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Gallifrey and Things
You know, I'm still not quite in the right time zone. I'm about an hour out, somewhere over the Atlantic, perhaps approaching the Irish coast. I promised a convention report about Gallifrey, and I don't know how much of one I can sensibly construct right now, especially with many other things vying for attention, but I can at least proffer the promised photos. Some of them.
The White Robot has entered the party!
Dude, they're, like, cosplaying my unbound!
That's me and Mark Brooks, the artist on our upcoming Young Avengers: Dark Reign.
That's the audience of that enormous Marvel panel I was on.
And that's the gang who make Captain Britain and MI-13, together for the first time. From the right, Editor Nick Lowe, myself, artist Leonard Kirk and Assistant Editor Daniel Ketchum.
ITEM! And on a personal note, my wife's just been told she can proceed to attend her Selection Conference this summer, basically the two day job interview that will decide whether or not she can become a vicar. After that, if she's successful, will follow years of training before she can actually start doing the vicaring thing. So hooray!
Everyone says how lovely the atmosphere of 'Gally' is, and it is. It's always quite a shock. It's like the usual cynicism of fans vanishes while inside a magical boundary, and is replaced by love and glee. That's why the forum threads, post convention, where a couple of people harp on about Colin Baker's autograph charges and the like (he charged, having been flown over by a dealer, but the convention doesn't) feel so shocking. There was actually someone there not feeling it! Or maybe they did at the time, but then woke up when they stepped outside the hotel, shook their head to clear the cobwebs, and rushed off to their keyboard to express their pain once again. This feeling of all-consuming happiness takes British fans, especially, offguard. To us it's like being unexpectedly lovebombed and embraced by some sort of wonderful cult. Kool Aid, you say? Thank you, I shall! That's why the barriers drop, emnities vanish, and professional Doctor Who, as it has since we started coming over with Gary Russell, twelve years ago, gains a new perspective on itself. The influence of this convention, across the fifteen years between the old show and the new, and increasingly with the new show, can't be underestimated.
Lovely things across the weekend: I was a great panel about the impact of new/girl fandom on old/boy fandom (and part of it was about how that bipolarity isn't entirely accurate). Between us and the audience we managed to set out what the situation is now, what the debates are, and where everything's going, a load of useful analysis being done on the fly. I spent a lot of time on comics panels with Tony Lee. I met comics legend Marv Wolfman, a hero of mine who I'd missed in New York. I stayed up late drinking ginger ale with Tara O'Shea and Liz Myles and people like Mark Wright, James Moran and Peter Anghelides, who these days I basically only see in the USA. Which every year we say we should do something about. I'd got psyched up about Toby Hadoke performing his show Moths Ate My Doctor Who Scarf, and so had Toby, pacing the lobby, muttering, nerves shredded. It didn't help that the masquerade (always a moveable feast) over ran, and he went on an hour later than intended. (And a lot of the audience were there for him, and started to kind of resent the costume skits, a feeling which a choice of entertainments normally prevents.) And then the tech crew were frankly incompetent, missing every music cue he'd set up but one, and playing them instead in the wrong places, even when he'd joked they'd do that. I use such unusually harsh words when talking about Gally because nobody else so far has, and those techies deserved a mention. Toby, however, rose way above it, got the audience onside, standing ovation. (And Shaun and Robbie, the organisers, have already indicated a thorough knowledge of the problems and a splendid willingness to fix them, without anyone needing to mention them.) My own onstage show, Just a Minute, went much more smoothly, Toby beating an equally competitive Frazer Hines, Wendy Padbury and Phil Collinson, who kept trying to lure the others into letting him tell his scandalous stories of men called Sven. What can I say about Phil? He was everywhere, buying rounds for every fan in the bar, serving drinks at the Volcano Day toga party, always available for chatter, and clearly bowled over by the appreciation of his work. It was brilliant to see him thanked so much, and to see his kindness in return. Now I want Russell to come over and get his standing ovation.
I got to know Phil Ford and Keith Temple, who are two other charming gentlemen, and who also took to Gally like fishes to rainy climate-changed L.A.. I read out a message from Moffat (it's out there, go and seek it). I taught an audience how to do that little dance Gary Russell does when he's happy. I went out for dinner with Tara and Javier Middleman Grillo-Marxuach, who'd brought his own Doctor Who scarf, and happily wandered the parties and the pool all night, surprising Middleman fans with his presence.
So, okay, there was one ugly incident. And Scott Pilgrim fans will recognise now easily this can happen. Yeah, I got into a fight... with the White Robot...
The White Robot has entered the party!
I tried to give as good as I got, but...
Oof!
Well, serves me right for telling him he wasn't real.
And, apart from Margaret Kistler giving us an Over the Rhine CD to replace the one we'd lost in the car crash, this was perhaps my favourite fan encounter of the weekend...
Dude, they're, like, cosplaying my unbound!
It was also a pleasure to encounter, selling her books (notably Japan Ai: A Tall Girl's Adventures in Japan) in the dealers' room, a really great expressive cartoonist, Aimee Major Steinberger, who's produced an A5 fanzine/sketchbook, The Stuff of Legend, largely about her reactions to discovering Doctor Who:
Pop along to http://aimeemajor.com/
and ask, and she might well send you one.
Gally had its biggest ever audience this year, and with what they have planned for next year, they're going to need a bigger boat. And from what I hear, they're building one. I look forward to it as I always do.
New York now is just a blur of Scalzi, Mary Robinette Kowal, DWNY, Greenwich Village and one enormous, extraordinary convention, as previously reported here. But I haven't had the chance to share my photos before, so here we go:
That's me and Mark Brooks, the artist on our upcoming Young Avengers: Dark Reign.
That's the audience of that enormous Marvel panel I was on.
And that's the gang who make Captain Britain and MI-13, together for the first time. From the right, Editor Nick Lowe, myself, artist Leonard Kirk and Assistant Editor Daniel Ketchum.
Phew. Having not at all recovered from jet lag from those two events, then I popped up to Coventry, where Rob Shearman (back only the day before!) and I were guests at Redemption, the convention run by the fans who used to follow Blake's 7, then Babylon 5, and now are basically having fun, holding panels about anything they like, and waiting to agree, like some lost tribe of fandom, on what the next thing is they should appreciate. I find that very pure, high fan culture indeed. They were a thoroughly decent crowd, great time, good interviews, lucid panels, and the nicest, most straightforwardly friendly hotel staff I've ever encountered at a British convention. Maybe the attitude of Gally sometimes drifts across the water.
That's it for the convention reports. As always, there are a few more things to mention...
ITEM! The BBC Radio 3, 4 and 7 Science Fiction Season has started (with some oddly scary television trailers). Here's a list of all the goodness:
Amongst which you'll note my Afternoon Play on March 5th, which I'll be blogging about nearer the time.
ITEM! Out now is the Solaris Book of New Science Fiction 3...
In which can be found my story 'One of Our Bastards is Missing', the sequel to 'Catherine Drewe' and the second in my Jonathan Hamilton series. Available everywhere, do check it out.
ITEM! I'm interviewed, along with many other comic pros, in the Tripwire Superhero Special, available in all good UK bookshops by this Saturday, in the US by early March...
ITEM! There's a short Cap interview with me at Forces of Geek...
ITEM! And on a personal note, my wife's just been told she can proceed to attend her Selection Conference this summer, basically the two day job interview that will decide whether or not she can become a vicar. After that, if she's successful, will follow years of training before she can actually start doing the vicaring thing. So hooray!
Big changes will also be hopefully coming soon for this blog, which is, I think, looking a bit threadbare, so with some professional help we're going to have a bit of a spring clean. Anyone got any ideas? (Yes, I can hear all of you on LJ now. No, I don't know what causes that problem either. But I hope to get it fixed.) Now, back to work and jetlag cold turkey. Until early next week, Cheerio!
Labels:
Aimee Steinberger,
Captain Britain,
Doctor Who,
Gallifrey,
Jonathan Hamilton,
Radio 4,
SF,
Solaris,
Tripwire,
Young Avengers
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Ciao,
I'm Italian, my name is Francesco and i'm a big fan of Doctor Who and a Marvel Zombies! Your miniseries of Wisdom is amazing! I adore it! :P
X-Bye
Good luck to your wife on her C of E selection panel. I'm a vicar myself, so I know a little bit about it. One selector told me that the main consideration is: "Will ordination bring this candidate closer to God?" Hope that helps!
White Robots! Cosplay Richard E! Is Gallifrey a portal into The Land Of Fiction?
Word verification: desquits. Nasty.
I'm so glad you found the people cosplaying Shalka. They passed us in the hallway and after we picked our jaws up off the floor remarked "Someone should tell Paul about that".
Great time as always and I can't wait till Dallas in September.
Thanks, all. I'm really pleased we're getting followers in Europe now, Francesco, hello! Thanks very much, Reverend Chadwick. Billy Davis is the White Robot, and he does it really well, Cere. Redo: they've got in touch on the LJ version of the blog.
@paul: i've a web site on the Marvel Comics... http://guide.supereva.it/marvel_comics/ Do you want to do an interview for me? ^^
X-Bye
I missed your Dance Like Gary Russell masterclass, due to other panel commitments. Perhaps your new-look blog could explain the process, with photos showing the series of steps so we can follow at home.
(Word verification is "fangthu", the vampire martial art.)
Hold off for that interview until summer, Imp. I need my rest, and I'm already doing a few. And Simon: we shall do just that, with diagrams.
@paul: ok, it's good :P Oh, this is the blog of a my friend, Shelidon,
http://shelidon.splinder.com
a girl that is a huge fan of your miniseries on Wisdom....
she's crazy but is a good girl... yes... and write fantastic comics reviews! :P
(The blog is in italian :P)
X-Bye
I must ask Emma V to go check it out. Ta.
Paul, Just saw you on the IFanBoy podcast. Good show. Jumping over to your blog here I see your post about Gallifry and it reminded me of the Doctor Who convention here in Los Angeles something like 20+ years ago, where I got a kiss from Elizabeth Sladen. WOW! (only drawback was coming down with the worst case of flu a couple days later.) I also met Tom Baker at another of the early DW cons, as well as Terry Nation. Looking forward to seeing what the new captain of the DW show will be doing and how the newest Doctor will turn out.
You've been doing these a long time, eh? Cheers.
Paul,
Your twitter stated that a major MI13 character is going to get killed. Could you tell what issue that would be in?
Good luck Caroline!
No, I'll leave you in suspense! And ta!
It was great meeting you and your wife at Gallifrey. (I'm Audry, the frilly blonde eating too much chocolate in the green room.) I wish her the best of luck with the Selection Conference!
As Aimee's editor, I have to tell you she was blissfully happy to hear you'd complimented her work. I think she was a little nervous about a writer from the show seeing what she'd drawn; I'm glad for her that it went over so well!
Oh, hello! Ta, and bless her, she had no need to be so nervous!
I was at this year's Gally and at 2007's and I too have picked up on the surprising (yet lovely) atmosphere of Gallifrey. Trek Conventions, and one DW convention that got sort of over taken by Buffy back in '97, that I've been to in the past have this sort of "stay away/too cool for you/snooty" air about them.
I think the atmosphere of Gally comes from not only the fans but the guests who are always (from my two experiences) extremely gracious.
It seems to me that the "line" between "fan" and "guest" is extremely fine (Especially since it's quite apparent that many (if not all) of the guests are fans too!). That's gotta be an odd thing - being a fan, working on the show and then going to a convention - not sure which side you should be squeeing on. :)
"Just a Minute" was funny, I loved it! I've never seen or heard of it before but I was greatly entertained. Which makes me think of another thing great about Gally and DW fans in general - they don't mock you for not knowing something about the fandom! Very welcoming to new comers I feel - which I saw again this year through my friends eyes who was new to Gally and DW fandom. (She swore she wouldn't watch because she didn't like the old show- citing "wobbly sets" LOL)
As for Colin Baker charging 5 dollars (and Kai Owen 20) I personally didn't mind it since it was clear they were there on behalf of the dealer where they were sitting! I'd actually be happy to just go to the convention, hear the discussions and guests' stories from the show and not get any autographs at all. That they're willing (for any reason) sit patiently for (hours?) and sign everyone's things, have their picture taken and be asked odd questions, is worth the money. They could be off doing their normal gig and ignore conventions altogether.
That said hope to see you in California next year (I've already got my ticket! huzzah!) and I'm bringing a Canadian who's new to fandom and never been to the US.
Indeed, Gally is lovely. It's always interesting, navigating the fan/pro thing, and it changes all the time, but at Gally I tend to be 'local boy made good', since I've been going there so long.
Hi Paul,
I met you and Caroline at Gally this year in the bar on the Friday night - but I was a bit trolleyed. I thoroughly agree with your comments about the atmosphere coming a s shock to Brits. I don't know what I expected - but it wasn't the genuine all-encompassing affection that I found there. Being a Brit had it's benefits though - I lost count of the number of people who assumied that, as a Brit, I was there to be on a panel! Have got permission from 'the wife' to attend Chicago later this year and then Gally next year - so will hopefully see you again there (when I'm sober....)
Glad you enjoyed it, and indeed, see you next year.