Since its first edition in 2006 Montreal Comic-con has grown significantly and attracted quite a few Ottawa vendors. Starting from a relatively small, single room affair of a couple hundred visitors, it has become a serious attraction with an attendance in the tens of thousands. Over the course of nine incarnations, the convention has drawn various guests, such as comic book legend Stan Lee and Sir Patrick Stewart of Star Trek fame.
Apart from the celebrity panels, the event plays host to Q&As on video game design, cosplay tips, and even a panel on how to break into the lucrative world of comic book investment. Indeed, despite the name, Montreal Comic-con has become a multi-genre event, with draws for fans of all stripes: comics, anime, manga, horror, sci-fi, fantasy, trading cards, and gaming.
This gathering of fans is managed by Majors Comics, a company that’s cashing in on the rise of “geek culture,” not only in Montreal, but more recently here in Ottawa as well. Of course, being a smaller city, it seems logical that Ottawa might not attract nearly as many con-goers as the Montreal edition.
After speaking to a few of the Ottawa-based vendors in Montreal, however, this no longer seems to be completely accurate.
According to René Daigle, “oddly enough, Ottawa’s a bit better.”
His blog Draw Monkey, Daigle and his wife Meeka, who owns the site Meeka’s Creation, both work as professional animators, but go to conventions to work on their geek-based side businesses.
Daigle sells prints of his fan artwork and Meeka sells her plushies. For the both of them, it’s a labor of love, as Daigle explained, it’s good to “get your creative juices out there.”
Morgan Dunbar who sells T-shirts from her site Geek Charming tells a similar story. Although, as she explains, Montreal Comiccon is still a bit larger, “Ottawa went big fast” and the gap is only getting smaller.
She credits this to the professionalism of the organizers who put both conventions up every year.
“They’re great guys,” she said. “Very accommodating to the artists.”
She drew an unfavourable comparison to the entirely volunteer-led convention Anime North in Toronto where artists would have to wait an hour to get their table, and business was never booming.
Dunbar is a veteran geek entrepreneur who is working professionally as a graphic designer. Her website says that, “Geek Charming has proved a successful geek fuelled side-business with amazingly loyal customers.” She said she is enthusiastic about Ottawa’s second annual PopExpo, Nov. 22-23 at the Ernst & Young Centre, also run by Majors Comics.
Those who want to find something a little closer to Carleton can find Meeka at the Glebe Craft show Nov. 14-16.
