Let your geek flag fly

Went to the Supanova pop-culture convention on Saturday with CM and AM.

One doesn't undertake such a journey without the right equipment -

After scoffing Subway and a Glorious Jesus hot chocolate, I made a beeline for the main stage, where Eve Myles and Kai Owen - aka Gwen Cooper and Rhys Williams from "Torchwood" - proved to be as entertaining a double act in RL as they were on screen. Their anecdotes tended to involve pranks, tears, fears or nudity (with John Barrowman never far from the action). Yes, they'd love to make a "Torchwood" movie. No, they haven't been asked yet.

Queued for 80 minutes for autograph tickets for the Evester. Then another 40 to have her sign my pics. As she was getting her gear together at the desk, Kai slapped a British Lions cap on her head. She reversed it and pretended to start scratching records, pulling a kooky-cute face. When I reached the front of the line, we had a quick chat about - of all topics - hair colour. What a sweetie.

On a whim, I attended Raymond E. Feist's talk on "Magician's End" and wrapping up his famous series after 30 years and 30 novels. I'm glad I did. The way he spoke about writing reminded me of Stephen King - i.e. brutally honest and full of common sense. He admitted his earlier books were like film sets, with nothing behind what was on the page. (Later, he was forced to go back and fill in the background detail.) He also advised writers against studying English lit. at uni, suggesting that time spent deconstructing the work of others would be better spent on material useful for enriching their own stories. Anthropology, history, psychology, etc.

This photo will give you some idea of the crowd at the con. Note, though, that the hall extended considerably farther than my mobi camera was able to capture -

Chris Claremont's talk was great, too. So many American comics under his belt and I never realised the dude was born in England. In looks, speech and delivery, he came across like Patrick Stewart's mischievous twin. Not that the audience was cheated of content. We got a spellbinding description of how he'd like "The X-Men" to end (hint: it involves the heat death of the universe, an alien planet, Wolverine, Kitty Pryde and ...). We heard about him fruitlessly hammering on the door of Marvel's office building late at night when he discovered Phoenix was being resurrected. And Chris had many positive things to say about his collaborators, including the fact that when they were commissioned to do a back-up yarn in a "John Carter" comic, Frank Miller spent two whole weeks devising a credible four-armed fighting style for Tars Tarkas.

By this point it was 4pm and I'd not examined a single bit of merch. Whizzing along the aisles, I snagged a signed shot of HRH Felicia Day (which I had framed), an awesomely cheesy "Lord Of The Rings" tee, and a fridge-worthy piece of fan art of Marceline The Vampire Queen.

Swag -

Reunited with CM and AM for a Weta special effects panel. Will definitely do the studio tour when I'm in Wellington again.

Following Supanova, we dined at Haberfield's Il Goloso, an Italian restaurant inside an old PO. The walls were decorated with display cases of wine bottles from the different regions of Italy and there was a smiling fellow in the corner, caressing a keyboard and singing classics like "That's Amore" and "Lily Marlene"...which is German, but he made it sound Italian. I tried a malty beer called Oro Di Milano and had a serving of whitebait unmatched in my experience. It slightly overshadowed the prawn and asparagus linguine that came next, delicate and subtly flavoured as that was.

We retired to M. Mansions to watch the Wallabies miss five kicks and narrowly lose to the British Lions (Kai woulda been stoked), washing down snacks with Steamrail Lucky Amber and the heavier, echidna logo-ed Prickly Moses Red Ale (dubbed "Spiny Norman").

Now that I've typed it, this report feels strangely incomplete. But as Raymond E. Feist remarked about a letter he received from a reader angry at the killing of a minor character, "Sorry - that's all I got."