Fan Expo Vancouver: Stuart Immonen

As mentioned in my previous post, last weekend my wonderful wife and I attended the first day of the inaugural Fan Expo Vancouver. We met many wonderful people, and I talked about a broad selection of them before. Now I'd like to focus on one of two that were particularly special for me.

Stuart Immonen has long been a favourite artist of mine. I think I learned his name during his work on Nextwave with Warren Ellis, but I've been enjoying his work long before that. Superman: Secret Identity, written by Kurt Busiek is particularly memorable and beautiful, deserving of more acclaim than it has ever gotten. Of course, Stuart also had the unenviable task of taking over Ultimate Spider-Man after Mark Bagley's record shattering run of 111 continuous issues. But while Stuart has long been an incredible artist, he has been an incredible person for much, much longer. And I have a story to prove it.

In 2007 Mike Wieringo passed away. I wrote about it at the time, and it's something that came up when I was in San Diego Comic Con a year later, and over and over again in the last few years. The entire industry seemed to have been shaken by his loss and mention of his very name is still enough to bring a hushed reverence over any crowd of comic fans.

In June of 2008 Marvel released the What If... comic Mike was working on at the time of his passing, a comic that was completed by a whole host of triple-A names in the comics industry in his honor, and all proceeds went to charity. At HeroesCon in Charlotte, North Carolina, that year, a bunch of those people involved got together to sign copies of the comic for fans. I wasn't able to attend, but desperately wanted a copy, so, in a move that was incredibly forward and bold of me, I emailed one of the people that would be there to ask if he'd pick me up a copy. The worst he could say was "no".

Instead, Stuart assured me that, if he had the time, he'd be delighted to do so. A few days after the convention, Stuart emailed me again to tell me that it was a crazy busy time, and he unfortunately could not get me a copy. I thanked him and thought nothing more of it until a week or two later when I got another email from Stuart telling me that he had received a copy as a memento of the event and, I quote, "I certainly don't need a signed book, and in fact INSIST on forwarding it to you." He insisted! How could I turn that down? By way of a "thank you", I donated $100 to the Hero Initiative, a charity for people in the comics industry that need assistance. Stuart had even kindly added "To Denis" in one corner, much to my eternal joy*.

I never believed I would ever get to meet Stuart to thank him in person for such an awesome gesture, but thanks to the first ever Fan Expo Vancouver, I got to stand in front of him, hold back a rising flood of tears and recount my amazing tale. His wonderful and hilarious wife Kathryn was by his side and told me that she remembered the correspondence, and was delighted to meet me.

I live in an amazing world where amazing things happen every day. I'd grateful that I get to be a part of a surprising number of them on an annual basis**.

*- I would love to include a photo of the comic in question, but one of the disadvantages of moving to Vancouver was that I left a lot of prized possessions at home in the care of my mother, and I don't seem to have a photo posted on my Flickr account or elsewhere. Oh well.
**- This was so amazing I forgot to ask if I could get a photo with Stuart. To say that I was a little star-struck is an understatement.

Related Posts
Mike Wieringo
A Story From Two Years Ago

Fan Expo Vancouver: Year One

Last weekend my wonderful wife and I attended the first day of the inaugural Fan Expo Vancouver in sunny Downtown Vancouver! Every word in that sentence is true, even the "sunny" bit. It was a beautiful day, not too hot for those of us in costume, but more importantly, not raining.

For a "Year One" event, the organizers did a fantastic job lining up some incredible guests. Claire was thrilled to be able to say "hello" to Marina Sirtis, the actress that played Deanna Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation, as well as voicing Matriarch Benezia in the first Mass Effect game. I got to chat to one of Star Trek's supreme beings, Q, in his form of actor John de Lancie, possibly my favourite Star Trek... erm... antagonist? Enemy or villain sounds too strong. Mostly he ended up just being hilarious and annoying. I also said "Hi" to Aaron Douglas, who, had I known in advance that I'd get to meet him, I would have asked to sign my BattleStar Galactica: The Board Game piece*! I missed out getting to meet David Hayter and Jennifer Hale (I even had my steel case copy of Mass Effect 3 in my bag) due to a hungry, hungry tummy, and I regret not saying "hello" to Michael Dorn (who you can currently catch in the latest season of Castle, folks!**) when I had the chance.

Most of the guests I was interested in meeting had a table covered in glossy, high quality images on sale that they would sign for you. This usually ranged from $20 to $30. Unfortunately, what with the whole "between work permits" thing that we're on right now, we couldn't afford to buy any, so we didn't really get any autographs. We felt a little embarrassed talking to some of the celebrities, knowing that we wouldn't be buying their merchandise, but we made sure not to take up much of their time. There's always next year.

The Fan Expo once again also gave me the opportunity to show off the amazing gift my amazing wife and amazing friends bestowed upon me, and dress up in costume as The Rocketeer! This is the second time I've had the joy of appearing as my number one all-time favourite movie hero, the first being back in August of last year at PAX Prime. I never did get around to uploading photos of that event, so I'll see about rectifying that soon.

I was delighted at how many people of all ages recognised the costume, and spent all day getting stopped for photos. Once Claire and I had decided to head out for food, it took us over 30 minutes to cross the main floor, as I couldn't move ten feet without getting stopped. Of course, I loved it, and delighted in letting people hold and even try on the helmet. It's great to be able to make someone's dream come true, and there were a lot of Rocketeer fans at the Fan Expo, but only one Rocketeer. Actually, there were two, but I'll get to that in another post.

The first Fan Expo Vancouver was, as far as this convention attendee is concerned, a roaring success. I have no doubt it will be back, bigger and better, next year, and I'll be there.

Post Script: But that's not all, dear Reader! There are two very special guests I haven't mentioned here and want to talk about, but each deserves their own post, and so they shall get it. In both cases, it was a chance to meet someone I never thought I would ever have the chance to meet. In one of those cases it was the chance to fulfill a lifelong dream, in the other, the chance to say "Thank you". Coming soon!

*- Admittedly I'd have needed to know far in advance, as it's still back in Ireland with friends. 
**- "Who", or "Whom"?!? Usually I know, but this instance has me stumped.


Some more photos from the convention floor:

Some photos were more enjoyable to pose for than others...

It's Matt Wagner's Mage! It's like he stepped off the comic page into real life!

Two of the greatest pulp heroes, together at last! This guy was hilarious and great to meet.

I got some amazing and treasured photos with incredible people, but this is probably my favourite photo of the convention. I didn't know he was doing this, as my vision is severely restricted in that helmet. Hilarious!

I asked to get a photo with these guys, as Joe Johnson directed both The Rocketeer and the recent Captain America movie. Very cool.

This was an entirely homemade costume! It was beautiful! Fantastic job. He had the mask, but it was getting too stuffy to wear, which I could sympathize with.

Amassing An Effective Experience

One of my favourite video game franchises is the sci-fi role-playing epic, Mass Effect, by Canadian developer BioWare. I've been excited about it since before I even got my Xbox, as evidenced by a blog post that is over five years old!

So when the third game was released at the start of March, I couldn't wait to finish the story I started way back on December 9th, 2007. There was so much to look forward to. I had brought Ryan Shepard and his crew through many adventures across the galaxy, saving it from certain doom twice! And now, I was going to end the threat once and for all. No longer was I content to simply "hold the line", but my team and I would wipe their smug alien grins off the face of the cosmos.

The first thing that went wrong was when I tried to import my Shepard from my previous games. An error told me that the facial code was not recognised. Instead of the character I have had for five years, I was given something that looked like he'd been dropped as a child. Repeatedly. After checking online and confirming it as a known bug, I tried to recreate Ryan in Mass Effect 3. But he didn't look right. No matter what I did, it wasn't Ryan.

Figuring that a patch was on the way, I decided to start the campaign anyway, as I couldn't wait to experience the thrilling tale. I would play for a day or two, clock up a few short hours and then restart when the patch went live.

Two weeks later and no patch. I haven't even touched the single player since the Thursday after release, some twelve days ago at it stands. I'm having to avoid half the websites I normally read due to spoilers, and I can't even discuss anything about the game with friends, leaving me out of a lot of excited conversations that I've enjoyed from playing other games in parallel in the past.

But I'm not angry. And here's why.

When Bioware finally confirmed all the rumours that were circulating about the possibility of including multiplayer in the third Mass Effect, I was... less than enthusiastic. I didn't see the need for any extraneous flash added to my deep and engaging story. When they elaborated and told us it was going to be a co-operative experience, I was a little more interested, as I'm a huge fan of the Gears of War series Horde Mode.

With no single player experience to enjoy, I jumped into the multiplayer to try it out. And got hooked.

I've been playing it exclusively since Thursday, at times with my friends in Ireland, and at other times with my Canadian friends. I'm currently ranked 8th in Ireland on the leaderboards, which amuses me greatly! The game is fantastic fun, engaging, thrilling and hilarious. Every session is different, depending on the class and race I play, as well as the team I'm with, and even the build I choose this time to try out. I love the idea that there are only 20 Levels to gain before you get the choice to reset to 1 in exchange for a bonus to the single player experience, as it encourages players to try out new builds, new ideas and new mixes, knowing that if they don't like it, they can throw it out and try again quickly.

Experience and credits earned are entirely shared evenly, regardless of how much or how little you killed during the session. Everyone gets the same amount. There is a medal and points system that ranks the team on the final score screen, but it's only for bragging rights within that one game. It doesn't get remembered once you exit that screen. The entire experience is built around rewarding co-operative play and not punishing players for not being as good at killing as other team members.

Credits earned through completing challenges can be spent in the ingame store to buy random booster packs containing cards that award items, abilities and more. The random element makes opening every pack a thrill, and finding that rare weapon or much sought-after character a huge joy, much more than if it was just a straight up "Earn this much to buy this weapon".

So when my friends and I played a few games this evening and discovered that none of our experience or credits had been counted for the last three games, we were a little more than disgusted. This is just another problem to add to the growing list of issues we've been having with the game. Game crashing freezes, enemies getting stuck in mid-air, invulnerable to damage, an infuriating choice by the developers to map Take Cover and Revive Teammate to the same button, and now lost experience and credits all sour the fun we've been having.

It is impossible that no-one at BioWare was aware of the character import bug prior to launch. To assume such would be to assume that no-one on the team, or in their testing department tried to import their character over, and that's madness. It's one of the core mechanics and selling points of the series! Since the game's launch, BioWare are saying that a patch is on the way.

But here's the rub: In response to other issues related to the game, franchise executive producer and director Casey Hudson said "When we finish a game, we finish it many months before it actually hits the shelves..." So in those "many months", we are lead to believe that they didn't notice anything wrong, thinking they had a functional game on their hands. In those "many months", nobody thought to polish the game up and at least have a day-one patch ready at launch, as other games have done, fixing the worst of the issues.

Or maybe they knew they didn't have to. They knew it was going to be one of the biggest games of the year, selling millions of copies globally. It was already a success before it even went on sale. Why bother fixing something people have already paid for? Now I'm being really cynical, but I don't think I'm being entirely untruthful.

And that's just not how you should treat your fans.

Psychological Trauma

Not having a work permit for Canada means that I've had plenty of time recently to catch up on quality television. Over the last year in Vancouver we've been so busy enjoying ourselves that my old number one time waster has fallen to the wayside. Staying in touch with the newest shows and episodes was once important, but lately I haven't been watching anything. I have yet to touch many shows that I was looking forward to seeing, including the dino-series Terra Nova.

Instead, I've been playing catchup. I'm currently racing through season four of Burn Notice, one of my all-time favourite spy shows. Built in the mold of MacGyver but "with more violence", as my wonderful wife once observed, it was an instant success as soon as they dropped Fiona's Irish accent in the second episode. I've been watching since the pilot, and wrote about it way back then. It helps that not only does it star Bruce Campbell, but also the fantastic Sharon Gless, whom I've enjoyed since watching Cagney and Lacey with my mum back in the '80's.

Along with Burn Notice, I'm hoping to catch up on Community and Fringe with all this time off as well, but all this began with me finishing a show I started way back in 2008.

Battlestar Galactica was a mind blowing experience right from the pilot episode. The first season kept that going from it's opening episode, 33, that put the fleet at the head of an unstoppable chase to it's close, when... well, stuff happened. I got distracted originally late in season two, then got as far as the fifth episode of season three a few years ago.

My enthusiasm was peaked again during our trip to Seattle when Claire and I visited the Experience Music Project, home to the Sci-Fi Museum as well. We had seen the museum in 2008 during our Epic Holiday[TM], and didn't really have much interest in seeing it again. But on arrival, we discovered that there was a BSG exhibit, as well as a James Cameron's Avatar one!

The Avatar exhibit was incredible. There were amazing props, design specs from the production, and other fascinating trinkets throughout. We got to play with not one, but two Microsoft Surfaces and stand in the shoes of an Avatar, literally! The movie was pants, but the designs behind it are incredible.

Of course, the main attraction for me was the Battlestar exhibit. It covered both the new and original series, with costumes, props and models from both. The exhibit was centered around three full-scale ships, a classic Viper, a new Viper and a Cylon Raider. Not only was there pilot and crew costumes, but they had Imaginary Six's red dress as well. There was a neat display related to the series musical score, playing a space combat scene and a switch to alternate between "Action Score", "Emotional Score" or "No Score", illustrating how there can be more than one "prefect" piece for any given scene. Conveniently, it also illustrated what a genius Bear McCreary is.

One of the highlights was seeing one of the Command Center's combat phones against a wall and asking Claire to get a photo of me holding it. I picked it up and put it to my ear, and my eyes widened. Felix Geata was ordering me to battle stations, declaring "Set condition red". For a moment, I was instantly transported right into the heart of Galactica, right there, rubbing shoulders with Commander Adama.

When I got back to Vancouver I picked up where I left off and watched the final two seasons in a short space of time. There were several episodes that had me, literally on the edge of my seat. Given how many episodes ended, I was only too delighted to have waited; I didn't have to bite my nails for a week to find out the resolution to the mutiny, or the identity of the Final 5[1].

In the end, I watched the final ten episodes, as well as the final special created for the big finale all in one day. At approximately 45 minutes an episode, and a feature length finale, that adds up to nine hours of Battlestar Galactica in one day!

It was quite the rush, and an emotional ending.

However, that night, and for several nights after I had the weirdest dreams, involving Cylons, robots, androids, Lego Cylons, and all sorts of other things. It was getting to the point that I didn't want to go to sleep for fear of what I'd dream of this time.

So, the moral of the story, kiddies is: Don't watch nine hours of Battlestar Galactica in one go, especially not the blood pumping, adrenaline charged, non-stop roller-coaster ride that is the final nine hours. It's not good for you health.

[1]- If you watch BSG you know what I mean. If you don't, explaining it won't matter. If you are planning to, or currently in the early seasons... forget I said anything. Move along.

Hard To Believe

It's been one year since Claire and I were last in Ireland. More than that now, as I didn't feel much like blogging about this last week. We've had a pretty spectacular time of it here in Vancouver this past 12 months, and we're looking forward to spending more time enjoying ourselves in the coming year.

My job has been nothing short of incredible. The children, families and staff are all amazing and the job itself is rewarding. Claire's web design business has really taken off, and it's not unusual for her to be working on two or three sites at the same time. Of course, right now, we're between work permits, which means that we're on a holiday visa in Canada. We can stay and have a good time, but can't work until the new work permit arrives.

I've been making the most of this free time by catching up on some TV series, most notably Battlestar Galactica, a show I started watching with the Pilot in 2003, but never got around to finishing. I flew through the remaining two seasons over the last few days, and finished watching the grand finale at 1am this morning. Having been effectively watching this show for over eight years now, it was sad to see it all end.

We also went to Seattle at the end of January to visit our friend Cian. That was just way too much fun for me. I had a blast hanging out with him and his friends, and we even did a group breakfast Saturday morning. I felt like I had been transported back to Cork for the morning again, sitting in Puccino's having our weekly Sunday breakfast get-together.

I was hoping to get a lot of reading done while I'm home from work, but I find myself distracted by Xbox, the internet and watching TV shows. I've done a huge amount of reading since we moved here, but most of it is done while sitting on the bus on the way to or home from work. I may have to start taking the bus into twon for no other reason than to get some reading time!

Right now I'm off to take a walk. It's a beautiful, if cloudy day here, and I'm going to get out and enjoy it. I need to. Yesterday I watched nine hours of Battlestar Galactica! I was having Cylon dreams for the night!

Merry Christmas!

Our first Christmas in Vancouver, and our first Christmas ever away from home. I posted about the build-up to it last month, admitting that I wasn't sure how I'd actually feel on the morning of the 25th. But now that we're here, I feel great.

Of course it's not the same, but it's not depressingly lonely or anything. I rang home at 2am in the morning Vancouver time to say hi on the morning of their day. Then I staggered off to bed before rising seven hours later.

I found a store that sells Irish and UK goods yesterday, so I picked up some lovely apple and pork sausages, rashers, chocolate hob-nobs, custard and Christmas pudding, as well as a few other bits and pieces. I surprised Claire this morning with the breakfast and a genuine Irish Cadbury's selection box! She devoured the fudge bar immediately.

Claire and I just want to wish everyone that reads this a very Merry Christmas, and a safe and happy New Year. We hope 2012 is as special for you as 2011 was for us.

Missing you all, and holding you in our thoughts at this festive season.

Love,

Denis and Claire.

a.k.a. Santa Claus

I haven't really been feeling in the festive mood recently. Or, to be exact, I have been feeling festive, just not as much as previous years. We went to see the Vancouver Christmas Parade, I've been to the wonderful German Christmas Market several times and the lights and seasonal music everywhere have been keeping me jolly and merry, humming tunes while reading in coffee shops.

But it's not the same as all those Christmas's back home. I don't have the same friends to share it all with. I'm not sitting in Gloria Jeans sipping coffee with Bob, dreading that the next song we hear might be "Fairytale of New York"[1], or walking through the brightly coloured evening streets with Jp, checking out those special offers in Game that crop up around this time of the year. I don't have the annual seasonal get-together with my friends from Early Childhood Studies that I never saw often enough while living in Cork, and certainly don't now. I can't make it to the Christmas party, with fine foods, rocking Rock Bands and awesome friends, or the New Years Eve house party, formal wear or otherwise.

It's not that I'm sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, I am having a good time and enjoying Christmas in Vancouver, it was just missing a little magic.

But today I got to be the magic. I got to be Santa Claus.

This morning I was working in a toddler room when the 3-5 supervisor arrived up. She spotted me and made a direct beeline across the room. She opened the conversation with "How would you like to make twenty-four children very happy" and I saw where this was going very quickly. I hesitantly accepted, hoping that she didn't notice that I was screaming and jumping with joy inside.

I had to wait the whole day, over seven hours between being asked and getting to try on the famous red suit. My heart was racing, and there were times I just had to stop doing whatever I was doing at the time and calm myself for a moment.

I put on the costume. It was really nice quality, even including a tummy padding, for us Santas a bit on the naturally slim side! Once everything else was in place, I put on my own leather gloves to almost finish it off, as the suit didn't include any. Then I carefully removed my glasses, putting them in a place even I, in my near blind state, could find them later, and put on the Santa glasses.

The transformation was complete, and I was ready for my grand entrance.

The children were amazed. As each one pressed forward to tell me about their day, or some other vitally important fact I should know according to their view on the current situation as it stands[2], all of them were stunned into silence when Santa addressed them by name! One little boy, the younger brother of a 3-5 made it to my seat and just starred up at me when I called him by name, as I exclaimed "Oh my! Is that really you? Look how tall you've gown. Last years you were this tall, now you're this tall! Goodness me."[3]

Everyone wanted a photo with me, and no matter how close they got, none of the 3-5 year olds seemed to have the slightest clue who was talking to them beneath the beard. Some of the older brothers that I know from the after-school program circled me like sharks for a few minutes, before sneaking up to my ear to whisper "I know you're not the real Santa. I know your name... Denis." When they did, I simply turned to them, smiled, winked and did the Kellogg's-Santa by-the-fire-who-has-been-spotted-by-the-little-girl-finger-to-lip-shhh, and they trotted off happy to have uncovered the truth.

Once I was done, and before I collapsed from heat-stroke (Santa's costume is designed for the North Pole, kiddies, not a crowded classroom), I headed back toward my secret lair (the office) to change back into Denis. On the way, I bumped into one of the toddlers that I had spent the whole day working with. I stopped to greet her by name and wish her a very merry Christmas and got a look of horror and loud screaming for my efforts[4]. In an attempt to make things right, and without any of the 3-5's around, I slipped off the beard and said "Look! It's me, Denis." The reaction was a moment of stunned silence punctured by a louder scream of "Noooooo!!", Darth Vader-style.

Back to normal, I stopped by the toddlers on my way home and found the friend I had upset still with a single tear on her cheek, but otherwise playing happily in the playroom. One of the staff told me they had comforted her by telling her that it was just Denis wearing dress-up clothes like the toddlers do in the home area, to which she had said "No Denis. Scary Santa." I asked her who she met downstairs to which she excitedly replied "Santa!" Then I asked her who was wearing the Santa dress-up clothes. She looked at me with the confused expression that means "Your question makes no sense" and returned to playing with friends. So long as she doesn't associate me with anything scary, I call that a win.

I stopped by a much emptier 3-5 room on my way out to thank the supervisor for allowing me to be a part for that magical moment for the children. I made sure to tell her that it was special for me too.

Today made my Christmas for 2011. I'll be sure to post again if something even more awesome happens, but to be honest, this has set the bar so ridiculously high, I just don't see that happening. It may not be the best Christmas I've ever had (1991, Lego Pirate ship), but it will forever be one that I will remember and cherish.

I can put up with never being wealthy or changing the whole world if I can make one child's world special now and then. Today, I did that twenty-four times over.

[1]- One of the greatest joys of my life here in Vancouver so far was discovering that no-one seems to recognise that song! It gets no playtime here. I may go the entire run up to Christmas without ever hearing it. If I make it, I'll try to remember to play it on the 25th to celebrate.
[2]- I was utterly amazed and impressed with how few of the children told me what they wanted, instead telling me about their day, their friends, or the songs they just sang. Material gifts were unimportant compared to the reason they were happy right this second. These kids are awesome!
[3]- I used that line on as many kids as I could get away with, and every one of them loved it, smiling in shocked silence at how Santa knew them by name and ever remembered them from last year!
[4]- To be fair, if a wild haired man with a crazy beard I've never seen before came up and talked to me using my name, I'd be pretty freaked out too. In hindsight, she was pretty justified in her reaction.