| The nw-b5 Westercon 50 Report.As you can see from the badge scan, one of the hit's at Westercon 50 in Seattle was nw-b5's very own Deleted' "Vorlon Inside" stickers. The jokes on you Intel! |
Westercon 50 was on the U.S. Holiday weekend of July 3-6, 1997. There was quite a contingent of nw-b5'ers in attendance. Dennis Kristos, Thomas Terashima of VFS, and I (John Francis) went down in my car leaving around 5:30 AM on Sat., July 5. Customs were a breeze. After registering we were all waiting patiently for Babylon 5 Presentation 2 by 9:00 AM. We stayed until the Sunday. Deleted made his own way down and was there for most of the weekend. Thomas was enthusiastically demonstrating his trapezoid setup for 3-dimensional measurement based on the mathematics of R. Buckminster Fuller to anyone who would listen. We got some strange looks from customs because of this contraption but made it through ok.
Other list members that showed up for Saturday were nw-b5 co-founder Travers Naran, Van Wilson (x-Star Shop), George (I'm sorry I don't your last name:), and journalist/writer Frank Garcia. Frank co-authoured The Science Fiction Encyclopedia with Mark Phillips. Official attendance at the con was 2267.
The presentation was amazing anyway. JMS gave a really good speech. The lead-in included a new promo with a blend of scenes from the first 4 seasons put to a music score. He showed 2 blooper reels plus a teaser from the movie Third Space. Looks good! I asked him if we would ever find out what happened to B4 given in his posts he has said that the Sinclair/Valen thread is toast. He gave me a very thorough answer which I will not post here. But if you want to find out:
We attended a panel on script writing a TV Episode with JMS and writer Steven Barnes who has authoured for Twilight Zone, Baywatch etc. They say JMS is a tough person to crack up. Well, Steve had JMS in stitches. It was a rare sight.
Sunday, we attended a panel on Print vs. TV SF. It was a lively panel that included JMS saying a few (but very profound) anecdotes.
Some of the costumes were great. At the masquerade/competition, there was a very well done Vorlon. Most costumes in this event were of original design and concept. Alot of people had on army of light uniforms from the UK or home made. A girl I met, Shirl Roth made here own complete Minbari Religious Caste outfit by hand! It looked great. Cheers Shirl!
The merchandise area was going full blast all day Saturday and Sunday. It was refreshing to see that some decent B5 stuff is now being distributed. I loaded up on two graphic novels (must haves for the serious B5 freak) Shadows Past and Present and In Darkness Find Me, a couple of sets of cards and a jacket.
The autographing went really well. There were equal number of people in each line to get autographs from Jeanne & Spider Robinson on the one hand, and JMS on the other. Sometimes these conventions are real strict on how many autographs you can get per person. But JMS was great, he signed as many as four and five for people and was very patient about the whole thing. I had JMS sign a card and a graphic novel. Kathryn Drennan signed her book "To Dream in the City of Sorrows" for me. If you haven't read this, do so. It is a masterpiece. Declared fully 100% canon by Kathryn's husband himself (JMS!), it deals with what happened to Sinclair between season 1 and WWE's 1&2. Also present was Forrest J. Ackerman of Famous Monsters of Filmland Magazine.
 | Networking with PDX-B5 |
nw-b5 networked with a great bunch of people from Portland, Oregon's PDX-B5 mailing list. Elana from there was distributing here famous ASCII Jumpgate pins <*>. These were originally designed to identify other people who were B-5 fans at conventions while the series wasn't as popular and because of the lack of similar merchandise. Let's face it. Warner has been slow bringing the merchandise to market in North America! These pins were so well done that JMS has even given his blessing to them because they are simply ASCII (public domain). PDX-B5 and us have officially become sister lists and there will eventually be an official proclamation of sisterhood in the near future. In the meanwhile, please visit PDX-B5's webpage at http://www.pacifier.com/~brianw/pdx/index.html .
The Saturday night there was a great party going on. Aside from problems with elevators, the American beer kept everyone feeling good but with their wits about them. We were up on the 27th floor and partied with the PDX-B5'ers. They showed some season 1 videos in their room but the recording was from antenna, so not great. While wandering around, I met Steve, organizer of Vancouver's very own V-Con at the Chicago 1999 Rusticon Bid party. V-Con will be held in Surrey again next year. The food was excellent there and there were some interesting people.
We got to see some pretty good previews. Watch for some good stuff later this year including Contact, Conspiracy Theory with Mel Gibson, Heinlein's Starship Troopers, Event Horizon, Mortal Kombat II, Spawn, Kull the Conqueror with Kevin Sorbo of Hercules fame,and Alien Resurrection featuring a cloned Ripley (!) and also starring Wynona Ryder..
The convention was a major success through and through. If you can think of anything to add, just e-mail me and I will add it. As a first time convention goer, I was impressed how "down-to-earth" some of the "space cadets" were.
Cheers as always,
John Francis, Webmaster.
| List created by Trevor Bradley | Site designed/maintained by John Francis |
