Impressions of WorldCon

We all got really, really good at queuing!
There was a brilliant young man marshalling the queues on the Wicklow floor - his name was Toji and I think he was German.
And I always met interesting people to chat to in the queues. After all, if you're queuing for the same panel, at the same event, you're bound to have something in common.
I also saw Convention Centre staff with little carpet sweepers everywhere. Was this for crumbs, or huon particles from passing time travellers?

I saw a lot more Starfleet uniforms than I was expecting, original Star Trek or Next Gen (I don't think I noticed any from other series). Cosplayers do seem to be in the minority at WorldCons, but there was a high standard. I saw a few of the people who later went in for the Masquerade wandering the halls - the red and white striped Victorian bustle dress looked fantastic! So did Gimli, and the two girls dressed as Vikings who were at their first WorldCon. There was a girl dressed as a witch, with a dark red velvet skirt which had Elvish script around the hem, who was asking people if they could read Elvish to tell her what it said! (I wonder if anyone at the Tolkein stall in the dealers' room knew?)

A lot of people wore t-shirts - I saw a lot of Helsinki WorldCon's Ursa, and a fair few LonCon, and even some Mancunicon, the EasterCon I also had a t-shirt of.

There was music everywhere - I never got to see the Helsinki choir, but I did renew my interest in filk, and the Philharmonic was absolutely brilliant.

The Con organisers were also putting a lot of emphasis on art, with their special award at the Hugos which went to Charles Vess, and special guests like Afua Richardson and Jim Fitzpatrick.

They also tried to make the Con as accessible as possible - though there were some selfish people who used the elevators when they didn't need to, making it more difficult for the mobility scooter users, and one lady said that people had actually tried to climb over her to get out of one of the panel rooms!
The captioning service on the big screen in the auditorium was a bit hit and miss, (there was laughter when "dogmatic" became "dog magicians", for instance), but they did try, and the scripted stuff came out fine.
I liked the idea of the pronoun stickers on the badges, too, and the notices up in the toilets saying leave people to pee in peace.

The Luas between Spencer Dock and The Point was like an extension of the Con, as most people riding on it during the day were wearing Con badges.

They were also, of course, focussing very much on Irish programme events wherever possible, and I really enjoyed the panels on Irish folklore and the Morrigan, and I loved all the stuff about Irish astronomy. A few people on the DublinCon Facebook page have talked about enjoying the panel on Flann O'Brien, too.
I'm sure I noticed that they wanted to encourage Irish Travellers to attend the Con, and there were certainly leaflets at one of the tables to the side of the dealers' room about Travellers, and challenging the myths about them. For a time, when I lived in London, I lived opposite the lane leading to a Traveller camp, while I worked in the local police station, and that experience showed me that they were perfectly fine as neighbours, and co-operated with the police who had a good working relationship with them locally. So I was pleased to see the myths about them being challenged.
It was a great pity that the Irish government didn't grant any visas to Nigerian fans who wanted to attend the convention.

A Pair of Gaiters

I saw a pair of gaiters on a market stall in the Buttermarket in Hay today. They were only £10, and nice leather, so I took them home with me. Sadly, they were made for skinny little legs, and the buckles were purely decorative over a solid seam.
Fortunately, I have a little craft knife, so I unpicked the seam, cut the lining, and buckled them on:

I have a pair of suitable shoes in almost the same colour, and they'll go well with my brown trousers for a Steampunk adventurer look!

Random EasterCon Thoughts

So, for the past three posts, I concentrated on the panels I went to, but there was so much more going on as well. The bar area was a good place to meet people (and we also found a mostly un-noticed bench by the cloakroom when we needed to sit down).
There was Michele, who helped me with my Jedi costume - and who turned out to be the maker and wearer of a magnificent dress in the Masquerade at LonCon, which had pictures from the Greek myths appliqued all over it. As we chatted, more of her friends joined the group, including a chap in vintage British Army uniform ("these were my father's trousers") but with badger themed badges. We saw him later dressed as a Jedi, and Michele dressed in the most gorgeous full length patchwork coats.
There was Wilf, 80 this year, who we also met at LonCon, and had breakfast with last year at EasterCon, who was volunteering as a steward.
I sat next to one of the Guests of Honour, Ian McDonald, at the Jodrell Bank talk.
There was a dealer who had a wonderful selection of classic SF and pulp titles, just by the door of the dealer's room. The Young Man got a rare Conan Doyle hardback from him (but no Doc Savage, sadly).
He was opposite the Steampunk stall, where I bought a watch, and we had a long chat with the lady behind the stall. I nearly left my Librarian behind there, too! I was carrying a cuddly orangutan around all day - my colleague from the Unseen University.
The art show was full of gorgeous stuff, including Jim Burns (winner of the BSFA Award this year) and Anne Sudworth, and an almost hypnotic 3D picture of a Moon crater by somebody Hardy? So many lovely things.
Up in the other dealers' room, we got into another conversation about comics, Captain Britain, and diversity (700 background characters, and not one brown face, in one story, apparently! Yay, diversity.)
There was the Scottish Klingon, in kilt and battle armour (who was actually German), and a lady in a very good Babylon 5 uniform. I gave one of my costume tokens to the couple dressed as Number 6 and a lady from the Village in multicoloured cape.
There were several men in utilikilts, and a purple Minion strapped to the main Tech area in Deansgate 2 & 3.
There were the girls in the row in front of me at the feminist fantasy talk, with their arms round each other, while behind me the oldest man at the convention (90 this year) was nodding off.
In one Room 6 panel, one of the panel members said we could squeeze another person into the room if they came and worshipped at her feet, and a young girl (I think they knew each other) knelt down in the aisle to do a full kowtow.
There were the Slippers of Doom in the comedy horror panel - "the fluffy slippers of Shoggoth - they will eat your soles!" That was also the panel where they had to explain what cognitive dissonance was.
Oh, and the note in one of the Waggle Dance newsletters, where a Random Member of the Public asked what we were all doing at the hotel, having seen the badges with bees and hexagons on them (the symbol of Manchester is a bee, for industry). When told it was a science fiction convention they said; "Oh, I thought you were all beekeepers!"

Steampunk Costume Accessories

I have been creating! This is a prop for the Steampunk costume I'll be wearing at EasterCon this year - it's a cage for trapping fairies! It's only about 7 inches high. I painted it a coppery colour (technically Runelord Brass), and added the star necklace and the ribbon. I also have a Fairy Attractor (a garden ornament that glows in the dark) and a little wicker basket about the same size as the cage, to transfer the stupefied fairies into captivity. We will be harvesting the fairy dust, which they shed naturally anyway, and tagging the fairies to observe their migration patterns!

And this is the costume I'll be wearing, but with a straw boater instead of a solar topee! This photo was taken at the 2014 Hereford History Day, when the theme was the First World War.

Jedi Librarian

My Young Man knows a lot more about Star Wars than I do, so I was surprised when he told me that Jedi Librarians are a real thing in the extended universe. He even found this picture for me:



I love this idea, so this is what I'm going to try to put together as my hall costume for EasterCon next year.

Grandville and Luther Arkwright

When we were at WorldCon this August, my Young Man and I dressed up as Inspector LeBrock, of Bryan Talbot's Grandville novels, and his girlfriend the Divine Sarah (who are, of course, both badgers). We were delighted that Bryan Talbot himself took a photo of us, and that photo is now on his website at www.bryan-talbot.com

This picture was taken by our friend Becky - Bryan Talbot took our photo in the main concourse of the Excel centre, just outside the hall where he was about to give a talk.

The latest in the Grandville series, Grandville:Noel, is being launched on 27th November, and Bryan and Mary Talbot will be at Forbidden Planet in London doing a book signing on the evening of the 26th November.
Also out now is the re-issue of the Luther Arkwright stories, also by Bryan Talbot, called Arkwright Integral, which is an enormous tome, comprising the Adventures of Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire!

The Doctor at WorldCon

Here I am, outside the Tardis, which was parked in the middle of the Fan Village. Some time during the Con, a second Tardis appeared at the other end of the Fan Village - but there was a note in the Con newsletter, Pigeon Post, declaring that there obviously were NOT two Tardises in the Fan Village, because that would cause a rupture in the space time continuum (or something).
We weren't the only people having our pictures taken beside the Tardis, of course.
The best Whovian costume I saw - well, it's a tie, I think. There was an amazing Lady Sixth Doctor in a patchwork dress, and a superb Cyberman.
There was a Dr Who Party on the first evening in the Fan Activities tent. We all got blue wristbands marked "Wholapalooza@LonCon3" when we went in - and a raffle ticket.
I won the raffle!
I never win raffles!
I got a copy of Doctor Who The Essential Guide - I was delighted!
We couldn't stay very long because we had to get the DLR home, but what a lovely end to the first day that was.

Cosplaying at WorldCon

WorldCon is not like ComicCons - the interest is more literary, and there are fewer hall costumes on display. Having said that, there were a few people wearing costumes who had really made an effort, like the two Jawas who even spoke like the ones in the films. There was also an Imperial Stormtrooper, and a Cyberman, several Steampunks, a Minbari lady from Babylon 5 (with hair, so a human hybrid), a lady Sixth Doctor in an amazing patchwork dress, and more - and I wasn't the only Captain Marvel. There was another lady from Poland. We had our picture taken together:

One of the high points of the Con for me, though, was on the Saturday, when my Young Man and I were waiting to go into Bryan Talbot's talk on the history of anthropomorphic animals in comics. We were dressed as his characters Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard and his girlfriend the Divine Sarah. Bryan Talbot himself came past - and he took our photo! A little later, we got Hall Costume medals, too (I am so proud!). And here are the costumes, picture taken by our friend Becky:

The Young Man did the makeup - he's far better at that sort of thing than I am.
I found it quite difficult to go to the toilet in that crinoline, and I had to sit on the end of rows of chairs at the talks we went to that day.

We were also UNIT scientists Malcolm Taylor and Liz Shaw on the first day, and here is another picture taken by Becky:

On the other days, the Young Man wore his Captain Britain tshirt when I was Captain Marvel, and we were also Green Lantern and Green Arrow - someone asked where the Young Man's ring was, so he showed off the ring that lights up. I got stopped by a volunteer and asked to go to Ops to have my bow and arrow checked for safety. The weapons policy is quite strict, but the toy bow and the arrow with a little boxing glove on the end passed the test ("Stab me with it," the lady said, holding out her hand - and the boxing glove is quite well padded, so that was okay).
At the end of that evening we took the tube to Woolwich Arsenal and a taxi the rest of the way home. I was still wearing the costume and the taxi driver said: "You're not going to rob me, are you?"
"It's okay - I only rob the rich!" I said, deciding it was too much effort to explain I was Green Arrow rather than Robin Hood.

Packing for WorldCon

It's fortunate that my Young Man found me a Very Big Suitcase on Wheels - because I'm taking four different costumes to wear, that require three different pairs of boots!
The first day of the Con has quite a bit of Doctor Who content, including a Doctor Who party at the end of the day, so I will be Dr. Liz Shaw, Companion to Jon Pertwee and UNIT scientist. That's fairly easy - all I need is a white coat and a short skirt, and I'll be carrying a clipboard. Crossing the time lines a bit, my Young Man will be Malcolm Taylor, the Welsh UNIT scientist in the more recent Christmas special that had the double decker bus in the desert.
Since I already have the costumes for Captain Marvel and Green Arrow, it would be a shame not to wear them again - and they require a pair of red boots for Captain Marvel, and green boots for Green Arrow. And the Young Man will be joining me as a steampunked Captain Britain, and Green Lantern.
But the most elaborate costumes will be in honour of Bryan Talbot, one of the Guests of Honour, who wrote and illustrated (among other things) the Grandville graphic novels.
The Young Man is going to be Inspector LeBrock of Scotland Yard, and I will be his girlfriend the Divine Sarah, with badger makeup and wig (and the third, lace up, pair of boots under my crinoline skirt).
I'm not going to attempt getting the bus and tube to Excel wearing the crinoline - the underskirt is going on when I get there, as is the make up!
This is the look we're aiming for:

Becoming the Divine Sarah for a day

When I go to WorldCon, one of the things I will be doing is dressing up as a badger (as you do!). One of the guests of honour is Bryan Talbot, who writes and illustrates the Grandville graphic novels, which are about a badger who is an inspector at Scotland Yard. It's kind of like Rupert Bear with more violence, in an alternate Steampunk-esque reality. In fact, Rupert Bear's dad turns up in the background of a panel in the first story, cutting his garden hedge!
So my Young Man is planning to be Inspector Archie LeBrock, in caped coat and waistcoat and bowler hat (though he's disappointed that he won't be able to take his Very Big Gun along - the weapons policy of the convention rather rules that out). I will be Archie's love interest from the first Grandville story, the Divine Sarah, a character modelled on the great Victorian actress Sarah Bernhardt. So I will be wearing a crinoline skirt with added bustle, and a corset over my blouse. And this is why it's a good idea to try out a costume before the big day - I've grown sideways! The last time I wore the corset, it fitted beautifully. This time, I need more ribbon to lace it up. Quite a bit more ribbon....
Fortunately, I have found something suitable in my ribbon stash - black with a silver edging. The whole ensemble is mainly black with a touch of green, and white highlights. I've even got a black wig with white streaks.
If we're very brave, we'll put the badger makeup on at home, and travel to the Con on bus and Docklands Light Railway partly in costume (I'm never going to get up the stairs of a London bus in a crinoline!).

Green Arrow at London Comic Con

Here I am on the steps outside Excel, with my boxing glove arrow at the ready!

London Super Comic Con

I'm just back from a fantastic weekend at Excel in London, where I've been attending my first convention for over twenty years.
I had fun.
Everyone was so friendly, and there was such a good mix of people there, a lot of them in costume.
It seems to me that there are a couple of main reasons to go to a con these days - one of which is to have your picture taken in costume (or to catch the eye of a youtube film crew like Sneaky Zebra). There were a lot of very good costumes, and it was a good job the Young Man was there to tell me who a lot of them were - my knowledge of comic characters is very limited and specific. There were several Doctors, Ten, Eleven and Four mostly, one of them going round with a very good River Song. There were a couple of Planet of the Apes chimpanzees, and lots of Batman characters. I saw two different Daredevils, and one Matt Murdock, complete with white stick and a briefcase with legal papers sticking out the top, with the heading Murdock and Nelson!
There was a Cyberman, and Doc Octopus, and several Captain Americas, a very good Iron Man, Dr Manhattan, several more Green Arrows in various versions of the costume, and the new Ms Marvel - I had my picture taken with her while I was being Captain Marvel, but I don't have a copy of it yet.
There was a group of Judges from MegaCity One and BritCit, and a tall black lady who looked absolutely stunning as Storm, with a white feather head dress and Thor's hammer. I saw Mother Russia, and Neil Gaiman's Death, and looked after the bags while the Bat Clan had their pictures taken in the underground car park - my Young Man was the Penguin (all 1960s style). The other villains were King Tut, the Riddler and Catwoman, and the good guys were Batman, Robin and Batgirl. We met another Penguin later, who was carrying a toy penguin with a little rocket strapped to its back. My Young Man was stopped so often for photos that it was like walking round with a celebrity!

The other main reason to be there seems to be to buy lots of cool stuff.
I bought lots of cool stuff. Mike Grell, who is the artist who did the classic Green Arrow story The Longbow Hunters, was there, and I bought a couple of his sketches to go on my wall. I was dressed up as Green Arrow at the time, complete with the arrows with little boxing gloves on the end.
I also bought a picture of Neil Gaiman's Death done by Aly Fell, who is a lovely man, and a very good artist.
On another table as I went round was Peter David, who wrote a lot of Star Trek novels back in the 1980s and 90s. "Why don't you go and have a word?" my Young Man asked, nudging me in his direction.
"I can't! That's Peter David!" I squeaked. I had to go round the hall again to pluck up the courage to say hello!

Green Arrow

I'm going to a comic convention in London in March, and I'm starting to get quite excited. It's a very long time since I went to any sort of SF Con, so this will be testing the water before the big one, WorldCon (LonCon 3) in August.
I knew I was going to wear my home made Captain Marvel costume (and I now have the red boots to finish the costume off), but then I had a look down the guest list again. I'm very much a beginner when it comes to comics, so most of the names mean nothing to me, but one name did leap out at me - Mike Grell, who wrote the Green Arrow adventure The Longbow Hunters.
Back in the 1980s, his Green Arrow stories were just about the only comics I read.
I was planning on putting a Green Arrow costume together for WorldCon - because a group of friends want to do DC superheroes (so I obviously can't be Captain Marvel for that). I own a longbow, and like the character, so Green Arrow was an obvious choice.
Then I looked at the weapons policy of the conventions, and decided that maybe I wouldn't be taking my real longbow and arrows along. So I've bought a toy bow, but I couldn't resist doing this when I found a mini pair of boxing gloves on a recent visit to town:

In The Longbow Hunters, Green Arrow is getting back to basics, and not using trick arrows any more, but one of the most famous trick arrows he used were the ones with little boxing gloves on the end. This isn't a very good picture, but the best I could do in the dreary, rainy, grey conditions we've been having recently.

Ada Lovelace Cosplay

I found this picture on a blog called EPBOT - I think it's brilliant that the boy knew that the first computer programmer was Ada Lovelace, and wanted to dress as her for the fancy dress party.

In Search of a Wig

My Young Man has been visiting, so I've been - a little distracted.

I went into Hereford to meet him off the train, and had a little time to do a bit of shopping. I was in need of a wig. I'm putting a costume together for next year's WorldCon of a character from Bryan Talbot's Grandville series of graphic novels. Bryan Talbot is one of the special guests of the Convention and I want to be the Divine Sarah, actress and love interest of the hero, Inspector LeBrock. She's also a badger - and so is he. My Young Man will be playing LeBrock - he likes the very big LeMat pistol that the Inspector carries.
I'm not even going to try to compete with the cosplayers who go to enormous lengths to get their costume just right, so I'm going to print off a badger mask from one of the Wildlife Trust websites for the face, but I did think I needed a wig. My natural hair colour is a sort of mousy blonde, which is not exactly a badgery colour.
I saw a likely looking wig in the local Spar shop just before Hallowe'en - black but with either a white or purple stripe running through it. Of course, they only had the purple one in stock, and the white stripe would be much better for my purposes.
So I went into a party shop just behind the building that used to be Hereford's big department store, Chadds. I'd passed it before, and thought it was quite a small shop that sold balloons and party banners and so on - but when I ventured inside, I discovered that it goes back, and back, and back, and there's an upstairs.... I came out with the perfect black and white wig, and a Robin Hood hat that I can use for my Green Arrow costume, to make it a bit more Golden Age (I'm not going for Oliver Queen's little yellow beard, though. That would be silly.)

Doctor Who at the Shire Hall

This is me, standing just across the road from the Shire Hall in Hereford, earlier today. BBC Hereford and Worcester were having a Doctor Who day, and I went in costume as a Tardis engineer. I have three jazzed up screwdrivers and a reel of gold wire on my toolbelt, together with a sonic screwdriver and a sonic torch. The engineer's overalls are a silk jumpsuit that came from a vintage fair in Hay a few months ago, and the beret has a UNIT badge sewn to it. I'm also wearing a Tardis key round my neck.

It was a fun event for the kids - toy daleks to drive, face masks to colour in, small Tardises to make, and plenty of tea and cake. It was also an excuse for local fans to show off their collections and some of the things they had made - like the full sized World War Two Dalek being shown off by one young man dressed as the Fourth Doctor (though he admitted that he had run out of jelly babies!). Other very fine costumes included an early Cyberman, a Weeping Angel, and a Cat Nun. There were also several fezes and tweed jackets in evidence - and a "Pin the Bowtie on the Doctor" game. There was also a Dalek up on the stage (called Derek, strangely - how can you be scared of a Dalek called Derek?) which must have been a real one from the TV, because no-one was allowed to touch that one. You could also go inside the Tardis, though that definitely wasn't the real one, because it wasn't bigger on the inside....
I saw quite a few kids in wheelchairs around the entrance hall. I'm not sure how they were able to get to the main hall, because the front way in is up a long staircase.

Steampunk Superheroes

A few more pictures from Asylum last weekend:

Superwoman outside the Victoria pub

Catwoman, Robin and Batman at the Castle

and Captain America, who makes the patchwork corsets - that's her stall in the Westgate hall.

Wheelchair Cosplay

Over on Stellar Four blog, on the 24th June, there's a post about awesome costumes created by and for people in wheelchairs. There's a tiny Eleventh Doctor in his Tardis, and a fairy-tale Cinderella, Oracle, Wall-e, and more. They're really inventive and truly wonderful.

It reminded me of the days when I used to go to lots of Star Trek conventions, back in the 1980s. One lady in a wheelchair took part in the fancy dress parade (cosplay was not even a word then!) as The Ship Who Sang. The spaceship costume was constructed around her wheelchair. I think this was probably at Leeds Dragonara Hotel (I went to quite a few conventions at the Dragonara, which has since changed its name). The lady could only go to conventions at all by making arrangements with the local hospital so she could stay with them for the weekend - she really was seriously disabled - but she was determined to enjoy herself when she got into the hotel.