Intervention

Last weekend there was an internet convention in town. "Intervention" they called it. Short for Internet Convention I'm guessing.

I don't go to a lot of geek conventions. About 11 years ago I went to a sci-fi convention because my boss was buddies with the guy who owned the convention organizing company and got me free tickets. I got to have dinner with an astronaut, shake hands with Kenny Baker (R2-D2), spend time with Delenn from Babylon 5 (better known now as the crazy French woman from Lost), and have a great time. I also snuck into the Small Press Expo once on the last day just to get Frank Cho's (Liberty Meadows - Now at Marvel Comics) and Scott Kurtz's (PVP) autographs.

Much like at Small Press Expo, I was going mostly to get some favorite internet celebrities to sign some stuff. At the top of the list was Pete Abrams, creator of Sluggy Freelance. Pete's comic has been running something short of forever. OK, 14 years. Short of forever, but still in the very early days of the internet. Unfortunately, Pete had pneumonia and was a bit drugged up. He'd mentioned he was sick so I did the creepy thing and brought him a bottle of DayQuil. It was still sealed and all, but still... creepy. He debated for a bit and then turned it down. He had other stuff and probably wouldn't use it. I'd been nursing a very slight cold last week that exploded into a big cold yesterday so I'm using it instead. Yummy and I did get to hang out and talk about crappy printers and Doctor Who and trying to mix the humor that got me reading Sluggy in the first place with the longer and more serious stories he's gotten into in recent years.

Then we went and hit Jennie Breeden's booth. She writes The Devil's Panties and had just finished up a talk that we'd sat through. One of the things Jennie is known for is her kilt blowing events. Lots of guys come to these geek gatherings wearing kilts. Long story short (too late) she brought an electric leaf blower that's so weak the company can't actually call it a leaf blower and uses it to blow up kilts Marilyn-Monroe-over-an-air-vent style. Laurel K Hamilton was there and insisted that the convention organizers get Jennie a room the next year. So now there's an official event at each DragonCon where kilts are blown and pictures are taken in front of a crowd of screaming women. She has a poster covered with small pictures of guys in blown kilts. So Jennie, Yummy, and one of the kilt wearers poured over the poster together.

And Jennie liked my shirt. I can't find a picture of it now, but it's the one I made for Yummy's guerilla gardening group. It's black with a gorilla on it where I put a stencil on and misted the shirt with bleach.
It was a tossup between wearing that, my Gallifrey University shirt, or my PVP "I spent my reward on ale and whores" shirt. The PVP shirt doesn't get worn in public a lot because I hadn't realized when I got it how much the viewer needs to know the context of the shirt. I used my bleached shirt because I made it and was gonna be hanging around artists. That and these kinds of conventions are the only place you can where whatever you want without feeling weird.

Next on my checklist was Bill Holbrook. Bill is a comic strip machine. He has three (3) different strips that he updates daily. He was there mostly for Kevin and Kell which is his online only strip, but I made sure to grab some Safe Havens and On The Fastrack.

We picked up some crafts, too. I got something that clips onto my glasses and gives me special lenses that can swing down so you can peer through them. Another guy was selling big Nuka Cola bottle caps for hanging on the wall. They're from the "Fallout" series of games. I got one of those and yummy got a painting of Gir from "Invader Zim" riding a pig.

In other parts of the convention we found a room set up just for people to come play video games. They even had a Commodore 64 set up. Another room was for board games. One wall was lined with games you could check out and play. If you liked it then there were shelves on another wall where you could buy them. And staff was there to teach you how to play the games. How awesome is that job?

Another room was set up to show a couple of movies during the convention. When the movies weren't playing they had some of the more popular videos from the internet showing. People walking by would hear a bit from one video or another and stop to peer through the door. Yummy and 3-4 others got snagged by Charlie the Unicorn.

All in all, we had a good time and the convention was totally affordable. I'll give it a serious look next year, too.