Friday, June 26, 2009

Con-fessions: Granitecon 2009


It's a Friday night and Rob's away. Meanwhile, I'm glued to my monitor looking for the newest and shiniest SDCC news on panels, events, rumors, angry geek girls. Between today's news of a Mythbusters panel and prior news of BSG possibly including Edward James Olmos, David Tennant and Dr. Who, V, Dollhouse, District 9 including Peter Jackson, browncoats and rumors of Megan Foxx in a Slave Leia outfit, it's a wonder I can live a normal productive life with normal restful sleep.

Hmmm... but even that is questionable with last week's Can't Stop the Serenity bash.

Anywho, Rob re-organized his comic book collection which meant multiple trips to Double Midnight Comics for comic book boxes (really non-nerds, there are special boxes for your comic books AND even special card board and plastic bags to protect them - almost like scrapbooking but without Martha Stewart). On one of these trips, he returned home with a flier for Granitecon.




We'd been to one in the past and it wasn't all that fabu, but since it's the year of the con, we gave it another shot. And I had a blast! I was so happy, chatting with indie artists, finding a way cool Super Grover print. And the most exciting was meeting Juli Mayers. Who not only is a browncoat, but also had browncoat fan art and personalized it for us (it says "Have a good damn wedding") AND her own funny Nathan Fillion story. Whoa. That was just way too cool.



Yep, I was jumping around like a super-happy freak after that.

Oh oh and there was Marek Bennett, who uses comic books to help teachers teach literacy, is pretty neat-o too. And he let passersby, including my adult self, make our own comics. Yay for interactive, fun and dare I say educational freebies. I'm a sucker for people who encourage reading.

Granitecon itself has gotten better as the years have passed. More vendors, more people, still gaming. I would love to see some panels brought in and maybe some live action demo stuff. More people in costume make me smile. And it's good for press to grow your event. Speaking of press, those youngins working the 92.1 booth did not seem like they were nerdy. Maybe they were, maybe they weren't. Just in case, here's my shout out: Don't judge me; I had a rocking time.

All in all, our $10 contribution was worth it (5 big ones each), so we'll probably be back next year. Yawn, must be time for bed and a peek at Nathan Fillion's tweets. Don't judge me! They're amusing.

Friday, June 12, 2009

Get your Con on!

So far, we've managed to hit two conventions this year in prep for our big Comic-Con debut. The first was Boskone in Boston which was more literary than TV/anime/video game/movie stuff. Still very fun. And we tried out our new Browncoat Brigade lanyards.

Early in the AM, I hit the a panel about attending cons on the cheap. A few good tips to be had, but nothing new or thrilling. Lots of good stories about adventures at cons past.

Throughout the day, members from the Higgins Amory Sword Guild in Worcester, MA performed fighting demonstrations, including a Jedi light saber sequence. The coolest part is that the broke down the sequence move-by-move and explained the probable fighting style and logic for the move. (more pics available on the wedding photo site)






Another "highlight" from our day at Boskone included a panel about inadvertent messages authors send in writing, such as in the Twilight books. Although the write up specifically included the book, none of the panelists had actually read them. That and the panel ended up being overtly 70s feminist, so much so that I turned to my son and said "Um, you can leave it you want. You're not really the enemy."

We ended our trip with a quick shopping excursion: Rob bought me beautiful leather photo album with a cat face on the cover. Actually, the artist shaped the face into the leather from the backside using organic materials. For Rob, I bought a cute little print of "Doctor Whomster"by Charlene Taylor D'Alessis, a hamster dressed as Tom Baker Dr. Who in front of the blue tardis. The little print comes in very handy when explaining exactly what a tardis is.