Now that the smoke has cleared and the rubble of candy wrappers, makeup removal sponges and discard Predator gloves (no, really) has begun to slide into the mists of time, we take a moment to reflect on DragonCon 2014. And when I say “we,” I mean me. Widge. Because if you saw our schedule, you know we were collectively all over the damn place.
[ad#longpost]We began our weekend of madness with our usual kickoff point: Make the Bad Men Stop Part 1: The Beginning. The focus of this group therapy session was (if any of our panels can be said to have a focus) the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) and what we are technically calling DC‘s Attempt at a Cinematic Universe (DCACU). Just as I said during the panel, when I’m feeling down…I think about all of those DC/Warner executives clawing at their own faces shrieking, “We have Batman! We have Superman! We have that chick with the lasso we can’t figure out how to write! And they…they just whupped our asses with a raccoon and a tree! AGRRGHGHEERHH!!!” (Guardians is indeed about to blow past Man of Steel in regards to domestic box office.) Also, @raina and @stevesbigtwits showed up with beer from Canada and Carmel & Casey showed up with a ginormous cookie cake. You guys. They should have sent a poet.
Next, there was Solve This Live! where Jon, Aaron, Rox and special guest Joseph Scrimshaw displayed their problem-solving prowess in an improv show that focused on homelessness, the economy, Octopus Pies, a very sad cow, and Rox being trapped with ribbon. I would say it will make sense if you listen to it when we post the show but…it probably won’t.
Then later on we had Need Coffee vs. Sherlock, where many themes were explored: what the hell is he doing back, Moffat‘s writing style and why it bothers so many people (for multiple reasons) and also the recurring, “No, we’ll be covering that in the Doctor Who panel on Sunday.” What I love about these specific topic panels is not only how we manage to meander all over the place even within a narrow field, but also how seriously everybody’s approaching the subject matter. As serious as one can get with us at the wheel, anyway.
The Fun Fest was Saturday night. Everybody was awesome, especially since we had a very narrow window in which to set everything up and so were running around like mad chickens who not only had their heads cut off but also other alien heads stitched in place. There will be evidence of what transpired, but some highlights included: The Ludicrously Big Die; our first Queen of the Fun Fest; the poetry and hammering action of Sir Krispy Love; much discussion of slathering Liechtenstein with Cheez Whiz and more. It never ceases to amaze me how awesome, funny and talented all our fans are. And sick. So, so sick.
The Sound Board–Rob, Tuffley and myself–organized into battle formation for our annual BritPop panel on Sunday morning, which is an insane time to have anything–much less something at DragonCon. But we soldiered on and through and had an engaging chat with the audience where we sort of brain dumped a lot of music and bands on the folks present. Incidentally, you can find Tuffley’s BritPop playlist on Spotify here.
Then came Need Coffee vs. the Whoniverse, where the consensus (I think) was that Capaldi was doing well so far, that moving away from Mega Arcs was a good thing and that I don’t think anybody really ferociously leapt to Clara’s defense. I say this because when Rob mentioned that there might be some kind of change coming, I don’t recall anyone being really torn up about it.
Lastly, Monday saw us move into the sphere of Bad Men 2: Bad Harder led by Leigh, who had revealed herself to be the Earth-? Wonder Woman. (She did it for charity. And because she likes the Lasso of Truth idea.) Thanks to a fairly full house of people with questions, we wandered all over the place, talking about how China is bringing us both Pacific Rim 2 and lots and lots of 3D, how people still get surprised when we talk about board game movies and how Tom Cruise fatigue is apparently a thing.
Obviously there were a ton of other panels and things where our crew made appearances, but these were just the ones where I stuck my ugly mug into the fray. I invite any Need Coffee folks to contribute their own memories to the time capsule which we can then promptly light on fire. Thanks to all the folks who came out to party with us over the weekend–you rock with a serious amount of bass. Watch our Facebook page for photo evidence of the madness.
