Been off line a few days while I attended Leprecon out in Phoenix, AZ. It’s the first straight-up SF convention I’ve attended in a reaaaal long time. One of the things I’m endeavoring to do is get people to realize that I do things other than comics and Star Trek novels, and I figured that getting out to a regional SF convention would be a way of spreading the word.
I don’t know that I succeeded all that much. The convention had about 500 people, and folks were very nice. In that respect, I had a good time. But a Jeopardy-style trivia competition on Friday had five questions about me, out of which the assembled group of thirty could only answer one. And my big GOH speech drew an audience of about a dozen, which put a sort of “Don’t know who he is and don’t really care” pall upon it. More frustrating for the committee folk was that fliers put out at comic stores prompted lots of comics fans to say, “Oooo! Peter David! I’ll be there!” and then exactly none of them showed up. So although the convention itself was a lot of fun and I’d recommend it to folks who want a nice, relaxed SF con, from a career profile POV it didn’t pan out.
One of the high points was a midnight demonstration of latex body painting upon a gorgeous, blonde and pretty much naked model. The hotel room in which the demo was being done was packed. Big surprise. There were large plastic sheets taped up on the walls, and fans inquired as to the reason for the walls being covered in that manner. I opined that they were allowing for the possibility that–for many of the fanboys in the room–it was the first time they’d actually seen a naked woman and there was concern their heads might explode and splatter the walls. You know, kind of like “Scanners.”
I’m not sure if my pictures of the event came out. I’ll let you know. But if they did, some of you may want to put some plastic covering over your computer. You know who you are.
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