A Tale of Two Conventions

We attended two conventions in November, and they were polar opposites of each other.

The first was Anime Vegas 2011, held November 11-13 in Las Vegas, Nevada. I had attended two other Anime Vegas conventions, and this one was the best run by far. The con was filled with young people, many in costumes; the masquerade was robust and full of entries; and the event vibrated with youth and enthusiasm. In particular, this Anime Vegas was energized by the revival of the license for the Hellsing Ultimate anime, which has been moribund in the U.S. for the last three years. The entire principal English dub cast for Hellsing Ultimate gathered in Las Vegas to promote the soon-to-be-released balance of the Hellsing Ultimate videos. We attended as fans, as enthusiastic as anyone else there.

The second convention was Loscon 38, held over Thanksgiving Weekend. This was a science fiction convention, rather than an anime con (although, in a convention tradition, anime was shown in a video room throughout the con). As is now the tradition with SF conventions, the attendees tended to be older than those who go to Anime Vegas and other anime cons; indeed, many attendees had been going to conventions for 40-50 years or more. The masquerade, alas, was anemic -- only nine entries, little in the way of MC-ing, and judges who were not even introduced until the awards were announced.

We attended this con as dealers (Amy's embroidery business, Heart of the Star, had a table in the dealer's room). That is a fun way to attend a convention, and we had a good time talking to folks from behind the table and selling Amy's wares (which were quite popular with the crowd). But keeping the table running meant that we had to carefully parse the con activities we attended during the show. I attended one panel during the con, as did Amy. (That one panel was a fantastic one, however -- a talk given by Nicholas Meyer, author of The Seven-Percent Solution and director of Time after Time, The Day After, and two of the best Star Trek films. And although there were folks in costume, far fewer costumes filled the halls than those on view at Anime Vegas.

As much as we enjoyed Loscon, however, we wondered how the energy, youth, and enthusiasm of an anime con such as Anime Vegas could be brought to an SF con such as Loscon. After all, many anime fans enjoy the same literary and cinematic SF and fantasy as Loscon attendees. Yet SF conventions such as Loscon don't register on the radar of anime fans. We hope that more young fans find Loscon and conventions of its ilk to their taste; otherwise, SF conventions may be in danger of eventually disappearing.

Lest I end this post on a negative note, I will point out one of the coolest aspects of this year's Anime Vegas. Amy, who is a big Hellsing fan, painted a cardboard coffin a few years ago to match the one shown in the Hellsing manga and anime. She took the opportunity of this reunion of Hellsing cast members to get the coffin autographed by the cast members; and I captured the autographing on video. Here are the video highlights.

Here, voice actress Victoria Harwood (who plays Integra in Hellsing) and ADR director/adaptor Taliesin Jaffe sign the coffin.



Ralph Lister, who plays Walter, signs the coffin:

As does Patrick Seitz, the voice of Luke Valentine and one of the scripters for the English dub of Hellsing Ultimate:

K.T. Gray, who voices Seras in the English Dub, signs the sinister sepulchre:

And finally, Crispin Freeman, the English voice of Alucard in Hellsing, signs on.

We folded the fully executed coffin flat, and transported it to its final resting place.

Memories of Moscon III:The Pre-Digital Convention

Modern-day attendees of science fiction, comics, and anime conventions likely do not appreciate the difference the World-Wide Web has made in documenting and archiving convention memories.

In September 1981, almost exactly 30 years ago, I attended Moscon III in Moscow, Idaho. I attended only one day of the convention. I bummed a ride up from Walla Walla in Southeastern Washington to Moscow, a college town just across the state border from Pullman, Washington, by persuading Conrad and Sharman Boslee, friends I had met in local theater, that it might be fun to attend a smaller version of the comics convention I had attended in San Diego the previous year. (Yes, that was the 1980 San Diego Comic-Con, my first con.) Conrad had already done me a tremendous service the previous summer by loaning me his comics collection, a moving crate that contained comics published from 1964 to 1972 from every comics publisher. The box led to a lot of sleepless nights that summer, and a deep appreciation of the comics of that period.

The artist guest of honor was Tim Kirk. I believe the writer guest of honor was Kate Wilhelm. But I can't tell you for sure, because I cannot find any documentation of this convention online. Nowadays, the smallest one-day local convention is documented in exhaustive detail on a con homepage, and on the blogs, Livejournals, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds of attendees. But in 1981, home computers were TRS-80s from Radio Shack that read and stored data from cassette tape recorders -- computers so basic that even I did a little bit of programming on the one my dad got to track the stock market. Data transmission was over telephones, at glacially slow speeds. The idea of putting multiple photos and videos online quickly was, well, science fiction.

So now, the only references to Moscons you will find online are some mention of the final ones in the late '90's (when they actually had web pages, which are now defunct) and discussion of them in the obituaries of convention founder Jon Gustafson.

Nevertheless, the con lives on in my memory. It was small (about 300 attendees), but it was marked by quality guests. At the 1981 Moscon, I chatted with ElfQuest co-creator Richard Pini (whom I had met at the 1980 Comic-Con) and his then-assistant, Jane Fancher (whom I met earlier that year because I learned she was working at the bookstore at WSU, the same college my older brother was attending; and who went on to a career as an SF and fantasy novelist). I met Alex Schomberg, the science fiction and comics illustrator who had drawn the insanely detailed covers of the Captain America comics of the '40's and whose career continued into the '80's. I met artists Tim Kirk and Rowena Morrill, and SF writer Nina Kiriki Hoffman before she made a name for herself as one of the premiere urban fantasy writers of the past 20 years. I even met fellow fans of a TV series that was a cult favorite on the verge of cancellation then, Hill Street Blues.

And fortunately, although there were no digital cameras to capture moments of the convention in pixel-perfect detail, there were snapshot cameras. Hence, my attempt to remedy the lack of online documentation of this convention:



On top is a photo of a panel (I forget the subject matter) that includes panelists Richard Pini, Kate Wilhelm, and Jane Fancher.



Below that is a photo from later in the convention of Richard Pini and skinny, 16-year-old me.

I wish I had taken a camera to the early conventions I attended. I'm not sure why I didn't; perhaps because photos were such a hassle in that time of flashbulb cubes and photo processing. After all, a photo of a convention doesn't just document the convention; it freezes and preserves a moment of your life.

So Cal Cons are Steaming Away

If you're attending Anime Expo in Los Angeles or Comic-Con in San Diego next month, and you enjoy viewing outfits and gadgets from the future of the past, check out one of these steampunk gatherings, just scheduled this past weekend:

Anime Expo: Saturday, 5:00 p.m., outside West Hall of L.A. Convention Center. (http://www.cosplay.com/showthread.php?t=208336)

Comic-Con: Saturday, High Noon, on the back steps of the San Diego Convention Center. (http://www.facebook.com/?ref=home#!/event.php?eid=139542939389760)

Barring ill fate, I'll be at both, so see you there!

Travelin' Man

This has been one of those peripatetic months for me. During the first week of April, I stayed in San Francisco on business. Two weeks later, I drove up to Paso Robles and stayed overnight, again on business. Then, last weekend, we went to Utah for the Fannutiku Fest convention, at which Amy worked as a dealer, running her magical embroidery machine and wowing the con-goers with its seemingly mystical movements. I, meanwhile, called up one of my past skills (making change on the fly without a cash register) and handled the green stuff. This was the first time I had worked retail at a convention since, oh, around the mid-1980's.

The most startling moment was when the dealer's room closed; and before we could break down our table, the wall behind us disappeared. We were in one half of a divided ballroom; and the hotel was taking the room apart around us to prepare for their next event. ("Did I break anything?" asked the hotel worker as he whipped the sliding wall out from behind us.)

The St. George Holiday Inn where the convention was held had an unusual feature: a pool that began in the lobby and extended outside (with in and out separated by a cat-door-like rubber flap). I spent early Sunday morning swimming laps under the cat-door, while the hotel sound system played seemingly un-rural-Utah-like songs from Elvis Costello, Jamie Blunt and Sound Asylum

Japanese Conventional Artifacts

Here are some fun convention flyers I picked up while we were in Japan for Worldcon. The first is a manga-style flyer (helpfully translated into English for us foreign attendees) for the next Japanese National Science Fiction Convention, Daicon. (Remember to read right -t0-left.)
The other is the cover for the program for the summer Comic Market, or Comiket, for 2007.

Convention Survival Guide

Conventions happen year-round these days, but summer is still the big convention season. That's when the major cons happen (Anime Expo, Otakon, San Diego, and Worldcon or its North American equivalent when it's out of the country). I therefore offer this survival guide from a guy who's been to many conventions, Mark Evanier. He's the writer who essentially takes over Room 8 at Comic-Con International: San Diego and then moderates seemingly dozens of panels.

One word of advice I'd add -- or make that two: Peanut butter. If you bring a sack lunch with some non-perishable food, you won't go hungry if you're stuck at a panel or in a line for hours; and you won't have to settle for high-priced, low-quality convention center food. I favor peanut butter and honey, or sometimes Nutella, on multi-grain bread, with some dried fruit. That provides protein, grains, and vegetable matter. (Plus lots and lots of sodium and fat. That's why you should walk around the convention location as much as possible.)

Photos from the First Day of Sakura-Con Are Up

I'll post a con report later, when I had the time. Best experience so far: The panel for the US premiere of the anime adaptation of Tsubasa:Reservoir Chronicles. Downtown Seattle in April is great, too.

A Conventional Guy

We've been making plans to attend several comics, anime and science fiction conventions this year. The most exciting trip (for me) will be to Yokohama/Tokyo around Labor Day Weekend for Nippon 2007, the World Science Fiction Convention. We were last in Japan in 2004 for Anime Expo Tokyo -- the first fan-run anime convention in Japan -- which was apparently a try-out for hosting the Worldcon. Also, all of the Worldcon's I've attended (in 1984, 1996, and 2006) have been the Anaheim ones, largely run by LA-area fans; so I'm looking forward to one in a different country, run by different folks.

We have our hotel reservations in Yokohama. We're planning to spend about a week in Tokyo after the convention, and we've got a travel agency working on our accommodations there. There's Internet everywhere in the Tokyo area, so I hope to be blogging about the experience.

A con that is coming up sooner is Sakura Con, an anime convention in Seattle that we decided to attend fairly suddenly. I'm not sure how attendance will be, since it's being held (a) Easter weekend and (b) the same weekend as Norwescon, a large regional science fiction convention. True, not all anime fans are SF fans, or vice versa, but it seems like there'd be an overlap.

Other cons we've arranged to attend are Anime Expo 2007, to be held in Long Beach; and (of course) Comic-con International: San Diego. Believe it or not, this will be my 22nd San Diego Comic-Con. It was fairly big when I attended my first one (with my father and older brother) in 1980; but it's become unimaginably huge, with an attendance that topped 114,000 last year.

Photographs from Anime LA are Up on Photobucket

We only went Saturday, so all of the photos are (naturally) from that day.

Be Our Guest, Be Our Guest . . . .

Sometimes, the Barer Cave opens to admit visitors . . . .

This past weekend, we were delighted to host at our home three anime fans from Utah -- Christie, Natalie, and Sarah -- whom Amy met online, and who we met in person at the Anime Vegas convention in September. We introduced the trio to some of the joys of Los Angeles anime stuff, including Power Anime at the Westside Pavilion; Kinchan Ramen and Volcano Tea on Sawtelle; and Kinokuniya Bookstore, Anime Jungle and Japan Arcade in Little Tokyo. Not to mention such gastronomical wonders as Junior's Deli. Thanks to our ever-cheerful and upbeat guests, we had a blast.

PMX 2006 photos

My photos from last weekend's Pacific Media Expo 2006 (albeit only Sunday) are up on Photobucket.