A galaxy of stars

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2010 (5431 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Super-villain Ray Park may have cancelled his appearance at this weekend’s Comic Con, but fans can still see another “Phantom” menace: Ex-boxer Jack O’Halloran played the mute Kryptonian thug Non in Superman (in which he was banished to the Phantom Zone by Marlon Brando) and in Superman 2 (in which he participated in a Metropolis-smashing reunion with a certain fellow Krytponian played by Christopher Reeve).

The guest list is a sturdy followup to last year’s participants, which included Adam West and Julie Newmar from the ’60s TV series Batman.

And that’s all according to the plan of Mike Paille, the 33-year-old head honcho of the Comic Con, who has seen his convention bloom from a tiny space at the Assiniboine Hotel on Portage Avenue to a full-blown Convention Centre-worthy celebration of pop culture in 2010.

“I’m looking now to try to make it bigger every year,” Paille says. “My goal would be to use the whole Convention Centre.

“When you say ‘Comic Con,’ people assume, ‘Oh, it’s a comic-book convention; it’s all comic books and that’s it,'” Paille says. “But Comic Con is a title and it covers everything pop culture. You’ve got celebrity guests, artists and figures from horror, science fiction, and fantasy literature — it covers everything.”

Last year’s event attracted more than 15,000 guests, many of whom were from out of town. (One man came from the Netherlands to see West and Newmar.)

After buying the rights to similar fan conventions in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the Central Canada Comic Con has, Paille says, emerged as the second-largest fan convention in Canada, after Toronto’s Fan Expo.

“And it’s the most affordable in Canada too, with a $25 weekend pass as opposed to a $50 to $60 weekend pass, which is what they charge pretty much everywhere else,” Paille says.

For a complete list of the events and guests at the convention, log onto www.cccomiccon.com.