Many years ago, in 1969, to be exact, Larry Niven wrote an essay entitled ‘Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex’ which attempted to explain why the superhero character of Superman could not get laid. To this day, his postulations have remained intact. There is, however, yet another question about Superman that remains unanswered, and I believe I know the answer: why is Superman (and by extension, all Kryptonians) so vulnerable to magic? I attended the Chicago Comicon (now Wizard World Chicago) early on in my fannish days. The most memorable of those conventions was back in 1982, when it was in the Americana-Congress Hotel, right there on Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in downtown Chicago. That was the next-to-last year there: the convention moved out to Rosemont in 1984. It still stands out as one of my favorite conventions and one of my favorite experiences at a convention, for several reasons and several fond memories. Continue reading «Great Con Memories: Chicago Comicon (1982)»
There is a tradition in SF fandom known as “tuckerizing”. It was started by long-time fan and author Wilson Tucker, who would write friends into his stories as identifiable characters. I know because I was tuckerized myself. I use this story as a demonstration that a) hypnosis does exist and b) hypnosis does work. I once ran a Dragonstorm campaign, where the players’ characters were given the responsibility to create a hidden refuge in this valley high in the mountains. Part of that involved getting a trusted group of people to come to the valley to help protect it. The players wanted to go out recruiting but I had other plans. Some time in the past, the characters helped out a nomadic tribe by curing it of a very nasty magical plague, so I had the tribe’s wolf totem spirit order the tribe to come and take up residence in the valley. All that gave me a number of new potential NPCs to work with, and I took advantage of it almost immediately.
Dragonstorm is an RPG based on shapeshifters: dragon shapeshifters, werewolf shapeshifters, etc. Each type of shapeshifter has certain abilities because of their shifter blood. Shapeshifters are also hated by the general populace, because of propaganda, and hunted and feared, as well: hence the necessity of the hidden refuge. I decided to make one of the wolf tribe a shapeshifter, but I didn’t make it easy for the NPC: instead of being a werewolf shifter, which would honor the tribe’s totem, she was instead a dragon shapeshifter. She did not take the notion very well, feeling that the tribe’s totem had abandoned her. All that came to a head when she was arguing with her betrothed. The players’ characters were called in, and were told about the argument: the argument became more and more heated until finally the female shapeshifter glared at her betrothed, who fell unconscious to the ground. The shapeshifter wailed that she killed her betrothed and fled into the night. The players all facepalmed. Dragon shapeshifters have the inherent ability to entrance others into a sound sleep through eye contact, and it was very obvious that a) she had done that, and b) no one ever explained that part of being a dragon shapeshifter to her. So, to rescue a new and valued shapeshifter, they had to follow her trail to an unclean area of the valley, where warped spirits were tormenting her through her self-doubts and fears and guilty conscience. They rescued her, of course, and she would eventually abandon the tribe’s ways and become a fervent member of the Valarans, the protective order of shapeshifters the player characters were all members of.  This image is so very stereotypical, yet at the same time it is such a lovely image. I had a moment of epiphany at GenCon just this past weekend. I was at one of the booths in the exhibitor’s hall, this one specializing in jewelry and trinkets. I was drawn to one of the necklaces there, silver around a crystal pendant. The crystal, I was told, was from a broken antique chandelier. I bought it, and when I did, I said I had several friends who were hypnotists as I mimed swinging it before the proprietor’s gaze. She thought that was just so neat. What I told her was the truth, but it wasn’t entirely the truth, not as I recognized it or admitted it then. The whole truth is, I am a hypnotist. My epiphany came later that afternoon when I finally admitted that to myself. But what am I admitting to? Friends may know of my long-time interest in the subject of hypnosis, primarily intellectual interest. It was only within the past few years that I actually was able to get enough training (and recently, enough experience and confidence) that I felt capable of hypnotizing people. I just never really felt comfortable in admitting to it in public except in a very limited context, my own shyness and introverted nature preventing me from actually doing that. No longer. Now I am comfortable about publicly admitting that I am a hypnotist, albeit one who is only a few steps along the path that friends and acquaintances are several strides ahead of me. Some, I have the feeling, are looking back at me and gesturing me to come forward to walk along side them. I hope they won’t mind if in my pursuit of expertise and knowledge I may have to pause on occasion while I deal with life’s necessities. But, take those steps I will. I only attended Inconjunction on Saturday, since that was the only day I had free that weekend. I had two goals for the weekend: first was to hand out the promo cards for ‘Undercover Unicorn’ and second was to see people that I don’t usually get the chance to see these days. The first was easy enough: I dropped off a stack of cards on the freebie table, but mostly I handed them out to people in the dealer hall and creators area. There were a surprising number of self-published and small press authors there, and I made sure to talk with each one. In the midst of everything else I have to do this week, I will be checking out their websites soon. The second was also easy, as everyone I wanted to see were conveniently situation in the dealer hall. First off was Tim Zahn, who had a table immediately inside the dealer hall. It was good to see Tim and his wife Anna there: it must have been maybe 15 years since we last met, back in the GenCon Milwaukee days. Tim’s career definitely took off when he got the contract to write for Star Wars but he was an award-winning author even before that. He and his wife are really good people. Secondly was Larry Smith and Sally Kobe, with Larry Smith, Bookseller. When I was a regular attendee at SF conventions, I was also a regular customer at their booth. As I hadn’t attended a major SF convention where they were set up in ages, I went prepared to make a serious dent in my budget for the weekend, and that certainly happened. All in all, the haul was pretty light, though:
I was looking for a copy of Jonathan Strange & Mister Norrell, what with the British television adaptation now coming out, but it was alas not recent enough for Larry to carry it.  Animé Crossroads 2009 Cosplay Shoot All in all, Inconjunction was an enjoyable time. It is a very good local convention in a large metropolitan area so it has a large fan base. It was well worth the 2×2 hour drive for the day. Because of it, I am able to get back into fandom some more, and that has been a good (and in a few cases surprising) thing. This year, I will attend InConJunction in Indianapolis instead of CONVergence in Minneapolis. Although I enjoy attending CONVergence, for financial reasons I will be daytripping InConJunction on Saturday this year. I am disappointed that I won’t see my friends in Minneapolis like John Seavey, who writes for Mad Norwegian Press, nor the ones I will meet in passing along the way. I will miss the parties around the pool area that are a major attraction. However, I didn’t find much else that attracted me this year: I wasn’t interested in the major guests, I didn’t find anything interesting in the panels listed on the schedule, driving back and forth between the hotel and my friends’ house every day was annoying, and the finances of gas money and meals every day was daunting. Hopefully that all will change next year. That said, I expect to send a stack of my book fliers and handout cards for ‘Undercover Unicorn’ and possibly the sequel ‘Sympathetic Succubus’ up there for distribution, assuming I finish the artwork for the latter soon. Instead, I decided to stay closer to home and attend InConJunction instead this year. It will be a relatively short trip for me, about 2 hours to the east side of Indianapolis. I haven’t attended InConJunction for many years, so this will be interesting. I will be honest: it was back then just a pretty okay convention: it wasn’t bad but the other conventions I was attending back then (and this was back in the 80’s) were a lot better that I just stopped going. I expect that things are different now. I checked their schedule, and unfortunately I still didn’t find any panels that I was really interested in attending, but the video tracks might prove worthwhile. I am looking forward to meeting Guest of Honor Timothy Zahn again, since I used to see him at GenCon (back when it was still at MECCA in Milwaukee) before he hit the Big Time with his Star Wars novels and moved to the West Coast. It will also give me a chance to shop at Larry Smith Bookseller again, since I haven’t been to a major SF convention for a couple of years and haven’t bought any new SF or anything else in quite a long time. (I will need to set a budget limit on purchases there.) I probably will be traveling light: I won’t be carrying around my big camera and flash, mainly because I wouldn’t have any way of securing it without going back out to my car; I will be carrying my little camera which is more than adequate for hallway photographs. I probably will have my brown canvas carryall with me for much of the time, just to carry fliers and stuff, which means I probably will not carry along my tablet computer, since I don’t expect much of a use for it. I will be bringing along a stack of fliers and handout cards to pass out there: that is also a major reason for attending. | ||
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