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Big Con Weekend
15 years ago
Long post! But it's a con report, whaddaya expect? Short version - it rocked, and I'm eagerly looking forward to next year.
Well, this was it - one of the biggest, most complicated con weekends in the furry fandom. Why?
Because not one, not two, but THREE conventions went on during it!
FA:U, RCFM... and Nakamacon. New Jersey, Alabama, and Wisconsin respectively. All we would've needed would be for, oh, RMFC or Rainfurest to move to this weekend, and we'd have had the four quadrants pinned off! Fortunately, that didn't happen.
Well, being a Wisconsin fur, I made the obvious choice to go to Nakamacon. Nakamacon is the odd-one-out in that group of three - not only was it a first-year con, but it was a mix of Anime, Furry, and Steampunk. Which, it turns out, are three great tastes that go great together!
Nakamacon was run by a guy who's an old pro at conventions, but new to anime/furcons. Fortunately, he had a great staff - including the Groats, who some of you out there may remember as the people responsible for such mainstays as Red Shetland and West Corner of the Park! People attending ranged from the Groats themselves (I got to sit two tables down from Rabbi Tom's table in the dealer's room, and give him a good portion of my con funds), to Dragon Drawer, to Joe Suggs (who you may know as part of the animation department on projects ranging from Cool World to Timon & Pumbaa), to Heather Luca, and well beyond. I was particularly gratified to meet
tremaine (and apologize profusely for getting him mixed up with Mayfurr) and the lovely 
thetiedtigress, 
Onai, and Wolf in the Walls (who you can find on DA at http://wolf-in-the-walls.deviantart.com/).
There were others, of course, but their names are the ones I remember best - except for
moiracoon and 
mocha_mephooki, whose combination of art and steampunk jewelry was striking, and who I *definitely* would have commissioned for one of their new dual-badges in vintage brass locket had I had the funding (dammit! Why does the human body need to eat - or at least why does *mine*? It has enough extra pounds to last a few weeks!)
Ah well. Suffice it to say that a blast was had by all in my family. My brother scored many a commission, which he'll be uploading to FA as soon as he figures out how to scan them properly (go figure - his sketchbook is 11x20 or something obscene like that), Mom got to see (and hug) her first fursuiters, as well as give a little gift to Onai from the jewelry she's working on. We didn't sell any of the ears or tails we had with us, so those may be hitting FurBid or some such soon (speaking of which - does anybody want a feline tail and ears? We've got 'em in pink leopard, cheetah, black cat, and golden-brown with glitter....)
The charms and such that we brought went over pretty well though, as well as some of the smaller jewelry pieces. It would have been nice to sell a bit more, but we didn't expect to sell out - it was our first convention, at a first-year convention, during a bad economic stretch. And really, the sales were the only way this felt like a first-year con. The rest of the convention went very well, from the panels to the dance to everybody actually getting along and nobody setting the hotel on fire! I heard they actually had more trouble with a wedding party that was there than they did with the con-goers, and it was pretty fun watching the restaurant/bar/room service staff taking trays around in ears and tail of their own.
As for the panels... sadly, I missed the Rule 34 panel - after a long day in the Den, I wasn't about to tell my ride home that I wanted to stick around for another 2 hours to go see a 2 hour panel on horrifically wrong porn, meaning that none of us would get home to sleep until after midnight, and I'd probably be curled up in the corner going 'can't sleep, Street Fighter body fluids porn will get me!' Which may have saved my brain from being scarred for life, but I'll fix that next year if I can get a room at the hotel. Sounds like it was a popular panel though, so that's definitely cool.
The panels that I did attend started on Friday with Chef Rena's "Food in Gaming," a look into just what the Hell an Iron Ration really is, and some other thoughts into how food should work into created worlds.
Here's a tip - iron rations were not granola bars. As they were historically defined, iron rations were either about two pounds of crap (PER DAY) that you carried around in a wagon and tried to keep from becoming vermin-infested - and that's not counting the milk or cookware to go with it - or they were three small bars of chocolate, some water, and three bars of dried beef boullion mixed with flour. And it's a wonder that the troops in WWI (who had to eat that stuff) developed a taste for Velveeta.
This, of course, was after my brother attended Fur Films - a screening of Disney's Robin Hood and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, along with a commentary/discussion of the films and Disney's role in the fandom with Joe Suggs - and Explaining the Fandom to Non Furs, which I think should become part of the standard curriculum before you get your raised fox or husky tail. I managed to record the Food in Gaming panel, with Chef Rena's gracious permission, and will try to do something with it eventually!
Before the panel, I did get my hands on the three posters that the Con had available - one of Professor Todd, the cute Fox with the look that's half way between steampunk and Doctor Who - one of Starscream, and one of Hot Rod. Then I went and told a friend of mine online about them, and had to go back the next day to pick up another Starscream and Hot Rod for her. But, then, that's half of why I told her (I like excuses to get out of the Dealer's Den and socialize!)
Saturday, it started with Wolf in the Walls' "Mary Sues" panel - which covered how to define, recognize, and slaughter the prissy little bitches where-ever they may pop up. Special props to her for not coming over the table at the girl in the audience whose own tendencies to write them became painfully obvious as things went along. :) Oh, and for recognizing that the key to any Mary Sue is the writing - so many beloved fictional characters are the dreaded Mary Sue (Holmes, anyone? Guts from Berserk?), but because they're written well they get away with it.
From there, it was on over to watch the BBC's most recent adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray - this movie isn't actually available as Region 1 yet, so it was the American premier to the best of our knowledge! The movie was actually a surprisingly true adaptation - it's very hard for film to handle such an introspective, philosophical book, and they actually got more of Lord Harry's philosophy in than I'd thought they would, though they did parse it out a bit more.
There were some obvious changes - for example, Dorian got rid of the body himself, they make it clear that he was indeed bisexual (rather than merely implying it, as Wilde has to), they moved a pivotal scene to the subway from the wilderness, and the ending was vastly more dramatic than in the novel. But, all in all, it was well-done - and I credit them for pretty decent use of CGI in making the painting all the more freaky in its behavior, actually changing before Dorian's eyes sometimes. I look forward to this one coming to the US, so I can add it to my collection. I do wish they'd dropped the child abuse subplot though - there was no hint of it in the original that I remember, and it was utterly unnecessary.
After that, I spent most of the day in the Dealer's Den, though we did stay late Saturday so we could attend the Masquerade. There were some very interesting costumes all across the board, and I do have partial video of the fursuit dance that happened on-stage.
I also give great credit to the anime fan in the audience who, on hearing two other anime B-tards bitching about "eww, furries" behind him, turned around and told them to have a big, steaming cup of STFU. See? Fandoms can mix and collide in new and wonderful ways!
Sunday was the big day for me. Not because of the dance at night (I respect my fellow man, woman, furry, whatever entirely too much to subject them to what passes for me dancing), but because I was actually hosting a panel.
They sandwiched me between penguin launching and the gun enthusiasts. Really, I couldn't have asked for a better slot, except for one thing I'll get to later!
So, Eric took everybody who wanted to outside to see who could launch the stuffed penguin the farthest in the parking lot, with judging on both style and distance (I vote that next year, they launch a stuffed octopus!) Couldn't make it to that one because I was busy hyperventilating about my own panel, and trying to foist off CD's of my podcast onto those passing by (speaking of which - if anybody's interested in a copy of Darkly Lit, I've got the first 17 episodes on MP3 CD and they're yours for shipping costs! Or you could just listen for free at http://darklylit.wordpress.com </shameless shill>)
My own panel was on how to play the bad guy in your gaming group and get away with it - from convincing the GM to let you play one, to convincing your fellow PC's not to put you down like the dog you are 5 minutes into the game, to convincing your fellow players not to put you down like the dog you are 5 minutes after you betray them to Yog-Sothoth and unleash the Great Old Ones from their eternal prisons to hasten the age of darkness that was foretold in the Necronomicon.
Pro-tip - playing an evil character is not something you do because you want to be able to do whatever the fuck you want. It's something you do because you want to take on a more challenging RP experience, and your fellow players are mature enough that it sincerely doesn't matter that one of them pays half your rent when you have to pick out sacrificial lambs. Forget this at your own peril.
The panel actually went very well. We had a little hang-up because of a miscommunication between my fellow panelist and I about the schedule, but I was able to keep things going until he arrived and picked up right where I was rapidly starting to run out of notes! Sadly, I didn't get the audio of this - my recorder died three minutes into it. Memo to self - next year, bring a recorder that isn't a glorified digi-cam.
Also, see if I can talk Eric into letting me run my "so, you want to play a serial killer?" panel as a companion piece. This one went over so well, I can only imagine what they'll do when I pull out an industrial roll of plastic wrap!
Unfortunately, we ended up running into the beginning of the "The Armed Fur" panel, and since I didn't particularly want to argue scheduling with the gun enthusiasts, we wrapped up and moved along. Would've enjoyed going to that panel, but by this point I needed to go check if Mom needed a little bathroom break, so off I went.
My only complaint about my time slot is that it conflicted with another panel I would've loved to go to - creating steampunk weaponry. It would've been a lovely opening to the Creating a Steampunk Persona panel that I also wanted to go to... but, since the Den was closing up and I really didn't want to tell my ride home that they had to stick around for 2 hours so I could learn how to get the right details to tell somebody that I'm a dirigible captain, I figured it was best to head home and get something to eat.
(Hey - this was 2 days of working the Dealer's Den after my cowardice regarding the Rule 34 panel, the bar had been lowered!)
At any rate - we went in today, did a little selling, attended closing ceremonies, and here we are at home. Nakamacon was a rousing success, with over twice the attendees that the chairman expected (he planned on 165 - current numbers are 375 and counting, since they don't have final figures yet!) Three fandoms met and cross-pollinated, reducing the inbreeding that is entirely too common amongst fans, and my love of steampunk got a jolt of lightning from the blue, rather like Frankenstein's creation. With any luck, my occasionally western themed fursona will pick up a slightly more steampunk-ish bent in time for Teslacon in November - or, at least, I'll pick up the outfit to go with it in time, so I can experience the first full-immersion convention I've ever heard of.
And, of course, I fully plan to attend Nakamacon 2 - won't you join me, when the time comes?
Well, this was it - one of the biggest, most complicated con weekends in the furry fandom. Why?
Because not one, not two, but THREE conventions went on during it!
FA:U, RCFM... and Nakamacon. New Jersey, Alabama, and Wisconsin respectively. All we would've needed would be for, oh, RMFC or Rainfurest to move to this weekend, and we'd have had the four quadrants pinned off! Fortunately, that didn't happen.
Well, being a Wisconsin fur, I made the obvious choice to go to Nakamacon. Nakamacon is the odd-one-out in that group of three - not only was it a first-year con, but it was a mix of Anime, Furry, and Steampunk. Which, it turns out, are three great tastes that go great together!
Nakamacon was run by a guy who's an old pro at conventions, but new to anime/furcons. Fortunately, he had a great staff - including the Groats, who some of you out there may remember as the people responsible for such mainstays as Red Shetland and West Corner of the Park! People attending ranged from the Groats themselves (I got to sit two tables down from Rabbi Tom's table in the dealer's room, and give him a good portion of my con funds), to Dragon Drawer, to Joe Suggs (who you may know as part of the animation department on projects ranging from Cool World to Timon & Pumbaa), to Heather Luca, and well beyond. I was particularly gratified to meet
tremaine (and apologize profusely for getting him mixed up with Mayfurr) and the lovely 
thetiedtigress, 
Onai, and Wolf in the Walls (who you can find on DA at http://wolf-in-the-walls.deviantart.com/).There were others, of course, but their names are the ones I remember best - except for
moiracoon and 
mocha_mephooki, whose combination of art and steampunk jewelry was striking, and who I *definitely* would have commissioned for one of their new dual-badges in vintage brass locket had I had the funding (dammit! Why does the human body need to eat - or at least why does *mine*? It has enough extra pounds to last a few weeks!)Ah well. Suffice it to say that a blast was had by all in my family. My brother scored many a commission, which he'll be uploading to FA as soon as he figures out how to scan them properly (go figure - his sketchbook is 11x20 or something obscene like that), Mom got to see (and hug) her first fursuiters, as well as give a little gift to Onai from the jewelry she's working on. We didn't sell any of the ears or tails we had with us, so those may be hitting FurBid or some such soon (speaking of which - does anybody want a feline tail and ears? We've got 'em in pink leopard, cheetah, black cat, and golden-brown with glitter....)
The charms and such that we brought went over pretty well though, as well as some of the smaller jewelry pieces. It would have been nice to sell a bit more, but we didn't expect to sell out - it was our first convention, at a first-year convention, during a bad economic stretch. And really, the sales were the only way this felt like a first-year con. The rest of the convention went very well, from the panels to the dance to everybody actually getting along and nobody setting the hotel on fire! I heard they actually had more trouble with a wedding party that was there than they did with the con-goers, and it was pretty fun watching the restaurant/bar/room service staff taking trays around in ears and tail of their own.
As for the panels... sadly, I missed the Rule 34 panel - after a long day in the Den, I wasn't about to tell my ride home that I wanted to stick around for another 2 hours to go see a 2 hour panel on horrifically wrong porn, meaning that none of us would get home to sleep until after midnight, and I'd probably be curled up in the corner going 'can't sleep, Street Fighter body fluids porn will get me!' Which may have saved my brain from being scarred for life, but I'll fix that next year if I can get a room at the hotel. Sounds like it was a popular panel though, so that's definitely cool.
The panels that I did attend started on Friday with Chef Rena's "Food in Gaming," a look into just what the Hell an Iron Ration really is, and some other thoughts into how food should work into created worlds.
Here's a tip - iron rations were not granola bars. As they were historically defined, iron rations were either about two pounds of crap (PER DAY) that you carried around in a wagon and tried to keep from becoming vermin-infested - and that's not counting the milk or cookware to go with it - or they were three small bars of chocolate, some water, and three bars of dried beef boullion mixed with flour. And it's a wonder that the troops in WWI (who had to eat that stuff) developed a taste for Velveeta.
This, of course, was after my brother attended Fur Films - a screening of Disney's Robin Hood and Bedknobs and Broomsticks, along with a commentary/discussion of the films and Disney's role in the fandom with Joe Suggs - and Explaining the Fandom to Non Furs, which I think should become part of the standard curriculum before you get your raised fox or husky tail. I managed to record the Food in Gaming panel, with Chef Rena's gracious permission, and will try to do something with it eventually!
Before the panel, I did get my hands on the three posters that the Con had available - one of Professor Todd, the cute Fox with the look that's half way between steampunk and Doctor Who - one of Starscream, and one of Hot Rod. Then I went and told a friend of mine online about them, and had to go back the next day to pick up another Starscream and Hot Rod for her. But, then, that's half of why I told her (I like excuses to get out of the Dealer's Den and socialize!)
Saturday, it started with Wolf in the Walls' "Mary Sues" panel - which covered how to define, recognize, and slaughter the prissy little bitches where-ever they may pop up. Special props to her for not coming over the table at the girl in the audience whose own tendencies to write them became painfully obvious as things went along. :) Oh, and for recognizing that the key to any Mary Sue is the writing - so many beloved fictional characters are the dreaded Mary Sue (Holmes, anyone? Guts from Berserk?), but because they're written well they get away with it.
From there, it was on over to watch the BBC's most recent adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray - this movie isn't actually available as Region 1 yet, so it was the American premier to the best of our knowledge! The movie was actually a surprisingly true adaptation - it's very hard for film to handle such an introspective, philosophical book, and they actually got more of Lord Harry's philosophy in than I'd thought they would, though they did parse it out a bit more.
There were some obvious changes - for example, Dorian got rid of the body himself, they make it clear that he was indeed bisexual (rather than merely implying it, as Wilde has to), they moved a pivotal scene to the subway from the wilderness, and the ending was vastly more dramatic than in the novel. But, all in all, it was well-done - and I credit them for pretty decent use of CGI in making the painting all the more freaky in its behavior, actually changing before Dorian's eyes sometimes. I look forward to this one coming to the US, so I can add it to my collection. I do wish they'd dropped the child abuse subplot though - there was no hint of it in the original that I remember, and it was utterly unnecessary.
After that, I spent most of the day in the Dealer's Den, though we did stay late Saturday so we could attend the Masquerade. There were some very interesting costumes all across the board, and I do have partial video of the fursuit dance that happened on-stage.
I also give great credit to the anime fan in the audience who, on hearing two other anime B-tards bitching about "eww, furries" behind him, turned around and told them to have a big, steaming cup of STFU. See? Fandoms can mix and collide in new and wonderful ways!
Sunday was the big day for me. Not because of the dance at night (I respect my fellow man, woman, furry, whatever entirely too much to subject them to what passes for me dancing), but because I was actually hosting a panel.
They sandwiched me between penguin launching and the gun enthusiasts. Really, I couldn't have asked for a better slot, except for one thing I'll get to later!
So, Eric took everybody who wanted to outside to see who could launch the stuffed penguin the farthest in the parking lot, with judging on both style and distance (I vote that next year, they launch a stuffed octopus!) Couldn't make it to that one because I was busy hyperventilating about my own panel, and trying to foist off CD's of my podcast onto those passing by (speaking of which - if anybody's interested in a copy of Darkly Lit, I've got the first 17 episodes on MP3 CD and they're yours for shipping costs! Or you could just listen for free at http://darklylit.wordpress.com </shameless shill>)
My own panel was on how to play the bad guy in your gaming group and get away with it - from convincing the GM to let you play one, to convincing your fellow PC's not to put you down like the dog you are 5 minutes into the game, to convincing your fellow players not to put you down like the dog you are 5 minutes after you betray them to Yog-Sothoth and unleash the Great Old Ones from their eternal prisons to hasten the age of darkness that was foretold in the Necronomicon.
Pro-tip - playing an evil character is not something you do because you want to be able to do whatever the fuck you want. It's something you do because you want to take on a more challenging RP experience, and your fellow players are mature enough that it sincerely doesn't matter that one of them pays half your rent when you have to pick out sacrificial lambs. Forget this at your own peril.
The panel actually went very well. We had a little hang-up because of a miscommunication between my fellow panelist and I about the schedule, but I was able to keep things going until he arrived and picked up right where I was rapidly starting to run out of notes! Sadly, I didn't get the audio of this - my recorder died three minutes into it. Memo to self - next year, bring a recorder that isn't a glorified digi-cam.
Also, see if I can talk Eric into letting me run my "so, you want to play a serial killer?" panel as a companion piece. This one went over so well, I can only imagine what they'll do when I pull out an industrial roll of plastic wrap!
Unfortunately, we ended up running into the beginning of the "The Armed Fur" panel, and since I didn't particularly want to argue scheduling with the gun enthusiasts, we wrapped up and moved along. Would've enjoyed going to that panel, but by this point I needed to go check if Mom needed a little bathroom break, so off I went.
My only complaint about my time slot is that it conflicted with another panel I would've loved to go to - creating steampunk weaponry. It would've been a lovely opening to the Creating a Steampunk Persona panel that I also wanted to go to... but, since the Den was closing up and I really didn't want to tell my ride home that they had to stick around for 2 hours so I could learn how to get the right details to tell somebody that I'm a dirigible captain, I figured it was best to head home and get something to eat.
(Hey - this was 2 days of working the Dealer's Den after my cowardice regarding the Rule 34 panel, the bar had been lowered!)
At any rate - we went in today, did a little selling, attended closing ceremonies, and here we are at home. Nakamacon was a rousing success, with over twice the attendees that the chairman expected (he planned on 165 - current numbers are 375 and counting, since they don't have final figures yet!) Three fandoms met and cross-pollinated, reducing the inbreeding that is entirely too common amongst fans, and my love of steampunk got a jolt of lightning from the blue, rather like Frankenstein's creation. With any luck, my occasionally western themed fursona will pick up a slightly more steampunk-ish bent in time for Teslacon in November - or, at least, I'll pick up the outfit to go with it in time, so I can experience the first full-immersion convention I've ever heard of.
And, of course, I fully plan to attend Nakamacon 2 - won't you join me, when the time comes?
I think that if I talk Eric into my Serial Killers in RPG's panel, I'll do that one as a one-man show. Mainly because I'm working on a book on the subject....