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Depravity at Dragon*Con!
Posted by: Bill Cable
09.20.06 12:01am
Now where were we? Ah
yes... Saturday night... when the really good costumes
started to come out. But first, I wanted to mention one thing
I did earlier in the evening that I forgot last week. I attended
one panel featuring voice actors from different cartoons. There
was the guy who does Squidward from SpongeBob, the guys who did
Zorak and Space Ghost from Space Ghost Coast-to-Coast, some anime
guy I didn't know, and Billy West from Futurama. West was, of
course, the star of the panel... and he even blessed us with
a few lines as Dr. Zoidberg. But what was most memorable was
this rant he went off on. First of all, West's real voice is
pretty much exactly Fry's voice from Futurama, but about 10 years
older, embittered and more witty. But 90% of the time he sounds
just like Fry. So somebody asked a question, and he decided to
answer by tearing into studios who cast feature-length animation
movies. He was of the opinion that they should invest in voice
acting professionals instead of celebrities. And he was just
brutal towards Cameron Diaz in Shrek... how she earned $20 million
for what was a really poor performance. And while I agree Diaz
was utterly forgettable in both Shrek movies, I was just shocked
by how viciously he went after her. It was good stuff.
Moving on... then there were
costumes. Let's start with some of the ones that really don't
have a story behind them...
Then there was this guy. He walked
around all three nights doing this character who was a cross
between Austin Powers and Tony Sinclair from those Tanqueray
commercials. He was a blast every time he was around... almost
enough to get you to overlook that he was walking around in boxers
and garters.
Some girls who are particularly
cute deserve multiple photos...
OK, now here's the best story
of weekend. There was this guy walking around in an AMAZING Spider-man
costume based on the symbiote suit in the 2007 movie. On top
of the nice costume, he looked very much like Tobey McGuire.
Every time Karlee saw him she was just awestruck. When we were
talking Friday night, she confided that her weekend would be
complete if she could only grab his ass. So it became our mission
to make sure the two of them met up at some point. That happened
Saturday night. She posed for a few regular photos, then after
we prompted her asked permission to grab this guy's butt. The
guy was taken aback at the request, but gave her permission.
And thus Karlee's weekend was made.
As the night wore on, the costumes
got wilder and wilder, until they were almost nothing at all...
On Sunday, I decided to head
back and try my luck in the Celebrity room. Sure, I had already
accomplished my primary objective with Mr. Daniels, but there
were a few other Star Wars guys there I wanted a shot at. When
I got there, Peter Mayhew was gone. That's probably a good thing.
The line for Ray Park was just ridiculous... I didn't feel like
standing there for 30 minutes to ask for a photo knowing that
his manager shot one of my guys down over the summer in Pittsburgh.
But David Prowse was sitting there with only one person in line,
so I gave it a shot. I was there with Baldy and Broc (I think
it was Broc... the memories already fade...). So I go up to Prowse,
introduce myself, and ask for the photo. I carry around a binder
that has photos of past celebrities who posed with the sign,
which puts them at ease and assures them it's not some sting.
Prowse really got a blast out of the photos, and decided he wanted
to be especially creative.
So he gets the sign, starts to
hold it up to pose, then sets it down for a second. He reaches
over to a bumper sticker he has sitting there... he's using the
backing to prime his pens before he signs. He pulls off one square
of the backing, and begins to doodle on it with a black marker.
Baldy and I are looking at him like "WTF??" He draws
a few angles, and then what he was doing began to become clear.
And we started laughing. Because man... well... you'll see.
I think I'm going to have to
edit that one before I post it in my celebrity gallery. I couldn't
help but run over and show Anthony Daniels. He gave me a bemused
glance, but didn't say anything because I think he was preparing
for his next round of signings. Doing some actor thing to get
himself psyched up. I kinda felt bad interrupting him.
On the way out, I got a little
something for the missus. She was a big fan of the Hercules TV
series, so I got her an autograph. She was very happy when I
gave it to her, so mission accomplished.
Throughout the afternoon and
early evening, I went around and snapped some more costume photos.
One of the final events Sunday
was the Miss Klingon contest. And we stood in a crazy line for
like an hour to make sure we got a good seat. There was a sea
of people going in the other direction. Among them were a few
guys that made me chuckle...
After the contest (in which the
best Klingon clearly won, after sucking face with one of the
judges (the bad guy from Candyman)), we went back to the lobby
for more costume viewing. Marvel Comics was well represented.
And then I saw the thing that
made my weekend complete. There was a reason I decided to go
to Dragon*con. It was because of photos I saw of a previous trip
by the Vintage crew. Among them was a group of Girl Scouts...
and those girls were what clinched it. Up until Sunday I was
distraught over not finding them anywhere. But Sunday night they
came out to play. And that made me happy.
After taking those photos, I
ran up to my room to... uh...
About 4 hours after seeing the
Girl Scouts, I was out of the hotel and headed to the airport.
Nothing sucks like a 7:15am flight. It was a fantastic weekend.
I had a blast, and made some really good friends. As fun as it
is to chat on-line with guys, getting together in person is much
more fulfilling. And doing it in a place that's wall-to-wall
freaks like Dragon*con couldn't be better.
I just have a couple more things
to wrap up...
And finally... yes, that's just
duct tape.
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