Sometimes you want to achieve this without having to play Mario. Again.

I had to go through that awkward phase early last year when I discovered that playing Skyrim on my PS3 was the equivalent of clapping honey-coated hands together; you would imagine it to be sweet but instead results in unnecessary gooey mayhem at your fingertips. Yes, I wanted to be one of the darlings who was nording her way through the game on one of the Microsoft ponies, and I recall some people who laughed at my misfortune because I didn’t own another device capable of enjoying the gritty realism of slaying dragons and picking flowers. Not to be dissuaded further, I went out and sourced two other sword and sorcery games and hoped for success. One was not successful (sure I started talking big about it, but that dialogue was just too much to chew for long.).

The other was Kingdoms of Amalur.

It is very easy to have a love/hate relationship with Kingdoms of Amalur. It is ridiculously (but unsurprisingly) narrative-heavy. Some of the controls have my character stop suddenly, as if attempting to balance a knife’s edge. However, I see it as the three steps to the left that were necessary for the industry to create a “refreshing look” at the fantasy genre.

In my opinion, the preoccupation of the fantasy genre to “justify” its whimsical elements through realistic contexts creates a co-dependent and limiting structure for world design. Agreed, providing a relevant cultural association is an avenue for engagement with narrative. However, the neo-medieval trend is rather indicative of a lot of fantasy media at present and raises the question: how many contextual foundations does the reader need in order to feel comfortable in a narrative setting? Are we now faced with a genre that relies on its internal cohesion from a “real world” setting rather than developing vivid fantasy worlds of its own?

Whether it be Game of Thrones or Skyrim, fantasy media is adamant on its true-to-research representation of medieval customs and accurate realistic experiences. It is logical to make a character’s hair muddied from battle, evident scars due to sub par medical expertise of the era, and varying shades of leather brown garments. However, it doesn’t seem engaging enough for that one sword to just have a faint glow around it that qualifies it to give electric damage to a foe.

This is what makes Kingdoms of Amalur a bright, colourful jewel in the bleak forests of neo-medievalism. It is not often enough that we see a fantasy game that embraces the possibilities of fantasy, not just the limitations. Salvatore explored a theme that could even be considered science fantasy or speculative fiction – the development of life-prolonging technology, and the implications of this technology for the occupants of the Faelands. Combined with dabblings of divination (the latter a mashup of new age spirituality and medieval paganism), the game explores universally contextual themes. Whether it be a person’s spiritual opinions of fate, the ever-present racial conflicts of our society, or a new perspective of the Fountain of Youth folklore, the game has demonstrated that thematic material is an equally strong foundation as historical accuracy.

Yes, it seems as if the entire setting has been dowsed in unicorn tears and nyan cat farts, but it adds to the distinction of engaging with a very different world.

And I can play it on my Playstation 3.

Part of the reason why I do not play many multiplayer games is that I do not have a strong competitive nature. My upbringing as a videogame enthusiast saw multiplayer games designate winners and disregard the rest. I just got bored with it. Understandably, the MMORPG genre has provided a new type of multiplayer experience – collaboration. But it is obvious that even the concept “collaboration” can be implemented in many different ways.

For example, while Melysande sits on a hill alone kicking dirt with her boot, my Guild Wars 2 character has developed at a faster pace. In a few short weeks of gameplay, I have not only reached level 40 with my main character, I have also started constructing an alternate character to experience the game through a different context. Even more intriguing is how quickly I progressed my main character Sigrunar from level 28 to level 40. This was done as a challenge – my brother left for holiday on Christmas Eve and dared me to level my character to level 40 by New Year’s Eve.

I achieved this with little or no effort in two days.

And I may be good, but I am not that good.

Let’s be clear – World of Warcraft remains the longest-running MMORPG in recent history, with a prominent culture of fans who find new and interesting ways to play the game. It would be remiss of me to consider World of Warcraft as a “lesser game”. There are a plethora of academic, business, and personal accounts that are ready to throw mud in my face and counter my argument. However, I feel it is important to acknowledge how both of these games challenge my own personal style of play. To that end, I believe that World of Warcraft defined collaboration, but Guild Wars 2 has redefined it, accentuating its virtues, and positioned it as an equal goal to competitive play.

Money speaks volumes, but it is definitely harder to play a game like World of Warcraft as a single player. For a format that boasts multiplayer cooperation, World of Warcraft has always felt more competitive than collaborative when achieving this goal. While guilds subscribe players to prosocial behaviour, and Blizzard has endeavoured to create facilities where players can recruit others to achieve game objectives, it is still a hard environment to communicate if you do not feel “initiated” into the culture with other players. As a fan of the original Warcraft games, I was definitely aware of the narrative’s context, but this did not automatically translate into instant camaraderie with others.

Of course it is not IMPOSSIBLE to play alone – Melysande is testament to how much I have achieved without additional support – but it is made harder by mechanics that require a higher level of interpersonal communication. For some people this can be intimidating. Joining a guild with similar ideologies certainly mitigates this issue, but more than enough urban lore dwells on crass and demeaning communication between players. And, quite frankly, I have better things to do with my day than to deal with another player’s bullshit.

Another interesting difference is how players interact with the world. Characters tend to congregate in mission retrieval areas, but you rarely encounter characters in open plains or away from NPC populations where they are collecting quests or rewards. In this sense, World of Warcraft is a game of organisational efficiency to achieve objectives that will advance your character. Once these objectives have been achieved, sometimes there is little reason to return and explore the environment.

In contrast, it is difficult to solo a character in Guild Wars 2 because you never feel alone when playing the game. As I mentioned in my previous post, I find Guild Wars 2 constructs different methodologies that lead to cooperative experiences in the game. The 3-step boomerang mentality (player fetches a quest, player completes the objectives, player returns for a reward) has been replaced by a necessary engagement with the environment and context around them. While Lion’s Arch and racial-specific hometowns will always be heavily populated, I have found many more characters exploring and engaging in the game environment and away from towns and cities.

When the chance of encountering other characters is increased, this motivates further exploration that inevitably leads to collaboration to achieve game goals. I am more likely to “grind” for karmic rewards and experience when I see other players doing the same, and a smart move by ArenaNet was for this effort to go beyond camaraderie and create synergy through shared intentions. You can complete objectives more than once without significant penalties, and levels are capped in areas to still provide challenges for veteran explorers and new initiates. Your contributions are not only meaningful and rewarding for you, but equally as rewarding for other players in the game.

Does this mean that one game is better than another? Possibly. World of Warcraft may be ageing with few options to adapt to new definitions of cooperation. But it still offers plenty of competitive avenues and encourages collaboration in a new way and there is nothing wrong with that – I am simply not a very competitive game enthusiast. Simply put, I have found more opportunities that suit my altruism and cooperative ideologies through playing Guild Wars 2, and a game that supports my play style has led to more worthwhile rewards and a motivation to keep playing.

Unfortunately, I am tasked with providing this feedback to exhibitors.

Now, let’s be clear. This will be feedback that I will be criticised for. I am not a comic artist (occasionally a writer, never EVER an artist). I am merely the partner of a hardworking aspiring comic creator, which probably puts me at the same level as that goat in Jurassic Park if we are are considering the popular culture foodchain. However, I hope that those who may be critical of my opinions will also see it as the opinions of someone a little bit to the left of their craft, and possibly consider some of the points that I make below.

Step 1a: Get Some Perspective

1. It’s Felicia Day
2. It’s Tom Felton
3. It’s James Masters

In that order. (give or take a few Whovians)

Repeat points 1-3, and then pause and consider what your expectations were for a popular culture expo that has to cater to all things pop culture. This should be a given, everyone, and I know that 99% of you are not that dumb.  Popular culture is, by its very definition, trying to find consensus in mainstream avenues. So this is a broad trend that involves comics, anime, manga, sci-fi and fantasy media (including television shows, movies, and books), gaming (table top, collectible cards and video games), cosplay. Comic books are a small slice of that pie, and while they are a wonderfully creative subset of popular culture, they are not the only ticket sellers at a popular culture event.

The very best that a comic creator can hope for at a popular culture convention is to sell to comic fans (who, as we all know, are meticulously critical of all elements of a comic book), or to attract people who would not normally be attracted to comics (who are usually standing in lines to get signatures/autographs/share the same air space of their favourite guests). It is an opportunity for exposure and market recognition, and it is the choice of the comic creator as to whether they believe the benefit of this exposure outweighs the cost. While convention management can try to position crowds so that they interact with local publishers and content, it does not automatically translate to engagement with an audience who may just not be interested in you.

Step 1b: GET. SOME. PERSPECTIVE.

Over the last couple of weeks, I have noted some interesting, and occasionally disturbing, opinions of local creators who attended and endeavoured to sell some of their fine works at Supanova Brisbane and Supanova Adelaide. I want to consider this feedback in detail.

1. The positioning of Artists Alley at Brisbane Supanova.

I will agree with this point. Brisbane organisers did the best that they could, but they could only do so much with the logistics that they were afforded. This meant that artists were in a few different locations at the event. Yes, it sucked. Some of our stock got warped/ruined, possibly made less appealing to customers. The one shining light to Supanova’s credit was that the main bulk of local creators/artists were put in an area that would have additional traffic. However, as per my point above, additional traffic does not mean additional sales.

Let’s also be fair and say that weather did a nasty on everyone, and that crowds were diminished.

All in all, it sucked.

But we all know what works and what doesn’t. And for those people reliant on a Brisbane marketplace, all that we can hope for is that the new Showgrounds will provide better access and atmosphere for 2013, and that the November storm season in Queensland will stop being so goddamn moody, because I can foresee that varying these elements will definitely assist with publicity and sales next year.

2. The convention was highlighting their “guest stars” and forgetting about local creators.

…. excuse me?

Were you there? Did you purchase a table for the weekend with very little argument from convention organisers? Were you able to sell your product without providing a percentage of that to the convention organisers? Was your book banned, or censored in any way? No? Then no, you were not “silenced”, or marginalised. You were provided an avenue to display and engage with an audience.

As for the guests … Yes. Yes they trumped.

Not all guests attend for free. In fact, most conventions probably pay for some of those guests to attend – whether it be a contract, or other accommodation costs. So business basics would dictate that they would like to make a return on that investment, so would be promoting these guests moreso than local creators. This does not stop you from standing up, waving your arms, and interacting with people. If you are going to sit behind your table with your face in a doodle pad (and yes I have seen photos of people doing this), then don’t blame James Masters for that.

In fact, you should probably THANK James Masters for that. James Masters is providing your audience. It’s up to you to work to keep that audience. That’s your job.

3. People should be paying attention to local content.

if you are that naive to believe that the many years of a professional career, whether nationally or internationally, should be disregarded simply due to patriotism? If you think that, just because you got birthed on the same patch of land as your audience, they must pay more attention to you? You need to get your head on straight, sweetheart. These “guests” aren’t just lucky. They didn’t just fall in with the right crowd. No – they worked their almighty butts off to get where they are today, no matter what industry they work in. It is quite unfair to judge the fans who appreciate that effort just because they didn’t come over to your table. Understand that it takes that much hard work to get somewhere in this world, and go out there and do it to the best of your ability.

Yes, we all know that the Australian comic scene is small/tiny/just a little larger than a bee’s dick. It will not get any larger in a culture built on berating success, belittling audience, and blaming everyone else for not recognising your greatness. There are thankless jobs in the world, and people have to work through them so that one day they will be the guests and have people lining up for $40 mugshots and $20 autographs. People do not owe you due to your pedigree or simply because you can put pen to paper – they owe you if you create something that impacts their lives.

It’s been three hours.

And I just got off of the goddamn boat.

What else do I need to say?

But more importantly, this is the first time that I have actually played an MMORPG with other people.

I’m going to place a disclaimer on this. I play games alone. I enjoy playing games alone. When I was a kid I would play video games with my brother during the summer holidays, but this was not always multiplayer – it was often that one person would play and the other would be there to berate or offer moral support. We would have our own little language of play, and my mother would shake her head like a cheesy television commercial and ask “haven’t you finished that game yet?”

These days I like the freedom to pick up a controller or turn on a computer in my own time and just be a general klutz on my own. Liberation from cooperative player mentality! Freedom from the necessity to own more than one console controller! I AM HAPPY TO BURN MY ETHERNET CABLE LIKE THE SOCIAL UMBILICAL CORD THAT IT IS.

Yes – I get a lot of flack for it. I get Twitter followers who like to say that playing games on PS3 is “retarded” and not playing multiplayer is “lame” and means that I “have no friends”.

I have friends.

I have awesome friends.

But I don’t need my friends to hold my hand in order for me to play a video game.

Now that I have explained that, I am going to open my mouth and insert my foot. You see, I have been “inspired” by the random acts of charity to attempt to play Guild Wars 2 with others. The “others” happen to be my brother Monotone Bob and two of his friends. He and his friends apparently have this cooperative thing downpat, and I am now starting to discover what successful cooperative gaming entails.

Monotone Bob sometimes comes over for dinner and he will ask me how my Nord ranger is doing and tell me what new spell his mesmer has learned. He will ask what the aim is for my character (aim? What aim? My character automatically aims). His friends will look at my skill points and suggest skills that I can invest in. He sends me through weapons that he thinks will help me, and will craft me some new bags since I have too much crap to lug around. The language of play has returned.

This has been happening for about four weeks now, and now the community has developed further. My mother will yell at us “are you two talking about STUFF again?” And with that, ‘stuff’ was introduced to our lexicon. Monotone Bob will message and ask “you collecting some STUFF?”, and I will yell to Mom that I’ll be on my computer “talking about STUFF.”

Yes yes, I get it – I swear too much.

Apparently I need to be educated on the etiquette of”stuff” too, with this delightful note put next to my keyboard one evening as I talked to Monotone Bob and his friends on Ventrilo.

See, I can get away with this when I do not have to play with others…

No, my opinion on cooperative and multiplayer games has not changed. I still play Guild Wars 2 on my own time, trying desperately to keep up with my guild. However, I believe it will be one of the very few games that I will be tempted to play with others.

I make no apologies for not playing the first Borderlands. Not. A. Single. Apology.

And I can apparently get away with that statement. A couple of weeks before launch, Borderlands was released as a Playstation Plus freebie and I downloaded it, believing that I should really gain an understanding of the premise of the series. However, my own investigations into popular opinion has indicated that the first Borderlands partnered similar gameplay with an irrelevant plot, therefore making it perfectly alright for me to just start Borderlands 2 without it.

Which I did.

I knew from the start that I would die, it was just a question of when this would occur. Apparently Borderlands 2 wanted to provide this wakeup call earlier than later. I decided to try out Zer0 for my first build, and was promptly dismembered by Knuckle Dragger for having the audacity to try and retrieve Claptrap’s eye from around his neck. When this occurred twice in a row, I threw my Assassin build to the kerb and restarted with Maya.

This was when I started to appreciate Borderlands 2 just that little bit more. Maya encouraged me to pre-empt my play, relying on a sniper rifle to deliver a ridiculous number of headshots before confronting other enemies with a Phaselock and fire-inducing pistol to their nethers. Borderlands 2 has demanded that I strategise a hell of a lot more than I had been in other RPGs of late – my playthrough of Mass Effect 3 feels almost quaint in comparison, and the head-first approach that I have relied on in Guild Wars 2 has been fruitless in Borderlands 2, merely giving enemies the opportunity to truly overwhelm me with no one to save me.

But let’s be honest – Borderlands 2 is not a true RPG, but my first taste of what a first person shooter RPG would feel like. This has been an attractive concept for the franchise, and one that has been mimicked in various ratios by Fallout 3, Skyrim, and Deus Ex. I am not a girl who usually likes the FPS genre, mainly because I enjoy playing games solo and the FPS genre seems to have grown into a mandatory cooperative experience, so I was mainly attracted to the RPG hybridisation.

In this context, Gearbox has ticked all of the boxes. Game narrative provides for the classic “main quest and a katrillion side quests” model, with the side quests being ridiculously engaging (did I want to make it to Sanctuary? Why? I like it out here!) and providing useful or hilarious rewards. Customisation is still pretty limited, but the class skills trees allow for access to a multitude of useful skills, unlocked, that a player that use and rebuild as they see fit. Yes, there are bound to be plenty of “ultimate build” guides in the future, and most of these will suggest a base class to suit your play style, but there are still plenty of aspects that you can customise.
What sealed the deal for me is the visual environment of the game. It is almost a homage to the cultural fascination with colloquial science-fiction – a hat tipped to Whedon’s Firefly aesthetics with a firm grasp on current popular references, both providing their own entertainment beyond the FPS-RPG model. Characters are engaging, not just a means to an end. The overarching nemesis is not fifty dungeons away, interacting with the story with strategic cutscenes – instead, he talks into your ear to antagonise you at frequent intervals.

I am going to enjoy the leisurely playthrough of this game, the promised DLC content, and the opportunity to go back and do it all over again, just so I can listen to Handsome Jack wax poetic about his pony.

I ended up spending a wonderful evening looking after the puppies of the Princess Damsel, which was just the break I needed. Firstly, because Kim has the house that I imagine a writer would have: plenty of simple environments to create focus, and plenty of books and artistic inspirations. The added bonus? Not only was I greeted by two wagging tails, but Kim also gave me a copy of her new book, Lighthouse Bay, which I proceeded to read and finish in about eight hours (in between puppy cuddles and being pawed in the face).

It is true that my preferred genre of choice is fantasy, with some sci-fi and literature titles getting my tick of approval. So I struggle with women’s novels. I don’t have a firm grasp of the pretty and the feminine. What makes Lighthouse Bay different for me (also Wildflower Hill) is that Kim has still written that epic story I would expect in a fantasy novel, except without the fantasy elements. The modern-day story is a nice counterpoint to the larger conflicts that are happening in the parallel narrative set in 1901. Don’t get me wrong – both stories have conflicts and crises for their female protagonists. However, looking at what Isabella went through and how that connects to Libby in present-day Queensland? Libby is the most insignificant connection to the entire larger story. The star really is the setting – Lighthouse Bay, and it is described as the welcome retreat that both women need, and the simple town that we all crave to experience.

Sorry, my dear, that’s as good a review you will get out of me! I did love it, though. It was a welcome change of pace to have a book that I couldn’t put down.

Maybe this is the consequence of spring here in Brisbane – I’m finding things a lot easier at the moment I finished up my New Super Mario Bros 2 review for ComicBooked and am now trying to decide if I dare to mention my dissatisfaction with the artwork in the new Fairest comic (is it just me, or did the artist change?) without being set upon by wolves.

Also, I have discovered that my faithful feathered friend, Pippin Tiberius, likes to watch me play New Super Mario Bros 2 on my 3DS XL. He talks to Mario. He bosses Mario around.

I adore the cheeky thing.

Did I also mention that Pippin Tiberius doesn’t shut up? Here’s an example..

After attempting to play Kid Icarus: Uprising (a misguided goal that sought to permanently disfigure my hands) (and no I do not subscribe to the necessity to play a *handheld* device with some ridiculous peripheral that ceases its function as a portable console!), I have been holding out for a game that would embrace the 3DS’s key features: portability, quick-to-play, and non-committal engagement.

Portable gaming devices are for the ruthless delegator: a mind that can savour the finite moments to enjoy the challenges that a game can bring in a world where work/life balance is persistently threatened. While the larger console and PC cousins are immovable tanks of story and action that need to boast an immersible charisma, handhelds are nimble creatures that really need to remind users that anywhere can be a place for play. Admittedly, Nintendo has struggled with that balance in the DS line, and it only seems now that the 3DS XL is bringing Nintendo back to the light of the portable market, with strong initial sales in Japan and industry embracing the idea that “bigger is better”.

This is where New Super Mario Bros 2 succeeds: in a context where other designers have endeavoured to engross the player in miniaturised epics of their larger cousins, Nintendo have encouraged their “Beta team” to embrace simple motivators. Jump, walk, run or fly from the start of the stage to the end. It is quick to pick up, quick to play, easy to put down, and presents a desire to pick up again.

With this mechanic, developers Yusuke Amano and Masaaki Ishikawa have veered dangerously close to nostalgia, sometimes to the point of direct reference, and some critics have determined this to be sloppy and devoid of imagination. However, I perceive their criticism as the verbosity of their selective memories. See, I remember the original New Super Mario Bros. I remember playing it on my DSi, and the limited motivation that I associated with my playthrough. I saved the Princess, and I never felt the need to go back and explore further.

I have embraced the familiar in New Super Mario Bros 2 as it has been accompanied by a bold new focus. In a blasphemous move, Nintendo makes the rescue of Princess Peach secondary to the goal of … *enjoy the dramatic pause* … collecting coins. In its own amusing way, it pokes fun at the concepts of economy and class as Mario faces a world of deadly drops, lethal spikes, and assorted monstrosities as he progresses through each stage. The game does not motivate you to rescue Peach, but it provides plenty of kudos as your overall coin tally reaches one thousand, five thousand, ten and so on. Nintendo’s motivator is not to “collect them all”, but to keep collecting with infinite possibility. To facilitate this goal, they have provided every available resource – gold brick helmets that cause Mario to gather coins as he runs, gold rings that grant a Midas touch to the entire environment and dispenses coins from every moving object, and even switches that cause golden showers of coins to rain from the sky. There is a competitive Coin Rush mode, where you dash through levels and gather as many gold coins as possible, with results linked to your Street Pass account.

This is also the first Mario linear platformer that embraces the 3DS’s graphic capabilities. As Super Mario 3D Land encouraged exploration in the 3D environment, New Super Mario Bros 2 simply provides depth to the background decoration. I have flicked the 3D switch on and off a few times during play, and can say that the blurring effect is wonderfully unobtrusive and a lesson in the subtlety that can be achieved with the technology.

No, it does not present a brand new mechanic for the Mario franchise, but New Super Mario Bros 2 presents a new end goal and way to play. You will finish this game with thousands of lives for every 100 coins you collect, and you will go back and collect many more.

It is partly to do with the time constraints of a young woman trying to make her way in the world as a herald for PhD students, and partly to do with the large backlog of books that are sitting on my bookshelf, belittling me with their towering mass – their thick, solidifying volume of words.

All of those books just sitting there, mocking me, is enough to make my blood boil. So now it is not just enough tto sit back and relax with a good book – every text that I pick up off of my shelf is a call to battle, to take each page and stare it down into submission. Now having a few conquests to my belt, I feel confident in giving a quick analysis of

Finishing off the second Rothfuss book, The Wise Man’s Fear, was the most difficult test. I loved the first book in the Kingkiller series, but this second one was just an awkward middle child for a family that already has a glowing eldest child and is probably heavily pregnant with the attention-seeking baby that everyone is expecting to steal the show. There were moments that I loved, but I skipped over quite a bit of it as well just to get the damn thing read. The most interesting thing was that Kvothe got to go and explore the world and challenge his own interpretations of cultural constructs, and it was probably Rothfuss’ best bet to give these communities a proper voice before the final act.

I inhaled Farenheit 451 and savoured some sections. I have a thing for haloumi at the moment, so let’s just say it was like the most delicious brief taste of haloumi. The idea of an accepted reality and to have a character that challenged that invited reading in a way that was relatable to the audience while also being “manic pixie dream girl”, forced me to explore this new world and its ideological constructs. If I had time, I’d go back and reread it again.

Dragon Age: The Calling. Its David Gaider. Fuck off – of course I was going to love it. I still struggle with some of the backstory, but “The Calling” really helped me to go back to the games and start a couple of them again with a better idea of the racial and community prejudices involved. For this reason, I went back and picked up the Mass Effect paperbacks, but I am still struggling through the first one of those. The Mass Effect graphic novels were better.

Speaking of comics, I also went out and picked up the first three extended volumes of Batman: No Man’s Land. I had borrowed the original releases from a friend a couple of months ago and had enjoyed them, but I have to say that the extended versions are really quite wonderful. Seeing how all of the different titles intertwined (I didn’t get into the recent Court of Owls) makes you appreciate the detail and depth of editing at a big comic publishing house, just to keep a level of continuity going through so many writers who interpret these characters with so many different voices.

Oh, and I decided to dabble in something a little different and grabbed the first two trade paperbacks of The Unwritten that Mike Carey has been writing. It really ties in to a lot of the themes that authors such as Neil Gaiman and Charles de Lint have been focused on – that the stories that we tell shape the world that we are in. The references to so many classics – Shelley, Milton, even Kipling – makes it a literary appreciation as well as a journey into perceptions of reality.

Aside from that, I’ve been editing a massive taxonomic publication that is going to be released by CABI in early 2013. That has essentially been my weekend job for the last year – compiling descriptions together and making sure that the style guide was consistent throughout, and also scanning and editing the artwork that will be included as an appendix to the book. 452 figures, guys. It was chaos, but I am glad that it’s finally done and off to the publishers, because now I can get back into my own writing… if I can remember how to string a decent narrative together … *headdesks*

Step 1 – Get Some Perspective

1. It’s. Stan. Lee.
2. It’s. Patrick. Stewart
3. Repeat points 1 and 2. Add a smack across the head if this assists.

Because I have been fortunate (?) to have attended large-scale conventions before, I know how this stuff plays out. But I think there were a lot of newbies down in Melbourne last weekend, or people who have forgotten the law of Convention Stardom:

If you want to see all of the big names and the awesome, you damn well queue outside the venue at 4am in the morning because there are approximately 40,000 other people who are just as entitled as you are.

Also, put into perspective the supply and demand – to even dream of the thought of equality, access to these high-profile stars would be for approximately 5 seconds, which is not long enough to indulge in your life story. Given that reality, I decided to be a kind and considerate soul – I didn’t brave the lines. I just didn’t see that it was a worthwhile investment of my time when there were wonderful new talents pinned along the western wall who would talk to you for as long as you please.

See, this is where I was for the whole weekend – parked next to the delightful Capt who was taking commissions and selling his comic swag.

It was fun times.

Step 2 – Have a Business Card

I didn’t have one. The Capt didn’t have one. It was an ongoing gag for the entire weekend. I admit that the Capt has some noble ethics as to why he doesn’t have one, but I felt like a bit of a fool for not having something that at least said “I’m a writer and I have lady parts”. I will soon rectify this in something plain white. Like this perhaps…

Step 3 – Educate Your Guests

Yes, I may have told Willow Shields and her mother that dingos have been known to eat small children.

You will all thank me later for this.

But Australian lore is one of the few entertaining things to guests in the Down Under Blunder. And while the convention organisers wasted no time in indulging in the time-honoured traditions of the Tim Tam, it is up to you to share some of the little quirky things about this country.

Didn’t know that Vegemite has been used as a protein attractant to lure dacine fruit flies? You know now.

Step 4 – Consume Every Vitamin Supplement That You Own.

… Alright. This didn’t work for me. I still got home from Melbourne with the dreaded Con Crud, quarantined to the downstairs of my home with only my Playstation 3 for company. I am usually awesome on the hygiene at these sorts of things: don’t buy a lot of the cafe food, eat a proper breakfast and dinner, sleep well, wash after using a bathroom, and have a decent multivitamin.The Capt had only recently recovered from a convention-related cold bug that had hitched a ride from Sydney, and I bet any money that I know which of the above steps he did NOT follow.

But seriously, people – look after yourselves! It’s not a magical fairy land, and it’s not a goddamn tea party. It is a convention hall with five-figure masses of people. And just because they are geeks does not mean that there are not shady, infected idiots who walk around and give priority to only themselves (for this, please refer back to Step 1 – Get Some Perspective).

Or, you know, just shady idiots.

Epilogue

So one of you Melbournites got me sick enough that I’m still on the antibiotics for it. Also, while I am 90% better, I currently have no voice so I am in my workplace trying to communicate through interpretive dance. And while the Capt is overseas at that really, really awesome big super mega convention, I am wondering if I even want to consider something like that in my lifetime.

Don’t get me wrong - I loved Oz Comic Con. I bought nothing, saw only a few things, and only attended one talk. But I still loved it, and that says something. The volunteers were great (Cordy in particular was a legend, and Carissa did well to keep tempers at bay!) and I met so many wonderful people that I wish lived closer so that I could invite them for dinner (Doug Holgate and Nicola Scott and David Yardin and Jon Sommariva and Stewart McKenny and Agnes Garbowska and Francis Manapul and Hayden Fryer and Dean Rankine and Tristan Jones and *breathes* and Chewie Chan and Jason Franks and DEE I MISSED YOU, my darling!!). But if this was smaller in comparison to the real comic conventions? Jeez.

….I wonder if the infectious diseases are as supersized in the United States as the food and the geeky sense of entitlement.

If so, I’m not going to see the Capt for a month.

(Disclaimer – anyone that I missed in the above shoutout – my apologies. Anyone who wants to write an article about a convention that they didn’t attend – I make no apologies. If you expected photos – the Capt has a whole heap of them over here.)