So I suppose I really should write up my con report, although it still feels weird to realise that I actually have a con to report about instead of spending the night watching and reading about all those other cons in countries on the other side of the world.

So, Supanova Perth 2008! My first con (although, I’m pretty sure there are other cons in Perth but this is the first I’ve really heard about and the first that’s somewhat mainstream in a way). It was pretty much what I was expecting a con to be like and I did enjoy myself a lot. I’m also glad a fair amount of people turned up (see, there’s an audience in Perth for this stuff, who knew?).



I did cosplay for the two main days (Saturday and Sunday) which is yet another level of geekery I’ve attained. I read somewhere ages ago about how there should be like Boy Scout Merit badges for fandom, so I feel like I kinda earned one of those. The first day I went as Susan Sto Helit from the Discworld series (I love Susan so much although my head felt like it was going to fall off from the wig) and the second I went as Aeryn Sun from Farscape. There aren’t going to be pictures though because a) I hate the way I look in photos and b) I don’t want to put pictures of me on the internet under this journal (yay! Paranoia!). I have no idea if people even recognised my costumes, especially since Aeryn didn’t even have a gun (the holster kinda fell apart the last time I wore it. Hot glue is not as good as you would think.) but it was fun to walk around in either goth clothes or black combat wear so all was good.

There were heaps of people dressed up though, which was awesome. Although they were mostly from anime so all the time I was thinking: yeah, you look pretty cool but I have no idea who you are. Which made the cosplay competition interesting to watch but it was definitely worth it with the MC that we had. He was loud and funny and awesome and he danced! And he was quite possibly having a not-so-secret love affair with L (I had to go look up Wikipedia to check that was the right name) from Death Note (who through general consensus we believe he was actually the stage manager).



But they were both awesome, really played to the audience. As did the sound guy who in between taking care of the music was buys writing amusing things on the screen behind the stage (often making fun of the cosplayers and the MC) and also talking like God from out of the god sound box onstage.

The cosplayers were pretty damn good though. These were my favourites (sorry if you don’t want your picture on the online but hey, no one is going to recognise you underneath your secret identity, right? (I also realise how hypocritical this is when I refuse to put my own picture up) but you guys were awesome.)



We had Snake from Metal Gear Solid who proceeded to kill the MC (seriously, the MC died at least ten times from various cosplayers *cough* Death Note *cough*) and he also had the voice down great. He came back the second day as well to kill the MC again at the request of another cosplayer. I forget why.

Arthur Dent! I think his Guide was actually Terry Pratchett’s Making Money recovered but it has DON’T PANIC on it in large friendly letters so all is forgiven.



Kaylee and River! Kaylee made the dress itself and it took her three months but it looked damn good. But apparently, according to Jewel Staite the real costume was quite uncomfortable to wear.

Sailor Moon! Oh, the memories. I remember liking Sailor Moon a whole lot when I was younger. I don’t know if I would feel the same way now and I don’t want to find out.



Okay, this guy was awesome. He cosplayed the Madmen logo. A logo! A logo made out of foam! Madman distributes anime in Australia, I think. But yeah, the dude was the Madman logo, in a straightjacket and had to be led around the stage cause there sure as hell wasn’t any way to see through the damn thing.



I forget who this guy is but his weapon? Stick? Thingamajig? was made out of a rod and Christmas lights and it really lit up and it looked pretty good even though you might be sniggering because of the Christmas lights!

Ah, where crack fics come to life. I recognise No Face, female!Cloud (I think) and a Rock. The others I have idea but their skit was pretty funny.

This guy was awesome. Don’t know who he was supposed to be but he did a whole skit about how heavy the sword was which was quite funny. And the sound guy threw up a ‘compensating’ joke on the screen behind him which had to happen, of course.



Dude! Batman! Who made his own costume apparently but he was awesome as well. He also put on the voice and his cape actually went up properly as well. I have to mention here as well that after the cosplayers are done on stage they come down and sit at the front of the audience on the ground, so it was quite funny (to me, at least) to see Batman just stroll up and site down cross legged in the middle of the aisle. Although, now that I think about it, how on earth did he sit down. That suit looked quite thick and strong.



Poison Ivy looked quite good as well. She blew phermones or whatever they were across the front row. She must have been freezing in that outfit though.

And see what I mean about awesome the MC was. He made sure to really interact with each cosplayer. In this case, acting as the Joker to Harley Quinn.



Yay, crack!fic again. A French Musketeer, the 10th Doctor, a Jedi and a little mini Superman, who had to be lured back out on stage again.



We had a Link who was very well done. I think she won the first day? Which she deserved if she did get it because as you can see she looks damn good. Although, now that I can actually see her close up I realise the chain mail is knitted (sorry about the close up but I needed another image to complete the three).



I don’t know who these people are supposed to be but they look quite awesome.



Again, I don’t know who these people are (I fail) but the first group had a hilarious skit, the second dude really knew how to use the lightsabers (but he wasn’t from Star Wars) and the last also had an awesome skit with dancing! (Seriously, I really do fail at knowing who the anime people are.)



We also had a couple of Jokers who really acted the part. And another Batman and also a Catwoman.



See with the MC dying again. And the stage manager L coming out to wreak havoc again. There was quite a few Death Note cosplayers. I think the MC died every single time.



We also had Darth Vader who cut off the MC’s hand. Poor MC.

Supergirl and Venom! And Venom’s suit was in fact skin tight, I have to say.



Some dude made a freakin’ DALEK! This thing was awesome. It was full scale, actually moved (okay, it needed some help over bumpy surfaces) and it lit up as well. This was all because the guy who made it was actually inside the costume, poor guy, but it was still awesome. We had actually seen him the previous day holding flyers for the Doctor Who fan club but I had no idea that the guy was actually inside some of the time. Although that would explain why it would suddenly move on occasion.



Again, I don’t know who these guys are or from what show but all I really got from their skit was gay vampires with guns and roses and really, I’m quite happy to think that is what the show is about.



And a group shot of all the cosplayers at the end of the day. And you can see in the middle picture an example of the sound guy’s wit.

Okay, so there was a lot more non-anime cosplayers than a thought. Although I did miss out a whole heap of anime cosplayers simply because I don’t know who you are. Your awesomeness is lost on me but you did look good. I just ran out of patience to do any more pictures.

I also went to a couple of different panels. One by Howard Chaykin on drawing comics and another by a couple of guys talking about comics in Australia but since my knowledge of comics and comic related issues isn’t all that good I was kinda just sitting in the audience nodding my head, pretending I knew what they were talking about. But they were kinda interesting in a way I can’t remember now.

I saw Jewel Staite (!) from Firefly and Stargate: Atlantis, of which I haven’t actually seen her in yet. But she is very funny and very pretty in person. She told us about how the cast from Firefly all took mementos from the set and while she only took a couple of things (she got the Kaylee’s Room sign from both the series and the movie), Nathan Fillion apparently tried to take everything. He even tried to take the head from the Jayne statue but Adam stopped him. She also talked about a whole lot of other stuff but I am always shit at remembering stuff like this. All that comes to mind is how someone asked about fanfiction (sigh) and someone else asked about posing for FHM and that question just turned creepy real fast. I don’t know whether the guy was trying to be funny but it definitely came across as creepy.



I saw Kandyse McClure who is Dee from Battlestar Galactica, as well. But seeing as how I haven’t seen Season Three yet, I had to do the fake-knowledgeable-head-nod when she was talking about the direction her character has taken. But she was interesting and laughed a lot and was quite appreciative of certain aspects of Jamie Bamber.



The last panel I went to was by Jennifer Fallon, who is an author that I haven’t actually read anything by so cue the fake-knowledgeable-head-nods again. But she had actually co-written a Stargate tie-in novel and it was quite obvious that she is somewhat of a fangirl. She also said that if she could write tie-ins for another show that it would be Supernatural (for which I cheered) and said that at the Sydney Supanova she hugged Jared Padalecki for about ten minutes because they were doing an interview with some people, I think and since he apparently forgot to let go, she ‘forgot’ to let go as well. She also said that he was a really great guy in person, which makes me even more upset that he wasn’t able to make it to the Perth Supanova (we were so close!). But she did tell an amusing story about how for one of her book series she had a map that she had a friend of hers (an avid cartographer) do up properly and the guy asked if he could fill in the rest of the names on the map because according to him, everything needs a name on a map. So she says yes and gets this map back and it turns out that if you look really closely you can see all the names that this guy put in which among other things include the names of his kids and pets. There was also, I believe, one part of the ocean named the Tempura Sea. Now I don’t know which series the map was from but I’m definitely going to try and find out because that’s just hilarious.

We also had a couple of preview nights showing a couple of movies. On Friday we got to see Stargate: Continuum which was pretty cool. Quite a decent story, better than you would expect out of a straight to DVD movie. And there were cameos from a whole bunch of people from Stargate of old like Macgyver Richard Dean Anderson and Don S. Davis, which made learning about his death a couple of days later all the more sad :(

Saturday night was D-Wars, or Dragon Wars if you will, which I think would have been a lot better if they cut out the poor, confused plot and just stuck to dragons and dinosaurs blowing stuff up. That would have been awesome.

And then on Sunday we saw Batman: Gotham Knight which was pretty cool. But I don’t know a whole lot about different anime styles and what not, so you know. But I did like the art for the backgrounds on one of the first sections for what that is worth.

The rest of the con was just spent wandering around the various stalls set up. Not as many as I would have liked but then I think of the photos I’ve seen of larger cons like Comic Con and I realise it might be best to start with something small. I think I bought a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff there, though. Most of that was a result of buying Volume III of Absolute Sandman because the stall selling it (King’s Comics from Sydney) had everything at 25% off at the end of the day. I also bought a couple of graphic novels, some cheap comics (like Zen: the Intergalactic Ninja! and a couple of old fantasy choose-your-own-adventure stories), a dogtag with the Stargate Å on it and some iron-on Stargate and Farscape transfer patches (whoa, Farscape merchandise!). Sadly there was no Supernatural merchandise apart from some t-shirts and stamps. But I hate most of the merchandise apparel they have for tv shows and movies anyway. It’s always random floating heads or tacky designs which is why I bought the patches so I could make my own (because I am so motivated when it comes to stuff like that /sarcasm). Although, there was a cool Stargate shirt pointed out to me. It said: “I’ve ascended. Have you?” or something like that and I laughed. Of course, it was a men’s tshirt and not a ladies and I don’t like the men’s styles but that’s a rant for another day.



We also had the 501st legion, the Star Wars professional cosplayers, wandering around. The red twi’lek a.k.a. Darth Talon is actually a friend of mind and was invited to join up with the 501st. There was also a giant LAN or gaming session going on in another room but we never actually went it so I’m not sure exactly what was going on in there. We also got Rick-Rolled at the cosplay competition a couple of times. At least four, I think.

All in all, it was a lot of fun and I would definitely go again next year so hopefully there was enough people this year to ensure a Supanova next year.

I also think I used a whole heap of brackets in this post (I don’t know why).