, which I did.

By this time, the floor was beginning to fill up—far more people than I would have thought for a Thursday afternoon. I know that the extra day was a cause for concern for “the little guys,” vendors who didn’t know if they could afford to take an additional day off from their regular jobs to be here (a complaint I’d been hearing since the fourth day was announced). But by the looks of things, the attendees appeared ready to support the extra day. It would be interesting to see if this was sustained throughout the entire weekend. On the way to see my next victim, I was keeping an eye out for anyone dressed in horror costumes to shoot (with the camera) but I couldn’t find any. Plenty of superheroes and anime folks, but no horror. A noticeable increase in steampunk costumes, though, which looked pretty cool.

After looking high and low, I finally found Greg Lamberson at the Medallian Press booth. They had him in an odd spot, neither in the horror nor the book section. They were in a con limbo of sorts. You’d find him eventually if you were meticulously combing up and down the aisles, but he was in a tough place to find if you were looking for him specifically. If you don’t know the name, Greg is a bright and talented filmmaker/author, the man responsible for the cult favorite SLIME CITY (and its recent sequel SLIME CITY MASSACRE) as well as THE JAKE HELMAN FILES, a series of books that is a going concern for me, as I’m writing a review on the third and latest entry, COSMIC FORCES. I’ve gotten to know Greg through our interviews and Facebook friendship, and was looking forward to chatting in person over the course of the weekend.

After taking a shot of Greg’s annual FanExpo new shoe purchase, I continued on to find the Troma booth to say hi to Ron and Cathy and to scout out the Anchor Bay booth. (I love me some Anchor Bay.) Eventually I worked my way back to Richard’s table, where I hung out when I wasn’t haunting the aisles looking for horror folks and indie-film booths. It became painfully obvious that there were very few in attendance this year. By this time in past years I’d be hauling a big bag of indie DVDs, but this year—just one. And I’d hardly taken any pictures. Disconcerting, considering I was there to report on the horror goings-on.

Around 6 p.m., the guest tables were starting to fill up. Englund and Lance Henriksen arrived about an hour after I first got inside, Englund’s table already facing a huge lineup of audience seekers. Lance had no one yet, but that seemed to be the trend for returning guests, and this was Lance’s second year in a row. I’d interviewed Henriksen earlier in the year, so I popped over to say hi and ended up helping him set up his signs and paraphernalia while his assistant sat there doing not much of anything. Here I made my second purchase, a signed copy of NOT BAD FOR A HUMAN, Lance’s popular autobiography.

While walking by the Rue Morgue booth to see who I might know, I felt a tap on my back and turned right into a vision of breathtaking beauty in the form of Kat Von Pire, who was there volunteering for Rue Morgue with her excellent man Steve Walsh, both good friends of mine. After chatting for a bit, Kat accompanied me on a round of the floor, so that I could introduce her to Lamberson and have an impromptu photo shoot with her standing beside everything in the convention—including Victoria Price (Vincent’s daughter!!) and the huge robots from REAL STEEL which were apparently in the actual film.

At this point, I have to admit, I was tired of walking around, my feet were killing me and the camera was getting heavy, despite the alarming lack of pictures inside.

I made several circuits of the floor, caught Justin McConnell and his gang from THE COLLAPSED at the Anchor Bay booth and makeup FX wiz Mitchell Stacey just after he converted DEAD GENESIS’ Erin Stuart into a crispy corpse. I ran into the Nictophobia Films lads, Christopher Harrison and Phil Pattison (super-nice guys), from whom I bought DVD #2 (VS. THE DEAD), as well as Tim Sullivan right next door!

So I started getting a few photos—of the guests at least, but nothing of the attendees, which is very unusual but no matter: the busiest days were still coming.

This proved to be the longest day of the con, open until 9 p.m. I realized I’d forgotten to eat, but there was no time for that now. I had to go to my room, register, clean up, then walk to the hotel where the Black Fawn fellas were staying so we could all walk up to the Anchor Bay soirée together.

Which we did.

It was at the London Taphouse on Adelaide. Great rooftop patio. They make the best Bloody Caesars ever. (Huge pickled green beans!!) Here’s the thing: when you put the Foresight Features guys (John Geddes, Jesse Cook, Matt Weile, Cody Calahan, Mark Gibson, Adam Seybold) together with the Black Fawn group (Chad, Philip, Ryan Barrett, Emily Alatalo, Jennifer Polansky) at a party hosted by Anchor Bay (Susan Curran, Rob Herholz), you’re going to laugh your ass off and drink far more than you had planned. I have to say I had a blast with these folks (despite, or maybe because of, Geddes trash-talking me re: volleyball). A definite weekend highlight.

I also met and chatted with Dave Alexander of Rue Morgue for the first time—nice fellow—as well as actor Jake Raymond, and I talked with a girl who had a baby squirrel under her shirt. No, that isn’t code for anything (it couldn’t be); she actually had a real live baby squirrel under her top that she let me hold. I gave it back after it bit me about 23 times. Cute, though.

We were politely but forcibly removed from the bar sometime after 2 a.m. My night ended here by choice, while many of the others continued on to Sneaky Dee’s.

I was looking forward to seeing what kind of mewling messes these guys would be the following morning, but that will have to wait until part two. I’m off to bed.

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MOVIES/TV - Fearful Features