I arrived at the convention center with Logan, Tim, and Shawn. Even though we thought we were there pretty early (around 12:30 P.M. for a show that didn't start until 4) there was already a significant line up. No matter though, we just sat down and goofed around. I caught up with several other friends, did some drawings, and talked to a few other artists.

Shawn brought some snacks and, in our boredom, we modified the packaging to reflect these politically tumultuous times.

While waiting in line, these guys started a choreographed martial arts fight. This one dude was pulling off all of these wicked nunchuck moves, but one of the nunchuck handles broke from its link to the chain and went flying, leaving him to continue the fight with only half of a nunchuck. They started fighting again later on. I appreciated their efforts at entertaining the people.

Manning joined us later as we were close to the registration area. When we moved to the second line outside after paying our money, Haley and Michelle arrived. We then all had some fun making each other laugh about stupid stuff. I guess you just had to be there. Haley looks like she's about to claw my eyes out with those talons of hers.

The line moved much later than it was supposed to, of course, but eventually we made our way up to the dealers' area. My quest right away was to buy the Street Fighter convention exclusive cover, so I took care of that. It rocks.

There's good old Jeff from Comic Book Masters, and Dave, one of our students. Perhaps they did not want to be photographed. I did not care.

I'd like to say that there were all kinds of interesting other things that I did. But aside from lots of walking around and buying an item or two, nothing special of note happened really happened. I was just taking it easy and going at my own pace.

I went to see David Prowse, the man behind Darth Vader, in his panel. I actually saw him the last time he was at a convention in Toronto, several years ago. He delivered a great talk about his career as a bodybuilder and as an actor, how he got his start, and what he's been up to recently. I knew that he'd actually been in several movies, but I didn't realize that he was in as many as he said he was.

One of his funnier stories involved him and the 70's Superman movie. He had been trying to land the role as Superman for awhile, having played the part for an advertising campaign, but they wouldn't hire him because they didn't want a British guy to play an American icon. However, they did bring him on board as a trainer to help build some muscle on Christopher Reeve. So you could say that Darth Vader helped Superman get into shape.

I watched the anime "Android Kikaider", which I has been curious about for a while. It was different. Very retro in style, and quite melancholy. Not everyone liked it, and I thought that there were some really rude folks in the audience that were making fun of it. One idiot even said it was just a "Megaman rip off". Yeah, except for how the live-action version of Kikaider predates Megaman by several decades!

Saturday - The Engrish Battle

Logan was wearing this homemade T-shirt that was just so awesome that I had to take a picture. However, the awesomeness of this shirt would later be challenged by a crazy little dealer that had set up a room removed from the convention containing weird collectibles from Japan. There we found this hilarious shirt which we all knew Shawn had to buy. And so he did.

It says "What's Day Today?" Isn't that great? There were all sorts of other Engrish laden items with funny phrases that would be a great source of amusement throughout the weekend, such as "Did you ever eat?" and "Impact is Triplicated!"

Dreamwave had a panel again this year. It was really interesting. They talked a lot about Transformers, of course, and announced their intentions of working with Beast Wars and Robots in Disguise, and continuing the More than Meets the Eye series of profile books into other generations. I think that's awesome. Also seen here is the poster for Dreamwave's Transformers/GI-Joe crossover, which they were really excited about. I was able to tell them that they were doing a great job with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and I asked them how they got the license. As it turns out, it was 4Kids came to them, however TMNT was something that they had been interested in since they were kids, and had wanted to be involved in even before they were doing Transformers.

Brian Drummond, the great voice actor from Vancouver, had a panel session. You'd know him as the original voice of Vegita from Dragonball Z, Two Bad and Stinkor from Masters of the Universe, Zechs from Gundam Wing, Blurr from Transformers: Armada, and a slew of others. A rather funny moment was when he singled out his roll as Venom on Spiderman: Unlimited and said that writing on that show was "the pits". I'm glad that he was a guest because until it was announced that he would be there, there weren't really any guests that I was especially interested in seeing. I asked him about his roll as Jetstorm on Beast Machines and he went through the process of how he came up with the voice. He said that he tried to bring a little of Silverbolt's overexaggeration into Jetstorm, and that Scott McNeil would constantly tease him by saying "I can't wait for you to die so I can get Silverbolt back!"

Some voice actors who do the convention thing can't really answer all of the fans' questions because they just never really cared enough to remember certain details about their shows or the characters. That can't really be helped due to the way the business works, so it's not really anyone's fault. Brian, however, had a lot to say. If you ever have a chance to see Brian at a convention, go for it. He really seemed to know his stuff.

Here's Brian with my Silverbolt and Jetstorm artwork. He thought it was pretty cool!

Even though it was still fairly early in the afternoon, I joined Logan and Shawn in the line for the masquerade. They had been there for several hours already to ensure that we'd get good seats. Soon the rest of the group joined us and we had a good time joking around, drawing, and listening to my Sean Connery saying things that Sean Connery would never actually say impression.

It was here that we had discovered a hilarious bit of Engrish emblazoned proudly on the package of a toy purchased at the aforementioned crazy Japanese collectable dealers. It said "TOFU is never destroyed forever!".

I swear, I've never laughed so hard in my life. Tears were streaming down my face. Now, imagine Sean Connery saying that and you'll have a good picture of what waiting in line was like this time.

These two ladies kept the crowd entertained with their rather public displays of affection... towards one another. Yes, that means exactly what you think it means.

This year, the masquerade as held in a real actual theater, the same location where Canadian Idol takes place. We actually had comfortable chairs and a very clear view of the stage, unlike other years. This was a great move by the convention staff.

Things kicked off when all of these people wearing amazing Imperial Star Wars costumes came out and formed a line. Darth Vader arrived and inspected the troops. It seemed like he was going to be the MC, when Obi Wan Kenobi showed up, used his Jedi mind tricks to get through, and said "This isn't the MC you're looking for".

Then Obi Wan's true identity was revealed as Gordon Rose. The crowd went nuts. It was Gordon's birthday that weekend and he announced that this would be his final stint as MC of this masquerade.

There were some really entertaining acts this year. I enjoyed it a lot more than last year's somewhat uninspired show. Gordon repeatedly explained how happy he was to be there after some of the attractive female contestants strutted their stuff. I was happy too!

This Dragonball Z group put on an elaborate fight that was one of the highlights.

Towards the very end, a girl dressed up as Card Captor Sakura takes the mic and says that Li didn't show up, so she is looking for someone new. After she turned down Gordon, all of the guys in the audience immediately got up and started vying for her affection. She turned her attention to the Dragonball Z group and asked if they'd like to fight for her. They quickly started hammering on each other violently. Very funny stuff. I personally thought that Li was an idiot for not being there.

Gordon did a great job, as usual. What a way to go out. Thanks Gord!

Sunday - Feast of the Ninja

After watching the last 2 episode of FLCL, I went to the Voice Acting Workshop, hosted by Roland Parliment, who you'll know as Melvin from Sailor Moon. He was very talented and showed us several tricks that he can do with his voice and shared some hints and tips on voice acting. It was quite popular. There were a lot of people there and the room was obviously way to small for it.

UDON was holding a panel about digital comic book colouring, and I had to check it out. Unfortunately, that meant that I had to leave the voice acting workshop. Even more unfortunate was that the digital coloring thing couldn't happen due to some sort of technical difficulty or miscommunication. But they did hold a Q&A about the comic book industry and I learned a lot about the reality of the business from it. Their Street Fighter comics are highly recommended by this Ninja.

I went to Dreamwave's booth and bought a copy of TMNT #1 with Pat Lee's rare variant cover. Had a little chat with Graham Cruz, the project manager on TMNT, who is a nice guy. I got in line so I could get Pat Lee to sign my new purchase. Brad Mick, the writer on Transformers G1, was also there, and he is a really freakin' funny guy. He's a big Capcom fan too, and said that he wished Dreamwave had gotten the Street Fighter license.

Things were about to come to a close when I joined back up with Haley, Michelle, Tim, and Manning. Michelle kept stealing my Decepticon hat. We were all trying to make plans to go out to dinner but no one could make up their freakin' minds. I was invited to join the Stage Ninjas and some other con people for dinner with Gordon Rose, and so I took up that offer instead.

The staff of the restaurant made Gordon stand up on his chair while everyone sang happy birthday to him.

Stuff I bought.

I bought several Transformers Posters, which got me a free calendar, the Japanese version of the Transformers Armada character Tidal Wave, and two Japanese Beast Wars toys, Saberback the stegosaurus and Cohadra the snake. A pretty light haul this year, but I'm happy with what I got.

Conclusion.

Last year, I said that in order to have a really good time at this convention, you have to make your own fun. While I thought that this year's show was a lot better than last year's, that statement still holds true. However, I was lucky enough to be joined by friends and acquaintances who made things a lot of fun for me. Thanks to that, I had a really good time. It kept me from being too exhausted. And that's probably why this article doesn't really have a whole lot to do with the convention itself, come to think of it.

I've done 3 of these articles now and they each take a whole lot of work to finish. I hope you've enjoyed them. Please contact me and let me know what you think!

Sayonara.

Finished reading all of that? Good. Then you have earned your passage to the
Picture Gallery!

Check out the CNExpo's official Webpage!
See you in 2004!

Special thanks to Shawn and Manning for several of the photos here in this article.