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yubsieFan Expo was awesome, if linerific.
Friday was a bit of an adventure getting there because there was some sort of disruption at Spadina (word on the street was a streetcar caught fire, but there was never anything on the news) which shut down the subway for four stops. They were running shuttle buses, but we didn't see very many and obviously a bus can't hold as many people as a subway anyway. Somehow people were able to figure out we were going to Fan Expo (I'm sure my pink wig and tiara had nothing to do with it :p) and we were going to share a cab. Except we couldn't get a cab. :p So we decided to walk to the point where the subway was running again.
On the way one of the shuttle buses took pity on us and picked us up because it was mostly empty. He told us everything was running again and took us to the station where we needed to change trains. He even took us around the back so we wouldn't have to worry about having transfers (though we did because Vicki has done the shuttle bus thing before).
So we got to the convention center and found a line that stretched several blocks. We couldn't spot any con staff to let us know which line it was, but we figured with the length it was probably the line for buying passes at the door. We finally found a staffer almost at the front of the line and found out that actually, that was the pre-reg line, the at the door line stretched even further in the other direction. So we had to walk back to the corner and then another block or so around it to find the end. But we made good line buddies!
So we eventually made it into the blissfully air conditioned convention center. This year the weekend passes were orange wristbands so there was much laughing at the fact that I had to wear mine in the third hole. We went to Peter Mayhew's (Chewbacca) Q&A session which was quite entertaining. Then we hit the vendor room and I bought a metal Serenity lunch box. Which I totally use to bring my lunch to work now. I looked at a lot of comic vendors trying to find the Young Avengers/Runaways Civil War crossover but to no avail. Ryan was able to find three of the four issues on Saturday though. After that we went to Dean Stockwell's panel and discovered what an amazingly prolific career he's had. Also, that he is way older than I thought. This became apparent when he started talking about a movie he made when he was twelve... a year or two after WWII ended.
Saturday wasn't as bad getting in since we got to just zip through the reentry doors with our wristbands. There was an interesting panel on the Toronto comics industry. After that we had an hour, which we figured would be plenty of time to get Tahmoh Pennikett's autograph and Summer Glau's.
WEll, Tahmoh took about five minutes. I'm pretty sure that the only lines worse than Summer Glau's were Stan Lee and William Shatner. Vicki eventually left me in Summer's line while she went to Tahmoh's panel (which was up against Stan Lee, I kinda felt bad for him. Ryan tried to go to Stan Lee but misjudged the line). I also had to miss the 60s Batman panel because I was still in line... largely because the poor girl needed to eat at some point. After the second panel, Vicki came to find me because I had all the food. :p She stuck it out since I was almost at the front of the line by then.
The look on Summer Glau's face when she saw my River costume? Totally worth the three hour line. She even mentioned the costume in the autograph. I was actually surprised there weren't many Firefly cosplayers this year. I had expected to be one of dozens of Rivers, but I was the only one I saw. An Inara mentioned they had a River in their group, but that was it.
I made it out of the line in time to go to James Marsters' Q&A, which was awesome. He sang! He couldn't remember the words to his Buffy songs, but he still sang. His new show sounds really cool too.
After that it was Summer Glau's panel. It was a very Summer day. She is so unbelievably adorable. And was apparently second choice to play the pink Power Ranger, but she can't remember which one.
After her panel Vicki staked out a spot in the Masquerade line while Ryan and I went for my photo op with Summer. (I'll only do photo ops when I have a costume). Ryan was just going to keep me company in line, but they said he was allowed to hop in the picture too. The line for Stan Lee's photo op was across the hall and it was insane. It was, from what I heard, three times the length of the line I was in and wasn't due to start for an hour. I felt bad for the volunteer who was wrangling the lines. She was something like four feet tall and had a megaphone but no one was listening to her. Which was a pain, because she had to make sure everyone who had a Friday photo op that didn't get done was at the front, then the people who bought the Stan Lee VIP package and then the entire rest of the line. She was eager for our line to finish so she could snake people into the space. I suggested she get a cattle prod because I feel her pain about attendees not listening. Things went quite smoothly with Summer Glau's line though and the picture turned out really well.
And then it was Masquerade time! I had heard there was going to be a lot of filler before it, but the Masquerade director must have won in the end because the MC came out right away. Well, actually, a Dalek came out right away and tried to kill the MC, but it actually got started really quickly. The ninjas wear fezes now. Fezes are cool. I'm always amazed at the costumes people will come on in. There were a lot of "That's in the Novice division?" moments. Also, three different skits using some variation on the Old Spice commercial.
Sunday wasn't nearly as crowded (they actually hit the fire limit and people had to line up for reentry at some points. We were confused because my line buddies had people leave to do a food run and not make it back for like an hour.) which is about standard for any con. We were on the same subway car as one of the volunteers. He somehow figured out we were going to Fan Expo (sure it had nothing to do with me and Ryan being Death and DEATH :p) and pointed us to the entrance we needed to use that day. I went to line up for William Shatner's Q&A while Ryan and Vicki went to Johnny Young Bosch's autograph session. They actually let us into the room at around noon even though the panel wasn't until one, so I got to spend most of the time sitting in a chair, yay. I saved seats for the others but they were among the last let into the room so they couldn't spot me up near the front. You can definitely tell Shatner is used to doing these events. :p
After Shatner we hit the vendor room in search of last minute deals, though there weren't any terribly good ones. The most exciting thing was that there was no line at Peter Mayhew's table. I didn't have enough cash left to get his autograph, but he let me compare my hand to his and take a picture. My hand is the size of his palm, it's insane. (PIctures will come after I post the Graz pictures and the Polaris pictures :p).
Vicki and I went to Michael Dorn's panel. He was hilarious and regaled us with tales of prune juice and how he used to kill Patrick Stewart on a regular basis. Ryan was at Johnny Young Bosch's panel, which started half an hour later, so Vicki and I had a bit of time to kill. Which we did by going back to the dealer room and finding Jill Thompson and getting her to sign my Little Endless Storybook. (She's the one who did the art in my header and icon) ANd then we hung out outside the panel room and giggled as a stormtrooper was explaining how he made his costume. This was only funny because he had a speaker rigged up so he sounded like a stormtrooper and the contrast was just so entertaining. We got a look at his helmet too.
All in all, the lines were nuts, but I had a great time at the con
Friday was a bit of an adventure getting there because there was some sort of disruption at Spadina (word on the street was a streetcar caught fire, but there was never anything on the news) which shut down the subway for four stops. They were running shuttle buses, but we didn't see very many and obviously a bus can't hold as many people as a subway anyway. Somehow people were able to figure out we were going to Fan Expo (I'm sure my pink wig and tiara had nothing to do with it :p) and we were going to share a cab. Except we couldn't get a cab. :p So we decided to walk to the point where the subway was running again.
On the way one of the shuttle buses took pity on us and picked us up because it was mostly empty. He told us everything was running again and took us to the station where we needed to change trains. He even took us around the back so we wouldn't have to worry about having transfers (though we did because Vicki has done the shuttle bus thing before).
So we got to the convention center and found a line that stretched several blocks. We couldn't spot any con staff to let us know which line it was, but we figured with the length it was probably the line for buying passes at the door. We finally found a staffer almost at the front of the line and found out that actually, that was the pre-reg line, the at the door line stretched even further in the other direction. So we had to walk back to the corner and then another block or so around it to find the end. But we made good line buddies!
So we eventually made it into the blissfully air conditioned convention center. This year the weekend passes were orange wristbands so there was much laughing at the fact that I had to wear mine in the third hole. We went to Peter Mayhew's (Chewbacca) Q&A session which was quite entertaining. Then we hit the vendor room and I bought a metal Serenity lunch box. Which I totally use to bring my lunch to work now. I looked at a lot of comic vendors trying to find the Young Avengers/Runaways Civil War crossover but to no avail. Ryan was able to find three of the four issues on Saturday though. After that we went to Dean Stockwell's panel and discovered what an amazingly prolific career he's had. Also, that he is way older than I thought. This became apparent when he started talking about a movie he made when he was twelve... a year or two after WWII ended.
Saturday wasn't as bad getting in since we got to just zip through the reentry doors with our wristbands. There was an interesting panel on the Toronto comics industry. After that we had an hour, which we figured would be plenty of time to get Tahmoh Pennikett's autograph and Summer Glau's.
WEll, Tahmoh took about five minutes. I'm pretty sure that the only lines worse than Summer Glau's were Stan Lee and William Shatner. Vicki eventually left me in Summer's line while she went to Tahmoh's panel (which was up against Stan Lee, I kinda felt bad for him. Ryan tried to go to Stan Lee but misjudged the line). I also had to miss the 60s Batman panel because I was still in line... largely because the poor girl needed to eat at some point. After the second panel, Vicki came to find me because I had all the food. :p She stuck it out since I was almost at the front of the line by then.
The look on Summer Glau's face when she saw my River costume? Totally worth the three hour line. She even mentioned the costume in the autograph. I was actually surprised there weren't many Firefly cosplayers this year. I had expected to be one of dozens of Rivers, but I was the only one I saw. An Inara mentioned they had a River in their group, but that was it.
I made it out of the line in time to go to James Marsters' Q&A, which was awesome. He sang! He couldn't remember the words to his Buffy songs, but he still sang. His new show sounds really cool too.
After that it was Summer Glau's panel. It was a very Summer day. She is so unbelievably adorable. And was apparently second choice to play the pink Power Ranger, but she can't remember which one.
After her panel Vicki staked out a spot in the Masquerade line while Ryan and I went for my photo op with Summer. (I'll only do photo ops when I have a costume). Ryan was just going to keep me company in line, but they said he was allowed to hop in the picture too. The line for Stan Lee's photo op was across the hall and it was insane. It was, from what I heard, three times the length of the line I was in and wasn't due to start for an hour. I felt bad for the volunteer who was wrangling the lines. She was something like four feet tall and had a megaphone but no one was listening to her. Which was a pain, because she had to make sure everyone who had a Friday photo op that didn't get done was at the front, then the people who bought the Stan Lee VIP package and then the entire rest of the line. She was eager for our line to finish so she could snake people into the space. I suggested she get a cattle prod because I feel her pain about attendees not listening. Things went quite smoothly with Summer Glau's line though and the picture turned out really well.
And then it was Masquerade time! I had heard there was going to be a lot of filler before it, but the Masquerade director must have won in the end because the MC came out right away. Well, actually, a Dalek came out right away and tried to kill the MC, but it actually got started really quickly. The ninjas wear fezes now. Fezes are cool. I'm always amazed at the costumes people will come on in. There were a lot of "That's in the Novice division?" moments. Also, three different skits using some variation on the Old Spice commercial.
Sunday wasn't nearly as crowded (they actually hit the fire limit and people had to line up for reentry at some points. We were confused because my line buddies had people leave to do a food run and not make it back for like an hour.) which is about standard for any con. We were on the same subway car as one of the volunteers. He somehow figured out we were going to Fan Expo (sure it had nothing to do with me and Ryan being Death and DEATH :p) and pointed us to the entrance we needed to use that day. I went to line up for William Shatner's Q&A while Ryan and Vicki went to Johnny Young Bosch's autograph session. They actually let us into the room at around noon even though the panel wasn't until one, so I got to spend most of the time sitting in a chair, yay. I saved seats for the others but they were among the last let into the room so they couldn't spot me up near the front. You can definitely tell Shatner is used to doing these events. :p
After Shatner we hit the vendor room in search of last minute deals, though there weren't any terribly good ones. The most exciting thing was that there was no line at Peter Mayhew's table. I didn't have enough cash left to get his autograph, but he let me compare my hand to his and take a picture. My hand is the size of his palm, it's insane. (PIctures will come after I post the Graz pictures and the Polaris pictures :p).
Vicki and I went to Michael Dorn's panel. He was hilarious and regaled us with tales of prune juice and how he used to kill Patrick Stewart on a regular basis. Ryan was at Johnny Young Bosch's panel, which started half an hour later, so Vicki and I had a bit of time to kill. Which we did by going back to the dealer room and finding Jill Thompson and getting her to sign my Little Endless Storybook. (She's the one who did the art in my header and icon) ANd then we hung out outside the panel room and giggled as a stormtrooper was explaining how he made his costume. This was only funny because he had a speaker rigged up so he sounded like a stormtrooper and the contrast was just so entertaining. We got a look at his helmet too.
All in all, the lines were nuts, but I had a great time at the con
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-01 04:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-01 04:23 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-01 04:49 am (UTC)MICHAEL DORN. AND PETER MAYHEW. AND SUMMER GLAU. :D :D :D
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-01 04:58 am (UTC)And yes, there were a bunch of really awesome guests who gave really great panels and THAT is why I go to this one. :p
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-02 03:26 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-02 03:34 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-02 03:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-02 04:01 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-07 02:04 am (UTC)OMG! I'm so jealous! You have to tell me everything!
(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-07 02:15 am (UTC)