That's me and Lidia at at this past weekend's annual Fan Expo, which has grown (well, seemingly...) exponentially in scale each passing year. Unfortunately, the venue--Building 2 of the Metro Convention Centre--has not expanded to accomodate the crowds, or the growing roster of guests, and this year's was the worst organized event yet. Insane lineups and a lack of oxygen aside, there was a lot going on to keep an aging fanboy suitably bedazzled--"Hellboy" creator Mike Mignola, Marvel scribe Brian Michael Bendis, Carrie Fisher, Karen Black, and presumably, no shortage of suckers who'll pay 300 bucks to have their photo taken with William Shatner and/or Leonard Nimoy.For a mere $20, we got our photo taken with the one and only John Nada--Rowdy Roddy Piper (in actuality, Roderick Toombs from Winnipeg, Manitoba), and got him to sign some memorabilia. I told him about this here "Nadaland" site and Roddy, ever the smooth pro, swore he was "honoured" (and I almost believe him)! We chatted about Norstar B-pictures we each had worked on (Roddy starred in "Jungleground" and "No Contest 2", both shot in Toronto) and Roddy talked about how he improvised the "I'm all outta bubblegum" line on the set of "They Live" only minutes before Carpenter called for lunch (and I almost believe this wasn't the 10,000th time he's told this story). It was a thrill to meet one helluva nice guy who obviously digs his fans. Check out Roddy's official site here.
