Triumph of the Wil found at the Edmonton Expo

While standing in one of my many line-ups my daughter came up to me and said "you're going to like this" She pulled out her ipod and showed me a picture she had taken of someone at the show wearing the shirt I created for myself and my family (and Wil) for the Calgary Expo when Wil Wheaton came. I had some extras that I gave my brother to give to his friends but I never imagined one would show up at the Expo.

I geeked out a little…okay, a lot.

Fett Noir meet Billy Dee Williams

I was able to get Billy Dee Williams to sign a few posters that I forgot to get him to sign when he was in Calgary a few years back but the fun thing was getting him to sign my Fett Noir poster for "Night and the City". He paused when I brought it out and then I explained what I was doing - the whole combining my love of old posters/film noir/star wars - he asked me who Oola was and after I explained her role in Star Wars lore (Rancor snack) he signed the poster and said he thought it was pretty cool. So I asked him if he would like one, he nodded (I took it as a nod, maybe he was saying hi to someone behind me) and then I gave him the extra one I had in my tube (that was the purpose of the extra poster all along). So that was pretty awesome for me.

Misha Collins, an exchange.

More stuff from the Edmonton Expo.
Me: Hi, I have never watched your show befo…
Misha: Neither have I!
Me: Anyway, my brother is a huge fan, he keeps suggesting I watc…
Misha: Don't. It's a piece of shit!
Me: Anyway, he's a huge fan but I don't know any of the sayings or phrases and I was wondering if…you…could…what's "assbutt"?
Misha: (with a big ass grin) He may know what that means.
Me: He probably will. Thanks.
Misha: no problem, take care.

I already told my brother that the rumpled raincoat photo above was what he got and I mentioned what Misha wrote and he sounded very happy.

I never watched Supernatural no matter how many times my brother said I should I just never got around to it. That will change because of this.

Gentlemen, we can rebuild him. We have the technology.

My daughter and I made the drive up to Edmonton on Saturday morning for the first ever Edmonton Expo and we both had a really great time.

As far as I was concerned Lee Majors was the main man to see, I grew up on the Six Million Dollar Man (and The Fall Guy) . I remember my first trip to Universal Studios and I thought that the tram ride through the spinning ice tunnel from the Sasquatch episode was incredible. And I especially remember that my brothers and I had the whole set of action figures including the guy whose face could be replaced.

While standing in line waiting for the guests to show up my daughter decided to go off and look around which is fine because line-ups suck. I'm sure she had a better time because she was unencumbered by her old man and she got to see more of the show than I did. So after a long wait (no way to sugar coat it the wait was long, signings were supposed to start at 10 but they really started at 10:30/11).  Julie Newmar came out and she was so apologetic for the wait, she kept telling everyone how much she appreciated them and their patience, then she sat down, reached over the table top and pulled up the drape that covers the front of the table and did an impromptu can-can dance. She's still full of life and very colourful.

Then Mr Majors came out next and he is a super cool guy. I got up to his table with what looked liked a head in a bag - sidebar story, last year when I worked at Corbis as an art director we did a photoshoot of a "cross-generational-happy-family" putting together a rocket. The plan was to show a generational interest in the hobby but I thought it would be cool if there was some extra element like a helmet to indicate that maybe this was more than a hobby, maybe Grandpa broke the sound barrier or something. So the helmet was bought (by me) and rented (to Corbis) for the shoot and to tell the truth the shots with the helmet were the best images from the day. Anyway, flash forward a little over a year, and as you no doubt guessed I did not have a head in a bag, I had this helmet because I thought "who better to sign a test pilot helmet than Steve Austin himself" - so that is why I had a bag that looked like it had a head in it. Anyway, as he's signing the helmet I ask if I could possibly take a picture because I have to blog about how cool this is and he said "you're not supposed to, but if you sneak one now I won't say anything". Awesome!

Some days you just can't get rid of a bomb

The Calgary Comic and Entertainment Expo has branched out to Edmonton. So this is the inaugural year for the latest venture and I wanted to tap in to my inner Vallejo (that doesn't sound wrong, does it?) with this illustration for the three headlining guests.

We're bringing in some pretty awesome people (I may have to make the trip to Edmonton and get Billy Dee to sign a few of my Star Wars posters), I don't think Nichelle Nichols has ever been to a show in Alberta so that's going to be pretty cool. Plus Mike frickin' Grell and Chris frickin' Claremont are coming to the show, among other comic book talent. So just for fun I wanted to do a fantasy art take off and I really wanted to work with the image from the Batman movie…so here you go.