Despite a hectic work week looming, the lure of Toronto Comicon 2023 was too strong. The weather had been extremely difficult on Saturday, and we weren’t sure what it was going to be like on Sunday, but we decided it was worth making the trek to downtown again for another day of geeky joy.
We knew not to believe the weather app after the previous day’s kerfuffle. On Sunday, we were supposed to expect a windy and freezing day. What we got was a warm and snowy day. Fine, we were prepared nonetheless.
The primary plan was to catch Matt Ryan’s session but my sister and I had a secondary plan—buy as much geeky stuff as possible.
We found we were too early to line up for the Matt Ryan session so we headed upstairs to the vendors. Easier said than done. We were immediately crushed in the aisles as we tried to move through the area. People who wanted to stop at booths were pulled away by the tide of people. Others who managed to stop held up entire sections to the point nobody could move. I understand wanting to keep the aisles narrow to fit in as many vendors in the given space, but when there’s not even enough room for two lanes of traffic, that’s just bad planning. It was particularly disconcerting because people with mobility devices or those pushing prams literally couldn’t access the area without fear of being trampled. It’s 2023, shouldn’t accessibility be a priority?
When we finally did escape the crush, we ran into whatever vendors we could find for some solace. Unfortunately, we didn’t have much luck buying stuff but we got a little start before we headed to our favourite place—the session queue (/sarcasm). We were so well-organized that the queue for Matt Ryan formed behind us. While my sister held our spot, I ran around taking pictures of cosplayers for the WWAC Instagram. This is why I love coming to conventions! The absolute talent on display in the costumes, whether homemade, bought, simple or elaborate—that’s my dopamine hit. And I learned about new characters and properties I’d never heard of before. Very cool!
I returned to the queue to find the staff had turned things on its head from the day before. The front of the line that we were heading up was where the line would have ended on Saturday. The staff member in charge was too busy chatting with people to maintain the line or pay attention to people’s questions. Which meant my sister, me, and the friendly Zatanna cosplayer beside me kept having to manage the line as new people sat behind us because they thought they’d found the end of the line. This was poor management—as someone who’s been on the other side of running a major event, crewmembers and volunteers should be in charge of lines, not the audience.
As annoying as queueing is, it’s pretty much the only time in the Comicon when you can sit and do nothing. For me, it’s the perfect time to write the con diary! But alas, queue management took up way too much time and energy. Despite that, we finally got in and ended up in the exact same seats we’d sat in for The Flash panel.
Matt Ryan’s session was lovely. He clearly has an enduring love for John Constantine, which is why he’s played him on and off in several different formats for seven years. Ryan also shared that he’d read all 300 issues of Hellblazer while filming the shows and carried a copy of a comic with him at all times to capture Constantine’s physicality. He’s deep in the lore of the character and thanks to working on myriad DC animated properties, has a keen understanding of the character’s dynamics with the rest of the DC canon. It was interesting to listen to an actor talk about the character he’s playing within all that comic context. Ryan was more involved in the Q&A because he had the same depth of knowledge as the fans. That’s not always the case with actors in superhero properties—it’s often ultimately just another job for them, so they’re rarely as invested as fans are.
I did love how Ryan gushed about being able to research for his roles. My favourite part of writing is research so it was nice to hear that someone in a profession wildly different from mine enjoys the process, as well. Of course, Ryan did mention that he’s now in the process of writing projects so that’s interesting.
Ryan was also extremely accepting of all the changes that have happened with Constantine. From the original Constantine show being cancelled after a single season, to DC’s Legends of Tomorrow being cancelled in 2021, and even that the new DCEU under James Gunn is unlikely to have him in it. He reiterated how excited he was for what was coming and that he would be watching it all like us, as a fan. Talk about diplomatic answers!
Once the session was done, we found a corner to have lunch, having prepared as we had the previous day. Then it was back upstairs to see what we could buy.
Usually at conventions, we’re running from panel to panel and we end up either running out of time or being too exhausted to check out the vendors. But this time, we had an extremely light itinerary—just a session each on two days. Despite all the time queueing, there was a lot of time on either side of the sessions for us to walk through the Artists Alley and check out all the vendors. I’d say we went a little bit bonkers at the vendors since our loot from Toronto Comicon is probably the largest we’ve ever had from our decade-long con forays. But we got to admire some amazing artwork and handmade goods and it felt good to support the artists and vendors with our purchases.
For the first time in our life, we bought t-shirts from a con. As plus size folk, we’d always assumed our size wouldn’t be available. But guess what, we did find shirts in our size and we happily bought a few, having taken detailed instructions on how to maintain the designs on the fabrics. Shoutout to the kind lady behind the counter who held my sister’s shirt down while she tried on one of the geeky t-shirts. How very thoughtful!
As we were running around, we noticed Carlos Valdes was at his signing booth and the line was almost completely gone. We asked the volunteers if we could go up and say hello to him, to which they gallantly ushered us forward. We’ve had mixed success over the years with speaking with stars at cons when we weren’t buying a photo or autograph, but whenever we’ve been able to go up and speak to them, it’s been fun.
Valdes was adorable to speak to. I got a compliment from him on my Prince t-shirt and we chatted with Valdes about how we saw ourselves in Cisco’s unabashed geekiness. We wished him well on his new Hulu show, Up Here, and of course, we couldn’t not chat about Cisco’s gorgeous hair. There was one particular style and length that Valdes said was unmanageable, but for the most part he really didn’t mind the hair. I did tell him I was envious of how good his hair looked, as opposed to ours but Valdes was having none of it. He insisted our hair was amazing. Thank you, Carlos, you made our weekend!
Shopping spree over, we made our way home. Despite some flurries, the weather was gorgeous and it was great to be outside in the cool fresh air after so long in the hot convention center. So came to an end our Toronto Comicon 2023. The weather may not have been the friendliest but we got to chat with some fun people, saw truly spectacular cosplays, bought a ton of useful as well as beautiful things. More than anything else, after months of everything being so topsy-turvy in our lives, it was great to do something as normal and fun as attend a con. I don’t know why I ever thought I wouldn’t want to go!
