More on Wil Wheaton, Savage Worlds, and a Busy Weekend

My wife, Robin, is more than I deserve.  We’d already promised the rest of the Texas wine blogosphere to meet up at the Fredericksburg Food and Wine Fest on Saturday the 27^th, so when I suddenly discovered that the Austin Comic Con/Wizard World Austin was the same weekend – and that the cast of “Star Trek: the Next Generation” was attending -- I figured there was no chance we were going (and I was sad).  But since Vitis Poema is doing so well because of the connections she’s made in the Texas wine industry, Robin decided I needed to meet Wil Wheaton to get the moral support to get back on track with Regency/Gothic and Wine and Savages.

In case you’ve never visited his blog or watched Geek & Sundry, Wil Wheaton is an amazingly gracious individual.  He took several minutes to chat with each fan who came through his autograph line and really made everyone feel special (especially awesome since he’d gotten food poisoning the day before and was sick all night).  Meeting him was easily the highlight of the day.

Riffing off my earlier Wheaton/Savage Worlds post, we brought our copy of Savage Worlds Deluxe for him to sign.  Wheaton took a few moments to talk to us about the system: he loves how a night with friends can go from “Have you ever heard of Savage Worlds” to fighting Nazi zombies in half an hour, mentioned how some of his game designer friends get irritated with the way your chances of Acing a roll go down as your attribute dice go up (but he doesn’t mind because it’s just so much fun when you get to roll the dice again), and mentioned really enjoying a setting that I utterly failed to recognize at the time but eight hours later realized was probably Agents of Oblivion (or maybe API).  He laughed when I showed him the popular posts list on this blog (and at the name of the blog itself), and expressed his surprise that Texas made wine.  It was cool.

I also got Jonathan Frakes’ autograph on my DVD on season one of “Gargoyles” -- though I committed another one of those screw-ups that will embarrass me for the rest of my life and had him sign it for me only (dammit, dammit, dammit…).  I’d have loved to get the other “Gargoyles” voice actors who were there (Marina Sirtis, Michael Dorn, Brent Spiner, and LeVar Burton) to sign it too, but autographs were just too expensive to manage that.  Unfortunately, nobody recognized that I was dressed as David Xanatos (probably because I’m neither tan nor fit).

I really needed a fake tan

We also managed to squeeze into the last Star Trek actor panel of the convention: a freeform talk with Burton, Dorn, Frakes, and Spiner.  I’ve read about how the Next Generation cast are incredibly funny and ribald, but reading about those experiences is nothing compared to living it.  When an audience member asked the panel if they wear boxers or briefs, LeVar Burton revealed he always goes commado when he wears jeans – and he really revealed it!     

Fuzzy cellphone picture of the panel

I’m actually more of a fan of “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” than any other iterations of the franchise, so I was tickled that Michael Dorn got more questions about that series than “Next Generation.”  I hope whoever organized the big 25^th anniversary tour remembers this and gives us a DS9 reunion in another five years (though I imagine it might be hard to get Colm Meaney to stop acting long enough to get him on the tour).  I will save up the money to get into the big panel – and at least get autographs from the Ferengi.

Aside from the Star Trek-related content, the con was… um… meh.  Fan conventions are basically like renaissance fairs – people dress up in funny costumes and vendors try to sell you stuff you don’t need – but without the fresh air and folk bands.  It turns out I miss the fresh air and folk bands.  The legendary Neal Adams was there, but I didn’t feel like harassing him about the insanity of “Batman: Odyssey.”  I couldn’t find anybody selling ‘90s comics, so I wasn’t able to get any Topps Zorro or Lady Rawhide books (and I am not going to pay collector’s prices for Toth Zorro).  There was a bootlegger (I think) selling “Queen of Swords” on DVD, but I’m not going to pay for bootlegs when I can just muddle along on YouTube.  So… um… meh.  Next time I need to attend more panels and talk to more cosplayers (I'm not a cosplayer -- I just already had the Xanatos hair and clothes).

I got some fun pictures, so enjoy the wackiness: