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Lurking Musings

~ Musings of a newly published writer

Lurking Musings

Tag Archives: Cosplay

My Worldcon experience: Day One

01 Sunday Sep 2019

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Conventions

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Tags

Alicia Faires, Chris Corbitt, Cosplay, Dublin, F.D Lee, Heidi Lyshol, Helen Pennington, Keith Byrne, Photowalks, Roz Kaveney, Scott Edelman, worldcon


Dublin 2019 An Irish Worldcon August 15 - 19 Convention Centre DublinThose of you who follow this blog regularly (I’m sure there are a few of you…) will know that my ability to keep a consistant way of writing about events is somewhat sporadic. For my first Eastercon, I did a daily blog but wrote it after the event. For the more recent Eastercon, in London, I actually managed to write my blog every day while at the event (including photos taken that day) and include a bonus preCon day.

For the 2019 Worldcon in Dublin, I am writing my account about 10 days after I got home from the con and I have no idea how many posts I will make…

This was my first Worldcon, though I didn’t manage to get the coveted ‘First Worldcon ribbon’ as they had ran out of stock by the time I got there. I also didn’t really feel like it was ‘my first time’. Partly this was because I’m an old hand at other cons now, being a regular at Eastercon since 2016 and, if I am being honest, a lot of the people I was seeing in Dublin were also Eastercon regulars so I didn’t feel left out socially – there was usually at least one person I could say hi to and get a conversation with. It was also because I’d spent the last couple of years working behind the scenes on the con – starting out as a member of the Brainstorming group (whose job it was to suggest really crazy panel ideas that the organisers would inexplicably consider worth doing) and progressing to being a member of the Literature programme team (where our job was to take these crazy ideas, add some panelists and write a description of it). So, compared to some other first time Worldconners, who might have been walking in and feeling a little out of place, I was already in a quite privileged position.

I arrived for the event itself on Thursday morning. Early on Thursday morning. And I didn’t really have time to have a rest after my 5am wake up call and flight. I had to queue to register at the Con, head to my accomodation to drop my bags and then get back in time for lunch with the Milford/Northwrite possee (that turned into drinks with them as lunch options were limited in the convention centre…) before heading to the first panel I was moderating – Franchise Characters.

Author F.D Lee and me at WorldconIn this, I was joined by F.D Lee (fantasy and SF indie author). Scot Edelman (writer for Marvel comics), Keith Byrne (Artist and character designer with Tantalus) and Roz Kavenay (writer, critic and all round great person to talk to). We mostly discussed Marvel vs DC and the reasons why one was better than the other at maintaining a franchise. However, this also led into a discussion on Pennyworth (Roz’s current new obsession – one I totally intend to check out for the promise of fascist 60’s Britain) and a few other franchises – including trying to define what a franchise actually is. There seemed to be some agreement to my definition of it being a creation that appears in more than one format but the focus of the panel was more on how the use of ‘background characters’ can help to build the depth of the world. Here I think we were all in agreement… I was a little disappointed we never got to discuss Pratchett’s Discworld as a franchise as much as I would have liked as that is a perfect example of  a franchise where main characters from one book become minor ones in others and I had a whole thing planned around Gaspode the Wonder dog… Also, the fact that Death appears in every single Discworld novel and how that is SIGNIFICANT.

After a break for food, I headed to another panel. This one was entitled “How close are Cosplay Tony Stark and Pepper Potts outside the Dublin CCDwe to Frankenstein’s Dream?” and I was with Dr. Helen Pennington (Plant scientist from DEFRA) and Heidi Lyshol (of the Norweigan Institute for Public Health). I was actually a little nervous about being on stage with some very eminent names in science with my mere MPhil and teaching background (I guess it could have been worse… someone of the academic oopmh of Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell could have been there, even though her area is more physics) but it worked out great and we had a wonderful discussion with lots of audience questions and the line “We could do that but it would be just slightly unethical” was uttered many times. We touched upon cloning, 3D printing of organs, head transplants, building a complete body out of 3D printed organs and several other bizarre applications of biology, medicine and engineering. I also got to talk about gerontology, which is my secondary area of expertise after immunology, and discuss things like the calorie restriction diets. In all a fun panel.

After this, I had planned to meet some people for a photowalk around Dublin. I was expecting no one to show up so was pleasantly surprised that we got two more photographers and a couple of Cosplayers (Chris Corbitt and Alicia Faires). So, we started the evening with some shots of the Cosplayers before the sunset then did a post sunset walk along the river.

After that, it was time to hit the bar and then to bed… but before I do, have a photo of the Liffey looking rather Cyberpunk…

The river Liffey, Dublin, at night.

Not so secret society

27 Monday Jul 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings

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Tags

A.J Campbell, Alex Campbell, Cosplay, D.A Lascelles, Elizabeth Morgan, Erica Hayes, Leeds, Leeds Steampunk Market, MancsterCon, Ninfa Hayes, Pat Keheller, R.A Smith, Salford, Secrets, The Tea Society


I guess over the last few months an insidious and influential group has slowly been showing its hand. You may not have been aware of them, at first. They are an organisation who were cloaked in shadow. However, you may have met some of them, maybe at an author event, maybe passed them in the street. They have guided civilisation from the earliest days, raised kings and toppled princes, manipulated the stock market and contributed to the success of numerous creative artists. They have agents everywhere. Well, mainly in the UK. Actually, mainly in Manchester really with a couple elsewhere. To be honest, not all that many even in Manchester… but, so great are these agents they don’t need many to fulfil their schemes.tea society badge2

The name of this epic organisation? Why, it is none other than the Tea Society.

And if you are at this point thinking ‘Who?’ then that is testament to our ability to so totally blend into the background.

The origins of the Tea Society go back a number of years when a handful of writers who lived in Manchester started having sort of not very regular meetings to talk about writing. The name was a joke that rose out of the fact that we could not think of a name and all we seemed to do at the meetings was drink tea and in the end it sort of stuck.

Later, after some discussions around a shared trade table at a steampunk market, we came to the conclusion that it was really difficult sharing a table as we tended to do and maintaining a solid identity for customers to recognise. So, Elizabeth Morgan arranged for there to be a banner and Rachel Bostwick (Queen of trailers and other graphic design goodness) was hired to give us some brand identity with our official logo.

The banner debuted at the Yorkshire Cosplay con earlier this year and was also seen briefly at the World Book Night event at the Fab Café. It will next emerge this weekend at the Literally Literary event at Leeds Central Library and then at the MancsterCon in Salford on August 29th.

stallSo, now that we are out in the open, you may be able to guess some of our members… they include R.A Smith, Ninfa Hayes, Miriam Khan and of course myself. But there are others such as Pat Keheller, Erica Hayes and Alex Campbell (whose book is out soon, you should totally check it out).

If you see any of us at an event, especially if we have the banner up, feel free to come over and have a chat about books in general or our books in particular (and maybe even buy some). I am also currently pondering a special deal where if you promise to do some publicity – take some leaflets to be delivered to local businesses, tweet or share on Facebook, or otherwise spread the word – you may qualify for a special limited edition Tea Society badge. I’ll get out more details of this once I work them out properly.

Hope to see you all at an event soon!

A day of Yorkshire cosplay

11 Saturday Apr 2015

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Publicity

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

AT AT, Comics, Cosplay, Darth Vader, Doctor Who, Elizabeth Morgan, Gambit, Hurtfew, Johnathon Strange, Loki, Stormtroopers, Terminator, Yorkshire Cosplay con


Security by Skaro Extermination services

Security by Skaro Extermination services

After a very polite (and totally out of the blue) invite from the organisers I trotted ‘oop norf’ to Sheffield for a day at the Yorkshire Cosplay convention at the Magna conference centre. I was accompanied on this trip by Elizabeth Morgan, who you may remember from Vampire Month. Our stated goals were to promote and sell books. Our actual goals included such things as seeing lots of cool Cosplayers and maybe buy some comics.

Luckily, the organisers had guessed our secret agenda and therefore placed us facing the food area where a lot of the Cosplayers were hanging out and right next to a comic stall, the owner of which quickly picked up on Elizabeth’s fangirl thing for Gambit…

stall

You can see the temptation of the Comic stall right next to us…

Regular readers will be aware of my dilemma about dressing for public appearances. For Steampunk it is usually a waistcoat and cravat, for more mundane events a t-shirt and jeans. As this was a Cosplay con, I thought I’d go the whole hog and regency-up in a full tailcoat ensemble and play a character from one of my favourite books – Mr Johnathon Strange from Susanna Clarke’s novel Johnathon Strange and Mr Norrell. I even completed the ensemble with an appropriately titled book of magic (from the list of titles found in the Library at Hurtfew and created by Anachronalia) to make sure everyone was aware of exactly who I was Cosplaying. Not that anyone asked. But then why would they be interested in an unassuming, polite Regency magician when Darth Vader was stalking around with a squad of Stormtroopers, Loki was doing interviews, the Terminator was hamming up a bad Austrian accent, Bumblebee was posing for photos with fans and a great big AT AT was stomping around…

loki interview

Loki does a piece to the camera for his TV show

ATAT

This was one of the most impressive costumes I saw. And yes, it is a costume not a model

darth

Vader making an appearance

stormtrooper

One of Vader’s honour guard

Oh and Elizabeth got her dream and met her hero…

Gambit meets Elizabeth Morgan

Gambit meets Elizabeth Morgan

One advantage of my Cosplaying was I got to go into the dressing room and see the real Cosplayers getting ready. This was an experience. The amount of effort and detail that goes into what even the amateur Cosplayers do is phenomenal and these guys were Pros. A lot of elaborate costume, all home made, along with complicated electronics and props all gave the impression of the dressing room for an actual film set rather than a convention in Yorkshire.

The day included a number of interesting discussions with various people who visited the stall. Conversation veered from women in gaming (Gamergate reared its ugly head a little) to women in fiction and LRP. If nothing else I may have managed to steer one young lady who lives in Cornwall towards contacting my old friends in the Blood Red Roses LRP group. During quiet times we tried to keep a count of the number of different versions of the same characters. There were many Catwomen, several Harley Quinns, a couple of Black Widows but only one Black Cat (amazing how much variety a simple black catsuit can give a female Cosplayer). There is a probably a discussion to be had at some point about the lack of female role models leading to many having to dress as the same few characters but that can wait for a later day. Disappointingly we only saw a few versions of the Doctor (why does no one Cosplay William Hartnell? Has to surely be an option for the older Cosplayer) but did see an excellently well done gender switched 10th Doctor and of course there were a number of Daleks and a TARDIS. There was also an Amy Pond in ‘strippergram police uniform’ and a few Poison Ivy’s. In all some excellent costumes.

It was also International Hug A Wookie day. Maybe...

It was also International Hug A Wookie day. Maybe…

Elizabeth’s stock of badges with quotes from her books went

The 11th Doctor finds time for some comic shopping

The 11th Doctor finds time for some comic shopping

quickly with the common refrain being ‘are you sure they are free?’ and a number of swagpacks and postcards were taken up. I claimed one of the more popular badge choices before they all went.

The planned panel discussion with some of the authors who were present unfortunately had to be cancelled due to lack of interest. Maybe next time we can draw a few more into the panel room…

In all it was a very entertaining if tiring day. Next event for me is the World Book Night at the Fab Café on 23rd April. After that I am in Salford for the Mancster con… more on those in a later post.

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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What to wear…

31 Sunday Aug 2014

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Musings, Publicity

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

#amwriting, Blake Northcott, Cosplay, Frances Hardinge, Labyrinth Literary Festival, Leeds Steampunk, Leeds Steampunk fair, Manchester, Ninfa Hayes, R.A Smith, Readings, Sexy female spiderman, Signings, Steampunk, Stockton Literary festival, World Book Night


As regular readers will already know, I have been to a few public events over the last year or so. I am now a regular at the Leeds Steampunk market (in a vague, loose coalition operating under the title of the Tea Society with Ninfa Hayes and R.A Smith and others) and at World book night I did a reading in the Fab café in Manchester. Now, this coming weekend I am going to be at the Stockton Literary festival…

Me with Starburst columnist Ed Fortune in front of a TARDIS.

Me with Starburst columnist Ed Fortune in front of a TARDIS.

The problem is that I have absolutely no idea what to wear.

You see, for Steampunk it is easy. I actually have quite a selection of waistcoats and cravats and could even go so far as to get a top hat should I feel it necessary (I haven’t so far, mainly stuck with the waistcoat and cravat look and a gentleman would never wear a hat indoors…). Ok, I am not up there with the dedicated goggles and nerf guns with cogs on brigade but I can dress well enough to look like I belong. Most of the traders there are steampunked up to a greater or lesser extent and while there are usually many ‘non steampunks’ in the crowd, you don’t look like an idiot – the only person wearing costume.

For World book night I might have had the ‘what to wear’ dilemma. However, the necessity of having to go straight from work to the venue (via the train station to pick up Frances Hardinge) meant that I was more or less limited to wearing what I wore at work. Since that day also coincidentally happened to be the day a member of the Royal Family was visiting work, this meant I was in a rather more formal shirt and tie than normal. In the photos you can even see the cufflinks. Though I had taken off the jacket and tie by that point.

me2But Stockton is not Steampunk nor is it right after a royal visit. I therefore have more or less free choice in what to wear. This means I am being indecisive. I could do the casual jeans and nerdy t-shirt that I usually wear when not at work. I could also do a more smart casual look – a shirt with jeans. So long as I avoid looking like David Cameron on holiday (which is a fate worse than death in many areas) I will probably be ok… But then I am wondering if I shouldn’t dress up more – bring out the waistcoat and cravat look or go in an even more bizarre costume? There are rumours of cosplay possibly happening there, after all and Blake Northcott recently did a con in Canada dressed as a sexy female Spiderman…

So, while I ponder these issues, I’d love to know your opinions. How do you expect a writer to be dressed when you meet them? What have authors you have met worn for cons and events? How much does a writer’s clothing matter?

And those of you in the UK, feel free to pop up to Stockton on Tees on the 6th of September for a lot of fun…

literary festival

D.A Lascelles is the author of Lurking Miscellany, Transitions (Mundania Press) and Gods of the Sea (Pulp Empires). He lives in Manchester UK. You can sometimes see him writing about Zombie porn on https://lurkingmusings.wordpress.com/ but he mostly blogs about books, vampires, science fiction and Terry Pratchett. He is inordinately proud of the fact that one of his Pratchett articles was referenced on the French version of the author’s Wikipedia page.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DaLascelles

Twitter: @areteus

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