Prelude.
We were awake and up at 9:00 am, running around on automatic pilot to get ready to go. Our furry and feathered children were given all that they would need for the day while we were away, I made sure they had plenty of food and water and all the creature comforts they would need.
Depressingly, an infection in my jaw and face that had persisted all week was now worse than ever and complicated matters for the weekend. The current antibiotics I was prescribed didn't seem to be working at all and I felt like I'd been smacked hard in the left side of my face, neck and back with Mjonir. A convention isn't really an ideal place to go if you feel feverish, light headed and or are dealing with acute pain in multiple places on your body. Travelling to and from the locale, negotiating crowds off people with no sense of direction or an awareness of body space when you are saddled with a headache, ear ache, lethargy, nausea, dizziness, muscle and bone pain and weakness becomes a bit of an ordeal and trial of stamina, core strength and will power.
I made one quick phone call to our local walk in clinic before we set out. I told them the current antibiotics weren't improving my condition and asked if they could call in another one to our chemist/pharmacy. Luckily this clinic doesn't operate like a doctors office. The receptionists don't insist on you coming in for an appointment in order to fill a prescription. They complied with my wishes and called a different antibiotic in so that we could pick it up within half an hour. The antibiotics were available in record time so making a detour to pick them up didn't eat up into much of our time. The good thing about having Publix as your pharmacy is that all antibiotics are free. I find that amazing in a capitalist driven country that is all about commerce and making as much money out of people as possible. We made one stop at the bank to withdraw cash from the hole in the wall (be ever mindful, some vendors at these places only take cash) then dropped by a gas station to fill the tank up for the journey ahead. We needed fuel too so a Dunken Donuts drive through provided us with a much needed coffee and breakfast to go.
The Journey.
Why do satellite navigation units take you on the most roundabout and overly complicated route to your destination? Is it part of a Sontaran plan to take over the world? Tampa is a maze of criss crossing roads, one way streets and tram lines. Even for the seasoned driver it can be a bit of a nightmare. After travelling past the same landmarks several times we finally found the hotel parking garage and stored our car there until the end of the day. I couldn't tell you if it was hot and humid outside because my infection made every environment feel overly hot. One trip down a lift/elevator, a short walk across a road and through another underground garage and we were at the Tampa Convention Center.
Expectations and Reality.
I'd read horror stories of previous Comic Con's held in this area online, describing how people had to stand outside the Tampa Convention Center in long lines that snaked around the block with the full power of the sub tropical Florida sun burning down upon them while they waited for the doors to open to the event. I was not looking forward to that with the way I was feeling in fact it's not the most pleasant of things to endure even when you feel great and healthy.
We arrived there a little after and hour of it opening so we just walked right in and headed towards will call and collected our lanyards. It was a very quick process and much faster than the way Mega Con or Star Wars Celebration events deal with tickets. The dealer room/exhibition hall surprised me by it's size. It turned out to be much larger than I expected it to be. It was comparable in size to one of the rooms they would use at Mega Con at the Orange Center. The dealer room also housed the celebrity autograph and photo opp section on the left hand side of the hall along with a cafeteria. Artists alley and the merchandise dealers were situated in the middle and dead center of this space with cosplay alley set up at the right end wall along with a zone allowing graffiti artists to produce huge finished pieces of art work over the course of three days. The hall was well lit and also provided bathroom facilities.
The People.
Walking in front of us to will call was a beautifully crafted Groot alien tree creature from the movie Guardians of the Galaxy. This cosplayer really created a visual feast for the eyes. I think it was made out of foam and I believe he was wearing some kind of stilts on his legs to give him some height.
I saw plenty of Harley Quinn's, (the Joker's main squeeze) some wearing the various comic book costumes she's worn over the years. Others were wearing the outfit she sports in the video console games. Even more impressive were the ones who had put together an accurate movie version of Harley Quinn that appears in next years Suicide Squad movie. The teaser trailer for this film only came out a few weeks ago so anyone putting together this costume had to work around the clock in order to unveil it at this con.
There seemed to be an over abundance of Joker's; I'm not sure why this was the case, but they did out number the other costumes on display. I'd say the next prevalent cosplay was Spider-Man, Spider-Woman, Deadpool both male and female (no surprise there since the Ryan Reynolds Dead Pool movie trailer was a big hit with fans when it was released online just recently, Jedi ( there are always Jedi and a Sta Wars presence of some kind at these conventions, probably more once Star Wars Episode VII the Force Awakens hits cinemas at Christmas time. Poison Ivy, and surprisingly enough, Castiel the angel from the Supernatural television show.
There were a few iterations and interpretations of Catwoman and Black Widow. We saw Black Cat's, Rogues, Wolverine's, Hawkeye's, Captain America's, Silk's, Spider Gwen's, Batmen, Wonder Women, Flashes, Batgirls, Bane's, Deadshot's, Princess Leia's, Stormtroopers, Tie Fighter Pilot's, Mara Jade's, Silk Spectres and Rorschach's.
Some cosplayers were dressed as characters from video games or anime so I had no idea who they were or how close they resembled the characters, but one could tell they were impecable creations; detailed outfits that must have taken those fans many man hours to stitch and sew to put together for this show The novel and rare cosplays I caught on my travels were a Lelu Dallas from The Fifth Element, a version of Jason Voorhees from Freddy Versus Jason in which the cosplayer went the extra mile and rigged up a speaker in his costume to play music from the horror franchise to accompany him were ever he went. There was even a female version of David Bowie's goblin king from Labyrinth.
Some mash ups were on hand too, like an Iron-Man/Venom costume which had electronically controlled moving parts, it was very impressive. I spotted a Star Wars characters such as a Wookie, a Darth Vader, a Wampa Ice Creature, a Tusken Raider, some Doctors from Dcotor Who most notably the fourth and the tenth, a Black Canary, a cartoon version of Mr. Freeze, a Zatanna, a Baroness from G.I. Joe, a Na'vi...Neytiri from Avatar, an Iron-Man, a Star Lord and Gamora from the Guardians of the Galaxy movie, a Peter Griffin from Family Guy, a Ned Flanders from The Simpson's, and a Bender robot from Futurama.
There were lots of cosplayers here today and there wasn't even a contest. Most conventions have their main cosplay events on Saturday's so considering all things...the dreadful weather outside, the fact that Friday was a noon start, it was a good turn out and fortunately for everyone attending it never felt too crowded.
As expected we had to get a feeling for the layout of the place before we could move ahead with the list of things we wanted to see and do. At this point I felt like I was going to collapse. I was overheating, wobbly on my feet, experiencing sharp knife pains in several places in my my head. Time for more medication to get me through the day.
Gripes.
Barriers.
The set up of the barriers and cordoned off areas leading to the upper and lowers levels was strangely thought out and impractical. Nobody really wanted to walk half the length of the building to get from one side of the dealer room/exhibition hall to the other side via a convoluted pathway from a landing foyer outside this room, down two flights of steps and along a 100 meter floor space at the bottom of those steps. They made it far too difficult and confusing for visitors to go to and from the second floor that housed the exhibition hall to the area on the ground level floor that lead to all the conference rooms and ballrooms. People were squeezing past gaps in blockades as staff watched on. That should have been their cue to open up these areas to ease the flow of traffic lessening the congestion around the dealer room parallel entrances and escalators. I completely understand the necessity to have perimeters that stop people from sneaking into the building without passing the will call ticket booths, but some of the choices they made were inane and potentially dangerous.
Official Convention Merchandise.
There was only one small store near the foyer outside the dealer room/exhibition hall selling the official convention t-shirts. They are made from 100% white cotton material with the Tampa Bay Comic Con logo emblazoned on the front of them. I think it's safe to say without conducting an in depth study that most geeks prefer black t-shirts because they are flattering to those of us who are carrying some extra poundage on our bodies. The very young convention goers who don't have such body mass concerns in mind still opt for the darker colours because...well, black is more hip and cool. They would definitely sell a truck load of con t-shirts if they had printed the logo on a black fabric.
At Star Wars Celebration VI every one of the darker coloured Star Wars themed t-shirts had been sold by the end of the second day. At the first Mega Con we went to the vendors sold official t-shirts with two variations on a black cotton tee and all sold out towards the end of the second day too. Jump ahead a few years to our next trip to Mega Con and the only official shirts being sold there were printed on a bright orange material. We asked if the shirt came in black and the woman behind the store said, "No, they only come in this one colour." Those orange shirts were still piled up high at the end of the third and final day of that particular convention.
I find this kind of thinking very strange and counter productive to the market you are aiming to sell your goods to. One only has to look around a convention hall to see that most people who aren't cosplayers are wearing geeky themed black tops which out number the lighter ones. Maybe some day, someone will catch onto this discrepancy. It probably boils down to printing costs and I believe it's more expensive to screen print on black. My wife kindly treated me to one of these items despite the fact that they were white; she knows I'm quite the t-shirt collecting fiend. It's still a nice memento and it will make a great lounge around the house kind of clothing item.
Last minute cancellations threw a hydro spanner in our planned schedule.
Geekapella Group.
We managed our time so that the first thing we could see and do on our list was Geekapella at 1:30pm – 2:30pm in room 13. The website write up says says this about them..."Geekapella are Orlando’s only geeky acappella group! Do you like Star Wars, Harry Potter, anime, or just enjoy nerd culture? You’ll find all this and more in their repertoire!" Unfortunately, the Geekapella Concert was a no show, guess there's a reason why they are Orlando's only geeky cappella group and not Tampa's.
Geekapella Facebook Page
The Great And Powerful Tim.
At 5:00pm – 6:00pm in room 10 we planned to see The Great and Powerful Tim. The website blurb claims that..."Tim is a comedy mentalist and magician. He’s performed at festivals and events all around the country, and is now bringing his hilarious mind-bending routine to the Tampa Bay Comic Con! Enjoy his hilarious video game and comic book themed show with plenty of audience participation!" Today the Great And Powerful Tim...was not so great or powerful after all. It's not like he needed a conjuring spell or teleportation cabinet to get to this venue, a vehicle would have sufficed in this instance.
Sadly, Tim does not appear to have any web presence what so ever, unless he goes under a another name when performing at other shows.
Remy Connor Thief.
Surely good ole Remy would be all set to entertain us at 8:30pm – 9:30pm in room 13, right? The website description declares..."Come witness the amazing talents of Remy Connor, as he astounds you with his mind-blowing magic and daring stunts. Leaving you both astounded and amazing, he is a one-of-a-kind entertainer that will make this a show to remember! My wife and I are still waiting to be astounded and amazed. Remy Connor Thief must have used a very powerful vanishing trick on himself while setting up for the show. It was certainly a daring stunt to say he would appear there and then not turn up at all. Maybe he got caught stealing a rabbit out of a top hat? Time to regroup and rethink our strategy. All that careful pre planning might well have been be jettisoned into space along with that unwanted Xenomorph in Alien. Maybe room 13 is cursed?
Remy Connor Official Website.
Poorly Conceived Talks.
The Doctor Through The Ages.
Our next event after the Geekapella let down was at 2:30pm – 3:20pm in room 18. The website hype indicated the following..."Join the Palm Harbor Doctor Who Club as we travel through time to relive some of the greatest moments of Doctor Who! From the First to the Twelfth every regeneration has made this wonderful show what it is today. Come share your favorite moments with us!"
This talk was run by two giggly sisters with a clear love for Doctor Who both classic and new. However, there was no structure to their seminar and it basically became an exercise in them asking the crowd questions about the show rather than them giving a lecture. There were screens set up in the room and I expected some kind of presentation, montage or selected scenes from Doctor Who that would enable them to delve deeper into the themes of the show and formulate a great discussion. No such luck. The long gaps between speeches was a very awkward affair.
During the session one of the sister's answered her mobile/cell phone to give directions to the convention center to one of her friends who was lost, she stayed on the phone for about ten minutes and the other sister just sat there in silence. It was at this point nearly half of the audience in the room left to find something better to do. These girls seriously need to work on their public speaking skills and create a program that is fun for the crowd. Showmanship was sorely lacking here. It could have been fixed quite easily by...putting on a quick quiz at the beginning of the talk with some Who related prizes to give away. This would have hooked the majority of the people who came to see them. A promise of one more quiz at the end of the talk would have secured the audience into staying until the conclusion. A Doctor Who Bingo Game would have been a fun activity to offer guests too.
I am of the impression that it is illegal to screen any kind of television or movie material at a public venue without getting official permission from the companies who make the TV shows and paying them a broadcast fee. This is probably the reason why none of the talks used any clips to enhance their presentations or music soundtracks to complement the shows.
I was a member of the Palm Harbor Doctor Who club on Meet Up and it consisted of just four members that included the two sisters. I never met up with any of them whenever they had planned a group get together. I couldn't justify a taxi ride fair to and from these meetings since it seemed like the group just sat around watching old episodes of Doctor Who every time they got together.
With very little interest in this area for Doctor Who they were forced to close their group down on the Meet Up website because it costs money to promote your clubs on there. I feel bad for them. They obviously had good intentions, but even though Doctor Who has become a familiar name in America, it still doesn't have the pulling power of the likes of Star Trek, The Walking Dead or Game of Thrones.
Environment Issues.
I suspect the air conditioning was turned off in some of the conference rooms to save money. Not good when you have several hundred sweaty geeks in costumes sitting in one space. Especially bad if you were like me and sick with a temperature.
The Comedy Of Geeks group had to perform in a room that had pillars in front of the stage so only one half of the audience could see the performer at any given time depending on which side of the stage they moved to. Was it really so hard for the organisers of this event to give these guys a room without these obstacles?
Pleasures.
Film Festival.
We managed to catch the short horror movie section at the film festival that was running all day on Friday. There were three stand out entries, out of the seven; two took a humorous approach and one seemed inspired by the silent movie genre. Regrettably, other events prevented us from viewing the additional categories and the awards ceremony. My mini film festival review will be posted in an individual post.
The Mythology Of Supernatural.
This was held in room 7 which was probably the actual smallest of all the conference rooms we'd seen and the only one I observed having windows. It started 4:30pm and ran to 5:50pm.
The websites brief piece on this event went like this..."Nathan Robert Brown, pop culture mythologist and author of The Mythology of Supernatural, will discuss various mythological themes and figures found in the CW show Supernatural. Book signing and Q&A session will follow the presentation."
The Mythology Of Supernatural by Nathan Robert Brown was a very interesting and informative seminar. He did touch on aspects of the CW network television series, but concentrated much more on the real world mythological history behind some of the supernatural beings that appear in the show. We learned that all the creatures and their back stories were researched quite thoroughly by the script writers and very little was made up or reinterpreted by them. Nathan told us how amazed he was when he realized that some of the more obscure references in the episodes were based on things that were extremely hard to track down. Knowing this gave me a whole new respect for the work that goes into the stories for the show. His scholarly presentation informed the patrons that many cultures throughout time have shared variations on the garden of Eden, Adam and Eve and serpent fables. Interesting to note that all white eyed demons in Supernatural were all characters based in Judea Christian teachings. I wonder if the same rules were applied to the black eyed demons, the ones with red eyes and the few we've seen with the yellow peepers? I never got the chance to ask him about that, wish I did now.
Natahan Robert Brown Blog.
Nathan Robert Brown Twitter Account.
Nathan Robert Brown Books On Amazon.
Geeks Of Comedy.
We headed towards room 10 for the 7:00pm performance of The Geeks Of Comedy show which lasted one and a half hours to finish at 8:30pm. The website description was as follows... "The Geeks of Comedy return to TBCC to assault fandom & fanDUMB with Geek themed stand up that can crit-hit even an adamantium laced funny bone. Some of us curse worse than 4chan on new-comic Wednesday, so leave the kids at home for this one.
Geeks Of Comedy, is not a perfect show by any means; it feels very rough around the edges as if the comedians are honing their craft and experimenting with new material, but I think it was still worth an hour of our time.
The first comedian was a short and stout Italian guy by the name of Kevin White and he ended up being the best of the trio of comedians in this show. He was the most relaxed on stage and the only one able to throw together spontaneous ad libs during his routine. This was advertised as an 18+ show, but some teenage brothers had dragged their youngest sibling along who must have only been ten years of age. Kevin used this to his advantage and made some very funny cracks about the kid becoming a man after watching this performance. He did six great impersonations relating to a joke about the worst five voices you could use for role playing in the bedroom, done in the style of a Casey Casem music count down. Hearing blue rated sex talk from the likes of Fred Flintstone, Shaggy, Pumba and two others I can't recall while writing this, was hysterical especially since he had the voices perfected. It was hilarious stuff.
The second comedian Allan Forbes a tall gangly fellow was also a very good impressionist too. He impersonated William Shatner, John McCain, Adam West, President Barack O Bama and Arnold Schwarzenegger in his act, but his comedy material was poor; his jokes sadly fell flat more times than not; he also had to keep checking notes and cues he had written on his arm for the entirety of his act. I felt like the audiences attention was waning once his rythum had become choppy. Kevin was a tough act to follow since they started the show with their strongest talent.
The third comedian on the bill was short in stature with a baby face visage, this was Patrick Hawkins the main headliner apparently so I was expecting the level of humour to bounce back up, but I couldn't have been more wrong. I think he was trying to go for that Stewart Lee edgy comic vibe thing, but came across as a bit of an angry, aggressive and unfunny twonk. I'm no prude, but a couple of his jokes were a little crude and a bit pointless. One of his closing visual gags involved a skeletal hand glove and a pair of those X-Ray specs you used to see advertised in the pages of old comic books. He puts the glove on his hand and the glasses on his head and says..."Look everybody I'm a comic book advertisement." Most of us got the reference to the little picture from those comic book ad's which depicted a black and white drawing of a kid holding up his hand in front of his eyes while wearing the X-Ray specs and seeing the bones in his hand. The convention served alcohol throughout the day and night and regrettably some of the audience members for the Geeks of Comedy had become belligerent drunken hecklers which wasn't very nice for the gusy on the stage. If I wasn't feeling so under the weather I probably would have ended up having "strong" words with the wise cracjkng idiots we had to listen to.
Links to the comedians websites are here...
Kevin White Official Web Page.
Allan Forbes Facebook Page.
Patrick H Hawkins Facebook Page.
The Official Mobile Convention App.
I thought the official convention app for mobile devices came in very useful since it kept us up to date on all the changes being made by the minute.
The Asian Cuisine Vendors.
The food wasn't the usual calorie adding, artery clogging junk they normally serve at these events. The Asian cuisine was pretty good quality. The coffee was fairly cheap too at $3.00 for a small cup. You'd normally pay twice that amount at a theme park, concert, or a similar themed convention in a bigger city.
Doctor Who Past Present And Future
Around about 9:00 pm we decided to opt for the Doctor Who Past Present And Future talk which started at 9:30 pm and went on until 10:20 pm in room 18. The website wrote the following..."Doctor Who has swept the nation, and now where does it have to go? Join us as we discuss all the timey wimey facets of Doctor Who, from Hartnell to Capaldi. Nothing will be held off the table!
It was compared by just one guy who seemed to have gotten onto the Doctor Who band wagon since it returned to our screens in 2005 and gradually became popular with Americans and grew a fan base. Consequently he managed to play catch up with it's fifty years worth of classic series episodes which then qualified him as a specialist speaker on this subject and gave him the opportunities to moderate panels with Doctor Who companions/actresses such as Clara Oswald/Jenna Coleman and tomorrows Martha Jones/Freema Agyeman. If only I could get over my stage fright and social phobia I probably could have done a much better job than he did and I have many more years of knowledge on this subject matter. Oh well, no use in having sour grapes about my situation, it is what it is.
Unlike the Safety Harbor Doctor Who girls who allowed their show to fall apart this guy kept the momentum going and took plenty of questions from the people sitting in the auditorium. He raised some interesting points to discuss, but he also fell into the trap of being a supporter of the online fan base hate campaign towards Stephen Moffat the series show runner and head writer. All the negative press and attention he receives is unwarranted and displays an almost fundamentlist extremist and insidious side to geek culture.
I never speak up at these types of conferences because I get too nervous and the words I want to say just become a jumbled mess in my head. However, I felt I had to speak up in Moffat's defence when several audience members launched into nasty criticisims of actor Peter Capaldi's first episode as the newly regenerated Time Lord, Doctor in Deep Breath and Moffat's script.
I made it clear to everyone sitting in the room that Mr. Moffat had a tremendously hard job introducing a new Doctor who was now being portrayed by a much older gentleman. Winning over the current audience who were only weened on a diet of much younger actors playing the same role...David Tennant and Matt Smith was always going to be an uphill battle convincing the strong tween fan base that this was still the same character. The character is 900+ years of age despite his outward appearance so you'd think it would have sunk into their heads at some point especially when the shows goes to great lengths in telling the viewer that whenever he gets mortally wounded his regeneration process could change him into anything, gender, skin colour, age, an alien with four ears, twelve eyes and a snout even...anything.
I went on to say that it wasn't a bad episode at all. In fact it was very self exploratory and a relevant story for all fans of the show. Having his companion see the change take place right before her very eyes, but have her display prejudices towards the 12th incarnation, because he looked so much different from his youthful 11th body and face in which she had fallen in love with was the perfect time to have this debate. It was mirroring the new fans outrage when dream boat young Matt Smith stepped down from the role and was replaced with this "OLD MAN" Peter Capladi! I thought it made for a very compelling and satisfying episode that focused it's attention on ageism and a post regenerated amnesiac Time Lord who wasn't sure who or what he was yet.
This episode was a study in how people pre judge others simply by their outward appearances. A message obviously lost on the American Doctor Who fans in that crowd who wanted more of the young and sexy.
This was supposed to be a talk about the shows past, present and future, but way too much time was spent on modern Who. The future of the program was never covered despite me bringing up the rumour that BBC Worldwide are planning to make a Doctor Who movie once Moffat leaves and the series and it is rested from the small screen.
Charging Stations.
There was plenty of seating and electrical points in the corridors outside all the rooms.
The Convention Hours.
I liked the fact that the event stayed open until 12.00 a.m. on Friday and Saturday. Other conventions like Mega Con close much earlier than that so don't give as good a value for money.
Postlude.
We did two rough sweeps of the exhibition hall floor; one when we first got there and one before it closed for the day. It was interesting to see the vast difference between a room full of people and vendors busy at work to an empty one where all goods and wares were covered up for the night. It was odd to see Roxy the Rancor without his head. Poor Roxy. Maybe we'll actually get to see some of the merchandise tomorrow and buy something. After seeing the seemingly endless meandering lines you are forced to wait in to get a celebrity autograph and photo op; I think I'll pass on that one.
All in all a nice day out and even better since I started to feel more human towards the later part of the afternoon and evening thanks to my wife's diligence in providing me with the right medications throughout the day. We even missed all the rain today; there were tell tale signs of it in the form of moisture on the steps and pathways outside the convention hall.
We did have one misadventure after leaving the con. We tried to use the elevator to get to our car on top of the parking garage and it was locked. We found the night valet and he unlocked it for us to get to the top of the building, but to our surprise this was not the building we had parked at. I glanced over to the next building and there was our car looking back at us. A quick detour down the emergency staircase, a walk across the road and up that buildings elevator and we were all set to get out of there. The charge for parking from 12:00 pm to 12:00 am was $9.50.
The ride home was much easier and faster. Why is that? We came home a different way without all that bullshit the SatNav took us through in the morning.
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