For many people in Australia who are massive fans of science fiction, fantasy, anime, comics, and various other fandoms that fall under the general pop-culture banner, Supanova Pop Culture Convention is the go-to event of the year. It travels around and 5-6 of the major cities/population centres of Australia get a taste of Supanova throughout the year.
For those that don't know what Supanova is- It is basically an entire weekend(Friday evening, Saturday and Sunday) devoted to anything you would commonly attribute to geeks. From computer games to books to movies, comics and tv shows. If it is in the category where it can get a massive following then it is generally represented. The main events of the weekend are special guest stars, with photo and autograph sessions as well as individual panels. The next major thing of the weekend is cosplay(costuming up as a favourite character from a particular fandom or even just in something original). Hundreds of people come in costume to these conventions and there is a massive cosplay competition for people who choose to cosplay and many people start planning their cosplay for the following year as soon as one convention is finished or they build on a cosplay and just improve it again and again each year.
Anyway this weekend was the weekend for Sydney Supanova... or Sydnova for short. It is probably one of the most attended of all of the Supanova events being that it is in the centre of Sydney and people do travel from far and wide to attend, even interstate.
I attended Sydnova for the third year in a row this year. I've only ever attended one day of the event but have been getting more and more into the spirit each year. The first year I went as myself, last year I went as a pirate in a generic pirate costume I bought at a costume shop, and this year... this year I went as Vala Mal Doran from Stargate SG-1.
It started with a friend introducing me to someone via Facebook... we got talking about Stargate and Supanova and then I mentioned I was thinking of going as a Stargate character. Someone else chimed in saying I should go as Vala. I agreed as long as someone went as Daniel Jackson and then someone volunteered to make the costume for me and we went from there. This occured back in March. So over the past few months the costume was in the works and I got more and more excited. It was made without using any specific costume patterns, she basically created it from scratch with the dvd's for reference.
It turned out fantastically! She is a genius!
I was recognised by a few different people over the course of the day and took many photos... mostly with Star Wars cosplayers(Darth Vader photobombed my photo with the Emperor!) and I guess that was mostly by choice of my own. I am a self confessed Star Wars fan. There was a harem of Slave Leias and they were all amazing! They had made their costumes from scratch and planned it out together and they had heaps and heaps of attention. Somehow I got roped into a whole bunch of photos (not that I am complaining) and it was pretty entertaining.
The other big thing for me this year was getting some of my hundreds of books signed by their authors. The 2 big drawcards to the Dymock's stand this year were Christopher Paolini who wrote the Eragon series and Matthew Reilly who has written several series including Scarecrow and Seven Ancient Wonders. The other author drawcard for me was Garth Nix who is the author of the Old Kingdom Trilogy of Sabriel, Lirael and Abhorsen.
I waited in line for about an hour to get 4 of my Matthew Reilly books signed, I accidentally left one at home meaning I now have only one of his books which remains unsigned. I also managed to get a photo with him and some of the Slave Leia harem later on in the day.
I got my brother's Eragon series signed for him and then I got my own Garth Nix novels signed as well. I have been wanting to get a chance to meet Garth Nix for several years now but somehow any book signing he has had in Sydney has always been when I haven't known or been able to attend if I have known. It was awesome and he was a really nice guy. I also went to his and Matthew Reilly's panels which were both fairly interesting. Garth Nix certainly had some good advice for budding authors.
There is only one thing that threw me off today. I was on my way home and at one of the train stations when a guy asked if he could get a pic of me. I said sure and then he decided to tell me I was pretty 'hot' for a cosplayer... I am not sure what world he is living on or maybe I am just modest but I definitely think he may not have been seeing the same people I saw at Sydnova today... good looks are not lacking in the female cosplayers, and many of them are much better looking than myself!
Overall the day was fantastic, and fun. Probably went the quickest of any of the Sydnova days I have attended thus far and definitely something I look forward to in the future. In the meantime I will keep an eye out for any photos lurking about of myself from this year. I know there are sure to be quite a few with the Leia harem... it's just a matter of tracking them down.
~~Random Logic~~
