Ah the Supanova, the breeding ground for Perth geek kings and cos-playing queens. A smorgasbord of interesting characters intermingled with die-hard fan boys clambering their way up the mountain of people to the beacon of light that is the Celebrity’s Corner. Welcome to Perth 2011 Supanova, June 24th– 26th, the days that remembered WA.
Perth doesn’t get a hell of a lot of celebrity action, so when we are reminded that Supanova is coming around again we have already made up our minds that we are going, no matter who it is that will be placing their talented bums in the comfy chairs. Luckily for us we were delighted with:
Tom Felton: Draco Malfoy, the malicious and often times conflicted baddie from the Harry Potter series of films (we all know who he is, every girl loved this blondie when he first fell onto the scene.
James Masters: Best known for his role as the seductively charming vampire in both Buffy and Angel. The fun thing about ol’ Jamesy boy is that he is also a musician, so if any of you lucky ladies or lads paid that extra $30 he treated you to quite a show I have heard ;). He also seemed really lovely when meeting his fans; he would shake every single hand that was outstretched to him, humbled by their admiration and respectful to those who have paid to see him. Class act.
The I Dream Of Jeannie Cast:
Barbara Eden: No one can tell me after seeing her at the Supanova that she didn’t look lovely. There wasn’t once that I saw her without that absolutely charming smile on her face, I’m sure she must have been a little, let’s say overwhelmed by the flood of people going to see her, but she was elegant as always and I can’t think of one nasty thing to say about Jeannie, so I won’t.
Larry Hagman: I saw more people dressed up as J.R from Dallas than I did people dressed up as Jeannie, I’m not sure if people made the connection that his character on Dallas and his character on I Dream Of Jeannie were played by the same person. They are so different in style and tone, I’m sure he had no trouble at all slipping in and out of personas for his fans. Cowboys suit WA.
Bill Daily: Bill Daily was my favourite character on that show. He was so pleasant and I always loved seeing him on screen, I think he felt quite out of place at the Supanova unfortunately, with not enough people filling the seats for the seminar, the talk became flat and drawn out. Such a shame for such a charming man.
Gareth David Lloyd: Ianto Jones from Torchwood, this guy can talk! Very entertaining seminar had the crowd laughing with him and participating in jokes keeping the atmosphere fun. You need to keep them going; it’s a long day.
Julie White: Judy Witwicky from Transformers. I love this woman’s energy, great comedic timing. Funnily enough when I was walking outside taking my stash of goodies to the car so that I could load up again my husband saw her sitting down on a curb smoking a cigarette, he pointed her out to me to which I completely missed the point and didn’t see her at all. Figures,
Kevin J Anderson and Rebecca Moesta: Husband and wife authors. Dune, Star Wars and the saga of seven sons. Best seminar I saw on the day. Very informative and amusing, they regaled anecdotes of their early years in writing the Star Wars novels and their meetings with George Lucas and were very friendly to all those who wished to ask questions. They insisted we get them to sign everything we had with us regardless of how many of their novels we had, because that is what they were there for. They had Rebecca’s new books on display, shipped especially for the convention, not available in Australia. Lovely people and very talented authors.
There were plenty of other very awesome celebrities on show at the convention but those were the ones that stood out for me. Another thing that stood out for me of course was the merchandise, the main reason I got up that morning and prepared my arms for the hefty weight about to be placed on them. Money goes very quickly there and there is no time to waste. In about fifteen minutes the whole place had filled to the brim and I more or less had people’s elbows in my eyes, although I will say that this year was laid out much better than previous years, with more walking space and the fact they extended the celebrity ally to another section was a brilliant idea and made things run much more smoothly.
You had your regular vendors with comic book stores like Comic Zone and Cosmic Comics from WA and Kings Comics and The Vault from Sydney. Empire Toys and Gifts for the Geek always been favorites, it was the newcomers Pop Cultcha however that caught my attention, I bought a ton of merch off them, thy had some great deals on figurines that I exploited to the best of my ability.
The best two things that I bought all day however were my sketches. Merchandise is awesome but when you can get something made for you, like sketch done by two of your favorite artists you can describe that kind of excitement.
There was a huge crowd around David Finch for most of the day, understandable as he is a major talent in the DC universe and has been for decades. I was unfortunately unable to meet him but he was sitting there chatting away with everyone, making every single person who came up to him, feel special.
Rev. Dave Johnson is who I was waiting to see, I was his first customer for the convention and he was just lovely. I told him what I wanted (head and shoulders of Catwoman) he told me he would make it special for me and that I could pick up later in the day, I didn’t mind seeing as I knew I would be there until like 5:30 in the afternoon. When I did pick it up everyone who had been standing there gasped as they realized that it was I who was receiving this awesome picture of catwoman they had been watching him create. A mate of mine tried to battle me for it, he lost.
Ben Templesmith: Ben is a class act. So friendly and quirky, he is a truly down to earth guy that is so talented he could draw anything. I knew I wanted a sketch in his unique style and had seen some GI Joe work he had done and I knew I wanted a Snake Eyes. He ended up doing an absolutely awesome ink wash for me and I am still so damn grateful.
All in all my day was fabulous, highlighted of course by the colorful characters. The awesome costumes that stand out for me were this crazy Transformer costume that was so huge he had to walk side ways through the crowd. A spot on rendition of the Joker and Harley Quinn, Drake from Drakes Fortune, Lara Croft and some sort of Sonic/Batman hybrid. Best costume goes to the guy wearing a box with the word “gundam” scrolled across it. Top stuff.
I knew I didn’t want to miss this year’s Supanova and I can say it was the best one I have been to, better organized, better laid out and just a really fun atmosphere. Can’t wait ’til next year for now I am trying to find a place for all my new stuff
Tiff out.
