New Orleans Comic-Con 2012

Oh, besides William Shatner (see previous entry), there was other stuff going on at the 2012 New Orleans Comic-Con. New Orleans did another great job. Besides William Shatner, the guests of interest were James Marsters, Adam Baldwin and Michael Biehn. I armored up early Saturday and left.

The ticket lines were incredibly long, but moved quickly. Several people took pictures of what is undoubtedly a rare sight - a Klingon waiting in line. Sometimes it is difficult to adhere to Terran courtesy and customs, but in the interest of interspecies detente, I complied.

The large hall was filled with Ferengi merchants selling their wares, and many comic book artists displaying samples of their excellent work. Besides my picture with William Shatner, I took pictures with James Marsters, Adam Baldwin and Michael Biehn. James Marsters was his usual telegenic self, chatting briefly with the folks getting pictures. We both have an affinity for the blues, so we talked about that for a second. Adam Baldwin was also very personable. He is conservative politically, and he and Robert Duncan McNeill (Tom Paris from Star Trek-Voyager), who is liberal politically, engage in animated, but very interesting discussions on twitter. I mentioned to Adam about this and he laughed heartily and said "He never answers my questions!" He was also very personable.

After the photographs, I wandered around and talked at length with my friends from the Star Wars 501st, as well as other Trekkies, all feddies, in uniform. Many of the folks attending wanted a picture, and I was happy to oblige. My friend Ri'par came as a TOS Klingon, and he was very, very impressive. I must make that uniform my next project. Other than Ri'par, there were no other Klingons, which was unfortunate.

That evening, I was "volunteered" for the costume contest. I was not eager to take part, the reason being somewhat vain. Although I had made tweaks to my uniform that I think made it look better, I used a new headpiece which was a smidgen too large. Consequently, it kept slipping back on my head. I also go the color off by a bit. I was far from my best-looking Klingon. Nevertheless, I entered. My friend Andrew was one of the judges, and remembering last year when I sang the Klingon War Song, he prompted the emcee, as he was introducing me, to say "I feel a song coming on". This year, I serenaded them with the Klingon Drinking Song. If I go next year, I'll have to learn the song that Worf and Martok sang in "You are Cordially Invited" for the kal'Haya. Also, there has to be some arias from Klingon opera I can learn, too. All of the constumes were awesome. I appreciate the time and effort these folks spend on such a fun endeavour. I was one of the "honorable mentions" despite my drawbacks, for which I was most appreciative.

The next day, I also appeared in Klingon uniform. Last year, I missed the Q&A for James Marsters, but didn't want to miss this one. I got to ask the last question, which was kind of funny, beacuse the guy running the show said "I think I better give the last question to the Klingon". So, I mentioned to James that I enjoyed his SyFy Original movie he did, a western called "High Plains Invaders", and asked him how he liked doing a western and if he wanted to do more. He said he loved it and would love to do more. He told a funny story about how the set, which was used quite a lot for westerns, had tons of nails sticking out of the wood sets. He said he tried in vain to get someone to fix that, because with all of the fighting and falling, an actor was sure to get impaled by a rogue nails. After nothing being done, James said he got a hammer and started fixing the problem himself. At that point, some of the crew finally helped. I got Adam Baldwin to sign the picture I took with him. I would have liked for James Marsters to sign his as well, but he was running late and it was time to take the shuttle back to the homeworld. All in all, it was an awesome con, and I look forward to next time. Qa'pla!