Prose and Cons
As a writer, I travel to a bunch of cons every year, where I have a table or booth and folks come by to chat and check out the books and AudioMovies. Right now, you may be nodding, or you may be saying to yourself ‘what’s a con?’ When I entered MidSouth Con, just this last Thursday, one man was welcoming folks to what he called “the biggest gathering of freaks, geeks, nerds, gamers and psychopaths in the South”. I can’t say as I have found the ‘psychopaths’ part of that to be true, but the rest of it is spot on.
‘Con’ is short for ‘convention’, and you can have a ‘convention’ for any number of things. Doctors have them, teachers have them, leaders of business do it, and so on. But when it’s the geeks and freaks, it’s just a ‘con’. Cons often have a theme (duh, it’s run by nerds!) – they are often anime, scifi, fantasy, or gaming, etc. The biggest in the business is ComicCon in San Diego, with over 100,000 in attendance. Yes, this is either your best dream come true, or a freakin’ nightmare! And I mean the ‘freakin’ part literally.
DragonCon in Atlanta is the next biggest with 60,000 folks. Most are smaller, and in order to compete with the big guns, they have to distinguish themselves. Many go for the fun con names. A few of my favorites are: ConStellation, ConGlomeration (I’ll be there!), LepreCon, ConClave, ConDuit, ConFusion and my favorite the Wrath of Con.
Most Cons have dealer rooms (where I am with all the other vendors). But they all have something else, too. It may be art shows (all the multi-hued ink drawings of fairies and dragons you could ever wish for). Or games (D and D with about 500 other folks). Or seminars (The future of SciFi, how to sell your novel, what’s next for Joss Whedon). Or any combination of those.
Because of this, each of the Cons has its own feel. And for me, this changes how my booth fits. Some are more literary (oooooh books!). Some are more SciFi and tech oriented (ooooh Audiobooks on a Flash Drive!). Some are more Fantasy oriented (bronze age materials only! If it isn’t a sword or chain mail, they aren’t interested.) And some are more anime oriented (now, you call these black marks on the papers ‘words’? and you say if I turn the pages I could get a whole ‘story’? Well, I don’t know about this ‘book’ thing.)
What doesn’t distinguish any of the cons is the costumes. Folks come dressed to the hilt as their favorite characters. Or as someone that might have been found in their favorite movie or book. Or they come in a storebought Halloween costume. You name it, it’s there. And it’s everything from a pair of ears, to the full nine yards.
I’ve seen SuperMen and WonderWomen. Tons of Jedi Knights and Storm Troopers – a really high quantity of which are surprisingly overweight! There’s a full scale, remote controlled R2D2 that makes the rounds of all the cons. This guy just built it, and enjoys walking around about 20 feet behind it and watching people interact with the droid. He makes it turn, bleep, you name it. It’s pretty cool, even if you aren’t a die-hard Star Wars junkie.
Horns and elf ears are about a dime a dozen, but even at the small cons, there’s at least one person who goes all out. A great recent one I saw was Spy vs Spy. You have to be old enough to have read Mad Magazine to get that one. But the two guys stalked each other around the con for the day and stopped for photo ops along the way. I’ve even made friends with a full-costumed Darth Maul. He ended up buying one of my books. With credit! Who knew? (See pictures on my Website.)
But my favorite con story (so far) is when two Indiana Joneses met in front of my booth. Actually there were three – one of them had a son, also dressed as Indiana. They started having a conversation about where to get the whip and the hat and the jacket. Apparently, there’s a website. Or several. You aren’t limited to Indy-wear either. There’s a “Golden Fertility Idol Pencil Holder” and a “Holy Grail Magnetized Paperclip Container”. But the best part of the conversation was when the two Indys finished, shook hands and walked away. After a second, the one Indy realized his son wasn’t following. The kid was checking out an action figure at the next table. So the dad chided him. “I told you not to touch the toys, Harrison.”
Ah! Now, that’s dedication. See you at the next con!
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