What a weekend


Pic by Eric, from his blog post about Armageddon

This weekend had so much packed into it, but it all came out pretty well.

Went to Armageddon Pop Culture Expo with Eric. Every year I say I won’t go back next year, but they keep bringing over people who played the Doctor, and occasionally cool comics guests. This year, 1996 Doctor Paul McGann (Eric describes that) and comics team Mike & Laura Allred. I was wearing my only comic-book t-shirt, which features the meditative and romantic Concrete character by Paul Chadwick, and Mike & Laura complimented the shirt and we talked about what Paul was up to these days (answer: commercial work, mostly, though I see from his blog he’s started on a new Concrete piece). They signed my Wolverine of Fame, and I walked Mike over to the NZ comics table where Dylan Horrocks was lurking so they could meet.

Saw more of Dylan at my real highlight of the weekend, the NZ Comics Weekend, which was absolutely buzzing with creative energy. I think I’ll talk about that in a different post, even.

Apart from that, caught up with a bunch of people who all chose this weekend to come back to Wellington for a visit, got stuck into some packing, lined up some more work, watched the new Doctor Who, and did a few quiet things for my birthday. Really nice, overall.

9 thoughts on “What a weekend”

  1. Ouch, the Paul McGann session sounds a bit painful according to your friend. Did you have a chance to see Colin Baker & Sylvester McCoy when they did a small NZ tour about 5 years back?

  2. Didn’t see that visit, but did see Colin when he was here with Katy Manning back in ’01 or thenabouts.

    I didn’t get as much anguish coming off the stage as Eric did, but was in the same ballpark. Would have been much better for everyone if there’d been someone on stage with him, prompting questions and steering the discussion. Ah well.

  3. Apologies for forgetting to wish you a bonny birthday in person on Saturday, so Happy Birthday now! Temporally relocate as you please.

    I also attended Armageddon on Saturday, and wondered if it is outgrowing the venue. It was tricksy due to overcrowding, not helped by clueless fanboys dressed as Darth Vader stopping to get photographs with whichever Stormtrooper/Ghostbuster etc happened to be walking past and generating instant gridlock. Made me wish for a switchblade cowcatcher.

  4. I haven’t even been tempted by Armageddon for years. Sorry to say that nothing in your or Eric’s comments make me wish to reconsider.

  5. I can appreciate where Eric’s coming from. I saw Colin, Syl and Katy when they were here last and for all the staginess and lack of spontanaeity about that show, at least it didn’t leave them stranded in front of a largely nonplussed and at times ignorant audience.

    Not that I can blame the audience, many of whom appeared to not know the actor or the TV Movie*, likely being more familiar instead with the post-2005 DW series. For that perhaps the questions about whether Paul ever met the Cybermen or who his favourite new series monsters were could be expected.

    I can’t blame McGann either, as he was generous and gracious to all of his questions, including one from an attendee in front of me whose question was very unclear. FWIW I’d disagree with Eric that McGann showed some bitterness, I’d say stoicism and bemusement would be closer to the truth. He’s still in work thankfully, and the opportunity lost wasn’t down to him; even the new series snub is understandable. The constant question from fans must be wearying though.

    Although my con experience is limited I do regret poor planning on the part of the organisers. Outside of the programme booklet there was next to no context to a guest whose presence I considered to be something of a coup. To leave him with no interviewer or visual aids, having to explain to a darkened room who he was and what part he’d played fourteen years ago was dismissive and lazy. I cringed, several times.

    *(Steven Moffat’s 1999 DW skit The Curse of Fatal Death screened immediately beforehand and a show of hands indicating who hadn’t seen it before was something of an omen for the event, I thought)

  6. It might be worth mentioning that McGann has actually played the Doctor a number of times in radio plays, including an adaptation of the infamous unfinished Douglas Adams Who story Shada (which Adams eventually reworked as Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency).

  7. Yeah, I’m not sure if that was mentioned in the convention brochure. It came up in the Q&A, but just the once, and again, without visual aids or anything like that he had to sort of fill in the gaps for everyone there.

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