By Adam Brazeau
CORNWALL, Ontario – Canadian superheroes and a villain walked right off the pages of a comic book and into real life at Fantasy Realm. ‘Heroes of the North’ (HOTN) web series members and creators were greeting fans and signing autographs at the second annual Halloween Comicfest.
Fantasy Realm owner/operator Randy Sauve said over 300 people crowded in his store to rub shoulders with the online stars and pick up some comic books.
“The turnout exceeded my expectations,” said Sauve. “The event fits in with the extreme popularity of cosplay right now.”
Cosplay (dressing as a character from a film, comic book or video game) is currently a trend that is a huge part of Comicfests all over the world.
The outlandish and exotic costumes are an underlying strength of HOTN since a few members are professional costume and fashion designers.
Marie-Claude Bourbonnais (Hornet) is a villain on the show and a renowned Canadian cosplay and glamour model. Her seductive costume made of high quality latex took her 80 hours to complete from conceptualizing to the final stitch.
The supervillain was promoting the live action transmedia web series with fellow members Sandra Belrose (Wild Rose), Anderson Bradshaw (8 Ball) – HOTN co-creator and Christian Viel, co-creator, producer and writer.
“I took part in HOTN just because it was related to superheroes, I’m not an actress. Making costumes is my business. But Christian insisted a lot until I accepted and it’s been a great collaboration so far,” said Bourbonnais.
Belrose (Wild Rose) can be seen on a Coca-Cola print advertisement in Canada right now. The new cast member has been acting for five years and didn’t originally make the cut for season one.
“I got offered to be on season two and we’re going to start shooting soon,” she said.
Bradshaw (8 Ball) is the show’s fight choreographer, costume designer and weapons coordinator – with a military background and decades of stunt work behind him.
“I just recently finished working on one of the last X-Men movies. It was a pretty good experience. It was long, hard doing stunts and I met a lot of cool people,” said Bradshaw.
Artist Frank Burelle was also at the comic book store drawing pictures of everyone’s favourite superheroes and villains to raise funds for the Agape Centre.
To find out more about HOTN, visit www.heroesofthenorth.com.
