Get Your Comic On
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In his full-body Spider-Man costume, Jérémie Paquette stood out in the crowd of Saturday morning Metro commuters. But any of the 10,000 people expected to head out to Place Bonaventure this weekend knew exactly where he was heading. This weekend’s Comiccon attracted a plethora of masked and mundane characters.
Paquette, a 23-year-old who owns over 800 comic books and dedicates his bedroom to the art, finds it “a great opportunity to dress up and meet people.” His costume attracted many camera flashes before he even entered the convention center. “On my way here, two kids ran up to me to give me a hug,” he said with a smile.
This was his second year at the convention, but his first as the masked vigilante. “I have to wear this until seven o’clock and I can barely see anything,” he said jokingly to the former co-worker he ran into in line.
Admittedly, it’s not unusual to see him in something comic-related. “We [nerds] are always wearing something with superheroes on it” he said. He also owns Batman, Superman and Star Trek costumes—of which Batman is his favorite.
It’s a passion that “gets worse every year,” continued Paquette. “My brother is eight years older than me and he kind of grew out of comic books, but when his sons saw my comic books, they loved it too,” he said. Paquette himself got into comics because of his dad.
He was especially excited to meet the father of his suit, the man who co-created Spider-Man, Stan Lee, who attended the Montreal convention for the first time this year. He waited over an hour and a half for a photo op with the comic-book legend.
He loves that the conventions enable him to meet people that wrote all the things that influenced his childhood.
The convention also attracted less-experienced people interested in seeing what Comiccon is all about.Pierre-Luc Aubin and Virginie Bruche attended the convention for the first time this year. They were standing next to the Landspeeder and R2-D2 in impressive homemade Jedi costumes.
“We weren’t expecting people to take pictures of us,” Aubin said.
From titillating Poison Ivys to ghoulish Ghostbusters, the convention is a place to see and be seen. It is certainly also a place free from judgment—with everyone from three-year-olds to 50-year-olds dressed up on a day that isn’t Hallowe’en.
One of the strengths of the con is that those with even the slightest knowledge of comic books are equally able to marvel—pun intended—at all the convention has to offer. The ten thousand attendees were obviously drawn to the convention’s universal appeal. Even the most dedicated fans, however, aren’t out to be pigeonholed.
“I’m irritated by the stereotype that all nerds are out of shape,” said Paquette. “Like on The Big Bang Theory, none of them can walk up the stairs. That’s why I started working out.”
This article originally appeared in Volume 32, Issue 04, published September 20, 2011.
