"WARNING: Choking Hazard. Small parts, not for children under 3 years."

The pandemic isn’t really over, but now that it’s become more of an ongoing state of affairs rather than an emergency, I’m enjoying the opportunity to cautiously resume attendance at public events like the Capital City convention that we visited in Victoria or the historical fantasy discussion at the Vancouver Writers Fest.

Earlier in the week, my sister-in-law Stefanie kindly and considerately forwarded an ad for the Vancouver Comic and Toy Show for my consideration.  It's fortuitous timing:  my wife has a social event to attend that will occupy most of her day, leaving me at liberty to do a little comic and toy shopping, so here I am, standing in line at the PNE Forum at 11:00 AM on a seasonally cool and cloudy Saturday morning.  I don't really need to buy anything - to be honest, I feel that my recent Disneyland purchases have fulfilled my toy quota for 2022 - but I'm curious to see what the show has to offer.  I'm also a bit curious as to whether or not it would be a suitable venue for a future sale of the greater part of my book collection.

As a minor sidebar, I save about 10 or 15% off the ticket price by paying fifteen dollars cash as a walk-in.  The ticket's not actually cheaper that the online option, it's just that there are no fees associated with paying at the door, whereas the web site had a couple of mystery charges attached.  It's a shame it's not the other way round, I would have been happy to see that extra money go to the cheerful volunteer who stamps my wrist and wishes me a enjoyable visit to the show, but life is rarely that fair.

The Vancouver Comic and Toy Show is exactly what it says it is: comics and toys. There are a few outliers on display: a handful of t-shirts, one table of trading cards, a lunch box dealer, and some books, but really, people are here to buy comics and toys, and they're serious about it.  (It's also immediately obvious that this isn't the venue I want for selling my books.)

The crowd ranges from hard core collectors down to hopeful children with their parents, although a lot of the merchandise might appeal more to dad than junior in terms of when it originally hit the market.  The choice of dad over mom in that description is deliberate, it's very much a male crowd - not entirely, but female shoppers are definitely in the minority. There's a smattering of costumes, but only a few, again, it's not that kind of a show.

The dealers are equally serious.  There are a lot of professional retailers such as Langley-based Toy Traders, who have an extended multi-stall footprint, ranging down through smaller sellers to an individual with crossed arms and a grim poker face seated at an unlabeled table covered with with about 20 bagged comics. 

There's a certain freedom in attending a show like this without a mandate, it's like wandering around a grocery store when you don't need any food.  As such, I'm able to survey the booths without being captured by their contents, I don't need to stop and obsessively sort through a collection of Hot Wheels cars in hopes of finding the rare 1969 pink Volkswagen Beach Bomb for sale, complete with original surf boards.

If I had to choose one franchise that dominates the show, it would have to be Star Wars, both in terms of current products and various vintage toys from throughout the nearly 40 years of the franchise's existence.  But really, the broad range of toys from all eras that are laid out on the tables demonstrates that fame can be fleeting: yesterday's prized plaything quickly becomes today's abandoned interest - and tomorrow's collectable. 

The toys on display are broken down into little clusters of pop culture: Transformers, Star Wars, Star Trek, The World Wrestling Federation, He-Man and The Masters of the Universe, The Simpsons, Hot Wheels, and so on. There's even a display of the classic 12 inch GI Joe dolls from the 1960s, which probably don't even have prices on them:  as the saying goes, if you need to ask, you can't afford them.  Or, perhaps more accurately in the collecting environment, if you want them, you don't care how much they cost.  And there are countless Funko Pop! figures for sale - as their website says, everyone's a fan of something, and the range of choices on display reflects that fact.

It probably shouldn't be a surprise, but a lot of the toys for sale are loose or in plastic baggies rather than in any kind of of original packaging, let alone MOC or MIP (Mint On Card or Mint In Package).  I suppose this speaks favourably to the number of toys that children actually take out of the box to play with.  

There are any kinds of one-offs to balance out the mass market selections:  what appears to be a fully functional Pip-Boy from the Fallout gaming franchise; some quite expensive robots from 1970s Japanese animated series; an equally expensive Elvira statuette; what I think is a Mega Man arm cannon; Gumby and Pokey together in their original packages;  a small herd of Furbys; and a lonely copy of Beatrix Potter's Rabbit Nutkin, that I can't help but feel has just wandered into the wrong neighbourhood by accident. 

I'm a bit saddened to see that there are bins of comic books on sale for a dollar, it's a telling comment on the uncertain nature of the comic book collecting marketplace.  It's a bit tempting to take a look, I suspect that everything in those boxes is selling well below cover price, but fortunately my subscriptions to Marvel Unlimited and DC Infinite eliminate any need for physical copies.  And really, there's no need to add to my current burden of storage challenges if I can help it. 

In spite of the abundance of options, there actually isn't very much on display that speaks to me.  I stop briefly to look at a half dozen or so ranked Macross Valkyrie VF-1 Veritech fighters from the 1985 Robotech animated series, but they look a bit the worse for wear, they don't seem to have their gun pods, and as such I don't really need to spend $80 on one of them. 

I do find one table that catches my eye: it's a selection of art books and comic portfolios, with a massive limited edition copy of The Incal, a graphic novel series written by famed filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky and illustrated by French fantasy artist Jean Giraud, better known as Moebius.  However, my interest is quickly extinguished by the $995 price tag, that's quite a long way over my budget for this sort of purchase.

Just over an hour into the show, and the relatively narrow aisles between booths are virtually impassable.  At this point, I decide that I'm done and make my escape, without having made a single purchase. It's partially because I still haven't seen a lot of toys that match my specific range of interests - apparently I mine a narrow vein of fandom, in my own way* - but the real reason is that I'm just overwhelmed by the massive range of choices.  

Even so, I’m actually a bit pleased with myself for leaving empty handed.  Even if you put yourself on a diet, it’s not easy to go into a candy factory and come out without a single chocolate bar.

- Sid

* Admittedly, it's impossible to make a complete survey of what's for sale, but in my casual walk through of the show I don't see a single toy from my own little collection on display, although my Pop! Tron was probably in there someplace.
 

Fabulous Fantasy.

The fantastic, for me, is this beautiful straight road to wonder.

Steven Price (J. M. Miro)

It's not our usual date night routine, but tonight Karli and I attended an event at this year's Vancouver Writer's Fest, a conversation regarding historical fantasy featuring Canadian authors Guy Gavriel Kay and Steven Price (writing as J. M. Miro) and moderated by critic and and fellow author Rob Wiersema.   

If you're a reader, I strongly recommend that you try an event like this, regardless of your genre of interest.  It's a unique opportunity to hear authors talk about their work in their own voices, to speak to their inspirations and how their lives have informed their writing.

Guy Gavriel Kay has impeccable credentials in the world of fantasy writing.  At the age of 20, a family connection gained him an invitation from the J. R. R. Tolkien estate to travel to England and assist Christopher Tolkien in editing his father's unpublished writings in the world of The Lord of the Rings trilogy, with the results published as The Silmarillion.  His high fantasy trilogy, The Fionavar Tapestry, was published ten years later to universal acclaim.

Kay has a thoughtful, artistic style which has stood the test of time over his nearly 40 year writing career.  All the Seas of the World, his latest novel, continues his exploration of fantasy set in slightly altered historical settings, in which magic and the supernatural are part of the story.

Ordinary Monsters, set in Victorian England at the turn of the century, is Steven Price's first fantasy novel, and the first in what will be the Talents series.  He is better known for his poetry and his mainstream historical novels, By Gaslight and Lampedusa.

The two authors were well paired.  Kay's speaking style is almost professorial, measured and deliberate in the presentation of ideas based on almost four decades of writing.  By contrast, Price offered a more frank and immediate commentary on his first foray into the world of fantasy after a life-long love for the genre. 

Over the course of the evening, they shared a fascinating dialogue on the topic of writing and their personal approaches to it - albeit, in Guy Gavriel Kay's case, accompanied by the observations that "The research phase is by far my favourite part of writing. Actual writing is hell. Those who tell you they love it shouldn't be allowed to live, I feel very strongly about this."

When asked about his shift from the classic high fantasy of his first trilogy to historical settings, Kay explained that there were specific personal reasons that he wanted to make a statement in that style, after his experience with the Silmarillion. He had strong thoughts about "what was wrong, what was missing in fantasy at the time", specifically in North America, and The Fionavar Tapestry was his response.

After finishing his statement, he was ready to move on.  He acknowledged that there was pressure to repeat his previous success - “If something is successful, people want you to do it again," - but he was unwilling to repeat himself, or, as he succinctly put it, “I don’t believe in four volume trilogies.”

In his writing since then, he's found that his core interest in history and the past has provided him with a different tool, a different weapon in the arsenal to “keep you reading until three in the morning.”

“And it's worked!”

The fantasy elements that he weaves into his novels offer an alternative perspective on history, one which helps him to avoid what he refers to as the smugness of most historical fiction, the tendency to look down on the less advanced beliefs of the past.

Whereas for Steven Price, it’s not so much a question of genre, he sits down to tell the story he wants to tell, which may require a fantasy element as easily as a historical setting.  As he simply put it, "The fantastic, for me, is this beautiful straight road to wonder."

To end the evening, Wiersema asked the two authors for reading recommendations. Guy Gavriel Kay recommended Mary Renault's novels set in classical Greece, such as The King Must Die, or The Mask of Apollo, which he considered to be "beautifully written, transgressively written", and which he had first read when he was 12.

Steven Price suggested the book which had changed his life when he was 12, the fantasy classic The Wizard of Earthsea, by Ursula K. Leguin, which he described as "profound, timeless and beautiful".  For a more contemporary choice, he recommended Spear, a queer retelling of the Arthurian legend by Nicola Griffith.

For me, the most significant part of the evening came near the beginning, when Wiersema asked Price why, given the success of his more traditional fiction, he had turned to fantasy:

"I grew up reading fantasy novels - they're my home, it's where I come from.

I was a very lonely boy, I did not fit in - like so many writers and readers who have that experience – I didn’t fit in, I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I found my refuge in books.

This was in the 1980s before there was an internet, where you could find like minded kids – find your tribe, find your people.

And I took refuge in the fantasy novels of the 80s that I could find at the mall bookstore - Robert Jordan, Anne McCaffrey, Guy Gavriel Kay books, the blockbuster fantasy novels that were available at the time.

I was 12 years old - I decided a lot of things when I was 12 years old - most of them have never come to pass, but one of the things that I stuck with was that I wanted to write fantasy novels. That dream stayed with me all through my adolescence and I never told anybody."

He registered for a writing course in university, switched to poetry, and stopped reading fiction for a few years. Following the publication of his first collection of poems, he was exhausted, and needed something to read that was different from what he had been working on.

I went to the bookstore, went to the Fantasy section, and pulled down a book, I remember clearly that it was a Brandon Sanderson novel. 

I found this refuge again, this refuge that I had found as a boy.

At this point, he seemed to become self-conscious, muttered, "This is a really long answer", and quickly explained how reading fantasy stories to his children at night had provided the impetus for his novel before falling silent.

I wanted to stand up and shout, "Steven, it's okay, it's safe, you've found us! We're the tribe you couldn't find when you were 12, and that's why we're here tonight!"

So, Mr. Price, my warm congratulations to you, both on fulfilling the dream of a twelve-year old, and on finding your people. Here's hoping that your book will provide the same refuge that you found to a 12 year old who needs one, and that it helps them to find their home.

- Sid

Flyboy.

X Wing Pilot – A pilot, sometimes called a flyboy, directly controlled the operation of a vehicle while located within the same craft. A pilot was often assisted by a copilot, navigator, astromech droid, weapons officer, or other crew members. The term “pilot” was applied across vehicles used on land or in water, air, and/or space. The military designation for a pilot was PL-1. Whether this applied to all pilots or only starfighter pilots is unknown. On smaller ships, the word pilot and captain were interchangeable, but on larger vessels, the pilots were rarely the commanders of the vessels. 

Rebel Legion web site

When I bought my X-Wing Pilot's Helmet at Disneyland, Karli suggested that it would be a great start to a costume, a sentiment that I cautiously agreed with after giving it a bit of thought. However, she immediately raised the ante by commenting that Hallowe'en was only a couple of weeks away, which added a degree of deadline pressure that I hadn't originally had in mind.

But, maybe it's more practical than I think. What's actually involved in creating a Star Wars Rebel pilot costume? How hard can it be?

The basics are easy to find through Google™ as per the reference shot above: an orange flight suit, black boots and gauntlets, the white flak vest, that Darth-Vader style chest box, and those weird belts/straps on the legs* - and the helmet, of course, which I don't have to worry about.

It would cost a bit of money, but most of it would be simple enough: orange coveralls are common, boots are boots, I'd probably make the flak vest out of foam and glue on white nylon material (I can't sew), and strapping material is easy to get at Home Depot. The little chest box would involve some construction, but nothing insurmountable, or I could buy either an Etsy duplicate or a 3D printing template if I decided to invest money rather than time.

But, as always, the devil is in the details, and if you want to pass muster with the Rebellion, there are actually a LOT of details involved in producing a flight-ready uniform that will get you admission to an X-Wing cockpit.

In this case, it's not actually the Rebellion, it's the Rebel Legion, an international organization of Star Wars Rebel, Resistance and Jedi cosplayers (as opposed - literally - to the 501st Legion, which is made up of Imperial, First Order, Sith and bounty hunter cosplayers).  In order to join the Rebel Legion, you need a professional quality film-accurate costume - and they do mean accurate.

The Rebel Legion is very specific regarding the criteria for an acceptable flight suit costume.  VERY specific.  For example, here are the specifications for the white flak vest:

The entire list of requirements can be read here.  Apparently I was wrong, boots are not just boots.

There's some variation from movie to movie: Luke's pilot's uniform from the encounter on Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back is a two-piece combo, and the belts and other accessories are very different from his uniform from A New Hope. In Rogue One, General Antoc Merrick's flight suit is dark blue with ribbed white sleeve appliques, and has a modified flak vest. Regardless, the standards are equally strict.

However, to quote Terry Pratchett, what an insult to the rich and chaotic variety of human experience!**  Surely there must have been some individuality in the Rebel pilot corps - coveralls that were permanently stained by coolant leaks and singed by cockpit fires, someone refusing to give up the battered but functional life support unit that saved their life during the Battle of Yavin, Biggs always forgetting to wear his leg emergency flares, and all the other little real-world quirks that would vary from the strict specifications set out by the Legion.

The final resolution to all of this is that I'm unlikely to pull together an X-Wing pilot's costume for Hallowe'en, regardless of canon accuracy, although the resources to enable such a costume are certainly in existence.  And, ultimately, I'm somewhat inclined to agree with a comment that I read in one of the user's groups that I visited while doing the research for this posting:

"If you show up with the helmet and orange coveralls, you're 70% there."

- Sid

P.S. If anyone reading this is aware of a good source for affordable near-canon orange flight suits, please leave a comment with a link, it would be greatly appreciated.

* These are apparently ejection straps.

** Feat of Clay