Friday High-Five: Lou Ferrigno, Len Wein, Greg Ruca and more

– by Ryan Ingram

Lou Ferrigno, the Batmobile and Star Trek actors will mixing it up with cosplayers, gamers that love games that pay money and anime aficionados for this weekend’s Fan Expo – Vancouver first pop-culture convention.

And of course, comics will be representing in a big way, with creators like Wolverine and Swamp Thing-creator Len Wein, writer Greg Rucka (Queen and Country) and Stuart Immonen (Marvel’s Fear Itself) on hand, along with an impressive crop of local creators.

To help navigate Artists Alley and beyond, here are five comics highlights for the weekend:

1. Rock Star Comic Creator Super Panel – Unless panel guests Rucka, Wein, Yannick Paquette (Swamp Thing), Stuart and Kathryn Immonen are announcing the formation of comics’ version of The Traveling Willburys, this is kind of a weird name for a panel. Regardless, the panel should still be well worth your time, as moderator Robin McConnell (host of the Inkstuds radio show on CiTR) always gets the goods when talking comics with pros. (Saturday, 6 p.m.)

James Stokoe’s “Poison Thrower” is one of the many sweet prints for sale.

2. Orcs and Catmasters – McConnell will also be selling some slick new prints by James Stokoe (Orc Stain), Brandon Graham (King City) and Steve Rolston (Ghost Projekt). (The three artists will be there, too.) Consider it fair warning to bring lots and lots of cash, and maybe some poster tubes.

3 .Babearians – Featured in her sketchbook Battle Kittens, Rebecca Dart will have hand-drawn, original portraits of her kitten-riding, brawling babe-barbarians – bleeding eye-sockets and all.

4. Springfield North! – Springfield may now officially lay in Oregon now, but there’s a solid Canadian contingent of comics creators writing and illustrating Matt Groening’s icons, like James Lloyd, John Delaney, Nina Matsumoto and moderator Ian Boothby – who will all be on this panel. If you’re lucky, there may even be some real-life sightings of Comic Book Guy. (Sunday, 11 a.m.)

5.  Emily Carroll – While currently hard at work on her forthcoming book, the amazingly talented Carroll will have two comics for sale (one new romance comic, and one tragedy), as well as prints, buttons, and watercolour sketches of lizard characters