Toronto Con: Pix by Don MacPherson The annual Canadian National Comic Book Expo was held in Toronto from Aug.23-25, and I was in town, enjoying a well-deserved vacation. My TO-based pals Rod and Laura Weatherbie tagged along, as did their digital camera. So the three of us snapped some shots as we toured the con floor (the blurry ones are mine, sadly). I also had my sketchbook with me, and if you want to see what some of the folks below contributed, click HERE. Troy Little is the creator behind a little-known and high-quality indy title called Chiaroscruo (not to be confused with a DC/Vertigo limited series from a few years back that went by the same name). Troy provided some more issues for review, so expect to see my further comments about the book on the site in the near future. Troy and I share a hometown: Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, Canada. Troy now makes his home in Ottawa, Ontario these days. I chatted with Jay Stephens for a while. He's really pumped about Discovery Kids/NBC picking up his Tutenstein property (a mainstay in his Jetcat comics) for the Saturday-morning cartoon treatment. There's an entire Tutenstein animation studio set up in L.A., he told us, and it's even got a firm airdate (which I've since forgotten... it's sometime in June or July 2003). No, it's not Brian Michael Bendis. It's another Charlottetown native and a friend, Sandy Carruthers. He's a graphic-design instructor back home. Though his name may not ring any bells right off the bat for most comics readers, he's got a solid resume. He was the artist on a certain Malibu limited series that gained greater fame when it made its way to the silver screen. Maybe you've heard of it... Men in Black? Sandy's currently working on reviving Richard Comely's Captain Canuck, with the creator's blessing. Hey, no comic (and sci-fi/anime) convention would be complete with folks in costumes, and this one was amazing. I'm no Lord of the Rings fan, but I had to snap a shot. As I was preparing to do so, I watched as this guy glided across the con floor and scared the living shit of an unsuspecting woman. J. Torres has been a personal favorite ever since I first checked out his work on The Copybook Tales. He may well be the industry's top all-ages comics writer at present, penning such books as Sidekicks, Jason & the Argobots and Alison Dare comics. I watched for a while on Saturday afternoon as he desperately tried to explain that he freelanced for Oni Press, did not represent the publisher, and no, he couldn't get an insistent would-be pro any work with Oni Press. A helluva nice guy. Chip Zdarsky, AKA the Man Whose Name I Must Repeatedly Check to See If I Spelled It Correctly. Chip was at the con promoting his Prison Funnies. I picked up a copy of volume one, so again, expect a review. Chip also attended a Friday night Warren Ellis Forum drinkup that I joined for a couple of hours. His hat has magical powers, jumping from head to head. Stuart Immonen a young lookin' fellow, ain't he? You'd never know he's done it all in comics. Thor, Superman, Shockrockets and Legion of Super-Heroes just scratches the surface of his body of work. And most recently, he did the last couple of issues of Incredible Hulk. If it's a comics/sci-fi con, there's gotta be media guests. Brent (Data) Spiner, Billy Dee (Lando) Williams and John (Dr. Flox) Billingsley were there, as was this lady, Nichele Nichols, AKA Uhura from the original Star Trek. Recognize him? He was another media guest, though one that, unfortunately, didn't draw that big a crowd. If only folks can recognized Chris Owens, Agent Spengler and the young Smoking Man from The X-Files. He worked on a couple of movies, and these days, is working in the theatre. Genre media fans aren't just folks in their teens and 20s. Here's a guy who manages to pull off a decent James "Scotty" Doohan look without the benefit of make-up, it would seem. The con was about three weeks ago, so my memory's not what it should be. And I didn't take this picture. But I'm 95 per cent sure this is Alvin Lee from Udon Studio, responsible for the art on Marvel's Agent X series. Alvin did me up a Deadpool sketch, so I'm pretty sure this is him. Apologies all around if I get this wrong. Toronto's a smaller con, but Dreamwave Productions was out in full force, easily boasting the sharpest booth setup. Of course, Dreamwave is based in Toronto, so it makes sense that they'd be kings of the con (at least from the comic-book side of things). Speaking of Dreamwave, I chatted briefly with Chris Sarracini and James Raiz. Chris is Dreamwave's defacto head writer, I would imagine, as he pens both current Transformers limited series and Fate of the Blade. Raiz is a more-than-meets-the-eye guy as well, handling pencilling chores on Transformers Armada. OK, it may not be the most flattering pose, but artist Mike Norton let me snap his picture all the same. I didn't even known Mike was going to be at the con; turns out he was there as part of the Devil's Due Publishing contingent, serving as their art director. Personally, I'm a fan of Mike's work on such books as The Waiting Place and Jason & the Argobots. The Devil's Due booth was one of the busiest spots in the comics area of the con, no doubt due to their production of G.I.Joe and Micronauts titles from Image Comics. And the busiest of the Devil's Due crew was Josh Blaylock, who writes and lays out the new adventures of the Real American Heroes. I don't know what the hell this is -- kind of resembled a movie Predator, as there was a little one along with him not pictured here -- but it was an amazing costume in a field of... well, mostly crappy ones. Still, can you imagine the spare time that went into this thing? (Of course, my spare time is being sucked up into coding this feature...) JSA artist Leonard Kirk is a Canadian, eh. Greg Beettam and Stephen Geigen-Miller are best known for their work on not one, but two Xeno's Arrow series. Their quirky space opera is on hiatus these days, though, as they take care of business in the Real World. They plan on resuming their comics storytelling, though, fear not. Don't let the photo fool you... Dale Eaglesham's a happy camper these days. After a nice high-profile stint on DC's Bat-titles, he's now reaching plenty of fans pencilling Judd Winick's Green Lantern scripts. I was surprised to learn that Dale's been active in mainstream comics for much longer than I thought, having worked for DC, Marvel and Valiant over the past 15 years. Shame on me for not knowing. Ty "the Guy" Templeton was just made the con for me. Talked with him for about a half hour about comics, about this website and about the quirky challenges that Canadian comics creators face when doing work for American publishers. Ty had the whole clan at the con on Sunday -- his wife and five kids. In Artists Alley, no one garnered more attention than Ty. It didn't hurt that his Bigg Time graphic novel had just hit the street, but it's for his memorable work as a writer and an artist on DC's animated Batman comics that really had people clamoring to be around him. Bendis sighting #2. No, wait, it's Top Cow and The Call of Duty: The Brotherhood artist David Finch. He and Chuck Austen (whom I never saw, sadly) were promoting their Call of Duty stuff, but Finch was also popular with the Top Cow crowd, who came out to see Michael Turner, David Wohl and Dale Keown as well. What's with the no-hair thing? Looking slick (and disinterested in the camera) is Karl Kerschl, an artist based just outside of Montreal perhaps best known for his work on the recent Iceman limited series. He also illustrated the recent Weapon X: The Draft - Sauron #1 one-shot, and these days, he's working on an upcoming Nightcrawler one-shot, tying in with next summer's X-Men movie sequel. Well, that's it for pix, but if you click HERE, you can jump over and see the sketches that some of the people above were kind enough to do for me. Email Don MacPherson comments about this column, or discuss it on the Fourth Rail message board.