At first glance, Seattle might not seem like an most obvious choice for a star-studded red carpet premiere event for a hit television show. But the ties between the Emerald City and HBO turn out to be as strong as those between a great lord and his most faithful bannermen. We Seattleites, it seems, love our HBO and especially Game of Thrones.
The Seattle area is HBO’s most saturated market in the U.S., with the greatest ratio of subscribers to population. Additionally, Seattle is home to two of HBO’s most important recent business partners, Microsoft and Amazon, both of which are instrumental to HBO GO, the network’s streaming service.
What is it about George R. R. Martin’s epic tale of perpetual winter that seems to strike a chord with Seattle viewers? On a March day like today, it’s easy to see northern Winterfell as a stand-in for our fair city — the Wildlings are totally supposed to be French-Canadians, right?
Our pervasive fandom was apparent at Thursday night’s red carpet gala at the Cinerama, where the regular cast of news media representatives and entertainment reporters was salted with opportunistic Westeros disciples hoping to sneak a peek at the stars of the show (or maybe even to come away with a choice spoiler). Even the Seattle Times’ Bruce Ramsey traded in his editorial duties for the night to cover the event. A self-described fan, Ramsey spoke with fellow members of the media before the event about the books, the show, and even Seattle’s own upcoming mayoral Game of Thrones.
The red carpet featured appearances by several actors from the series, Kit Harington (Jon Snow), Nikolaj Coster-Waldau (Jaime Lannister), Maisie Williams (Arya Stark), Sophie Turner (Sansa Stark), John Bradley (Samwell Tarly), Rose Leslie (Ygritte) and Natalie Dormer (Margaery Tyrell), as well as (for some reason) some players from the Seattle Sounders. (Although promised, Duff McKagan never appeared.)
All of the actors were extremely friendly and generous with their time. Bradley spoke in defense of his character, refuting the suggestion that Sam is somehow “so sexually bereft” that he would jump on the first woman he sees. Harington and Leslie answered many (too many?) questions about the “fun” of filming sex scenes. Natalie Dormer, in particular, was exceptionally chatty, at one point talking the ear off of a blogger about Margaery’s motivations and upcoming storylines with a level of enthusiasm and detail that didn’t seem sustainable on a long promotional tour. No one was complaining. At one point, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau did a little dance that brought a woman watching from outside the Cinerama to a Beatlemania level of sobbing.
Inside the theater, HBO COO Eric Kessler made a prescient joke comparing Seattle’s weather to being “North of the Wall” and thanked both Amazon and Microsoft, both of which were amply represented in the audience. Creators David Benioff and D.B. Weiss introduced the cast and the screening (Benioff’s gave a shoutout to Microsoft, citing his original ownership of Word 1.1). The introduction of Maisie Williams was greeted with the greatest applause, as Arya Stark has quickly become everyone’s favorite-character-who-is-not-Tyrion.
Then the lights went down for the premiere. Season 3 picks up directly following the events of the Season 2 finale, dropping right into the action and the aftermath of Season 2’s climax. The opening episode was true to form, with plenty of intrigue and the portent of big things to come, along with the requisite severed head, mutilation, token nudity, and dragons. No spoilers here, but from the looks of the first episode, fans of the show will not be disappointed with Season 3.
And while watching Game of Thrones on the huge Cinerama screen was a real treat, it underscored (along with the tech heavy audience) the fact that for an increasing number of viewers (including this one) who do not subscribe to cable TV, it will still be many months before this latest season is available to watch (legally).
Despite the success of its HBO Go platform for subscribers, the network still has not made a standalone app available, and has eschewed releasing TV shows on iTunes or Amazon video during the season (as AMC does with its own hit shows), preferring to treat the growing streaming market as part of its home video strategy. For now, HBO is content to just leave the growing piles of streaming money on the table, and the best option for those of us without cable is still to “borrow” an HBO Go login or get invited to a friend’s house, or wait until this latest season is released on DVD and the various download services.
After the screening, HBO hosted a party in the EMP Sky Church, complete with a spread of Westeros-inspired food catered by Wolfgang Puck’s. A healthy selection of kebabs, giant bowls of steaming shellfish (best shelled by hand or mouth) and, of course, the official Game of Thrones beer — a delicious blonde ale brewed by the good folks at Ommegang Brewery. Even the Seven Kingdoms should be able to come together in agreement over that.
The stars were brought out for photos with the partygoers — heavily populated by techies in their finest duds and a smattering of local celebs (I think I spotted Neal Stephenson going for a helping of kebabs). The biggest hit of the party was a replica of the Iron Throne itself was on site for those who dared reap the terrible burden of sitting upon it, and to tweet the resulting photographs to their followers.
The SunBreak’s Comic Book & Pop Culture Convention Correspondent, Bosco, spent the weekend traipsing the confines of the Convention Center, where the Emerald City Comicon 2013 was being held. Herewith, his photographic essay on this unique intersection of nerd-dom, DIY costuming, and mostly good-humored celebrities trucked in for the occasion.
Since her brilliant self-titled debut in 1979, Rickie Lee Jones has made a career out of confounding expectations. Compared with the career moves of many of her contemporaries, the eclectic character of Jones’s wide-reaching catalog has only come to look more artful and masterful over time, the music of each release capturing the flavor of the moment of its release, without sounding dated.
As she told the New Yorker, eclectic can turn on you:
There was a moment when I was doing jazz, with “Something Cool,” from “Girl At Her Volcano.” But I didn’t follow up on it right away. I went back and recorded originals, other albums. Then Linda Ronstadt released those records arranged by Nelson Riddle. So, when I decided to return to it, I was talking it over with Don Was, who was my producer, and I wanted to do a guitar-based record. He suggested the bandoneón, which is how that record, “Pop Pop,” ended up with this Left Bank, café sound. I thought if I did a piano record it would bury me. It almost buried me anyway. The L.A. Times did a review with two journalists on the same page, a pop writer and a jazz writer, and the jazz writer tore me apart. What was happening? Was I being punished?
Jones has never become a household name, but her influence and legacy can be heard today in any number of artists, from Sharon Van Etten to Cat Power to Beth Orton. Her best work has always come from performing her own songs, but she has proven herself a gifted and original interpreter of others music as well.
Her latest release, The Devil You Know, features the singer’s take on well-known songs by Neil Young, The Band, and The Rolling Stones. (NPR lets you listen to “Sympathy for the Devil.”) The arrangements are sparse and intimate, sometimes just voice and guitar or piano, allowing the full weight and texture of her voice to shine through. Along with these, hopefully we’ll also be treated to selections from her entire catalog when she visits Jazz Alley, January 18 to 20.
Let’s get this out of the way upfront: if you care at all about Rock and Roll that’s older than a year and don’t make it to Jazz Alley to see and hear Jack Bruce this week, we can’t be friends. Seriously, go. How many chances do you get to be in the presence of a living, breathing rock legend of that caliber, much less in a room as relatively small and intimate as Jazz Alley? So do we understand each other? Good.
If he is (somehow) not enough of a motivation on his own, Bruce is in town as part of Spectrum Road, a tribute to the late great drummer Tony William‘s lightyears-ahead-of-any-time jazz rock band Lifetime. Along with Bruce on bass and vocals, Spectrum Road consists of Vernon Reid (Living Colour) on guitar, John Medeski (Medeski, Martin & Wood) on keys and Cindy Blackman-Santana (Lenny Kravitz) on drums.
Far from the fussier and more heavily mannered jazz fusion bands that were its contemporaries, Lifetime brought the rock and the funk in a way that took decades to be truly appreciated much less equaled. The tribute is the brainchild of Bruce, who played with Lifetime, and Reid, whose playing has always belonged more in the jazz/rock family tree along with stalwarts like John McLaughlin and Pete Cosey, even when crunching out rock riffs with Living Colour. The band played Jazz Alley last year, and has returned to Seattle this week to support the release of their new self-titled debut album, out on Palmetto Records.
The band opened the set with their version of Williams’ “Wildlife,” which provided plenty of showcase room for Reid and Medeski, before moving on to “There Comes a Time” with vocals by Bruce, which culminated in a ferocious drum solo from Blackman-Santana. The set moved through many of the best pieces from Lifetime’s catalog, with the band effortlessly shifting from heavy rock (“Vuelta Abajo”) to whimsical blues shuffle to space rock that would make The Mars Volta deeply envious.
While each individual player provided plenty of stratospheric individual moments, Spectrum Road’s group cohesion and beyond-telepathic interplay elevated the performance far above noodley fusion or jam band slog. In place of the typical, epic 10-minute solos, both Reid and Medeski opted for shorter (but still blazing) statements, moving back to ensemble interaction more often than might be expected of a jazz-rock “supergroup.” Bruce laid down thundering bass lines, providing plenty of bottom end, but also moving to the upper register of his fretless electric to converse with the other players. His singular voice, still stunning if not quite as strong (he apparently had a recent throat infection), was featured on a number of songs, including a beautiful version of “One Word” that closed the set.
Even with a front line of that magnitude and muscle, the real star of the show (both this time around and when the band was here last year) was Cindy Blackman-Santana. Her dynamic playing held the whole thing together and propelled it forward constantly and relentlessly. On song after song, just when it seemed as if the energy couldn’t get any higher or the groove any heavier, Blackman-Santana would push it to that next level.
Taking what could be an unenviable task–filling the drum chair in a Tony Williams tribute–and making it her own, Blackman-Santana doesn’t so much channel Williams as she distills his musical legacy to its various essences and expresses it her own original voice (literally at times, providing vocals on some songs). Whether pounding out the heaviest rock grooves or elevating space jams with propulsive beats, Blackman-Santana consistently and effortlessly stole the show from her bandmates, but always in service to the music and not at its expense.
All in all, the band sounded both tighter and more relaxed on this outing than their show here last year. Hopefully, they will continue to work together, as the world needs more of Williams music, especially performed by musicians of this caliber, who have such an obvious love for the material. Spectrum Road is at Jazz Alley through tonight. Go get your face melted.
Ordinarily, the “supergroup” label is good enough reason to run as far and as fast as possible, but in the case of Spectrum Road (at Jazz Alley June 21 to 24; tickets), it’s cause for celebration.
With a lineup of Jack “Motherfucking” Bruce (Cream), Vernon “Motherfucking” Reid (Living Colour), Cindy “Motherfucking” Blackman-Santana (Lenny Kravitz, Santana), and John “Motherfucking” Medeski (Medeski, Martin & Wood), that’s four than enough reason to experience the band, which was conceived as a tribute to the late great drummer Tony Williams and his seminal band Lifetime.
The real surprise of Spectrum Road, however, is that the group so effortlessly finds its own identity and cohesive sound in Williams’ music, coming across not as a showcase for four insanely talented players but as a deftly executed group tribute to a beloved influence. Their sets last year at Jazz Alley were barn burners of the once-in-a-lifetime variety, so their return for four nights is very welcome news.
If you’re looking for a nice show at Jazz Alley to enjoy the fish special and tap your toes to some standards, you’re (thankfully) out of luck.
If you’re in the mood to have your face melted and your ears burned off by four of the best ever, this is one not to miss.
Special to The SunBreak by Andrew Boscardin. Listen to his big band jazz “from the future” at Bandcamp.
Hurray it’s time for Emerald City Comicon! Well, by press time, it will be at least another year until it’s time again, but let’s jump in our TARDIS and journey back to that forsaken time known as March 2012. Last Friday to be exact.
Once a year, all of the nerds, geeks, and–let’s face it–a steadily growing number of previously closeted or undiscovered nerds and geeks from all over the Pacific Northwest descend upon the Seattle downtown area for three days of celebration of comics, movies, television shows, games, and something else I’m forgetting. Let’s go with Pez dispensers.
And really, it’s all increasingly less about “nerd culture” than it is about “pop culture.” With the enormous success of television shows like The Walking Dead and Game of Thrones, movies like The Hunger Games, and the internet super-celebrity of George Takei and Wil Wheaton [Please give him back his Kindle–ed.], the traditional lines between genre fans and so-called regular folks have become indiscernible, a fact which is reflected in the year-over-year growth in ECCC attendance.
The event boasts celebrity panels, a vast selection of merchandise for sale, even a rich and exciting after-hours scene that might surprise the uninitiated or casual attendee. For me, the annual event is a chance for a “Staycation”–three days of escape from real life within the confines of my home city, combining the opportunities to meet new people and see old friends, spend way too much money, eat poorly, and drink copiously, but still crash at home in my own bed.
Friday: I arrived about an hour after the doors had opened (curse you, real world commitments). I was greeted by my first huge line of the weekend, reserved for those of us who had purchased advanced tickets and needed to exchange those for badges.
While we were being punished for our foresight, planning, and eye for discounts, the lucky few fans who stumbled into the convention center without tickets were able to waltz right up to the sales counter and enter with no wait. Tempting as it was to begin the convention by complaining about this seemingly lopsided situation, it struck me as a very short-term issue that would quickly balance itself out as the pre-sales were processed and the day-of-show crowd increased. The scales might even tip completely the other way at some point. Spoiler Alert: Saturday.
After obtaining my badge (lanyard sold separately!) and program, I entered the massive exhibitor hall and began that age-old convention tradition: the series of concentric circles around the convention floor. Like a bat using sonar, the convention goer uses a seemingly random wandering pattern to map out the layout of the space, find the panel rooms, locate the back-issue bins, and identify the best restrooms.
Since Friday afternoon is still relatively mellow, it’s also a great time to visit with artists, and buy their wares without waiting in long lines. I took the opportunity to get the latest from some of my favorite webcomics like Octopus Pie, The Oatmeal, Nedroid, and Girls with Slingshots. While most of their stuff is available online, I like to buy reprint volumes and prints from them at conventions as a way of making a financial contribution to work that I enjoy for free, year round. Plus, it’s fun to get personalized sketches!
For me, the main attraction of attending comic book conventions is hitting the back issue bins for old comics. With all of the emphasis on media guests and movie and TV franchises, the comic part of “Comicon” can get a little lost sometimes, but Emerald City still feels like a show with its roots in the Dark Comic Arts. Chalk it up to a strong local and regional community with stalwarts like Fantagraphics, Oni Press, and Dark Horse, as well as a network of great local comic shops, ECCC is a wonderful place to discover new comics, find tons of great stuff in the dollar bins, and see and meet some of the top talent in the world.
My convention hunting falls into two categories: Finding new comics, and hunting for fun old comics. In the first bin, I like to buy work directly from artists or publishers, anything that jumps out at me or that I’ve heard about but haven’t had a chance to pick up yet. For fun old comics, I mainly try to track down series to read in the dollar bins–finishing off that run of the ’80s Suicide Squad or ‘Mazing Man, or tracking down that last issue of Walt Simonson’s Orion series.
While I have had a collecting “problem” in the past, these days I am just a reader, and everything buy is to enjoy from cover to cover, with a few exceptions. For the past few years, I have been working on finding some of the earliest issues of the Amazing Spider-Man (those drawn by Steve Ditko) and Fantastic Four (drawn by Jack Kirby). To make this both fun and affordable, I have made a rule to never spend more than $10 on any single issue.
These are comics that tend to fetch three and four figures in presentable condition, so I usually only find a couple each year if I am lucky, and they are often in pretty bad shape. As long as the cover is relatively intact, I don’t care about the condition–it’s all about the chase and the amazing bargain, the things that are missed when buying comics on eBay. At conventions, the sellers are looking to make deals, so great finds can be had, and patience is rewarded.
After wearing some new crop circles in the convention floor carpet, I decided to try to get in on a panel called “Movie Mashup Featuring the Finest Voice Talent in the Galaxy,” which in this case included Kevin Conroy (the greatest Batman ever), Jess Harnell of Transformers fame, John DiMaggio and Billy West of Futurama, Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche of Pinky and the Brain and Tara Strong from the fantastic My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. I would love to tell you how incredible and hilarious this panel was, as these voice actors recreated movie scenes with mismatched characters. Unfortunately, I thought I could get in line for the panel 45 minutes before it started and still get in. Somewhere, John DiMaggio (as Bender) is laughing at me and calling me “idiot.”
Having been turned away from the panel a mere several hundred people from the door, I decided instead to grab some dinner and a beer to fortify me for the Friday night Karaoke contest.
Yes, Emerald City Comicon Karaoke Hero is everything that the name suggests. The event was kicked off by an absolutely phenomenal performance of the Spider-Man theme by a man who was either cosplaying as Casual Friday Wil Riker or maybe not wearing a costume at all.
Following his lead, we got Tigra from the Avengers singing “Eye of the Tiger,” Batman exploring his Nu Metal roots, and the Flash performing “Tainted Love” (you know, “sometimes I feel I’ve got to run away”).
The highlight of the night was a performance by the Green Goblin of “Spider-Man,” Weird Al’s parody of the Billy Joel summer camp classic “Piano Man.” Not only could the ersatz Norman Osbourne deliver the song, he threw some of his signature pumpkin bombs into the crowd, no doubt as part of an evil plot to murder us all. His scheme may have failed but he took home a handsome trophy for his performance.
Outside the confines of the convention center, a number of sponsored after-hours events were held throughout the weekend, providing a nice chance to continue the fun and celebratory spirit but with the aid of the other kind of spirits and a much needed change of venue.
I wandered up the hill to the Ltd. Art Gallery on Pike St., for the opening of “Mintcondition: A Comic Book-Inspired Art Show.” Co-sponsored by ECCC, the show brings together works from over 30 artists, ranging from portraits of comic characters to less direct forms of tribute and inspiration. One piece featured a mashup of Dick Tracy and Mad Men’s Dick Whitman/Don Draper.
Perhaps the most elaborate was a Lichtenstein-inspired portrait of Wolverine and Lady Deathstrike embracing in fatal combat, with accompanying Japanese text which turned out to be a translation of the Misfits classic “Last Caress.” That’s several layers of nerdy, right there, and had I been able to bring it home with me, I probably would have. The opening party featured comic-themed cocktails constructed from Jones Soda flavors and a variety of booze choices. I enjoyed a Gamma Ray, made from bright green apple soda and vodka. I did not Hulk out, but I did find myself making a last unscheduled stop of the evening at another karaoke bar on the way home. Finding no super-heroes inside, I decided to call it a night.
Saturday: I woke up, filled up with a Grand Slam at the Coastal Kitchen and then high-tailed it down the hill to the convention center in plenty of time to get into to see Wil Wheaton’s “90-Minute Awesome Hour.”
For those of you just joining us on the Internet, Wheaton has become an icon of nerdom, and is a convention mainstay and highlight, thanks to his work as a writer both online and off, in which he combines his own love of geek culture with personal stories from his daily life and appearances on shows like The Big Bang Theory and Eureka.
Wheaton’s panel lived up to its title, starting off with a set of readings that had been requested by fans ahead of time, including “If Robocop was a bad ’80s sitcom” and “Because it will give me an excuse to buy and own and wear an ascot.” The former being exactly what it sounds like and the latter describing an idea for a PSA to be shown before movies.
Wheaton also took time to promote his new show “Table Top” on the nascent Geek and Sundry YouTube Channel from Felicia Day. The show plays as a “Celebrity Poker Showdown” for the tabletop gaming set, with Wheaton hosting games with weekly guest stars. Having seen the first episode, I pronounce it quite fun, and foresee that it will probably result in more than a few trips down the street to Gamma Ray Games.
Following the “Awesome Hour,” my plan was to spend some time looking through back issue bins and other vendors and maybe getting some sketches and signatures from my favorite artists. Big Mistake! Apparently, while I was in the panel, the entire city of Seattle and most of the Pacific Northwest decided to show up for ECCC at the same time.
The convention floor was packed, with even less shuffling movement than usual, and it took longer than the reveal of the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Motion Picture just to cross from one side to the other. So many people showed up to buy a single day pass for Saturday, I later learned, that the Fire Marshal stopped allowing more people into the convention. The entire lobby area of the Convention Center was filled with people waiting to be let upstairs to purchase tickets.
I did the only reasonable thing I could, and decided to find some lunch. A word on food. It always amazes me, year after year to see people at the con waiting in huge lines, for 30 or 40 minutes or more, to eat at the on-site Subway or Taco Del Mar, when right outside the door is the wealth of choices provided by downtown Seattle and even Capitol Hill. I like a Taco Del Mar burrito as much as the next nerd, but the convention center is mere blocks away from several better burritos, including La Vaca in the Market.
Similarly, you can keep your Subway–Homegrown is just a short jog up the hill on Melrose. You can walk up to Victrola on Pine much faster than you’ll get your coffee at the Convention Center Tully’s, and what better way to take a break from the crowds than by grabbing some pub grub and a beer at Six Arms?
After lunch, the crowds were still too heavy on the floor to do much shopping and browsing so I decided to take in some more panels. Knowing that George Takei would probably attract a capacity crowd, I decided to stake out some seats in the big hall where his talk would take place later in the day. This meant sitting through some panels that weren’t of great interest to me on the surface, but turned out to be extremely entertaining.
First up, I caught the second half of Jason Mamoa–who played Khal Drogo in Game of Thrones, as well as the titular character in the most recent Conan adaptation, and Ronon Dex on Stargate: Atlantis. These shirtless roles have made Momoa very popular with the sci-fi ladies, and no small part of the audience Q&A was devoted to requests for hugs. Momoa was funny and engaging, describing his fear of horses while filming Game of Thrones, and listening to Pantera to help get into the Khal Drogo character.
Following Momoa was his friend and fellow Stargate alumnus Christopher Judge, who hails from this region, having once played football for the University of Oregon Ducks. I will be honest here: Outside a few episodes of the unfortunate Stargate: Universe, I have not seen a single episode of any Stargate anything.
So it came as a surprise how much I enjoyed Judge’s appearance. He was extremely funny and his stories so entertaining that he could have been describing his time on Small Wonder and had the room in stitches. He almost made me want to check out some SG-1. Almost. At one point, while relating a story of fan craziness, he confessed to having only recently learned the definition of the term “Furry.” Not missing a beat, someone in the audience shouted “But you’re from Oregon.” Which pretty much summed it up.
Then it was time for the main event of the day. I won’t waste your time here with a recap of how George “Sulu” Takei has won the internet over the past two years with his perfect blend of activist politics and LOLsci-fi humor. You already follow him on Facebook.
For some reason, many of the panels this year were hosted by local radio personalities, which made for awkward banter at best and squirming embarrassment at worst. Put Takei’s panel host Danny Bonaduce in the latter category. Bonaduce’s machoman act was completely out of place on stage with Takei and led to some cringe-worthy moments. Thankfully, once things got rolling, Bonaduce gave Takei plenty of room to answer questions and speak at length.
He spoke of his work on behalf of Washington United for Marriage, his new musical Allegiance, about his family’s time in a WWII internment camp, the origin of his catch-phrase “Oh my” from his Howard Stern appearances and, of course, Star Trek.
He told a particularly funny anecdote about introducing the cast and crew of the original series to sushi in the ’60s, turning James Doohan into an overnight expert and failing to warn Walter Koenig about wasabi until it was too late. He also revealed that he and his husband Brad now have a team of interns that help them with his Facebook profile, although they do vet and approve all of the posts. Bonaduce aside, the panel was highly enjoyable and Takei was as charming and funny in person as I could have hoped.
Afterwards, I returned home to sit quietly with some fresh vegetables–the perfect antidote to the day’s crowds and heavy food consumption–before heading back out for the Fantagraphics Pin-Ball Party at Shorty’s. The Belltown bar was packed, but it was hard to tell how much of that was from the event itself and how much was just Saturday night. Aside from a few insider sightings (Larry Reid and Eric Reynolds from Fantagraphics, Jim Woodring) it felt like any night in a fun bar, which was a pretty nice way to counter the days events as well.
Then it was off to the next after-hours event, a live art extravaganza at the Crocodile, organized and hosted by local artist, model, and cosplayer extraordinaire Molly McIsaac. I don’t know how Kanye does it–one after-party was already pushing it for me, but I’m glad that I stuck it out for the festivities at the Crocodile. The show featured a slew of local and visiting artists on stage, painting, drawing, applying body paint to barely-clad models, and a boisterous and friendly crowd of comic art enthusiasts.
That’s some good near-racy fun, elevated from its Lollapalooza-circa-1993 potential by the quality of the artists participating and a crowd that was far more personable and game than a Seattle comic art-themed audience might be expected to be. Credit for much of this must go to McIsaac, who is a connector online between a lot of different communities (comics to cosplay to anime to gaming to modeling) and clearly brings that gift of bringing people together to real life as well. I met up with some old friends, made some new ones, and saw some people in an entirely different social context. Forget what you think you know: Nerd parties rule.
Sunday: To borrow a phrase from Homer Simpson via Wil Wheaton, I’m not going to lie to you, Marge–by Sunday morning I was tired. Running on caffeine fumes tired. Somehow, heroically, I managed to get up and back down to the convention in time for my editorially-mandated [damn straight!-ed.] coverage of the Summer Glau panel.
The actress–best known for her role on Firefly [kickass!-ed.]and its movie sequel Serenity [awesome!-ed.] as well as TV’s Sarah Connor Chronicles [um…yeah-ed.] and Dollhouse [woohoo!-ed.] – was noticeably nervous at the beginning, but soon warmed up to the crowd, especially after the ham-fisted local radio personality handed things over to the audience for questions.
Glau talked about her transition from dance into acting, her love of westerns, and her desire to act in period pieces, and how she and her co-stars took Terminator classes to prepare for their roles as the latest in Cyberdyne system technology. When talk turned to her role as River Tam on Firefly, especially when responding to fans of all ages in the audience, she consistently choked up a little, obviously very touched by the impact that role continues to have.
Glau was followed on stage by her Firefly co-star Adam Baldwin (who will always be My Bodyguard to me). Dressed in a “Dammit Joss” T-shirt gifted to him by a fan the previous day, Baldwin told jokes and stories, reminisced about his various roles and even sang a little of “Hero of Canton,” the song written about his character on Firefly, Jayne. While making a big point to avoid any talk of politics on-stage, the notably conservative Baldwin took time on Twitter to harangue Wil Wheaton for taking part in a video which he says “mocks Christianity” in order to help promote Jenny Lawson’s new memoir.
After the panels, I grabbed some lunch downtown and then returned for my final mission of the day, to meet Wil Wheaton and hand him a copy of Zubatto Syndicate on CD and a Zubatto T-shirt in a fitted men’s medium. I waited in line for about an hour, along with a man dressed as Wheaton’s hypothetical PSA, complete with ascot, and some younger fans who knew the actor primarily from his appearances on The Big Bang Theory and Eureka. I didn’t let this make me feel old.
When it was my turn at last, I began to step forward, but Wheaton suddenly sprang to his feet, mouthing the words “I have to pee.” I nodded knowingly and waited a little longer. In no time at all, he was back, I bought a copy of his book, Sunken Treasure, and handed over my gift. He seemed pleased to receive the CD, even asking if he had my permission to possibly use the music on his podcast. I said something in the affirmative and took my leave. This was not the first time I’ve met him, and he is always extremely personable, asking questions of his own, engaging in actual conversation, making jokes. He never seems to find the convention scene tiring, even though it must be, and treats his fans with respect and humility.
I made one last attempt at wandering the convention floor, but my legs and my wallet kept complaining so I decided to call it a wrap. I never found as much time to wander the convention floor as I would have liked, and I wish that I had gotten to meet Kevin Conroy (seriously, he’s the only Batman, you guys) but all-in-all, it was a successful weekend. On my way home, it occured to me that maybe three days of this isn’t really particularly good for my body or mind, but thankfully I have an entire year to forget that thought.
Unofficial estimates place the crowd for the entire weekend at around 50,000 attendees, which I believe is a record for ECCC. A few years ago, before the convention went from two days to three, it felt like ECCC was beginning to grow beyond its borders a bit, and that things were starting to veer towards a level of crowds bordering on the insane.
The addition of the extra day seemed to level things out for a time, but this year again, it felt (especially on Saturday) that the convention was outgrowing its Spidey tights. The Convention Center complex still has a great deal of space to offer, and my hope is that they can find a way to work with ECCC to add space in a way that makes sense and allows the event room to grow and flourish. Because every year, it seems that more and more people suddenly discover their inner nerd and there’s no sign of that letting up.
