Dragon Con 2013Part Two: Defiance, Genderbent, Lawless,
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| By Wolfen Moondaughter November 4, 2013 |
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Friday, August 30th
I started the day with fellow Tart Patti Martinson. I tried the quiche at the new Mediterranean place, Aviva, which I went back to a few times over the course of the weekend. The manager is very cheerful and friendly, there was a fair selection for those of us who are gluten intolerant, and the food was very good -- but the servings were a bit small, especially for the price. Breakfast was $10 without a drink, while lunches and dinners were around $16-17 with a drink. |
Bowler said that pretty much everyone but Julie Benz has an accent different from the one they use on the show. For example, he's actually Australian, Murray is English, and Tony Curran (Datak Tarr) is Scottish. Bowler went on to suggest that, while they don't use their home accents, the countries of origin of the actors fit the personalities of their characters. His American accent is problematic for him, as apparently his family hates it. He's the type who prefers to stay in-accent until the day's shoot is over, but when his family calls, he has to drop it and sound Australian.
The Liberata are all played by one woman, regardless of their sex. When someone pointed out to her that she was behaving differently between males and females, the actress chalked it up to a cultural aspect; Murray likes to say that too, when people question what she does as Stahma. She also says that, for this show, she's found herself using acting techniques she thought she would never use after school, and loves the creative freedom of playing an alien, so she hopes she can play the role a long time.
Bowler knew how to use a gun and some fight techniques already from other roles, but they do a lot of intense training for the show.
After the panel, I stopped in at the Stargate track, hoping to say hello to friends, but I only found one person I really knew.
I then headed over to Ivy Park for the Superhero Costuming Forum's Genderbent photo shoot, for which I dressed up as a Rule 63 (female version of a male character) Kid Loki. There were a lot of great reinterpretations of characters, as well as some very well done crossplay (people staying true to the look and sex of the character whose gender is opposite their own actual gender). As I said before, I was pleased at the number of guys who turned up; I especially the ones dressed as Rogue, Catwoman, Shadowcat, and Emma Frost! I palled around with another Loki (movie version, crossplayed by a gal named Kate), whom I ran into many times over the course of the weekend, as well as several others who were at the shoot, some of whom I knew already. Shoot photographer Paul Cory was very accommodating and fun to work with! The nice thing about playing Kid Loki was that I could participate in both hero and villain shots, since there's two versions of the character, one good and one of questionable character, but they have the same body!
At 1 p.m., I had to choose between a panel with Adrian Paul (aka Duncan MacLeod) about Highlander, and a panel for Lucy Lawless (who played the titular character on Xena: Warrior Princess, as well as Lucretia on Spartacus). I chose Lawless, as that would be my only chance to see her, but I would have another opportunity for Paul. I was a couple minutes late, but aside from missing a question or two, this was a good thing! I didn't have to wait in line and was allowed to choose my own seat. I also was allowed to walk up the side aisle to take photos about a quarter of the room away from the stage, with no hassle (I stopped just before reaching the tech tables).
Lawless says that it was Bruce Cambell's and Ted Raimi's stories of years they've attended the con that convinced her she had to come. She seemed very eager to try things, including going to a Furry party. When some of the audience balked at that, she said so long as you're not swapping spit and no one gets hurt, whatever you want to do is fine, a point which she reiterated a number of times over the course of the panel. When asked about her activism, she said that in Australia, they're taught to consider how their actions affect others far away and we are all connected. A little girl asked her about horse riding; Lawless said that as a kid, she had a pony that no one but her liked. She says play like that can be very useful in what you want to do later in life. She can do accents well because she and her friends would emulate the shows from other countries.
Whenever someone said she inspired them, she would ask them to explain why. She told one young lady that Xena is a composite -- many people went into making her into the person they admire, not just Lawless. Whatever good or bad we get from her characters, she's not responsible and gets no credit.
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After the panel, I bought my membership for next year, then went to the Walk of Fame. The walkways were very crowded, but thankfully I didn't have to wait long for any of the people I came to get autographs of: Vic Mignona (the voice of Edward Elric, one of my fave anime characters, in both versions of Fullmetal Alchemist; I had him sign a drawing I did of Ed), Rob Paulsen (Raphael the Ninja Turtle in the original animated series and Donatello in the current series, but you've doubtless heard him in hundreds of other voice roles; I had him sign a drawing I did of the Turtles), and John de Lancie (Q in the Star Trek franchise, but I had him sign a drawing I did of his character Discord, of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic). All three were very sweet, and I even had a nice little chat with Pauslen! What a thrill! (I was there to have Maurice LaMarche sign a pic too, but he wasn't there at the time.) I noted the booth for Adrian Paul, tempted to get his autograph for my mother, but didn't see a price listed; I did note that they took credit cards there (a rarity in the Walk, in my experience), and that the proceeds went to his children's charity, The Peace Fund.
I was tempted by the 2:30 panel with Ted Naifeh about Courtney Crumrin, but I was starving by then, and also wanted to get over to the America's Mart, where most of the shopping had been moved to, to pick up some things. After lunching in my room, I went to Mart, which is between the Hyatt and the Weston, on the Westin side of Peachtree Street. I found the layout of the place very confusing. I thought it was just me and my terrible sense of direction (and maps are generally useless to me), but many others that I talked to said that they, too, got turned around quite a bit. I'd also heard a number of complaints from vendors that they didn't do all that great in sales this year, which they attributed to people not knowing where the Mart was, and to people being overwhelmed by the place (both as in the vast space to cover and as in not being able to relocate a booth when one was ready to buy things near the end of the con).
I went to the first room you come to on the first floor if you're coming in from the entrance on Peachtree, and it was horrifically crowded even at about 3:30 (they opened at 1). In that room, I found ElfQuest co-creators Wendy and Richard Pini (in a different place than the guide map said, and I learned that they weren't the only people that got moved around), but I didn't stop there yet, planning on making it my last stop of the Mart for the day. Also of note in that room were some of the major exhibitors from previous years: perfume artists Black Phoenix Alchemy lab, Starbase Atlanta (they carry a wide assortment of collectibles that I've never seen elsewhere), T-Shirt Bordello, Stylin Online (more t-shirts and accessories), Southeastern Browncoats (a Firefly-inspired fan organisation / children's charity), Lightspeed Fine Art (sellers of high-quality, often-autographed celebrity portraits), and Who Shop (sellers of Doctor Who goodies). I also noted some great-looking stuff at Arda Wigs. Also, comics celebrities Neal Adams and his son Josh had their booth in that room instead of the Artists' Alley. There were actually more booths on that level, outside of that room (actually, they almost felt like they were in a few hallways), but I didn't see them that day; I think McFarland Publishing (largely books on pop-culture and philosophy) had been in one of those places I didn't get to that day.
I eventually found the way upstairs -- the space up there is immense, with the room for the exhibitors' booths and the dealers' tables kind of running together. There was a lot more room in the aisles than the equivalent places last year, thankfully, and was significantly less congested than the first floor, as well.
I soon found my primary objective: the WeLoveFine booth, which had ElfQuest shirts and pins and even a Bearclaw necklace, all of which I was mightily tempted by. I was also quite tempted by many of the other shirts, many of them Marvel-themed and My Little Pony-themed. They had messenger bags and all sorts of other goodies as well. I could easily drop a few thousand dollars there -- if I had that much money. As it was, I restrained myself and bought two ElfQuest shirts, one of which I'd had my eye on online for months. (They didn't have baby-doll tees of either designs, alas.) I had a very hard time deciding which of the many other designs to get, especially as their booth seemed about three times bigger than last year!
I saw several Loki shirts I wanted at different places, but managed to restrain myself to only buying an adorable Loki button. One booth had a wide assortment of bottlecap jewelry -- several were on my list of possible purchases (including a couple of Lokis), but I was already over-budget by the time I came back at the end of the con.
I discovered that there's a line of "Classic Masters of the Universe" toys, which pretty much every toy booth carried at least some of. The odd thing is, they really don't look much like the original figures at all -- I don't get where the "classic" comes in. They look much better; I desperately wanted the She-Ra, Catra, EviLyn, and Sorceress (who was, oddly, all white). I also wanted the She-Ra and Hordak by Pop Toys, as well as their Raphael. I also found a number of Monster High dolls I'd never seen before, including a wicked-cool spider one, and some of the hard-to-find male dolls (including one I'd miraculously found just a couple weeks before, for a very small fraction of what he was going for at the con).
At Glow Chick, I found some light-up hair noodles that I really want for a cosplay idea I have. Famous cosplayer Yaya Han's booth had some really fantastic light-up wings (I don't see them on the site), as well as well-molded pony ears and unicorn horns. It was definitely another one of those "If only I were rich" places. I picked up a review copy of DreamKeepers Volume 1 at the Vivid Publishing booth. A booth featuring Tracy A. Akers' Souls of Aredyrah series caught my eye. Warfire Forge has some wonderful medieval offerings. Combustion Books, publisher of "dangerous fiction" (mostly steampunk, I think), also caught my eye, as did the art of Julia Lichty.
And that's just a very small sampling of what was there! As on the first floor, there were quite a few familiar booths and faces on the second: Anime Depot / King Roach Enterprises, Big City Comics, Elmore Productions, A Wrinkle in Time, Troll and Toad, Troma Entertainment, Utilikilts Co LLC, Fool Moon Treasures Inc, Ruth Thompson's Tarnished Images, Laurel K. Hamilton, and Sherrilyn Kenyon, just to name a few. And Peter S. Beagle was finally invited back, after far too long of an absence!
After looking around the second floor for about an hour and a half, I headed back to the Pinis' table and bought the super-gorgeous hardcover volume of Wendy's Masque of the Red Death, a yaoi retelling of Poe's tale. I had read it all online, and had a softcover version of the first part of the story, but the publisher had gone belly-up before publishing the rest. The Pinis then decided to publish it as a complete volume themselves. As I understand it, they aren’t actually making much off the $100 price-tag. As someone who has frequently handled art books at both a bookstore and an art museum, I'm not at all surprised at the price, especially as it's was a limited print-run (in printing, the more you have printed, the cheaper it is per unit), is about 400 pages (so if you think about it, it's the equivalent of at least four typical graphic novels in one volume), and is such high-quality paper, ink, and binding. Still, know that you can read the entire thing for free on their website! (Just know that it contains adult content -- as in sex, language, and some gore.)
After the Mart, I went back to the Hyatt to check out the Artists Alley, but discovered that it had closed at 5 instead of 7. The Art Show, happily, was still open. There, I talked with Jasmine Becket-Griffith and her husband -- I recognized her art from a couple of shops at Downtown Disney, Hoypoloi and its sister store Pop Gallery. I'd seen a shapechanger-themed tarot deck she designed at Hoypoloi, and was happy to see that, at her booth, she had the entire deck open to look through, so one could make an informed decision about buying it. I also talked with Lisa Sell, who makes beautiful resin masks -- even ones that go over glasses! I didn't find my friends from Unnatural Forces that day -- turns out the art show had another row of booths in an area that seems to me was previously devoted to the art show (they'd had a few booths in that row in the past, but not the whole aisle before -- at least, not that I'd noticed). Thankfully, I got to say hello to them on Saturday!
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Come back next week, and I'll finish talking about Friday, with the Avenger's Ball, then move on to Saturday's parade, the Artists Alley, and the ElfQuest panel!
DragonCon.org — Official Website
Into the Belly of the Dragon*Con — Pics and con reports from previous years Wolfie has attended.
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