Fan Boy.

 

Many years ago, someone suggested to me that I should mention something about my personal life on my resume. After a little thought, I cautiously added the following:

PERSONAL INTERESTS

• Science Fiction
• Military History *

I can't honestly say that this has had any overt effect on being hired since then, but I did once have an job interviewer say to me, in the same conspiratorial tone of voice that one would use to discuss a shared interest in latex or lingerie, "So, science fiction....do you go to...conventions????"

In response, I laughed a bit, and said, "No, never, I'm not that kind of a fan."

Which is quite true. I know a few people who have similar interests to my own, but for the most part my fandom has been a private activity.**  I'm also enough of an introvert that I'm not a huge fan of crowds, and as such, I've always viewed conventions and so forth as being a bit too busy for my tastes.  Nonetheless, last Saturday I found myself picking out a suitable t-shirt for an experimental visit to the second day of Fan Expo Vancouver.

After all, conventions have become the great public face of fandom and should be recognized as such. The first World Science Fiction Convention was held in New York in 1939, with a classic guest list from the Golden Age of science fiction: Isaac Asimov, Ray Bradbury, Jack Williamson, John W. Campbell, Hannes Bok, E. E. "Doc" Smith, L. Sprague de Camp, and so on. (It also featured the first example of cosplay - legendary fan Forrest J. Ackerman and his partner Myrtle R. Douglas wore "futuristicostumes" that she had designed and created for the gathering.)

The current standard for conventions is the San Diego Comic-Con, which started with a modest 300 attendees at its debut in 1970, but has since grown to over 200,000 attendees in 2018, with New York Comic-Con pulling in similar numbers on the East Coast.  I really don't think I'd be comfortable participating in an event on that scale, making the expected 30,000 guests for the 2019 Fan Expo look like a much more approachable option for a neophyte like myself.

My final t-shirt choice for the show is my lenticular Astroboy souvenir shirt from our 2015 trip to Japan.  It's apparently a good choice, based on the handful of compliments and comments that it garners from random people in the convention crowd once I'm on site. 

 

I arrive around lunch, at which time the con floor space is not terribly crowded (to my mild relief).  For a small show, they've done all right for guests - for old school fans there's George Takei and Billy Dee Williams representing the Star Trek/Star Wars camps, and Cary Elwes and Wallace Shawn from The Princess Bride. The balance of the theatrical guests relies heavily on the number of television shows being shot locally, with representatives from Riverdale, Arrow, Flash, and Supergirl.  Coming in from further afield we also have Bruce Wayne and Alfred from Gotham - David Mazouz and Sean Pertwee - Pom Klementieff from The Guardians of the Galaxy, and Khary Payton (King Ezekiel in The Walking Dead, as well as voice acting for Big Hero 6 and Teen Titans).

Other attractions include the usual Artist's Alley area for comic creators - I've been out the market for quite a while but I recognize a few names:  Arthur Suydam, Ty Templeton, Arthur Adams, and Steve Englehart, legendary for his work on Batman with Marshall Rogers in the 70s. (My friend Christi*** had the good fortune to walk away with an original Ty Templeton drawing from one of the Sketch-Offs between artists.)

The cosplay crowd is represented by the famous 501st Legion of Imperial Stormtroopers, along with the Mandalorian Mercs and the Falcon Base Rebel Legion, and some individual cosplayers such as Oshley Cosplay, Evilyn13, and Cherry Amaru. The 502st Legion is accompanied by a remote controlled R2-D2, which gets a lot of attention as it wanders the floor.

 

There's also a pretty good selection of cosplay on the part of the attendees. Right in front of me when I enter is a very well done classic Time Lord costume from Doctor Who, and as I wander through the retail area there are a lot of anime characters, an excellent Ghostbuster, an eight-foot tall Bumblebee from Transformers, a wide range of game-derived costumes, and easily a dozen Harley Quinns - for future reference, please be careful with those giant wooden mallets, ladies!

Some of the costume references are quite obscure - until I noticed the TV set in Viking gear, I didn't realize that the green-faced woman with wizard's hat and six-foot tall wand was Dot Matrix from the computer animated Reboot! series. (The TV is named Mike, not that it's important.)  It's safe to say that you're mining a very narrow vein of fandom if you wear a costume that appeared in a single episode**** of a show from 1994.

The booths cover the expected range of broad geek shopping categories:  comics, weapons, toys, clothing and art, along with a few unexpected items that you probably never thought you'd need (Imperial AT-AT planters, anyone?) 

 

I don't leave the show empty-handed, although Star Wars planters don't make the cut. The Canadian Comics booth has a number of attractive deals, and after browsing through several boxes of half-price graphic novels and omnibus collections, I select a Captain Canuck Compendium and a DC New 52 collection of Dial H for Hero, written by science fiction/fantasy author China Miéville, whose surrealistic style should make for interesting reading. I also buy a souvenir shopping bag, because really, you should always get at least one piece of show schwag - and I don't really need any more t-shirts.

Overall, I would have to say that it was an interesting experience, but unless they had someone on the guest list that I desperately wanted to meet in person, I probably wouldn't go again.  It's not that I found any problems with the event, it was well organized with a good selection of guests for a small show, but ultimately I'm more at home at home, where I can peacefully browse shopping opportunities and science fiction updates online.

I guess it's true - I'm really just not that kind of a fan.

- Sid

* The science fiction part has gotten a comment or two, but NO ONE has ever asked me about military history - why does no one want my opinion on how the Russian T-34 was the game changer in WWII tank design?

** Says the man with 816 posts about his hobby on the internet.

*** Yes, her insignia is on the wrong side, but let's not be picky about this.  (In her defense, the dress itself appears to be mirror reversed - the wide part of the collar should be on the left.)

*** Episode 9, Season 1: Wizards, Warriors and a Word from Our Sponsor.

The glass will just keep filling up.

 

I was chatting with my co-worker Wendy this morning and she asked if I was a 90210 fan.  I explained that I was not, but that my wife had already informed me of Luke Perry's premature passing at the age of 52.

Wendy is currently studying to become a personal trainer, and she mentioned that it had come up as part of her course material that there are some people who just have a genetic predilection for problems like strokes, heart attacks, what have some, and some people who just don't.

"Oh well," she concluded, "There's nothing you can do about your DNA."

"Well, not yet," I replied.

Which, really, is the ultimate expression of being a science fiction fan, and one of the things that I most enjoy about science fiction.  There's a kind of optimism to it - yes, there are people who are predicting the apocalypse in 30 years, but really, science fiction suggests that there will be a future, and that we will be in it.  And,  that hopefully we will be able to solve some of the problems that we just have to accept right now, like dying of a stroke when you're 52.

- Sid

Gateway.

 

 “Canada is going to the moon.”

- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Yesterday, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Canada's commitment to NASA's planned Lunar Gateway space station, which will hopefully begin construction sometime in the 2020s.  As in the past, our two billion CAD contribution to the orbital platform will take the form of a smart robotic manipulator - the Canadarm3, of course - which will be composed of a primary large-scale arm and a smaller arm similar to the current DEXTRE unit in use on the ISS.

 

I confess that I'm a bit conflicted regarding the Gateway Station*.  On one hand, I'd prefer to see more of a focus on Mars, in spite of the recent resurgence of interest in lunar exploration, as demonstrated by the Chinese Chang'e 4 lunar probe landing on the dark side at the start of this year, and a planned return to the Moon by NASA.  However, the name "Gateway" is well chosen - a station in lunar orbit would also be a useful stepping stone for Martian exploration while providing the perfect overwatch for lunar missions, and also allow for the development of dedicated vacuum shuttles for ISS-Gateway travel, which would be far more efficient than the hybrid craft that have made the Earth-Moon circuit in the past.

Ultimately, it's important to be sensible about things like this. To paraphrase Bachman-Turner Overdrive**, any space exploration is good space exploration. Everything we do moves us forward on the path of exploration, and, like the song says, we should take what we can get.

- Sid

* All other issues aside, I do think it's a cool name for a space station, no offense to the ISS.

** 70s band from Winnipeg, for the younger members of our audience.  The song being misquoted here is You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet.