I had the great luck to attend Fan Expo Canada in Vancouver, BC this past weekend. Fan expo is a bit like Comic-Con. A collection of vendors, artists, stars, and fans of everything from fantasy to sci-fi all gathered in one place. The biggest attraction of this for me was the cosplayers.

These girls and guys are the ones that spend 10s or hundreds of hours (or more… or less) to create costumes that are homages to their favourite characters. Some of these I had no idea who they were, but I also saw about 15 Spider-Men walking around. This is the sort of place where you and the other 5 people who are huge fans of that obscure, only published once, Japanese comic character can meet up and compare costumes and fandom.

It’s an incredibly accepting place. I saw nothing but friendliness and admiration between people, for example someone in a 13 foot Bumblebee costume absolutely making the day of some special needs kids sitting around a table in the main area.

Or this amazing example.

All amidst the middle of this were long tables and tons of different booths with everything from comics to samurai swords.

There was “Star Wars alley”, where all the Star Wars cosplayers congregated, including a very impressive march (an Imperial march no less).

And the march itself.

Artists were there art-ing.

The main thing that I went to see were the cosplayers, of which there there were lots and there were awesome costumes there.

Last but not least, the wacky photographers that were there!