The Calgary Expo

So this is the post I should have done ages ago, considering the Expo was back in April. So here it is.

We, my daughter, my two brothers, my niece and nephew, and I went to the Expo and had the opportunity to meet some of the coolest guests yet (every year seems to get better with this event, and next year promises to be even bigger).

Here are a few of the photos, some of them are a little blurry but I never claimed to be a photographer.

The one and only Malcolm McDowell, one of the nicest people I have ever met. He signed the items I had brought and then we talked briefly about Stanley Kubrick and films in general and he even directed some of the conversation to my daughter, who was probably rolling her eyes at her fanboy dad. She has seen Time After Time but is not ready for some of his other films. I'm sure I sounded like a gushing idiot to him, but he didn't say anything, the shoulder in the photo is mine but the look on my face is scarier than anything I saw at the show, so I  cropped myself out, I'll photoshop a different expresion someday and then only my hairdresser will know for sure.

Mr. Leonard Nimoy. The signing had an assembly line feel and he didn't personalize anything, but if you saw the line you would understand. I'm pretty sure out of the 20,000 fans who came to the show about 19,993 came to see Leonard Nimoy. I can't imagine the writers cramp he must suffer after each and every convention he goes to.


Bill Sienkiewicz came to the show and did a fantastic Batman drawing for me, he also signed my Venture brothers DVDs that he did the cover art for. I grew up reading his Moon Knight books and I followed pretty much everything he's done from Elektra Assassins to the conspiracy theory trading cards. The best part about meeting him was when he was about to hand me my sketch and then he said "wait a second", took the drawing, set it on the floor, grabbed a brush pen from his tool box, removed the brush and proceeded to splatter the drawing with ink. My initial thought as he was about to do this was "Noooooooooo" but DAMN! That just made the drawing a Bill Sienkiewicz.

Brent Spiner was there. Coolest story I have for him doesn't involve me or my daughter. There was a little girl and her dad ahead of us in the line, the little girl was clutching her Master of Disguise dvd for dear life, I can only assume it's her favorite movie. I guess her dad didn't realize there was an autograph fee until he got deep into the queue, so when he and his daughter got to the front of the line the father explained it all to Mr. Spiner and said that he just wanted his daughter to say hi to him. Mr. Spiner looked at the little girl, asked if she really liked the movie Master of Disguise, then asked if she wanted to hear his evil laugh (for those who haven't seen it he always farted at the end of the laugh). She said yes, he started to laugh, and then he said he had to stop because he didn't want to finish the laugh in public. Then he asked to see her dvd, which he then signed, gave it back and told her to treasure it forever. Very cool.

Billie Dee Williams, it was kind of anti climactic for me, to tell the truth. Probably because we, everyone in the line up, had been kept waiting about an hour/hour and a half longer than his "I'll be back at" sign said we would be waiting. As the volunteer kept coming back to adjust the time I got to the point of saying "10 more minutes and I'm out of here". When he did arrive he seemed a little grumpy and when I asked him to sign "may the force be with you (I know, I'm lame) on my Empire Strikes Back British quad poster (Drew Struzan's artwork was the only thing good to come of the "special edition" re-release) he just gave me kind of a squint eyed look and the signed his name and wrote "Lando" under it. I talked to my brother, who came to Calgary with his kids for the show, and he proceeded to tell me about his son's great experience getting his Lando mighty mugg signed. Which made me think I just happened to catch Mr. Williams at a bad time.