Superhero and hobbit fans unite in Moncton for fourth-annual East Coast Comic Expo

CTV Atlantic: Comic books celebrated in Moncton The East Coast Comic Expo brought all fandoms together for its fourth and biggest year. CTV’s Cami Kepke explains.

The East Coast Comic Expo brought all fandoms together for its fourth and biggest year.

And it didn’t disappoint.

“A lot of the bigger conventions happen in Chicago and New York, places like that,” said fur-suiter Alisyn O’Leary. “It just shows that we're growing and we're strong.”

This year's incarnation brought more than 1,500 people to the hub city.

“We noticed there was a growing audience of nerds and geeks really jumping into this stuff, but they didn't have an outlet for it,” said expo co-founder Nick Bradshaw.

Lineups around the city for Free Comic Book Day earlier this month hinted the convention would be successful.

“Movies and T.V. have created a fan base more than anything else,” said Jedi knight Kurt Fowlie. “Even though it's called the comic expo, comic books are huge, but I think the new reason people get into that is the Big Bang Theory.”

It's also inspired a wave of artists from the East Coast. The Spinney family in one of them – they started their own comic book as a bucket-list goal.

“Each issue takes about 400 hours of work for the artwork, so that's about 10 weeks of full-time work,” said Alan Spinney. “There's a lot of work drawing it in pencil, inking it, and colouring, then we have it printed locally.”

Attendees say the expo goes way beyond comic books, and they’re starting an arts revolution in the Maritimes.

O’Leary says her fursuit represents thousands of hours of work.

“Everything from sewing, to crafting, to silicone molding, to electronics,” she said.

“Just seeing it – seeing the people drawing and doing their own custom artwork, and people who just do it at home, they're incredible. Some of them are so amazingly talented,” said Fowlie.

With files from CTV Atlantic’s Cami Kepke.