Tuesday, December 26, 2006

The Cher Report - Brumcon 2006 - version 1.0 (written with photographs)

Oh, and by the way, I included some random personal notes, especially to annoy you. They are in Italic.

Another note: this is my clean version... I could SO have done soooo many bad, bad things with some of these photographs... Which I probably will when I'm not in such a hurry to get these photos up for people to see, the Entry for which will be Friends Only (just... 'Cause).


FRIDAY

Me and Ian were in Birmingham at around 3pm on Friday afternoon, and proceeded to get very, very lost, when Derek sent us to the wrong train station.
On the way to the hotel, we found a rather interesting road sign, which taught us a very, very important lesson about not cheating on your significant other.


The hotel itself was a four star establishment, and although rather comfortable (we made it look rather homey, don't you think?), the view from our room left much to be desired... But it is Birmingham, after all.


After settling down, we proceeded to venture towards the Radison Hotel, the official temporary residence for attendees.
On the way to we met up with Derek, who bares a striking resemblance to Kyle Gass from Tenacious D, and James Reddington, who seemed convinced that he belonged in the Full Monty movie.

The bar was absolutely full of people, but they were so full of alchohol that they were running around at the speed of blurs.

The guests of honour for the evening, were Dan Boultwood and the ghost of Tony Lee.

The prices for our nourishment were not cheap, so Ian thought that he would do the worst impression of Clark Kent known to man to lighten the mood.

SATURDAY

We awaken at the crack of dawn (if by dawn you mean 10ish), and head straight for the venue. Surprisingly we didn't get lost, but that may be something to do with the fact that we had a map that the hotel gave us, with a nice big arrow pointing us towards it, instead of our (now fired) PS, Derek.

We walk around a corner to find ourselves confused, feeling drunk and/or stoned, surrounded by multicoloured, candy covered buildings, and were then quite shocked to find the Custard Factory being attacked by a giant (the Green Man, technically, but bare with me, I'm attempting comedy, here), and dragons!
Some people, however, just didn't seem at all amused, and slept through the entire thing. Either that, or he was dead*... We didn't quite check. ... Our bad.

There were, quite surprisingly, comic creators present at the event... We couldn't quite figure out why.
Some examples of this rare, and annoying (I'm jealous, so I'm aloud to say that) breed were the Brodie's Law guys, and a few blokes who were so convinced of their self importance, and their superhuman abilities, that they made a comic about themselves (yes, I know that it is a long link, but I thought that you might be blind :-p). The resemblance, however, is quite uncanny, don't you think? Minus the facial hair. This same member of their tribe was so utterly enveloped within this fantasy that he insisted he audition for the new remake of The Matrix... But instead seemed more suited to the live action adaptation of Watership Down.

After conversing with fellow fans, and creators, we were informed that there was an unmissible Panel. So we decieded to miss it.
Or not.
The panel was a strange, but rather genious mix of Never Mind The Buzzcocks/Have I Got News For You/QI-styled humour. But with geeks. Lots and lots of geeks. Two of these geeks were Tony Lee on The Writers Team and Budgie who was a (rather brilliant) Presenter.
Here are the Presenters, Batman and Robin, hard at work, The Writers Team, and The Artists Team. ... Although apparently there was some confusion, because then these were the Writers, these were the Artists... Who we don't have a photograph of... And these were the Presenters... Or rather Presenter.
Highlights of the Panel, entitled The Kryptonite Factor, were, (and this one is quite ironic) Keiron revealing his true identity and then teaching Tony how to swim, Budgie growing extra limbs, and Tony's impression of... Something. Whatever it was, it amused us.

The event then ended for the evening, and we went for Pizza with the guys from Brodie's Law, James from Portent Comics, and various geeks, including Derek and his minion, Lloyd, where I created yet another masterpiece, in record time of seven minutes. I was, by the way, the only female (nothing new there, then) in a group of eleven hungry dudes.
We then ventured to our Hotel to dump all our random crud (formally known as comics, and in Ian's case, posters of X-23 in a school uniform), after which came a Party which Tony discovered was run by the Birmingham University Goth Society. I gothed-up as much as I could (which isn't actually that difficult for me, since virtually all of my clothes are black), but Ian was unfortunately lacking in that department, so I insisted that he wear my Dog Collar (it glew in the dark and everything - lolz). The result was him being leashed, and attached to a rather excitable Tony Lee, and being his b*tch for a little of the evening. The most disturbing part of this, however, was what now seems to be Tony offering Ian to Dan Boultwood.**
After a night of fundome, we headed back for some much needed rest.

SUNDAY

It rained, and it poured... And I decide now is a good time to come in costume (I was in civvies the previous day, and felt very un-Cher-like)... Er... Whoops? Lolz.
Anyway, that random fact asside, today was quiet... Almost silent. Nothing much to do but spend more money. ... So we did.
Ian also felt the need to pretend to be important, and had a "Signing" (the witness has chosen to remain enonemous, and must therefore be blurred to pretect their identity)... If by that you mean grab a book, sign it, and run away - lolz. He also took a souvineer.
Most of the Dealers packed up early, but it was still a good day, with amusing socialising with the rather hungover Dan, forgetful Tony, and cheerful Budgie.
The event itself ended on a good note, in reflection, considering the lack of attendees during the day because of the weather. The final Panel was based around the topic of making comics out of television and film, with Tony Lee providing the comedy value, and others following in his footsteps, dealving into the world of Star Trek and Star Wars, even considering that noone present on the Panel was related to either.*** The organisers of the event then went on stage and thanked everyone for coming, which was very nice of them.
Oh, and did I mention that Tony asked the audience what me and Ian percieved to be the easiest Doctor Who question in history in order to win an Inflattable Dalek, which apparently cannot be used as a life saving device (I should certainly think not; it's a Dalek, it would rather exterminate you - lol), and although I kept quiet for fear of winning (and admittedly, embarrassment), Ian did not.
Low and behold, the Inflattable Dalek! And Ian... Who seemed a little TOO cosey with it...
I then spent the next two hours battling its evil! I finally defeated it, and bocked it... And then we gave it to Budgie for his children, since Ian's would probably break it - lolz, who we then spent most of the rest of the evening with, hanging out in the cafe at the venue, and then grabbing some grub after.
Then we said our goodbyes and went our seperate ways, parting with Budgie and Derek, crashing at the Hotel.

MONDAY

Monday comes around, and there is no Convention to attend, and everyone that we could bother *cough* visit is at work, so we thought, instead, that we might take a pilgrimage to Geeksville, formally known as Forbidden Planet.
We checked a public map to show us where the local cinema was, but were quite surprised, instead, to find out where Derek's friend Lloyd was really hiding for most of the weekend.
Walking in the direction of Someplace Else, we found that the Tozzers, who pretended that they couldn't make it this weekend, were actually here all along! We also found out how James funds his comics, how polite 'Birminghamites' can be, why the children are always so hyper (they're drunk!), and that the coffee is revolting!
We never actually found Forbidden Planet. We did venture into Nostalgia and Comics, however, and, quite ironically, bought some more comics.
We then went to the station and caught the train, heading home.
We hope to come back to Birmingham soon!

P.S.

Birmingham is actually a lot smaller than it looks, you know.

Video Report coming soon.




*Ps. Yeah, I made that part up. He was sleeping. I personally didn't check, but others did.
**We unfortunately had to leave early, around 2ish, because I was suffering from Stalker Symdrome, with a rather creepy Party-goer continuously hitting on me. Harrah - lolz.
***Oh, and I would also like to point out, for those that attended, that the subject refferenced in the Star Trek debate, of the timeline in Enterprise where "the crew go into the past and find the ship from the original series", is a little, shall we say, off... It was an alternative universe where Captain Archer and the rest of the crew are nasty gits, and they came across a time-space-dimensional portal which contained the ship from the original series, from the version of the future that we know.

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