Wow. That was some weekend.

For those who have never been to Fan Expo Canada in Toronto… it’s hard to explain. It’s several hundred thousand fans of TV shows and comics in a ginormous convention centre. It’s crowded, but often the person in front of you is dressed like Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl (or something similar) so you find yourself not minding quite so much.

Dr. Smith? and I were there to promote Who is the Doctor. The Doctor Who Society of Canada were nothing short of amazing. They rounded up a huge consignment of copies of the book to sell. Lucky thing. ECW Press were hoping to have the 2nd printing of the book in but it got delayed getting across the border from the printer in the US. Consequently, the only copies of the book at the con were at the DWSC table.\

Right from the start Robert and I were thrown into the maelstrom, beginning with being interviewed by SPACE. I did slightly better than my interview at the launch (though I still look pained on air!). Dr. Smith? however handled it like a pro…

I hate him and his easy, telegenic manner…

In the midst of the insanity, two cool things happened: the first was that I found a beat-up copy of Justice League of America #3 for $50. (Not bad for the third issue, published 50 years ago!). The second was that, after several interminable line-ups and sitting in on the InnerSpace panel, Robert and myself got tickets to go to the special screening of Asylum of the Daleks a week before it airs on TV! Here’s me with my “Charlie found the Golden Ticket!” pose…

I signed my life away in non-disclosure agreements and agreed to turn in my phone before the screening (and they had security patrolling the screening with night vision goggles to ensure no trouble), so I can’t really say much about the episode. Except that it’s awesome. Oh you’re in for a treat.

The big day for us was Sunday. That’s when Dr. Smith? and myself did our big panel…Here we are with panel moderator, the Doctor Who Society’s Mike Deed.

We knew from our Doctor Who Society friends that FanExpo had booked a room too small for the crowd. (They tried to negotiate a bigger space, but failed, though their effort was valiant). Which was frustrating because we filled a 200+ seat room at Toronto Comic Con and it was the only panel talking about Doctor Who all weekend. People lined up over an hour to get in. In the end it was standing room only. I counted over 170 people. Our editor, Jen Hale, had to beg to get in!

So we’re in a room that’s packed to capacity. Good thing we know how to talk about Doctor Who…

It was a fantastic panel, and everyone seemed to love it.

We had a great signing afterward. Indeed we had great signings every day. It’s humbling to be told there’s a 12 year old boy waiting at the DWSC table to have his copy of Who is the Doctor signed. We also had an unbelievably enthusiastic teenaged girl come by having already throughly read the book. And there were all sorts of people who came and brought their copy having purchased the book before and having noticed we were there, which was really cool.

We had all sorts of people come by. In the end we sold every copy the Doctor Who Society brought. Woo hoo!

I had a lovely time hanging out with people I don’t get to see often, like Mark Askwith from Space and author J.M. Frey. Probably the nifitiest thing that happened all weekend was being able to have the opportunity to hang out with Dan Slott, the writer of the Spider-Man comic book for Marvel. (Who is also a massive Doctor Who geek. Yes, I gave him a copy of my book!)

We also had a great time talking with our pals from ECW Press, especially our esteemed editor, Jen Hale, who had some great news for us (that we’ll tell you about later).

Both Robert and myself would really like to thank the Doctor Who Society of Canada, especially Mike Deed and Cindy Peters, for their incredible work in making everything—our attendance, our signings and our panel—happen. Their work was absolutely astounding. And we’re very grateful to them.

And we really had a great time talking to fans of various sorts. For all the madness that is FanExpo what can’t be denied is that it’s populated by creative, thoughtful people who care about popular culture. What’s not to love about that?