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Things to Do: Cons

To start out this week we have PhilCon 2009, which despite its name happens from November 20th through 22nd, in Cherry Hill, NJ. This is one of the big East Coast events each year, if you are in the neighborhood you should stop by.

The Anime con I will be attending this weekend is Anime USA in Arlington, Virginia. There are a huge number of guests and events, and you can take a look at previous years videos to get an idea of what kind of fun they have in the shadow of the Pentagon. This year kicks off their very first round of having a Host Club for the ladies and a Maid Cafe for the guys, and both come with karaoke variants. FYI, the Gear Masters Ball is Formal Steampunk this year.

The Arkansas Anime Festival (AKA the A2F) also has a Steampunk/Victorian Ball/Dance, but what I really find interesting is they keep having Ani-Raves separate from the Con itself, one a month. Wish someone was doing that around here with J-Rock non-Anime artists also represented; I would be there every time!

Other Anime Cons this weekend include DaishoCon in Stevens Point, WI. Besides all the usual panels and events, they also have Zombie Survival 201, a Cosplay Swimsuit Contest (with a depressingly cautionary warning about the indecent exposure laws), and other silly instructional presentations. In Indiana, Anime Crossroads has great guests and a Cosplay-oriented events schedule. Also this weekend is Another Anime Con in Nashua, NH., and BishieCon in St. Louis, MO.

ZonaCon in Orlando, FL, is running with the tag Where Anime Meets Horror, and leaning to the Zombie side of UnLife. Horror Hound Weekend would have to win my vote for best Media Con this time. I am not a horror fan, but Elvira trumps all other film hosts, and with movies like Black Sheep and Let The Right One In, you know it is going to be twisted enough to be interesting. And then there is the flip side of that con: YuleCon, the Holiday Anime and Gaming Convention in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area.

Things to Do: Cons

The First Irish Discworld Convention takes place the first full weekend of November, the 6th through the 8th. Yes, Terry Pratchett is the guest of honor (health permitting), and all sorts of fun things are planned; see the con blog for more details. This one looks unlike any other con for the weekend, and would be my first choice if I had just figured out that pesky teleporting thing. Except maybe for the PMX2009 event, listed below.

Chevron 7.3 in Northampton, UK, is a Stargate mediacon, with the guests leaning heavily to the new series Stargate Universe. Also in Europe, J-PopCon is an Anime Con that takes place in Valby, Denmark, close to Center of Copenhagen. It is the biggest Anime event in that country, and has been running since at least 2000. To round out the international listings, Vertigo is a one-day Anime con taking place on Sunday in Santa Cruz, Bolivia.

For events in the US, Astronomicon takes place November 6th through the 8th in Rochester, NY. Mike Resnick is the Author GoH, and one of the events is the Grand Great Lakes Steampunk Cotillion, Symposium and Tea Social, along with all the usual fun stuff you expect at a readercon.

Anime Cons around the US include Aki-Con in Everett, Washington, Anime NebrasKon in Omaha, NekoCon 12 in Hampton, Virginia, and Zenkaikon 2009 in King of Prussia, PA. They all have screenings, events, panels, and cosplay, but the Kabuki Mask Painting Workshop caught my attention, especially listed after the Cosplay Swimsuit Competition and Dating Auction.

Some anime is included in the Pacific Media Expo 2009, but the event also includes live-action movies, the hottest bands, the latest fashion, and the newest pop culture trends from Japan and the Pacific Rim, making this a truly unique happening. I would probably have to clone myself this weekend to attend this one and the Irish Diskworld convention.

Gamer Cons this weekend include Carnage 12 in Fairlee, VT, Millennium 12 in Round Rock, Tx, and UberCon XII in Edison, NJ. And no, I don’t know why that last one went with Roman numerals when the Arabic numbers were a good enough Twelve for every one else.

Finally in Charlotte, NC there is the one-day Charlotte Comic-Con on Saturday the 7th.

Things to do: Cons and Movies

This is a weekend with something for everybody in the theaters. Astro Boy goes into wide release this Friday for the younger crowd (although a few of us older types might just sneak in and say we didn’t). Stan Helsing, the Parody is also out, with a lot of raunchy humor in a creature feature for the teenage crowd. The serious (you can’t really say Adult when the protagonist hasn’t made his 20s yet) movie of the weekend is Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant, fresh from the Film Fest circuit.

The London MCM Expo happens the 24th and 25th, and if you like to cosplay in Europe it looks like the party to make. MCM stands for Movies, Comics, Media, and they cover them all. A few of the Media Guests include Terry Farrell, Nicole De Boer, Kandyse McClure, Masahiko Minami, and Ron D Moore. I’m not even going to try to list the Writers and Artists Guests, you’ll have to see the list yourself to believe it.

In the US my personal choice for this weekend is SteamCon in Seattle, with Author GoH Tim Powers, Artist GoH Paul Guinan , and Musical GoH Abney Park. Being a SteamPunk addict myself, I am reading their tweets and wishing I was on that coast this week. So I’m throwing an Abney Park video in at the end of this post, just to show you what you might have missed.

the biggest con this weekend is probably Mile High Con 41 in Denver, CO. It started life as a ReaderCon, and still hosts around 80 authors at various events, but now covers all aspects of fandom. Hot on its heels comes Icon 34 in Iowa City, IA, another ReaderCon that grew. Geek.Kon is a Sci-Fi, Anime, and Gaming convention in Madison, Wisconsin, also this weekend.

In Kansas City Motaku takes place on the 24th and 25th, and if you couldn’t tell by the name it is an Anime con. Necronomicon in St Petersburg, FL, is a media/reader con; if you are there you will get to hear physicist/author/singer Catherine Asaro’s Friday Night Concert!

From tomorrow through Sunday is the Ohio Valley Filk Festival in Dublin, Ohio. This is the event where they hand out the Pegasus Award for Excellence in Filking, and if you want to sing along with such classics as the Superman Sex Life Boogie or The Return of the King, Uh-huh or even A Reconsideration of Anatomical Docking Maneuvers in Zero-Gravity Environment you might want to pick up the Pegasus Award Winners Songbook. If you are wondering what Filk is, you can read the FAQ or listen to some:

And the promised Abney Park video: Enjoy!

NY Anime Festival

Coming up this weekend is the New York Animation Festival. The Guest of Honor is Yoshiyuki Tomino, creator of the Mobile Suit Gundam series and a songwriter who has worked with a range of folks from Yoko Kanno to Niel Sedaka. Musical guests include AKB48, Swinging Popsicle and a number of others. The Voice Talent guest list is HUGE, and full of some of my favorite voices from the world of anime; see the full list here. Events include the World Cyber Games National Final, Cosplay in the form of the Neo-Victorian Fashion Show (you can say it: Steampunk!), and Zombie Survival training from the Green Light Anti-Zombie Squad.

Musical Questions about Rockets

I can’t help it, sometimes I just wonder about things. One of my current questions is: Will Soar Thoat be doing some of the music for the new John Carter of Mars production? I know, the band’s name is a serious Martian pun, and the Civil War veteran did not arrive on Mars by way of Rocketship, but I still wonder. Continuing on the musical front, there were two versions of the almost-question (they each answered it themselves, so it doesn’t count as actual questions) If I Had A Rocket Launcher. One is a Hi-Q rock construction from musical genius and politically aware Bruce Cockburn, the other a fun little construct from Halo gamers creating their own Machinima. The question this time is, which music video do you prefer? Here are your samples to choose between…

More Worldcon, Please!

More awards have already been handed out at Worldcon, according to the 5th AnticipationSF Newsletter. The Aurora Awards have been handed out, and while I have read many of the nominated works, I don’t know a single one of the winners; which means I have a lot of excellent new science fiction to add to my To Be Read list. Also handed out were this years Sidewise Awards for Alternate History, and congratulations to Chris Roberson for his win with The Dragon’s 9 Sons, a very impressive book in a well built new universe; he also has a lack of speech statement about the award. Again, I am adding every book and story nominated that I haven’t already read to my list, and you might want to do the same. They also gave the results of the Ningen-Senkan Sensuikan (aka human battleship) contest, and I was very pleased to see Girl Genius listed under the Webcomics You Should Be Reading header, since it is my all-time favorite. And again, I will be checking out everything listed that I am not already familiar with, since that is one of the most important functions of Worldcon; making us all aware of what our peers think is worth some interest.