It may only be a tenth the size of San Diego Comic-Con, but FanExpo Canada is growing bigger every year, with huge guests, cool events, and of course, your faithful MTV Geek reporter here on the scene! We’ll be presenting coverage of the event throughout the weekend, but to get you up to speed, here’s a quick rundown of the history of the Con – and our picks for some of the coolest things to do and see.

But first, the history lesson: FanExpo started in 1995 as a simple comic book convention, and since then has ballooned in size to encompass five different conventions in one. There’s the aforementioned comic convention, of course, but FanExpo also highlights Sci Fi, Horror, Anime, and Gaming in all its many forms. That means panels, signings, exhibitions, and lots and lots of cosplay.

The big news this year is that – after last year's mild disaster which left audience members stranded outside the Con for hours, the organizers have expanded the event to four whole days from three, attempting to free up a little space. That’s also lead to big participation from exhibitors. Marvel will have a huge presence here this year, and DC will be hosting the last New 52 panel, and the last Flashpoint panel before their whole line gets relaunched this upcoming Wednesday.

And there’s also some quirky different panels from the publishers going on. Spotlights on writers like Jeff Lemire, of course (which isn’t exactly quirky, but we’re excited for it); but also a “Cooking in Comics” panel, featuring Marvel Editors and chefs. Insert your own joke about whether cooks will start releasing their dishes digitally here.

Then there’s the media guests – Eliza Dushku, Robert Englund, even Hercules himself, Kevin Sorbo. They’ll all be doing the requisite signings, but they also get a chance to do hour long Q&As solo with the crowd, a rare chance to actually interact with your favorite celeb. However, no-one is setting the Canadian’s hearts aflutter as much as Tom Felton, who you all probably know from his star turn in Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Also he was Draco Malfoy in the "Harry Potter" movies, but did anyone see those?

So what else is going on? For those of you looking to settle down after the Con is over, there’s daily geek Speed-Dating sessions. There’s also Artist battles two or three times a day, which pit some of the best in the industry (Marko Djurdjvic vs. Tony Daniel! Steve Epting vs. Alex Maleev!) against each other in a live quick draw in front of an audience. You can even watch the Amazing Spider-Man’s Dan Slott create a new character live on stage with Ty Templeton!

Oh, also, there’s a few Alpha Flight panels… Like you couldn’t have guessed that.

We may be new to this Con – so Canadians, please let us know what we can’t miss while here – but we’ll be all over this weekend like gravy and cheese on a hot poutine. Yup, waited right until the last second, and hit you with a Canada joke. How do you like ’DEM maple leafs? Eh, that was a stretch.

Related Posts:
Baltimore Comic-Con Coverage
San Diego Comic-Con Coverage

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