Post by Van Plexico on Sept 5, 2006 22:21:14 GMT -5
PART THREE: SUNDAY
Sunday saw me doing "Forgotten Classics" for the Literature track.
Much fun there. The other panelists, the audience, and I dug up every
forgotten and semi-forgotten novel we could all think of, and
discussed them at length. A good, solid panel.
After that, I ran over and encountered Keith DeCandido before one of
his book-signings, and gave him a copy of SENTINELS, signed something
like, "To Keith: 'Crusade' kicked ass. With much love, Van."
(Again, old-time Jarvis-Heads will get this.) He read this and really cracked up,
which made me smile. Always cool to run into Keith at DragonCon,
since schedule conflicts have caused him to miss the con often in the
past. We can hug and chat, and then get back to arguing and bashing
each other online again afterward. :-)
I had some time before my next panel, so I dropped in on Joe Crowe's
"Simian SF" and "That was the season that wasn't" panels. Anyone who
has been to a panel that was Joe's idea, and that he's pretty much
running, knows that it will rapidly turn into just a hilarious,
raucous festival of wacky fun and "Manimal" references. Both of these
panels played to his strengths-- lovingly mocking old, bad SF movies
and TV shows and comics. Very fun.
Then was my "Religion in SF" panel, and lo and behold, it's me and
John Ringo again. This time we were joined by two women with various
credentials in the fields of religion and SF, though they didn't
really get to say a lot -- it was a Ringo panel, and that's
inevitable. The moderator as well sort of got blocked out by Ringo's
rants. And me? Well...
Before it started, several different people came up and said with a
kind of half-hopefulness, half-dread, "Will we have fireworks like
yesterday's politics panel???" And I looked at them and said, "JEEZ,
I HOPE NOT!"
And, indeed, it turns out that Ringo's religious views fit in just
fine with my own, so I mostly sat there
nodding at what he was saying. A 180-degree reversal from our
attitudes the day before, but I'm glad we didn't have to shout at each
other again. Probably a much duller panel, but much more civil, too.
And another SRO room-- packed to the walls and people sitting on the
floor. Ringo pulls the crowds.
Afterward, he was very pleasant toward me and I was left feeling it
had all come out pretty darned well, in the end, with him. Good.
(And then I'll see his "After Action Report" and he'll probably talk
about how he sliced and diced me. We'll see...)
Then came my first attempt at "SF and Fantasy Jeopardy"-- or, as it
was labelled on the schedule, "F LITERATURE TRIVIA."
Yes, "F Literature!"
I found this hilarious. It sounds like we would ask questions that
insulted the idea of literature for an hour.
Turned out we couldn't get a projector, so I had to do the whole thing
the old-fashioned, low-tech way-- via dry-erase board. Still, it went
well. The winner, Robert (from the American SF TV track) was the only
contestant to get the final Jeopardy question right--and he was
shocked, because he didn't think he had. It was "Jules Verne," and he
said, "Well, I put Jules Verne, but I know it's wrong." And I said,
"YES!!!" and he nearly fell out of his chair. So that was pretty fun.
I had a big dinner at the buffet, watched the Masquerade costume
contest in the overflow room (it's so popular an event, they fill up
the huge main ballroom for it well beforehand, and then fill up
another ballroom with people watching it on a giant TV). But, as
usual, most of the best costumes were to be seen around the con, not
in the Masquerade.
Best costume I saw: A huge, tall guy in a Galactus outfit, complete
with "Earth" globe he was carrying around. I actually got a photo
with him and will post it somewhere, soon.
Also of note: The guy with the fantastic Angel and Hawkman costumes (now that's a good combination to do, if you have feathers!) had two new ones this year: HOBGOBLIN (with radio-controlled bat-glider!!) and ELECTRO (with real electricity arcing from his fingertips, making this loud "BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!" noise every few minutes. Awesome.
Funniest costumes: "Cardboard box Stormtroopers." After years of all
the Stormtroopers in their thousand-dollar look-alike white armor
costumes, with high-tech cooling systems and voice amplifiers, etc--
it was great to see four guys in "stormtrooper" armor made entirely
out of white boxes taped together--still with the labels on them!--
and black-painted mailing tubes for rifles, marching around in
formation. The crowds loved them.
Weird thing THIS year: They had a life-sized Jabba the Hutt in the
lower lobby of the Hyatt. And apparently someone organized a "Slave
Girl Leia" gathering. I came through the lobby, and maybe twenty-five
Slave Girl Leias of every size and shape and age were gathered around
Jabba, being photographed. I saw a mother and daughter Leia -- mom
about forty, daughter maybe eighteen-- holy cow! It was cool,
surreal, and a bit weird-- pretty much like DragonCon itself.
I will post links to photos as soon as I find them. Someone asked me why I don't take any pics myself. Why should I? A zillion other people photograph everyone there, and post them to the Web. Sooner or later, they'll all be on the Web for everyone to see.
Oh, and MONDAY:
At 10 am I was a panelist on the "Alternate Histories" panel for SF
Lit, and also for "Superheroes of Movies and TV." Yes, I'd been
scheduled for a day I wasn't there, and double-booked for the day I
was leaving.
I apologized to the latter panel and ran over to the History one, and
it was a good thing-- none of the other panelists showed up, leaving
me alone at the table with a roomful of audience members and a very
shaky memory of great alternate histories. I mean, you throw out
"Harry Turtledove" and a couple of others and then-- I got nothin'!
But I got a volunteer to join me, who was pretty knowledgeable, and
the audience came to the rescue, too, shouting out favorites and
discussing them, while I attempted to make some sort of academic
thread of an analysis of the various works. Yeah, whatever. It was
fun, though.
The biggest mixup of all came last. My understanding was that my
Friday "Marvel/Avengers Update" panel had been moved to 11:30 am
Monday. But there was another panel at the same time in that room.
Poor Ray Rappaport was so good about it all, and I totally didn't
blame him for any of this. He got us set up in another location, and
hung around for a while, participating in the conversation, before
running back down to the Comics room. George and John Ballew and the
other attendees had fun bashing Bendis, as one might expect, praising
YOUNG AVENGERS and THUNDERBOLTS, as one might expect, and talking
about the new Avengers book coming soon. Always fun having an
in-depth, in-person comics discussion with mature, knowledgeable fans
who appreciate the writers, the artists, and the work (or don't care
for them, as the case may be).
Then it was time to haul it to the airport, and fly back to St. Louis.
And here I am.
If you've made it this far, first, congratulations. Also, I want to
thank the three guys I hung out with a good bit at this year's con,
who made things so much more fun by their company and fellowship. Joe
Crowe, John Ballew (and his pal Jarred, whose last name I still don't
remember), and George Kopec are all class acts and fine, enjoyable
people and it's always a pleasure to spend time hanging out with each
of them.
This was probably the "fastest" DragonCon ever for me. It was over
before I felt like it had started. Missing Friday didn't help,
obviously. But it was more than that.
Being around good friends, being a panelist almost every other hour of
the three days (eight panels in all, in three days-- a record for me),
and squeezing in other events where I could-- it was all over before I
realized it. I didn't even have time to see the Robot Battles this
year, and only sat in on about an hour of the "Space Science" track,
which I have truly come to appreciate in the last couple of years. And
I didn't make it to as many of Joe's panels as I would have liked, or
to any of Keith's.
But, all in all, one of the very best cons I've ever experienced.
Bring on next year already!
Sunday saw me doing "Forgotten Classics" for the Literature track.
Much fun there. The other panelists, the audience, and I dug up every
forgotten and semi-forgotten novel we could all think of, and
discussed them at length. A good, solid panel.
After that, I ran over and encountered Keith DeCandido before one of
his book-signings, and gave him a copy of SENTINELS, signed something
like, "To Keith: 'Crusade' kicked ass. With much love, Van."
(Again, old-time Jarvis-Heads will get this.) He read this and really cracked up,
which made me smile. Always cool to run into Keith at DragonCon,
since schedule conflicts have caused him to miss the con often in the
past. We can hug and chat, and then get back to arguing and bashing
each other online again afterward. :-)
I had some time before my next panel, so I dropped in on Joe Crowe's
"Simian SF" and "That was the season that wasn't" panels. Anyone who
has been to a panel that was Joe's idea, and that he's pretty much
running, knows that it will rapidly turn into just a hilarious,
raucous festival of wacky fun and "Manimal" references. Both of these
panels played to his strengths-- lovingly mocking old, bad SF movies
and TV shows and comics. Very fun.
Then was my "Religion in SF" panel, and lo and behold, it's me and
John Ringo again. This time we were joined by two women with various
credentials in the fields of religion and SF, though they didn't
really get to say a lot -- it was a Ringo panel, and that's
inevitable. The moderator as well sort of got blocked out by Ringo's
rants. And me? Well...
Before it started, several different people came up and said with a
kind of half-hopefulness, half-dread, "Will we have fireworks like
yesterday's politics panel???" And I looked at them and said, "JEEZ,
I HOPE NOT!"
And, indeed, it turns out that Ringo's religious views fit in just
fine with my own, so I mostly sat there
nodding at what he was saying. A 180-degree reversal from our
attitudes the day before, but I'm glad we didn't have to shout at each
other again. Probably a much duller panel, but much more civil, too.
And another SRO room-- packed to the walls and people sitting on the
floor. Ringo pulls the crowds.
Afterward, he was very pleasant toward me and I was left feeling it
had all come out pretty darned well, in the end, with him. Good.
(And then I'll see his "After Action Report" and he'll probably talk
about how he sliced and diced me. We'll see...)
Then came my first attempt at "SF and Fantasy Jeopardy"-- or, as it
was labelled on the schedule, "F LITERATURE TRIVIA."
Yes, "F Literature!"
I found this hilarious. It sounds like we would ask questions that
insulted the idea of literature for an hour.
Turned out we couldn't get a projector, so I had to do the whole thing
the old-fashioned, low-tech way-- via dry-erase board. Still, it went
well. The winner, Robert (from the American SF TV track) was the only
contestant to get the final Jeopardy question right--and he was
shocked, because he didn't think he had. It was "Jules Verne," and he
said, "Well, I put Jules Verne, but I know it's wrong." And I said,
"YES!!!" and he nearly fell out of his chair. So that was pretty fun.
I had a big dinner at the buffet, watched the Masquerade costume
contest in the overflow room (it's so popular an event, they fill up
the huge main ballroom for it well beforehand, and then fill up
another ballroom with people watching it on a giant TV). But, as
usual, most of the best costumes were to be seen around the con, not
in the Masquerade.
Best costume I saw: A huge, tall guy in a Galactus outfit, complete
with "Earth" globe he was carrying around. I actually got a photo
with him and will post it somewhere, soon.
Also of note: The guy with the fantastic Angel and Hawkman costumes (now that's a good combination to do, if you have feathers!) had two new ones this year: HOBGOBLIN (with radio-controlled bat-glider!!) and ELECTRO (with real electricity arcing from his fingertips, making this loud "BZZZZZZZZZZZZT!" noise every few minutes. Awesome.
Funniest costumes: "Cardboard box Stormtroopers." After years of all
the Stormtroopers in their thousand-dollar look-alike white armor
costumes, with high-tech cooling systems and voice amplifiers, etc--
it was great to see four guys in "stormtrooper" armor made entirely
out of white boxes taped together--still with the labels on them!--
and black-painted mailing tubes for rifles, marching around in
formation. The crowds loved them.
Weird thing THIS year: They had a life-sized Jabba the Hutt in the
lower lobby of the Hyatt. And apparently someone organized a "Slave
Girl Leia" gathering. I came through the lobby, and maybe twenty-five
Slave Girl Leias of every size and shape and age were gathered around
Jabba, being photographed. I saw a mother and daughter Leia -- mom
about forty, daughter maybe eighteen-- holy cow! It was cool,
surreal, and a bit weird-- pretty much like DragonCon itself.
I will post links to photos as soon as I find them. Someone asked me why I don't take any pics myself. Why should I? A zillion other people photograph everyone there, and post them to the Web. Sooner or later, they'll all be on the Web for everyone to see.
Oh, and MONDAY:
At 10 am I was a panelist on the "Alternate Histories" panel for SF
Lit, and also for "Superheroes of Movies and TV." Yes, I'd been
scheduled for a day I wasn't there, and double-booked for the day I
was leaving.
I apologized to the latter panel and ran over to the History one, and
it was a good thing-- none of the other panelists showed up, leaving
me alone at the table with a roomful of audience members and a very
shaky memory of great alternate histories. I mean, you throw out
"Harry Turtledove" and a couple of others and then-- I got nothin'!
But I got a volunteer to join me, who was pretty knowledgeable, and
the audience came to the rescue, too, shouting out favorites and
discussing them, while I attempted to make some sort of academic
thread of an analysis of the various works. Yeah, whatever. It was
fun, though.
The biggest mixup of all came last. My understanding was that my
Friday "Marvel/Avengers Update" panel had been moved to 11:30 am
Monday. But there was another panel at the same time in that room.
Poor Ray Rappaport was so good about it all, and I totally didn't
blame him for any of this. He got us set up in another location, and
hung around for a while, participating in the conversation, before
running back down to the Comics room. George and John Ballew and the
other attendees had fun bashing Bendis, as one might expect, praising
YOUNG AVENGERS and THUNDERBOLTS, as one might expect, and talking
about the new Avengers book coming soon. Always fun having an
in-depth, in-person comics discussion with mature, knowledgeable fans
who appreciate the writers, the artists, and the work (or don't care
for them, as the case may be).
Then it was time to haul it to the airport, and fly back to St. Louis.
And here I am.
If you've made it this far, first, congratulations. Also, I want to
thank the three guys I hung out with a good bit at this year's con,
who made things so much more fun by their company and fellowship. Joe
Crowe, John Ballew (and his pal Jarred, whose last name I still don't
remember), and George Kopec are all class acts and fine, enjoyable
people and it's always a pleasure to spend time hanging out with each
of them.
This was probably the "fastest" DragonCon ever for me. It was over
before I felt like it had started. Missing Friday didn't help,
obviously. But it was more than that.
Being around good friends, being a panelist almost every other hour of
the three days (eight panels in all, in three days-- a record for me),
and squeezing in other events where I could-- it was all over before I
realized it. I didn't even have time to see the Robot Battles this
year, and only sat in on about an hour of the "Space Science" track,
which I have truly come to appreciate in the last couple of years. And
I didn't make it to as many of Joe's panels as I would have liked, or
to any of Keith's.
But, all in all, one of the very best cons I've ever experienced.
Bring on next year already!