I recently had the good fortune to attend FanExpo Canada as a member of the accredited press after being approved for such a pass by those in charge of the convention. The beautiful city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada is a simple five-to-six hour drive away from me, so my family and I packed up and headed to the Great White North to see what one of the better fan conventions in the world had in store for us!

First of all, credit to the city itself. We stayed at an AirBNB condominium right next door to the ScotiaBank Arena (home of the Toronto Maple Leafs), and I was floored by how accessible and walkable the city is. In a straight line that spans about four blocks, you’ve got the Leafs’ arena, the convention center and hotel, a Ripley’s Aquarium, the CN Tower, and The Rogers Stadium, where the Toronto Blue Jays play. That’s several different days of entertainment all in an insanely easy stretch of walking. And you know what else is a ridiculously easy hike from that area? The Hockey Hall Of Fame. It’s like the designers of Toronto actually wanted their tourists and fans of being entertained to being able to access anything they want any time they want. I loved it!

As for the convention itself, I was initially intimidated by the layout. Most of the convention center is actually located underground, but it stretches across two buildings and many floors. To get from one portion of the FanExpo–where the celebrities and part of the sales floor and the Press Lounge were located–to the other central area–where Artists’ Alley, the panel rooms, and the bulk of the sales floor resided–was not necessarily an easy trip. You had to fight swarms of other fans to do it.

I ended up seeing the purposes for this, though, as it spread the crowd across a larger area and stopped any particular point of the show from getting TOO crowded. But it didn’t change the fact that if you wanted to go from, say, the celebrity area to Artists’ Alley, you had a several minute long trip ahead of you.

On my way into Toronto, I received an email from a representative of Dennis E. Taylor, the author of the Bobiverse, and I was invited to interview him at the show! You can check out that interview HERE, and it was an easy highlight of the trip.

Speaking of being a fan of novels, my wife took the opportunity to dress up as Princess Donut from the wildly popular series, Dungeon Crawler Carl. She is not a fan of comic books, but she IS a fan of wearing costumes she makes herself, so there is that. She got attention from those in attendance who would occasionally yell “God damn it, Donut” at her.

Speaking of which, I should have gotten more photos of some of the phenomenal cosplayers while I was at FanExpo Canada, but it was a very bustling show, and asking folks to stand still, likely in the middle of a walkway, made me feel a certain way. So I did not end up doing any of that for fear of being a public nuisance. But there were several intricate and detailed costumes that looked great, and my credit goes out to all the cosplayers who put their heart and soul into their apparel for the weekend.

As with almost any comic con I attend, I also made it a point to visit as many panels as I could that didn’t conflict with other aspects of my schedule. I managed to catch a handful here, such as the X-Men: The Animated Series panel (starring the voice talents of the original series!), a Sketch Dual between Marco Santucci and Maria Sanapo, Monsters All Around Us, A Comic Writers panel with Ed Brisson, Tate Brombal, Jason Loo, and Michael Walsh, and a second horror panel, I’Ship Horror.

The panels were extraordinary and well-moderated. The Animated X-Men panel was partially dominated by Cal Dodd, the voice actor for Wolverine who was quite funny and supremely happy to sink into character and give everyone of us pieces of egg-sucking gutter trash a taste of what he’s capable of.

The horror authors brought in for the two horror panels I attended were Sam Wilkes, Emily Weedon, Elaine Chen, Andrew Sullivan, Andrew Robertson, and more. The first Horror panel discussed turning real life inspirations into horror; the second dealt with the divide between independent and mainstream horror. I quite enjoyed both of them! as with Cal Dodd in the X-Men panel, Emily Weedon was a highlight of these. She has an easy control of a microphone and is a talented and spirited speaker.

Of course, FanExpo being comic book centric, I also managed to grab a few books and other items I was looking for, as well. I was mostly in the market for comic trade paperbacks, and many stands had boxes of them offered at 50% off cover price. Now I just need to find time to read them all and write some reviews for the site!

And last but not least, I also got to meet up with some friends of the show, Ian and Michael from the Back In My Day podcast! I’ve been on their show, and Ian has been on mine (and will be back again early 2027!). We hung out throughout the second half of the day Thursday, and that’s what these expos are all about: bringing fans together!

All told, FanExpo Canada 2026 was a delightful experience, and I highly recommend going to a FanExpo show near you in 2027 if you get a chance. Hopefully I will make it back to Toronto next year for another go!

Until next time… take care!