The Novel Strumpet Does Wondercon 2013! Mortal Instruments Panel! Buffy! Dean Koontz! Steampunk 101! Hannibal! Mythbusters! Autographs! And More!

The Novel Strumpet April 2, 2013 Book signings, Conventions, Fanboying! 1 Comment

So many of the MTF crew were out and about at Wondercon this year! I love it! Shockingly, I didn’t run into The Novel Strumpet once the entire day and usually I run into people al the time! I did see Big Mike and Daria (cough, Big Mike needs to get his butt in gear and write some more! End cough), but that was it.

Now, the Novel Strumpet clearly loves her novels (duh!) and her books, but a lot of times our worlds collide! I’m so glad because I wasn’t able to hit the Mortal Instruments panel, or see half of what she did!

It’s official… I need to clone myself.

Check out The Novel Strumpet Does Wondercon after the jump!

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The Novel Strumpet Does Wonder Con 2013

I admit that after the 3 hours it took me to get to the Con on Saturday (40 minutes to drive down, the rest just trying to exit the freeway and park) and then the hour just to get out of the parking lot that night…I decided one day was enough.

This is the second year it’s been down here in Anaheim, CA while they update the convention hall up in San Francisco. I feel like this is a warm up to Comic Con in San Diego, you know like running a 10k before you do a ½ marathon. The main things on my agenda were: Panels, costumes, and discover new books. There were some pretty awesome costumes, which I’ll put up at the end.

My first panel was for Dean Koontz.

This man writes it all, thrillers, supernatural, comics, heartwarming books about dogs and his Frankenstein series is being discussed for television with TNT. The most awesome thing is that everyone in the audience was given a free copy of Odd Thomas

He actually had a theme for his talk “Absurdity” which covered all the absurd things involved with his career. This guy is funny. Seriously funny. He had stories about bad book tours, experiences with his father’s entrepreneurial endeavors (the Koontz Komfy Kot is a real gem), fan mail and it’s just really great to know that someone this prolific has such an awesome sense of humor about it all. I almost hated having to leave early but I had another panel to get to…DRUM ROLL…

MORTAL INSTRUMENTS!!!!!!!! Ok, Sony was screening several movies but really were any of the others important? ;P

When I walked in someone looked at my Press badge and told me to go to this awesome middle section, but evidently I needed a special ticket for those seats. However, in front of those there happened to be an open seat so I got to sit super close. If I owned a better camera you’d see how awesome. Then it was times. SQUEEEEEEEAL! Clary and Jace and Alec and the author…otherwise known as Lily Collins, Jamie Campbell Bower, Kevin Zegers and Cassandra Clare.

I’m super excited about this film. Seeing the trailer they brought just made me more so. What I found really interesting was that most of the questions were for the author and not the cast…LOL…you gotta love book geeks. “Tell us if _________ is gonna __________.” Or “Will ____________ ever ____________.” HAHAHAHAHA. You did get the “What was it like filming.” “Were you excited to play this character.”

“Were the rune tattoos fun to put on?” (the answer to that seemed to be a resounding ‘no’). Having to wait until August blows. I’m really crossing my fingers that by ComicCon we’ll get some actual clips. Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease…..

After that I had a break so decided to walk the Con. It was pretty easy to do all in one day. I did get some info on some interesting comics and books and wound up buying one from Elizabeth Watasin:

Sort of a SteamGoth vs. Steampunk. Can’t wait to read it. As I was doing my walking and spending (which I should NOT have done) I turned a corner because some corsets caught my eye. The ladies running the shop were freaking out and after a moment I understood why….Grant Imahara!

I lurve “Mythbusters” and he’s done some Steampunk stuff so big thumbs up there!!!!

My next panel was on Crime Fiction with authors Stephen Blackmoore, Dana Cameron and Gary Phillips:

Of course they’ve all done something with the supernatural as well, whether it be full novels or short stories. They all seemed to enjoy the same authors as well and the resounding theme was research. Do it.

Next was a Steampunk 101 panel which I’m going to write up separately because there was just too much good stuff. I did get in on the tail end of a “Buffy” panel. I have no idea who these people are or what they were talking about (they worked on Buffy and other Joss Whedon productions). I did hear them mention “Firefly” and I love me some “Firefly.”

And the last panel was an screening for the first two episodes of NBC’s “Hannibal”. I had mixed feelings going into this. It seems to be a prequel to Thomas Harris’ first book featuring Dr. Lecter, Red Dragon. In the book Will Graham (Hugh Dancy) had captured Lecter three years previous and in this show they are just meeting. I mean Hugh Dancy, Laurence Fishburne and Mads Mikkelsen are all phenomenal actors but Anthony Hopkins is just so legendary as Hannibal it’s hard to see anyone else as our favorite cannibalistic psychiatrist.

Mikkelsen and Dancy are brilliant. Maybe because they did “King Arthur” together so already had a built in rapport. Whatever the reason I really hope this show does well and we get more than 13 episodes. It’s eerie, darkly humorous, atmosphericly edgy, and just twisted. We all know what Lecter is, but none of these people do and in just two episodes I found myself wondering if what he’s eating really is what he says or if it’s something else (you know what I mean). And it has Kid in the Hall’s Scott Thompson so that automatically is a win!

Probably not the wisest thing to watch before having to walk back to your car alone at 10:30 at night…thankfully there were other people around. Although that might not have been so lucky. I’m going to have to watch these episodes again just because. I don’t want to give anything away so I’m not going to tell you about Graham’s self-hypnosis trick, the music, the plots, etc. But my skin still crawls from the second episode. That’s good stuff! Or should I say….Delicious 😉

All in all a good day, if off to a rough start. So here are some of my cosplay and “in general” pics: