May the 4th be with you!

The fourth of May is increasingly being recognized around the world as International Star Wars Day.  There are a variety of ways to celebrate, but I noticed that there was not yet a centralized, ‘official’ event where everyone in the Star Wars fan community could get together.  Enter Star Wars Day Toronto at the Toronto Underground Cinema.

When we strip away the merchandising, the expanded universe, and the crap that the prequel trilogy is made out of, and reduce it all down to those original three movies, we reveal one of the most epic and beautiful stories ever told.  And it’s in that spirit that I wanted to stage Star Wars Day Toronto as the city’s official Star Wars Day celebration.

photos in this post courtesy Jennifer Maciel

The Stormtroopers of the 501st Legion march in to begin the celebrations…

Gavin Stephens – MC to the Stars! Literally!

Entertaining the ‘troops’

Seeing the smiles on the kids’ faces is really what this is all about.

Notice Boba Fett in the front row getting ready for the costume contest

Intermission….

The Original Trilogy Trivia Game Show gets underway….

An impromptu addition to the rules: if none of the players knows the answer to the question, an audience member can come up with the right answer and THEY can move on to the next round!

We had the best security in the galaxy, which is important when you’re giving away prizes this awesome!

The costume contest begins! We did not anticipate how popular this was going to be! Next year we will have different competitions for kids and adults.

The Costume Contest celebrity judges:
Natasha Eloi – host of InnerSpace on Space Channel
Fearless Fred – blogger and host on Edge 102.1FM and Teletoon
Lauren O’Nizzle – blogger & video host for CosmoTV and Vitaminwater

The winner, as dubbed by one of the judges in the secret ballot, was “Duct Tape Boba Fett” who got to pick his grand prize.

On the advice of his father shouting from the wings, he chose the book!

Star Wars Day Toronto was a huge hit! We had a great crowd, and it’s already booked for next year at Toronto Underground Cinema. Mark it on your calendars! Because 2012 is a leap year, Star Wars Day is on a Friday next year! Get hype!

Extra special thanks to Alice Quinn who was involved in the planning stages from the very beginning! And to Michael Nus who came late in the game with some help that proved very beneficial.

And a million thanks to our sponsors Harth, Stickeryou.com, Teletoon, West 49, Silver Snail, Category 5 Printing, Guerilla Printing, and to Toronto Underground Cinema for hosting!

See you next year!

For more awesome Star Wars coverage, check out The Star Wars Day edition of The Sean Ward Show, and my trip to Teletoon HQ to watch the Clone Wars preview.

Mike Kasaboski – @thementalkavity on Twitter – has definitely secured himself one of the double passes with this illustration of John Lennon (click the link to see his whole creative process behind it):

Do you want to come see Nowhere Boy with me this Wednesday?

Click here for full details and the trivia question…

Welcome to downtown Toronto where I have come to greet a couple of fans in person. David and Satro have been big supporters for ages so when David ordered some product, I went and met him to deliver it in person.

Subject: I will be the Most Fearless Canadian (with your help)!

Good Afternoon!

Thanks to you, I am in the top three for the contest to become the most fearless Canadian and you can help me win!

Vote when you can!

http://nationalfearlessday.ca/#/en/video/129

You can vote once a day on the same IP! The contest closes on the 16th, so I have to stay in the top 3 until then!!!

This is huge and awesome, it is the chance I have always wanted to meet Sir Richard Branson (he is an ACTUAL Knight)! Please help me become the Most Fearless Canadian!

Every vote is appreciated and makes a difference!

Thank you so much!

Have a fearless day!

Star H. Spider

Thank you so much, Anna!

One of the first things I did when I got down here was print 50 copies of a mini-comics edition of Benny Bunny On Wheels to take around to the stores and give to people I meet.

When I went down to Venice Beach for the first time and saw the chaos of a scene down there with all of the shops and vendors, I got it in my head that I had to go down there and see if I could sell comic books to people.

I decided I would go but procrastinated doing it for the first week I was here. I really did have work to do, but once I was honest with myself I could admit that I was putting off going down there because I was too nervous.

I felt silly for being scared about it. I used to do exactly this every day. But that was a couple of years ago and I’d gone soft. A bunch of reasons why it would wouldn’t work filled my head: I have no kiosk or booth set-up, the book is small, Venice Beach is too competitive, on and on. But through it all I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was something I had to do, and I decided that the fact that I was so nervous about it was exactly the reason to do it.

On Friday and Saturday I hit up Venice Beach and the 3rd Street Promenade for an hour in each spot. Well, Saturday anyway. Friday I was too chicken to approach anyone.

I worked up the nerve to approach some strangers and in an hour, I managed to sell three. I was doing it to do it instead of for money so I was telling people that the price was ‘pay what you can’ just to see what people think it’s worth. That’s probably good market research. In total, I got ten bucks for those three books

I sold three more before deciding that I’d had my fun and that it was time to get back to the pad to get moving on my illustration job.

At least I know that God is at work down here. On Thursday night, when I first started thinking about selling comic books on Venice Beach, I was thinking that it would be nice to earn some money to off-set the costs of this trip, and that very same night I got this illustration job.

And now I have to get back to it!