WonderCon 2007

My photos and I highly recommend looking at Narrisch's on her flickr photostream.



Getting to sleep that night was tough. I was buzzed from the events of the day (my previous blog post) and the plans for WonderCon. I had two nightmares where we missed seeing the Drive panel (the first because we forgot and the second because they changed venue on us). Still, I hopped out of bed with enthusiasm and scared Narrisch into thinking that I might actually be one of those freaks known as morning people.

The alarm didn't wake sleeping Narrisch but the whistle of my kettle did (after I let it screech for a minute) and we both had a cup of tea and strawberries (with cake also in my case) for breakfast. Yet again, I got my timing wrong and we missed the train but the bus was able to get us into the city which saved me from driving half asleep. The bus journey was pretty slow and long but fortunately gave Narrisch some experience of it before Monday and using it to get to the airport. We talked in depth about Battlestar Galactica, my lack of sleep making me forget names and slur my words.

Once in the city, our first port of call was Peet's as we both required coffee. Sitting in the cafe, Narrisch noticed someone she called "that guy from Just Shoot Me" and we also spent a good time comic-geek spotting as the city was full of hairy wanderers in black t-shirts. I spied a special Peet's Chai blend and thought of Rian.

I did slightly better in remembering where we had to go for the con than I did with the parade, aided admittedly by a large banner saying "Welcome to WonderCon" and the aforementioned stream of obvious geeks going to it. Every few steps on our final approach to the Moscone centre, a "man in black" demanded to know whether we had prepaid tickets or not so I started to simply carry the print-outs as if they were a shield and sure enough they kept their distance and we were able to queue-jump and get through the main doors, hot on the foot-steps of a storm-trooper. Once in, we had our tickets scanned and collected our passes. I wore mine with such pride.

I inspected the programme. We had not missed any events I cared about fortunately. There were a number of panels starting at 12 that I was interested in. I finally selected (with minimal consulting) a tv panel as opposed to a comics panel. The topic was the changing face of television based on the (frankly wrong) idea that scifi was having a revival (when was it not on the telly?). The panel included Jeph Loeb (Heroes, Lost, Smallville and every single comic book character worth writing) and a couple of people from the 4400 (Billy Campbell and Ira Behr) plus someone utterly random from Deep Space 9 (Chase Masterson). Plus of course, Richard Hatch. I thought that anyone that worked on Battlestar Galactica would be enjoyable to listen to, you cannot work in such a show and not have ideas about the issues, right? I utterly underestimated him though.

But back to events. For in this retelling I have only just decided to go to this panel. The decision made, we went off to the toilet and then found ourselves taking the most obscure route to the discussion location that we could, behind curtains and up stairs and down corridors. But we got there and despite being early for the show, a hefty queue had already formed. As we waited, a woman came around with a raffle to win an autograph session with Nathan Fillion. A guy a couple ahead of us drew a winning ticket. Alas, neither Narrisch nor I picked a winner but the guy right behind us did prompting Narrisch to sulk that he had her ticket.

While in the queue, we had a brief conversation with the girl in front (Farscape t-shirt) about where to get patches to cover the quite hideous National Geographic logo on Narrisch's bag (well, Narrisch didn't like it). We queued for longer than expected as they were not ready yet in the ballroom (which sat 3000 people, by the way) but eventually we were let in, being warned not to run by an official man who then we saw running.

Narrisch and I took some good seats near the centre and near the front. When they brought the panel out we applauded and Narrisch made some comments about Chase Masterson bursting out of her corset and the colour of Ira Behr's beard (purple).

The chairman (from TV Guide) started the ball rolling with the main question about the revival of scifi. Jeph Loeb and Richard Hatch waxed lyrical on the subject (Richard Hatch pretty much giving a speech that got an incredible round of applause). Both talked about the staying power of science fiction and its role in our culture over the decades, disagreeing with the blurb of the panel totally. Richard Hatch of course referenced his Apollo days and to be honest I felt a little baffled that he could compare Battlestar Galactica of old with the intelligent, political and insightful show I watch every week. But he sold himself completely proving that he was much more Zarek than Apollo. Jeph Loeb's contribution was much more what I expected and so a little stale (it's all about the characters really... and the cool guns) but at least it showed the sharp and hugely successful mind behind it.

Move onto the 4400 people... Billy Campbell, being an actor that didn't actually watch any television (apart from Rome, I believe) barely had a word to say. He had to share a microphone with Ira Behr (executive producer, if memory serves) and every time a question came up, whoever had the microphone would surreptitiously edge it towards the other. Ira Behr talked about how the network (USA) didn't see their show as scifi and from his comments it was obvious that he saw the 4400 as a commercial venture rather than a closer look at humanity. I recall many comments by him recapping the previous season, some comments about the future, but nothing of any note at all. Chase Masterson was the odd one on the panel having no show to talk about but had obviously been on the convention circuit enough to have pretty sounding speeches prepared.

So the panel was amusing due to the reluctance of Billy Campbell to speak, Ira Behr merely plugging his (now mythos-heavy) show and the potential of Chase Masterson to explode out of her bodice. It was also transfixing as Jeph Loeb displayed his savvy and Richard Hatch his passion. A few things that came out of it... Heroes is shot entirely in LA (just as Lost is entirely Hawaii) and plans to have a proper conclusion at the end of the season or rather "volume" as Tom Kring puts it. The second volume should have much of the same characters as the first plus some. Tom Kring, though the creator of something that feels like a comic book, does not read comic books. The entire writing staff works together on an episode of Heroes (I knew that Bryan Fuller of Wonderfalls fame wrote for Claire from an interview with him). I got the distinct impression that Jeph Loeb was a little jealous of the intellectual heights Battlestar Galactica aspires to and attains but he showed that he loved the working environment and focus at Heroes.

We had good seats in this panel but did not want to endure the next session (which was about Jericho) so we left, encountering outside a dapper Willy Wonka and an Alien eating poor unsuspecting con attendees. We had quarter of an hour to kill before the next panel we were interested (gender in genre) and so poked our noses into the exhibition hall. I was in absolute heaven. "Like a kid in a sweet shop" fails to capture the absolute bliss I felt in this massive hall filled with booth after booth of comics, books, art and toys. In fact it was overwhelming and I wondered if I would ever be able to find anything to buy without being distracted by so many shiny things I could not afford. Indeed, I saw an issue of Amazing Fantasy number 15 and nearly wept.

But I didn't. We went to gender and genre a little too late to get seats so we took a bit of floor by the side of the room. There were two people on the panel aside from the chairman: Jane Espenson and Pia Guerra. The questions given to them came from people online, mainly from whedonesque. I remember odd things like how Jane Espenson described a common cheer in writers' rooms in answer to "would it be racist/sexist to do this?" of "it would be racist/sexist not to". I remember the discussion on Battlestar Galactica women. Starbuck was both put forward as proof that we have gone beyond the point where gender matters as she is the most broken person in the fleet but no one sees that as a comment on "female weakness", and also as a criticism (from an online person) that people write strong females just by giving them a male character. This seemed to confuse the panel as the whole point was, in their eyes, that there was no such thing as a male character. But they acknowledged (using Gilmore Girls as a reference, dearie me) that if you wrote about a strong woman today you would probably have to give her typically female hobbies as that was still the culture she grew up in It was commented on that Athena was seen folding laundry and Jane Espenson declared "well, it was probably her turn" and followed up with "actors just like to do things which is why Giles ate so much". They joked about how Uhura on the Starship Enterprise was just a telephone operator and how all their role models were male.

Narrisch and I skipped out on this a bit early. There was getting to be a lot of repetition and it was clear that the panel speakers had an optimistic and boringly uncontroversial view of gender in genre. Personally I doubt that they should be so chipper. Outside of television, I don't see a great deal of female protagonists that are written half as well as the male ones, Joss Whedon and Brian Bendis being exceptional writers but a mere blip in comics history.

We went to the ballroom again which was still holding the Jericho panel. It overran so we had to sit through a tedious panel session on a show we did not care about and did not seem to have a great deal of experienced and interesting people running it. The token actor wore a baseball cap inside, an American habit I loathe and have seen creep across the pond. Grrr.

Eventually the Jericho panel drew to a close. I was much more interested watching the translation into sign language. Actually, it was interesting because apparently there is a deaf person on the show and he or she had attended a local school and classmates were in the audience.

But the room was filling for the Drive panel. Narrisch and I moved around a bit and cursed the people that left empty chairs guarded by a discarded jumper or bag so we could not take them. The place we ended up in was near the front but off to the side so we got a good view of the large television screen (not that that was a worry). At least we were on the correct side of the stage for seeing a sneak preview of Nathan Fillion. As they cleared the Jericho lot and set the stage for Drive, Mr Fillion was crouched on the ground with the stage curtain swept aside so that he could entertain a little girl. He didn't succeed in making her cry (as David Boreanaz did at the Angel con I went to) but not everyone has that gift.

The first person to be introduced onto the Drive stage was... unmemorable. But then came the “small actor” we “may have heard of”... and then the room went pretty wild with cheering. Mr Fillion came onto the stage (wearing slightly baggy jeans it must be noted) and basked in the love. Pretending humility, he gestured for us to tone it down and then shrugged as if to say "well, go on then" and gestured for more cheers. Then he quietened us again... and brought the cheers back. Oh and then a couple more people were brought on stage. I forget who.

No, I don't. One was his female co-star and the other the man behind the show, Ben Queen. I say man but as soon as he came on I cried out "he's twelve!" because he looked it. I am not old enough to be thinking that people in power look younger every day.

The panel began with a couple of uninspiring clips of the show, one I swear had Ivan Sergei in Mr Fillion's role and so must have been rather old. The clip that was a scene rather than a trailer showed a lot of Nathan Fillion acting... like Nathan Fillion. Indeed, later in the panel he was asked whether there was any Mal in his character and he admitted yes... which makes me wonder if he is capable of being anyone else. Not that who he is on screen matters as much as how enjoyable he is to watch (in the commercial tv world) but I would have liked to see some range.

The panel talked about the usual things: the birth of the project and its long journey to get to our screens this April, the genius of Tim Minear, the structure in terms of whether there is an end to the show (yes- they will complete the illegal cross-country race but of course there will be another race if they get another season and not necessarily only one per year). The questions from the floor were almost all aimed at the fan favourite Fillion except for one about their favourite cars (Mr Fillion wanted the Batmobile after a long rambling answer that went via futuristic concept cars) which was aimed at all the members. Oh, and one that asked whether it was a problem that the cast was split up all over the country despite it being revealed earlier in the panel that all locations were on LA sets or green-screened. Nathan Fillion stole the show even when he wasn't being asked anything by taking photographs of his co-star and also asking for some audience participation to demonstrate what Drive was all about. When he asked for volunteers, the tectonic plates moved from the effect of so many people leaping up.

I could say more but apart from the fun atmosphere created by Nathan Fillion and his Amazing Fans, the panel was just a lot of talk about a programme no one has seen. And one that isn't even scifi and would be of no interest at all to anyone in the room if not for whedonverse (well, minearverse) links.

So I won't say more.

Narrisch and I left very happy. It had been a good way to spend an hour just for the standup comedy routine that was Nathan Fillion. We leapt into the exhibition hall, myself a little bit too excited at the ocean of booths. We started at the autographs end of the hall and looked for Richard Hatch but he was nowhere to be found. Alas. I did see Ernie Hudson and I clasped Narrisch's arm. "It's Ernie Hudson!" "Er... who?" Ernie Hudson is pretty important to me being a central character in The Film That Spoke Most To Me: The Crow. He was the heart of the film and the strength of it. And then of course he was the warden in Oz, a series that I adore. Narrisch urged me to speak to him, to at least tell him how I valued his work. But surely he knows? And I do hate to state the obvious. So I withheld. I think had I said something, the words would resonate in my head to this day and I would be filled with shame at how they weren't worthy.

So, we passed the Browncoat Booth and some artists and snaked our way down the booths and across the hall. At some point the booths all became comics and memorabilia and other absolutely distracting and shiny things. I am in awe of Narrisch for keeping track of me. So many times we were walking down an aisle and something in a booth would catch my eye and I would be gone. I'd break the spell only to discover that minutes had passed and Narrisch was out of sight. And yet just as the panic edged into my mind, she'd appear as if I was causing no bother at all.

I bought the Eternals (a complete set of 7 issues plus a sketchbook issue for just $23 which perhaps is not a saving compared to the trade paperback but I was happy with it) and the first Fullmetal Alchemist book. I embarrassed myself then by saying to the booth guy that I had seen the cartoons. The cartoons?! Anime! I know that... so why did I say cartoons? Maybe I am wrong to paint anime fans as such snobs that they care what I say as the guy didn't seem too upset.

Narrisch bought a patch for her bag (it said Serenity) and I spent ages going through a box of badges. To top off the day, Narrisch took photos of people dressed up as Willy Wonka (the same one as before), Captain Sparrow, Mrs Incredible and the Alien with its head removed.

We took our purchases and left around 4:30 as it was closing. We hadn't had lunch so we skipped to a sandwich place. As I ate my sandwich (and stroked my comics) we talked about one question that was asked in each of the television panels we attended: are the actors told where their characters are going? Jeph Loeb said that Christopher Eccleston was shocked to find he was told nothing of where his character was headed but on Heroes, as with just about every other American tv show, no one knew future developments. We debated this and I took the position that they should be told everything they need to be told. If their character is going to kill someone in cold blood ten episodes down the line, I think that they should know it in order to play a character capable of that.

This was where I went stupid again as I forgot about the train. And then when I remembered and Narrisch inquired if we could make it I said yes at my pace and no at hers. Oh dear. It just came out... out of annoyance at myself. But it hurt her and she barely spoke a word to me for ages. We did miss the train (by seconds). The next one was an hour later so we went to Borders to kill time. It was healing. I think you can always rely on books to be that. We looked at the titles and Narrisch gave me some recommendations I should try out when I have the time. We discussed Robert Jordan (Narrisch hadn't heard that he was terminally ill) and also some books in the "in the news" section.

We left Borders talking about Snape as Narrisch admired the advertising campaign inside the store that asked you whether you thought him good or evil. I tried to defend my position of not really caring either way but admiring JKR for being able to write a character that really could go either way. The talk segued into my general disdain of mysteries in fiction.

We caught the train to go back to Menlo Park at 7 which brought us in at 8. The restaurant I promised to take Narrisch to was right next to the station and so we didn't need to drag our weary bones very far. It is called Iberia and is my favourite place to eat ever because it is tapas. I really can't deal with meals sometimes. Ordering and eating small and tasty courses until you can't eat any more is so much more enjoyable than a plate of stuff. Plus of course I liked this restaurant because of the atmosphere. In the winter there is a fire going and the tables are in nooks, all perfectly intimate. Everything is made from wood and there are panels on the walls. The atmosphere is helped also by the fact that I always sit at the bar rather than one of the intimate tables. Someone is nearly always behind the bar, making getting served very easy, and they are always interesting and friendly. Narrisch and I begged for help in choosing wine (did I mention that I love tapas because you end up drinking most of your meal?) and our guy Alex (I think) poured us tasters. Selecting our vintage, we ordered a bottle and perused the tapas menu. I ordered my two favourite dishes and left Narrisch to select another two. Alex laughed when I described one of my dishes as mini pizzas "but better" though I swear that is what they are... cheese on bread, right? We ended up with a nice assortment and I was certain that we'd need to order more but I found myself full without even having half of the items. I hope Narrisch was also satisfied.

The conversation became quite fluid. Somehow Narrisch was side-tracked into a lengthy explanation of the situation in Ireland during the times of Jonathan Swift. She told me afterwards that she was worried at the time that she was going on too much being somewhat... lubricated. But I am happy to be educated. And by the end of the evening, Alex joined in the conversation and we were talking about Narrisch's genealogy work and the ethnical make-up of Europe. Somehow the conversation evolved and Alex was asking me about string theory and then explaining that he agreed with it because we were all made from the same thing and vibrations from chanting were clearly special. I had not expected Alex to turn out to be a Buddhist but he started talking about it. Not being to add much I just enjoyed his enthusiasm and was grateful that I would not have to explain what string theory was to him.

We left sometime gone ten, after closing. We walk the short distance to chezbob and put the kettle on for tea. My hdd was doing its thing and recording Battlestar Galactica so we took our time getting everything perfect.

Cue intro. "They have a plan..." Cue scoffing. After the start credits rolled we commented on how they used scenes of the upcoming episode and how we felt about it. Narrisch didn't like to watch them apparently but I have never found that they spoil the episode at all. I enjoy watching them and coming away none the wiser, just appreciative of what a fantastic look the show has. Incidentally, I hear in commentaries people say that it costs a lot of money to redo the opening credits sequence (say if a character leaves). BSG does this every week. Someone is telling fibs...

The episode passed so quickly and at the end we turned to look at each other... "What just happened?" In stunned silence we sat, gathering our thoughts. "They didn't just..." More silence. Then Narrisch stepped through denial into bargaining and came up with a couple of explanations I didn't dare question because I valued the peace of mind they brought (one of them she admits is impossible having rewatched the episode). Consoled, we said goodnight and went to sleep.

My alarm went at 7am and I quickly got washed and dressed and put some food on the breakfast bar for Narrisch. She woke up as I shuffled around and we said quiet goodbyes. I left for work, happy with the weekend that has passed... and selfishly glad I didn't have to see Narrisch leave.