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AnimeNEXT 2007
July 6 - 8
Day Three
Schoolgirl Utena
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At some point Sunday morning I got the following phone call:
Louis: "Hey, babe?"
Crissy: "Yes, dear?"
Louis: "I'm not feeling too hot. Would you mind if I skipped the convention and stayed home?"
Crissy: "Would you mind if I still went?"
Louis: "No, that's fine."
Crissy: "We're cool, then." |
I'm not sure who they're cosplaying, but they were absolutely adorable. |
All right, fine, back to getting ready.
Second phonecall:
My Grandfather: "Christina..."
Crissy: "Hi Grandpa!"
My Grandfather: "Guess where I am!"
Crissy: "...uh..." |
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Three of the masters, caught on the other side of the lens. |
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My Grandfather: "Grandma's grave! I'm right down the block from your house!" (It's true. All of Queens is a graveyard.)
Crissy: "...OMGWTFBBQ?!"
My grandfather is 82 years old, and had driven himself all the way from Pennsylvania to Queens New York to visit his wife's grave, and thought he was just going to turn around and drive all the way back right away. I thought this was a bad, bad, very bad idea, so I convinced him to come over to sit and rest for a while and have a cup of coffee, even though this meant delaying my getting ready and leaving, even though it meant juggling my mother's father and his ex-son in law. Ugh. |
Fire! |
With my two incredibly unexpected phone calls out of the way, I finally got ready and ended up getting to the con center close to 3 PM or so, meaning I wouldn't have a lot of time before the official end of AnimeNEXT. I got to run into Selphie for slightly longer than three minutes, but she was on her way home. I ran into Tony, but he was heading over to the Venture Brothers panel so I told him I'd steal him later for shots of my Utena costume.
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A great L from Death Note. |
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By far the best part of Sunday was what came next: I managed to grab Dave away from his convention duties for a bit (he had deputies, so everything was covered before he allowed himself to relax) and just walk around the con arm-in-arm talking about everything; that con, past cons, future cons, cosplay in general, photography in general, life, love, and the universe, all while taking in the scenery of pretty flowers and pretty people in pretty costumes.
After our tour of the grounds, Dave brought me for the second best part of Sunday: my very first behind the scenes look at workings of a con. Dave brought me into Headquarters or Command Central or I forget what they call it now, and I saw just how many people and a little of how much organization it takes to make a convention run at all, never mind run well.
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Mike Sinterniklaas, a voice on The Venture Bros.
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The tour of the technical aspects of the con eventually led us to the Venture Brothers panel ourselves. Dave had to resume his photography duties, so he turned me over to Tony for the duration, and I got to listen to Mike Sinterniklaas about his experiences on the show. I freely admit that I'm not a fan of the show, but just hearing Mike talk about the show made me wish I was. He was so cool. He told lots of inside stories, did "the voice" a few times to the delight of the fans, and once slipped and referred to his character as "I". And he ended the panel with a countdown so everybody could yell, "Go Team Venture!" together and it was just really, REALLY nice to see someone who was that in-touch and friendly with his fandom.
I also went to my first "talk-back" for a convention ever, which I was very grateful for, because it gave me another chance to personally thank a staffer for the hard work they do (they do, you know) but also (and less importantly) to air my one grievance about the Dealer's Room. I already talked about that, so I won't say anything else, other than to again say I *do* think the staffers are doing a good job, and that running a convention is, I'm sure, much harder work than any attendee can realize until he or she has volunteered.
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These pictures came out pretty dark because we were indoors, I had to lighten them in PSP. |
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Outside, we ran into Dave again and also Doc the Stampede, who I unfortunately had not run into due to skipping the Artist's Alley all weekend. I got a really cute shot of the three photographers together, and then ran off with Tony do to our Utena shoot, which was a lot of fun and ended up coming out wonderfully.
At any rate, it was getting late, and I had work the next day, so I said goodbye to all the friends I ran into and made my way home. After all, I didn't want to exhaust myself--I was doing all this again in only two weeks. |
Vincent Valentine from Final Fantasy VII |
More Photos (none taken by me, mind you.)
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