Canada's largest pop-culture convention is on this weekend at Toronto's Metro Convention Centre, and visitors can get a permanent souvenir at Tattoo Alley.
Edmonton artist Tony Sklepic will be doing tattoos at Fan Expo Canada this weekend. Also in attendance this year: Levar Burton and Brent Spiner of Star Trek: The Next Generation. (Tony Sklepic)
Fan Expo Canada, the biggest pop-culture convention in the country, is on now through Sunday. And for thousands of people, summer isn't summer until they've spent a weekend crammed inside a windowless concrete bunker in downtown Toronto, mingling (and shopping) with fans of every IP imaginable. There are live celebrity panels, cosplay contests — multiple opportunities to meet one (or a dozen) of your all-time faves. ( News has a full event preview here.) And for the visitor who wants a permanent souvenir of the experience, they can get tattooed right on the convention floor.
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It's a service that'll be available all weekend as part of Tattoo Alley, an attraction the Fan Expo organization has run on and off in Toronto over the years. But how many people actually get tattooed at a con?
Fan Expo doesn't have stats to share for the Toronto edition, but if you combined all their events in North America, more than a thousand visitors leave Tattoo Alley with fresh ink every year. The organization first began offering the service close to a decade ago, beginning in some of their U.S. markets, and they plan to expand in this country. You never know what might pop up in Fan Expo Calgary and Edmonton, says a Fan Expo Canada rep.
Tattooing at fan conventions is a pretty new thing, especially in Canada, says Chris Rhyason, a tattoo artist from Grande Prairie, Alta. In the industry for 20 years, this weekend will be his second time working a pop-culture convention, but the phenomenon just makes sense, he says. More and more tattooers are specializing in pop-culture designs, says Rhyason, and that's the case for many of the folks appearing at this weekend's con — though the most popular request doesn't exactly require a niche skillset.
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Autograph tattoos are a big seller. Tattooer Salem Harlow has already heard from a client who plans to swing by her booth after a meet-and-greet with Robert Freddy Krueger Englund. But she's also filling her book with custom designs — work based on shows and stars that are heavily featured at the con. That's more like the stuff she does on the regular.
But what's the geekiest tattoo she's ever done? (Geeky in a good way, of course.) We put that question to a bunch of the artists appearing at this year's event.
Gotten a lot of Pokémon [requests] because I'm currently trying to finish the first 151 Pokémon of the Pokédex in tattoo form. What I'm doing, it's like the catchphrase — gotta catch 'em all. The original '90s cartoon had 151 Pokémon, and I don't even know how many there are now, but there's the original 151, which everybody can recognize, so I want to tattoo every single one of them.
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I have a poster that I'm crossing them off on, and once I complete it — like, I take photos of each tattoo that I have — I'm going to get a big poster blown up and I'm going to replace the original images of the sprites with the tattoos that I've done. I have completed 52 of them. I started in May, the end of May. So I did June, July and August. That's primarily what my bookings are in Calgary right now, mostly Pokémon tattoos. (laughs) I believe I have one booked for the convention. I was just going through my bookings now. I think I'll get to do a Meowth.
, and it was a watermelon jack-o-lantern. I did it, like, right underneath the girl's butt and it was pretty funny. There's an episode of the cartoon called Summerween, so she wanted something from that episode. I thought that it would be cool because it's, you know, summer — so a watermelon — but it's also Halloween, so it's a jack-o-lantern.
Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm very into that cartoon. So as soon as she told me, I knew exactly what she was talking about. I've been pretty nerdy my whole life, and that's pretty much all I do is watch, movies or cartoons and read comic books and play video games. So I'm very well versed. (laughs)
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No, never. If it's a style I can't do, for sure, I would definitely recommend they go to someone else. But I would never turn down a tattoo unless it's vulgar or has profanity in it. I always like learning new things, and you know, one of the best parts of tattooing is you get to bond with your client over what they're getting done. If you don't know anything about it, that gives you so much time to ask questions and learn.
One of the best parts of tattooing is you get to bond with your client over what they're getting done. If you don't know anything about it, that gives you so much time to ask questions and learn. - Katrina Barss, tattoo artist
Whenever anyone comes to me with pop culture ideas, even if I'm not 100 per cent on what the idea's from, I'll do my research because it's always nice learning about new shows or cartoons or whatever. If it's a movie or just a couple episodes from a show, I always watch it and get some background and insight, and then I go from there and draw my design.
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I can't say what makes one idea more geeky than the other, but I've done my fair share of comic book, TV, movie and video game characters.
Fan, so he's got a leg piece I did of Geordi La Forge, Data and the Enterprise wrapping his calf. I'd say that one's pretty nerdy! My other coworker also has a knee piece that I did of a Garbage Pail Kids/
There are definitely things that I tattoo a lot of, like Spider-Man and Ninja Turtles or the Joker. I'll never turn down those pieces, and I always can do something fun and different with each one, but I tend to jump on ideas that I've never seen tattooed before.
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About seven or eight years ago, I did an entire sleeve of Street Sharks based off the '90s toy line. I thought that was a great idea that I hadn't seen tattooed a million times over. Or a few years back I did a really fun portrait of Ernest P. Worrell. I remember that one being a really fun one that had myself and my client chuckling the whole day.
(laughs) Yeah, I've done a few of them. I won't get into the subversive stuff because there's lots of stuff — especially in the early days of my career — when all kinds of nefarious biker types wanted, you know, movie starlets in compromising positions or cartoon characters with their guts getting blown out. You know, all that kind of stuff. That's the early days. These days it's a lot more respectable.
One of my favourite ones that I've done — and actually it's going to be on my banner at the show — I did Jessica Rabbit as a pirate wench.
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Well, it depends on how you define geek. I also have a guy who is a real gearhead — who, like, rebuilds cars and all that kind of stuff. And he wanted Oscar the Grouch driving a hotrod.
The guy with the Jessica Rabbit piece, he just loves pirate-themed anything and he love, love, loves Disney stuff. In fact, I did an entire sleeve on him — which might even count, too. I did an entire sleeve on that guy of rides from Disneyland: Splash Mountain; The Pirates of the Caribbean, of course. He was adamant about that one. The Buzz Lightyear game, the Tiki Room. What's the one with the train? The roller coaster train? I did that one on his wife; she got that as a tribute to him. They both love Disneyland.
I wouldn't consider myself a geek about anything besides music maybe. But you know, I grew up on Disney and I actually wanted to be a Disney animator when I was a kid ... until I found out I wouldn't get to meet Walt Disney because he was long dead by that time. (laughs)
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If I'm doing a design — and I design it with the person there — as I draw it for them and I can see their eyes light up and they get really excited about it, that's when I know I'm on the right track.
I did a tattoo last year, and it was Spider-Man, but it was also a Squirtle from Pokémon, SpongeBob's house and the castle from Harry Potter — and a video game that I actually had never heard of.
How did the whole design process begin? Like, what was the initial request the client came to you with? What did they say they
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