Gallifrey One 2013 – Part 2 of 4

Continuing my report on my trip to the Gallifrey One convention, and what an adventure it was…

SATURDAY (Part 1)

Before even leaving the hotel room on Saturday morning I managed to get in touch with Greg Weisman (my Young Justice comic collaborator, co-producer and writer for the Young Justice TV show), principally to apologize for not having been able to exit the hotel in time to make it to our planned lunch meet-up the day before. I told him about the Young Justice fan meet-up I was organizing in the lobby of the Gallifrey One hotel that evening with the help of Hal (aka ChristopherJonesWebMinion on tumblr), and to my surprise, Greg seemed interested in turning up for it! He needed to check on his schedule, but made it clear that if he was going to attend, he’d want his presence to be a secret surprise. I wouldn’t have had it any other way!

Inspector Spacetime Panel – Photo by Alex Halcyon

First up, I attended the (Not) Inspector Spacetime Panel, which was a lot of fun. Character was dropped much more than last year’s panel, and there was tons of behind-the-scenes news about the production of Untitled Web Series About A Space Traveler Who Can Also Travel Through Time Season 1, and the upcoming Season 2. You can read lots more about that panel here. I arrived at the panel first while Hal finished changing into her Greendale Human Being cosplay, which seemed appropriate for the panel, given the Inspector and the Human Being’s shared origins on NBC’s Community. Later in the day we got a photo of the Hal’s Human Being emerging from the TARDIS, looking very much like a Hartnell-era monster.

Hal as the Greendale Human Being in the TARDIS

Immediately after the Inspector Spacetime panel was my second panel of the convention, Superheroes as Popular Culture. Lots of good discussion from a panel of heavy hitters I was lucky enough to join! After the panel, Marv Wolfman and I grabbed a quick lunch at the hotel. I’ve known Marv since he was a guest at CONvergence 2005, and it was great to catch up and talk shop 1-on-1.

Superheroes as Pop Culture (L to R: Len Wein, Christopher Jones, Sterling Gates, Marv Wolfman, Joshua Fialkov)

There was a little bit of time to sightsee after that. There are always lots of fun people and great costumes on display at Gallifrey One. I tried to get into the Sylverster McCoy interview panel, but it was standing room only. I managed to get into the room and was standing along the wall near the door when the irripressable McCoy hopped down off the stage to take the microphone into the audience to talk to people one-on-one. A camera followed, so it was possible to see McCoy on the screens at the front of the auditorium, but at this point it wasn’t too different from watching McCoy on video. It was about this time that I got a text message from Brittney Powell who I’d met on Thursday while at dinner with Wally Wingert. She was at the convention and was wondering if I was around. I ducked out of the room to respond to her and let her know where I could be found, which led to one of the best chains of impromptu people spotting and networking I had the entire weekend!

A Dalek taking in the view photo by Jason Musgreave

Weeping Angel cosplay photo by Amanda Winter

Robot cosplay photo by Drew Simchik

While standing outside the Programming Room, in the span of about a half-hour I managed to talk to:

Shaun Lyon, Programming Director for Gallifrey One (Who I’d been trying and failing to find and connect with all weekend)
Brittney Powell, Lovely lady and actress (She turned up after a few minutes, and she kept running into people SHE knew while we stood in the hall)
Sterling Gates, Comic book writer (I’d been on a panel with Sterling earlier in the day, but we’d not had a chance to chat)
Bridget Landry, JPL Rocket Scientist and Master-Level Costumer (dressed as Doctor Who‘s Harriet Jones – yes, I knew who she was!)
And many more!

Bridget Landry as Harriet Jones
Photo by Susan Fox

Soon it was almost time for the planned Young Justice meet-up in the lobby.

Would our gathering have a decent turn-out? Would Greg Weisman appear?  Would our Young Justice Meet-up signage be held by a cosplay Cat Nurse?

These questions and more will be answered in our next installment!

NEXT: SATURDAY PART DEUX

You can find all the installments of my Gallifrey One 2013 trip by clicking the link.

Gallifrey One 2013 – Part 1 of 4

I’m back from my whirlwind trip to Los Angeles and Gallifrey One, and what an adventure it was…

THURSDAY

Traveling with my partner-in-crime Hal we arrived in L.A. the morning of the Thursday before the convention and took a shuttle to the Airport Mariott, where the convention would be held that weekend. That wasn’t where we were *staying* that night, mind you, but it was the closest location to the car rental location we wanted to reach. While Hal babysat our luggage in front of the Mariott, I walked over to fetch us a car for the next two days. Once I had the rental car I zipped over to pick up Hal who was happily soaking up the California weather (February in L.A. is much nicer than February in Minneapolis), and took us both down the road to the Travelodge, which was significantly cheaper than the Mariott when the convention rate isn’t being offered! Our room wasn’t available yet at that early hour, so we left our luggage in the car and grabbed a surprisingly good brunch at the Denny’s that adjoins the hotel.

After the taping Wally emerged and found Hal and me in the audience. He led Hal and me across the tonight show stage and took us back to see the edit bay where his sound booth is located. It was rather surreal to walk through the very impressive facade of the Tonight Show stage and suddenly be in office space. We’d planned to grab dinner with Wally but first he had to make a pit-stop at home to feed his animals, so Hal and I walked to our rental and Wally was going to drive around and meet us. Rather than stop so we could confer on where we were going, Wally did something of a drive-by, leaving us to follow him through across the highways and byways of deepest, darkest Burbank following his vanity-plate branded convertible, Wally’s hair blowing in the wind, hoping desperately we wouldn’t miss a turn and lose him on the way there.

Afterwards we met up at Jerry’s Famous Deli for dinner with Wally and some other of Wally’s friends including Brittney Powell, star of the long-running High Sierra Rescue television series with Robert Conrad. She was also on Safety Geeks: SVI and something called Xena: Warrior Princess. She was actually a lot of fun and planned to stop by the Gallifrey One convention on Saturday.

FRIDAY

Friday morning was going to be busy. I’d tried to arrange a time to get together with my Young Justice collaborator Greg Weisman while in Los Angeles, and the only time that seemed to be available was lunch on Friday. That means lunch had to happen in a narrow window of time between Art Show set up at Gallifrey One Friday morning, a 45-minute drive to Greg’s office where we were going to meet before walking to a nearby spot for lunch, and then leaving in time for the drive back to the Gallifrey One hotel and dealing with parking before a panel at 2:30pm that I was on!

Unfortunately we weren’t able to start setting up in the Art show until about 10:00am, and the process of fitting pegs to pegboard in a carefully-spaced pattern, fitting binder clips to all my prints, hanging them, and then entering all the prints into the computer system so we could print out the control sheets and post them took us until noon. Sadly, I had to call Greg to let him know that our plans had gone awry and we wouldn’t have time to get across town to meet him for lunch.

OH NO! LUNCH PLANS WITH GREG WEISMAN DASHED!
Could we re-schedule?

Would I miss this rare opportunity to see Greg in person?

SPOILER REQUEST! NO COMMENT!

Now with a little extra time to spare, Hal and I began exploring Gallifrey One 2013, and tried to meet up with our friends Mike and Alicia who we were sharing a room with at the convention. Soon it was time for the first of my two panels at Gallifrey One: Design and Illustration, which featured Paul Hanley, Blair Shedd, Maureen Starkey, myself, Richard Starkings and Charlie Kirchoff. None of us knew exactly what the panel was supposed to be about beyond the title, but given the backgrounds of who was on the panel, we tended to focus on the process behind creating comic book art – which certainly meant that I was right at home!

By the time the panel got out we were finally able to get into our room at the Mariott, so I fetched the luggage from the car and we moved in. After that there was just a little more time for wandering and exploring the convention before it was time for Opening Ceremonies. The lineup of guests was especially impressive at Gallifrey One this year year, and usually despite the best of intentions to the contrary, the weekend flies by without my having made it to panels or through autograph lines to see more than a fraction of them, so I didn’t want to miss seeing them all file out onto the stage at Opening Ceremonies. There were plenty of guests I’d have loved to meet, but at the top of my list was Sylvester McCoy. Not only was I a big fan of The Seventh Doctor, but I hoped to give Sylvester a framed copy of the new print featuring his Doctor and Ace battling Daleks that I had completed just in time for the convention.

After Opening Ceremonies, everyone in our group was ravenous. Having missed out on lunch with Greg, I hadn’t eaten all through a busy day. Since in anticipation of that lunch I’d held onto the rental car for a second day and didn’t need to return it until Saturday morning, so I offered to drive our party somewhere for dinner, as it would be our last chance for the weekend to go somewhere that wasn’t in the hotel or within walking distance. Alicia found a listing for a Mexican restaurant about 15 minutes away by car, so we headed there and stuffed ourselves with fine south-of-the-border style cuisine. Margaritas were had by all – except for me, as I was driving! I dropped the rest of the crew off at the hotel, then swung by a gas station, topped off the tank in the rental car, and returned it to the rental place since I wouldn’t have need of it again before it was due back the next morning. I then hoofed it back to the Mariott.

By the time I got back, I had the energy for a quick tour around the lobby, but for all the people there chatting (fans at Gallifrey One call it “LobbyCon”), I wasn’t seeing any familiar faces to engage in conversation with and didn’t have enough energy left to try to insert myself into a conversation with strangers so I decided to call it a night and be better rested for the next day.

NEXT: SATURDAY

You can find all the installments of my Gallifrey One 2013 trip by clicking the link.