Too Fond of Books

They're here! More to come tomorrow and Sunday, of course, followed by an actual report of what went down for me. :D

Squee!

General caveat: This year, I'm not doing anything Hall H, and I'm thinking Ballroom 20 is out of the question, too, due to the general level of hysteria surrounding the line to get in there. :(

( Thursday )

( Friday )

This Sunday was spent in two ways: 1) the Adventure Time Children's Museum Installation, and 2) wandering through the Exhibit Hall for one final hurrah.

First, the AT installation: ( in one word, awesome! )

And then there was wandering on the Exhibit Hall floor: ( Getcher autographs here! Step right up and meet our renowned artists! One draws Cthulu, the other draws butterflies! )

Due to camera malfunction, there are no pictures from today. But if you missed the others, they're all here!

I'll try to do a write-up on the whole experience in the next few days, but I do have to say that it really was quite fun and I do not regret any of our time there. :D

In general, things I am loving this year: people and conversations over the most random of things. With a few exceptions, it's been a big fannish love fest so far.

Things I am not loving: The number of zombies and zombie-related crap. And the Christian group that has brought megaphones with them and yells at us every time we go in or out of the convention center about how Jesus Christ died for our sins and we are worshipping false idols. Yesterday, a lone guy tried to engage them in debate by yelling back, "This is NOT the way to convert people!" but had no effect.

Specifically, ( Thursday: )

And also ( Friday: )

For those who just want to see the pictures, check them out here.

Tomorrow: Adventure Time panel! I will be in costume all day! Hopefully reconnecting with some friends! Stay tuned!

I want to write a very serious piece about why this movie is excellent, and you should drop everything and go and see it, but whenever I try to picture this serious bit of writing, my fannish side takes over and there's a lot of capslock and squeeing. I enjoyed this so much, and even though the franchise is "over," I'm not depressed or feeling as if I'm lacking something; it's more of a hopeful satisfaction, coupled with the knowledge that there are some excellent books/movies out there on the horizon. This isn't the end, by any means. It's a beginning, and that's what the movie left me with: a sense of beginning, of purpose.

( Further introspective nerdery follows! )

So, overall, a highly satisfying movie experience, and worth us paying the outrageous theater ticket prices and the babysitter.

Trailer Park: I only add this to ask: did anyone else see the trailer for "The Dark Knight Rises"? I couldn't understand a word Commissioner Gordon said, and the rest of the trailer was very confusing. Are they following the graphic novel plot or not? And, yeah... Bane. I have no opinion one way or another. (Side funny note: The trailer for "Cowboys & Aliens" warned: "Contains depictions of the consumption of tobacco." Really, MPAA, clutch those pearls much? I think there are far more scandalous things to warn for, in that movie, and in others.)

After swearing to myself that I wouldn't get into Naruto (because the manga is up to Vol. 51; it's hugely popular, and I'm a bit of a snob about that sometimes; because there are several feature films that have nothing to do with the main plot and everything to do with merchandising and making money, etc. etc.) I picked up the manga and read a few chapters and I was hooked. It's an odd experience, made slightly more surreal because I'm simultaneously watching the anime and switching between them when the plot in one gets dull or I run out of volumes from the library. (With the anime, I'm also at the mercy of what's on Netflix instant view, so I'll probably have to stop before Shippuden starts.) A very entertaining experience, of course, but an odd one nonetheless. I keep thinking to myself "I wish this were paced a whole hell of a lot differently!" Also: "Why don't the female characters get more time in the spotlight?!" Both these questions are easily and annoyingly answered: Because it's a shounen manga, and I am not the target audience. Still: when you're juggling *four* important battles occurring in as many separate locations, and decide to parcel each one out, piece by piece in each episode and chapter, it's a bit frustrating. And when you have the main female character decide she's going to start kicking ass and taking names instead of being a hanger-on, it would be nice if you were to continue to have that character development stay developed, instead of evaporating instantly after the need for it has vanished.

Still, for all my complaining, I really do like this manga/anime. It's exciting, and the random ninja powers are very compelling to try and guess before they come into combat. For the most part, the animation company didn't cheap out on the fight sequences (yay!) and the voice-acting is great.

( Further fannish babblery, with spoilers up to Vol. 18 of the manga, ensues. )

Still, for all of my questions and grumblings about pacing, this is satisfying and fun. Despite knowing the resolution for one of the major plot points (thanks a lot, interblag), I'll stick around for the rest, as long as there aren't too many filler episodes along the way.

On the complete opposite side of the spectrum, I read the delightful The Wilder Life: My Adventures in the Lost World of Little House on the Prairie, which made me run to the library to borrow whatever volumes of the Little House books that they had on hand (I ended up with By the Shores of Silver Lake and The Long Winter.) Wendy McClure's book is an excellent introduction to Laura/Little House fandom, and although I loved the books as a child, I cannot see churning butter or making haysticks by hand as McClure ended up doing in an effort to connect further with the material. She chronicles all aspects of Laura-dom, from the fans who are obsessed with the TV show to the slightly creepy church groups who try to live "off the grid" because they think the End Times are upon us. She also traces the geographical locations of the books and pieces together the real chronology of the events in the books, which was slightly altered by Laura and her daughter, Rose, in order to make for a more interesting story. I don't want to give away all the wonderful and juicy details in this book, but if you ever had even a tangential relationship to this series, this book is something you should take a look at.

As I said, reading it made me think back to the ways I loved the books as a child. I could recite the events of some of the books almost perfectly ("And then, Ma slapped the cow to make it go into the barn, but it turned around and looked at her and she saw that it was a BEAR!") and I was privately ecstatic every time Laura was victorious over her rival, Nellie Olsen (whose character turns out to be a composite of three women/girls Laura knew and disliked. Ouch!) I also sympathized with Laura when she didn't want to sit still and sew, like her good older sister, Mary. Actually, what these books really gave me was a sense of perspective. I might get mad with my parents for not letting me buy jelly shoes or take horseback riding lessons, but they didn't expect me to be "seen and not heard" or be entirely quiet on Sundays. I also realized that I had it pretty good; my father was not in danger of freezing to death on the way home from work, and our food supply didn't depend on what he could shoot or harvest. It was sobering, and I was a serious little kid.

On the serious side, though, I was always pretty freaked out at the racist language/action in the books. (McClure, in her book, spends quite a lot of time trying to speak to this, too.) It was mortifying to read about Pa, who was otherwise a smart and dignified character, dressing up in blackface to entertain the townsfolk. It was also pretty sad to read Ma's talk about those "dirty Indian half-breeds." I remember skipping these parts when I was reading the books myself, thinking that I was smarter than that and didn't need to waste my time on such stupidity. (My mother, when she read these aloud to me, must have said something as well, but I cannot remember what it was.) I especially remember being disgusted with Laura as a character and a person when she said she didn't want women to have the right to vote. Now that I read the books again, it's sort of disillusioning. Pa and Ma are not the saintly characters they were when I was kid--they're real people, and their flaws are floating around near the surface and I'm annoyed that I didn't see that before. Laura was raised in an extremely conservative way, and my disappointment in her anti-suffrage talk was probably my proto-feminism rearing its head.

But this reading experience is like lying on your back in the ocean, letting the waves pick you up and carry you. Wilder's words are simple, but the pictures she paints (with the help of the lovely Garth Williams illustrations) are complete and encompassing. I feel like I'm standing next to Laura as the story unfolds, or riding with her on her cousin's wild ponies. And it's impossible to dislike her as a character: she's curious, bright, and honest. Being a pioneer girl was tremendously taxing and, at times, terrifying. Reading these books, whenever I read them, is a transporting experience, and whatever problems they have, I do like to be transported.

The gallery is here! I realized how much I wanted a better camera this year, so as to better capture the crazy that is the Con.

Saturday:

First up was the Marvel panel, run by Joe Quesada (editor-in-chief) and some of his minions, whose names have escaped me. Quesada swore up and down that the merger with Disney was the Best Thing Ever to Happen to Their Little Company and that no creative control was being meddled with. (But guess what? There's a tie-in comic with the new Disney film Tron: Legacy coming out in October, which everyone was Very Excited about!) As is probably obvious from the preceding sentences, I really didn't give a damn about this panel one way or another. But it did lead to some of the most hilarious quotes I heard during the entire Con:

Quesada on a new Incredible Hulk title, coming out in September: "There'll be a lot of smashing in this one... yeah, lots of things smashed. It'll be really cool."

One of the scriptwriting/artists minions, in response to an audience question from two guys in costume who asked, "Why are Captain America and Iron Man hoarding all the knowledge of [unintelligible]?": "Uhm... you do realize that Captain America and Iron Man aren't real, right?"

Guy in the audience, ecstatic over an announcement of a certain character's return: "YEAH! Rocky Rac-Coon! Woooo!!"

This panel was quickly followed by the far superior and more entertaining Quick Draw, featuring Sergio Aragones (of Mad magazine), Scott Shaw!, and William Stout doing improvisational drawing games. I actually got a couple of decent pictures this year of the drawings they did, which are in the gallery. Describing this panel is like trying to grab hold of a very determined and grouchy eel in a large tank of vaseline, especially given my tired state of mind, but here goes: This panel reminds me why we're all actually at the Con. It's because of comics and drawings and stories. Little improv sketches give way to crazy stories, and come with all sorts of tales and prompts that hint at the stories that inspired them. (My favorite running drawing game is "New Jobs for the Hulk", as suggested by the audience. This year they were Secretary, Janitor, and Astronomer.) This panel always makes me glad I spent the $$$ on the ticket in the first place, mostly because I get to spend some serious time in the presence of people who I think are creative, funny, and talented.

After this, I met with M. from Book Group and a friend of hers and we went out for drinks and non-Con airspace. It was very peaceful out in Seaport Village, and nice to talk fannish stuff.

Following lunch, I lurched my way back into the Exhibit Hall and realized, somewhat belatedly, that I had hit my wall, putting-up-with-the-Con-wise. The crowds were pretty crazy; I didn't feel like spending anymore money; and I kept running into people at the booths who were really into the hard sell, which is something I really don't appreciate. (No, I will not buy the 5$ compilation of the series that I stopped reading over 10 years ago; I stopped reading it for a reason. Yes, I would like to support your charity, but I cannot for the life of me remember what this guy's artwork looks like, and I don't want to commission something from someone I don't know.) I did have a very nice discussion with the women at the Bekyoot booth, who did not do the hard sell and seemed happy to have someone talk with them about their designs and their plans to expand into the babywear market.

yebisu9 caught up with me around 5:00 and we decided that we had to have dinner or we both might do violence. Unfortunately, I think it was this decision that caused us to miss a good place in line for the Mythbusters panel: by the time we got back to the room, it was still an hour before panel time and the line snaked back away from the room, down the wall, and outside, where it curved and rounded back on itself so many times that we couldn't figure out how many people were actually waiting and if we had a chance to get in or not. In the end, I told Yebisu he could call it either way and he decided we should bail. (We read in the Con newsletter this morning that 2,000 people came to see it! No way would we have gotten into that!) So we went home and watched an episode of "Survivors" instead.

[Bonus report! Yebisu attended the "V" panel and provided the following information:
1) Morena Baccarin is GORGEOUS (well, duh, we already knew that);
2) Mr. Hawt Britishy Guy will be a series regular this next season; and
3) Anna's mother is named Diana and there will be a shot of her on the V home planet.]

Sunday:

Today's panel was the spotlight on Rick Riordan, author of the Percy Jackson books. And he was a gracious, articulate, and kind speaker, who fielded the questions from his youngest fans with great attention to detail. Overall, he didn't tell me anything especially new about the series and its creation, but his passion for writing and education really shone through, and it was a pleasure to hear him speak.

After that, psydolivia and I wandered around the Exhibit Hall floor, where I fulfilled my final few quests of the Con, which were buying one more crazy fleece hat, procuring comic-themed baby clothes (Flash onesie! YAY!), and generally trying to soak it all in one more time. We met psychoe and her friend, had lunch, saw ashears one last time... and then my brain began the shut down process and I knew it was time to go. I would have loved to talk longer with everyone, but I could see the mental and physical storm clouds gathering, and I was determined to leave on a high note. One trolley ride and short drive later, we are home, and I am finding that I do, in fact, have a very painful blister and more free swag than I know how to deal with.

Sum-up post to follow, most likely tomorrow, when I've regained my brainpower. But whatever brainpower got drained, it was totally, 100% worth it. XD

First of all, photos can be found here. Of course, I'll continue updating as the Con rolls along.

Day 1 started somewhat blearily, as decaf coffee really is no substitute for the real thing (but regular caffeine has to be rationed at the moment.) We ran several much needed errands before catching the trolley downtown. (The trolley is simply excellent, and I look forward to the day when it is actually convenient for me to use it on a regular basis.)

Of the three panels I attended today, two of them were literature-based and one was science-based. The science-based panel ("Iron Man and Rocket Men: Is Stark Industries an Appropriate Model for Private-Industry Space Exploration?") turned out to be very interesting and rather optimistic about the long-terms odds for continued space exploration, despite the current state of space science research funding here in the States. (In fact, there was general consensus amongst the panelists that space tourism would eventually become a financially accessible thing for many more people than it is now, and that private industry would help advance the cause much further than current government projects.) The literature-based panels were both equally interesting, but veered into dangerous conversational territory towards the ends. Each panel consisted of at least seven authors, which was one too many; I think the conversation would have been much more focused with just five. However, both panels produced interesting observations from their authors, and (as I expected) left me with a long list of new books to get my hands on.

[Short note: For the record, contrary to my previous impressions, Lev Grossman (author of The Magicians) does not appear to hate children's literature, or C. S. Lewis. I think he just wanted to push a lot of buttons.]

There was one especially awkward note in "The Power of Myth" discussion, though: one audience member asked how what the authors were doing was any different from fanfiction. (It had been established that all the authors had taken established mythological characters and rewritten their stories.) After a short moment of awkward laughter, and then silence, one author spoke up and said he thought the difference was "quality". An angry buzzing murmur went up from the audience, but before anything could happen, the moderator hastily ended the panel. The eternal fan/creator crisis was narrowly averted.

I also spent today doing one of my favorite things at the Con: walking the Small Press, Independent Press, and Artists' Alley areas. I got to chat with Ryan Clayton of Elephant Eater Comics who is kind enough to remember my name despite the fact I only see him once a year. He's turned his master's thesis into a combination essay/comic special release, and I am looking at a copy of it right now. I also met Tammy Stellanova, whose work is a beautiful and wonderfully detailed combination of comic narrative and scientific animal observation. Another great artist who patiently answered all my questions was Richard Peter Han, whose work is inventive, dynamic, and funny, without being forced or contrived. Finally, I commissioned a sketch from the always awesome Tracy Butler, who I think could get away with (read: should be) charging a lot more for her personality-filled and inspired drawings.

The running theme I've been overhearing this year in conversations between fans and artists, in practically every area of the Con, is "So, what's your day job?" Tammy Stellanova, for example, takes on commissions of pet portraits and freelance magazine work, all so she can keep on drawing for a living. But I've also heard it on the lips of people who I thought were seasoned professionals, veterans of the industry. This is somewhat sobering, because one of the things the Con always leads me to is the thought that being creative and living a creative life producing what you love should be its own reward. But this year, that idea's being sorely tempered by economic concerns. Still, I can't escape the fact that everywhere I turn at the Con, someone's reading something, or drawing something, or talking about something they've seen, read, or drawn. And I get this feeling in my heart that all's right with the world, money woes be damned.

Tomorrow: Moto Hagio panel! Girls Gone Genre panel! Hopefully meeting more of my favorite webcomic authors! More photos! More fighting with my wallet! Stay tuned!

At the Movies:

The Karate Kid: Although parts of this movie look like they were put together from a China Tourism travel video (and that's not a particularly bad thing, on the big screen), the final product is entirely satisfying, if a bit predictable. Jackie Chan's performance is restrained and careful, and it fits his character, the down-on-his-luck kung fu/wushu master Mr. Han, who's been masquerading as a handyman at an apartment complex in Beijing and hiding his sorrows in pointless projects. I thought Jaden Smith was quite good, all things considered; he has an immensely appealing face and he played his role just to the point of whininess, but never over the top. (One of the criticisms I've read of this movie is that he cried too much, which is a patently cruel thing to say. If I were a 12-year-old boy dealing with culture shock, an international move, and other kids beating me up within an inch of my life, I would cry, too!) The villain is of the vaudeville school of badness; I half-expected him to show up at the final competition wearing a handlebar mustache and a black cape. All in all, it's a good story, and only stumbles a few times. Like most movies these days, judicious editing could have made the entire endeavor about 20 minutes shorter, without much detriment to the main story.

Far more entertaining in the long run has been my Dad's reaction to this movie. We coaxed him out of the house to come and see it with us, and I was very surprised that he accepted the invitation in the first place. (Lately, movies are all "too long" and "too loud" and he hates "those stupid commercials at the beginning".) But he came, and he really, really enjoyed it. To the point that he went home and did research on all the kung fu in the movie, and manages to bring up the fact that the crane stance is a difficult/dangerous position to take in a fight about once a conversation now. So, on good authority: The Karate Kid is truly fun for the whole family!

Inception: Talking about this without spoiling it will be hard, because really, this movie is one gigantic spoiler for itself. In the vaguest of terms, this is a film about industrial-level dream espionage. Agents set up a dream and trick the dreamer into sharing his/her deepest secrets, thus "extracting" the ideas and selling them to the highest bidder. But more difficult than extracting the ideas is placing them in the subject's brain, making them think that the alien idea is their own. Our hero is given the proverbial "one last job" if he can manage to accomplish this very tricky, specific task. It's a heist movie that takes places within layers of layers of dreams.

What this movie does really well is replicate the strange, arbitrary nature of dreams. One moment, our heroes are trying to escape a gunfight, the next, they're in a swanky hotel, and later on, they'll be on staircases that end abruptly, or in an Alberta ski lodge. And it all makes sense--even a freight train coming out of nowhere on a busy city street with no train tracks, because hey, it's a dream, and these things happen. This movie also captures the obsessive "need to know" that grips many of my dreams. (Despite the fact that danger lurks behind every door, Dream!Me always opens them, because I get this feeling that there's something really, really important there and if I don't find out what it is, something even worse will happen.) Numbers, facts, stories--all of these perfectly plausible in the dream-scape, no matter what's truly behind them.

But it's what truly behind this movie where some of the bad stuff starts coming up. ( Spoilers to follow, and very likely, big ones at that. )

There is some gorgeous camerawork in this movie, and a fight sequence that simply must be seen to be believed. I do think this film owes a great debt to the wonderful anime Paprika, and I wish it had had some of the same surreal imagery (although, arguably, you can do things in animation that you can't do in real life, even with special effects.) And despite any storytelling failings, I do wish that more action movies were this ambitious, intellectually. I didn't feel like I was wasting my time while I was watching this, like I do with a lot of action movies. And I loved that until the very last frame of the movie, I was guessing which part of the story was true.

On DVD:

Survivors, Series 1: Why does the BBC produce such high-quality dramas with so few episodes in a season, and then abandon them after just one or two seasons? My frustration with this title is especially keen because it's so good; nothing and no one in it is exclusively "good" or "evil". Everything is in shades of grey, some darker than others. The premise, that 90 to 95% of earth's population is wiped out by a virus in a two-week time span, is a chilling one and a lot of the first episode is dealing with this plague, and assembling the main characters into something resembling a family. What follows is at times fable, cautionary tale, and a retelling on many levels of Lord of the Flies. But I like the main characters, and I genuinely want them to succeed. And I am annoyed that even as we start Series 2, that's ALL we will get, because the BBC cancelled the whole thing this March after the last episode aired. Rats! I know I'm going to want to know what happens next!

Quite recently, I had the pleasure of spending time with a rambunctious 6-year-old after calming him down with a game of "soccer" that largely consisted of me kicking the ball far away so he would wear himself out running and getting it. We went inside and he declared that he was bored. I located some scrap paper and markers, and his eyes lit up. He started drawing "The Adventures of Lego Batman", which took the form of an elaborate drawing of a complicated level ("Level 10!"), complete with villains, traps, and the consequences of those traps (fire and acid.) Somewhere along the line, he started to narrate the action of the drawing to me in bits and pieces. It went something like this:

Him: Which Bad Guy should be next?
Me: What about the Joker? He's pretty bad.
Him: (enthusiastic) Yeah! I can't beat him yet!
Me: Where's Harley Quinn? She's always with the Joker.
Him: Oh, yeah. (drawing) She's right there. They're kissing. Yuck.

And, later:

Him: How do you think Batman will escape this trap?
Me: Can he use his glide suit?
Him: NO! Now he's caught in the trap! FIRE! (He draws flames coming out of a volcano mouth, does BWWRRRRR sound effects.) OH NO BATMAN!

And, still later:

Him: (Now utterly oblivious of me) Now there's fire! Batman tries to dodge! But he's not fast enough! (More sound effects, more scribbling of red ink) He barely made it! Now Robin's going to try! (Various sound effects) Oh no, he lost a heart! They're on the other side! But WAIT--it's a pool of acid! OH NO! (Sound effects of, presumably, Batman and Robin trying to evade the acid and saying "ow ow ow!", more scribbling of green marker this time.) OK, now they're nearly at the end. But wait, it's the Penguin! And Mr. Freeze! And ANOTHER TRAP! (etc. etc.)

I always enjoy watching kids enjoying being creatively involved with things--whether it's art of their own creation or art in other forms. As an adult, even when I write my original fiction, it's very seldom that I get into it the way kids do. I may pause and frown over what the characters will do to get themselves out of one scrape or the next, but I don't usually talk back to my keyboard, worrying over how the bad guys have constructed their plots. It's usually when I read books that my child-like instincts to talk back and negotiate with the characters finally come to the fore. In her wonderful book on creativity, Lynda Barry talks about this dichotomy of the way children and adults experience making art: "When kids draw, they make sound effects or start talking out a story that seems to be happening live, as they draw. There is a change of place and time. Another world contained by this one. They seem to be both in it and watching it. When I'm reading a good book, it's like that. Another world activated. I picture it. I move around in it. I can tell you what happens at the end. I can tell you the whole story." With my original fiction, I can most definitely tell you the whole story, and usually throw in details about characters and settings that others aren't interested in and I've deemed unimportant, but hate to throw away. But I miss the sensation of drawing, the feeling of being in a story and watching it at the same time.

That's why I love books that manage to recreate that child-like instinct in me to talk back to the story, and give me the feeling that I am experiencing it and watching it simultaneously. Not every book manages to do this, and of course different books do it for different people. I think my great loyalty to the Harry Potter series stems from feeling this, while some people dislike it because to achieve that feeling, they would have to employ too much suspension of disbelief. Recently, though, I've had the great good fortune to read a string of books that left me talking back to the pages, culminating with The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. This deceptively thin volume (well, thin for a novel that I would normally pick up, say about 300 pages or so) provoked all the "involved in/watching right now" feelings that I adore as I worried about the character(s) and the outcome of the terribly disturbing plot that revolved around her/them. I talked back to the pages on several occasions, including one where I had to censor myself because I was in public and I didn't think dropping the F-bomb next to a pair of sweet-looking elderly people would be polite. And, above all, I can tell you that story. I pictured it, I moved around in it, and it was a complete and total sensory experience, including some senses that most authors cannot usually pinpoint well, like hunger and thirst. A wonderful book, scary and beautiful and alive. Part of me wants to see it in some kind of movie form, while part of me fears how Hollywood would mess it up. (You just can't *show* some of the things she's writing about!)

In sum, I adore reading experiences like this one, because suddenly I'm a kid again, drawing along and participating in a story that seems as real or vivid as any life experience. This kind of imaginative state of being isn't as prevalent as it used to be, and the less I have it, the more I crave it.