There hasn't been a real comic convention in Ottawa for a long time. The state of them has been at an ever decreasing state, with local gatherings being increasingly squeezed out by sports cards and memorabilia. I'm pretty sure recent little con's that hockey card stuff has outnumbered comic book stuff by around 75%. There have been special guests as well, but that has also been fewer and more far in-between in recent years. All of which is a shame, since the city has a great geek culture and lots of folks who go to Montreal and Toronto to spend their monies and get their annual comic convention fix.

Finally it seems that our long sub-par convention nightmare is over with the announcement of the first annual (hopefully) Ottawa Comiccon. It's organized by the same folks who have organized the ever increasingly popular Montreal con over the past few years, has a bunch of actual big time geek worshiped celebrities, and some great comic artists on hand. It's only flaw is that it's way out in the middle of nowhere by the airport instead of in a nice central location like the OCC downtown, but that is only my own lazy complaint.

People I know in attendance include Marco Rudy (who worked on After the Cape with my friend Howard Wong and is currently New 52-ing Swamp Thing at DC), Tom Fowler (who's career accomplishments include drawing Jango Fett kill me), and Kelly Tindall (who's Archie Snow artwork graces my living room wall). In the not name-dropping and not friends of me category the guest list includes Darick Robertson (Transmetropolitan), Dale Eaglesham (Alpha Flight...they live in Ottawa) and Neal Adams (he drew Green Lantern / Green Arrow people! Only one of the most important super-hero story-arc's of all time).

We're also hoping to do some kind of Mayfair cross-over, show something geeky / comic con appropriate. Which shouldn't be too much of a stretch since we always have geek genre stuff anyhow. So get your Klingon costume ready and start counting down the days to May 12th and 13th.