Wes Daniels is a high school co-op student with Rrampt. His series is called Wes World
Over the weekend of May 4th, I had the opportunity to go to the Owen Sound Mini Con at the Owen Sound Library and I would have to say, that I was pleasantly surprised by my experience there.
I was not expecting much, to be honest. I figured I come in and look around for a few minutes, buy something if I was Interested, and then go home. But to my surprise, not only did they have more booths than I was expecting, they also had activities and games for kids who wanted to stay longer, along with a couple of raffles that had some pretty good prizes (personally I opted for the Lage Harry Potter poster.)
I even got to talk to some of the people running the booths. There were pleny who were cosplaying as characters from Various TV shows comics and movies. Me Included. I dressed as Michael Myers.
One thing I wasn’t expecting was to meet so many interesting people in the industry. The first person I had the pleasure of talking to was a lady by the name of Meg Inques, the owner of the “Inques” tattoo shop in Hanover. For the past year, she has been selling handmade art and Oddities, made from real animal leather and other pieces being made of real animal skulls, cleaned by dermestid beetles. It was pretty high-quality stuff. The stitching was good and the designs of the product ranged from cute and adorable, to Intentionally morbid and scary. A few months ago she Illustrated a graphic novel with author Ryan Power, titled “Fly Away with Me” and from what I’ve seen online, it looks pretty good.
The second person I got to talk with was Matt Bors, an American cartoonist and editor who had been in the game as long as he could remember. He was showing off an array of comics he had been involved with. His most recent release is the second instalment of the comic Justice Warriors. While I was talking with Matt I picked up Justice Warriors Vol 1. And in my personal opinion, I found it to be quite amusing. I found the over-exaggeration and portrayal of the political topics within the comic, to be funny.
Of course, It’s also a reflection of what’s happening in our own political atmosphere, and I like the over-dramatization of certain events in the story; like when the Swap cop tackled the deer from stealing the baby formula. Honestly, if you were someone who wanted to get out of the superhero genre for once, and wanted something more comedic, I would recommend Justice Warriors. My conversation with Matt Bors equipped me with an understanding of what it’s like in the comic industry.
The third person I got to talk to was Michael Weiss, a Facebook artist who has been creating for the past 27 years. He was one of the artists selling some Illustrations and prints at the Con. Michael primarily shares his work through Facebook under the name Mike Weiss. I got the pleasure of seeing some of his work, and I would say that he drew a pretty mean picture of Batman. If you look at the picture you can see some of his best work.
Overall I recommend the Owen Sound Library Mini-Con as a pleasurable experience for families, cosplayers, and people who enjoy pop culture in general; and I would gladly go again next year. In fact, I’ll put it on my calendar now.
Words and photos by Wes Daniels
Wes is a high-school co-op student with Rrampt
Feature photo provided by Nadia Danyluk
