Billy Dee Williams - Wizard World Austin

For those of you not in the know, Austin Texas was invaded this weekend by the largest assortment of nerds, cos-players, science fiction enthusiasts, and comic geeks at this year’s Wizard World Austin Comic Con. The convention was held at Austin’s Convention Center downtown and spanned over 3 days with plenty of ‘nerd-dom’ to spread around, and then some.

Wizard World Austin consisted of tv/film celebrities appearances such as Lee Majors, Ernie Hudson, Adam West, Burt Ward, Lindsey Wagner, Ray Park, Billy Dee Williams, Lou Ferrigno, Gil Gerard, Walter Koenig, WWE’s Kevin Nash and Torrie Wilson, not to mention comic artists James O’Barr, Arthur Suydam and Matthew Sturges – and I reiterate this is only a few from those three categories. It was a lot to take in over the weekend for us fanboys and fangirls (see a complete list here).

Being a major fanboy myself, I find these events mind boggling with so much going on that I literally have to make a written list of things I want to see, attend, ogle over, and of course spend money on. As our weekend team took some time to split up and see the con and wander at our own place, my first observation was that the Austin Con Center was very adequate for this event. With all the attendance, I didn’t have to wade through people to get to see who I wanted to see. The celebrity lines went fast, and were not too long of a wait at all. Most strikingly was the reception of the fans by the guests. Every celeb I spoke to were very easily approachable which can be nerve racking at times. You never want your favorite stars reputation to be blemished by rude behavior toward its audience, who are ultimately the ones who are paying for it (yeah that would be you). The range of prices for personalized autographed photos were $20-$40, not including any photos that you wanted to take.

Back off man, I'm a scientist!

My highlight of the weekend was getting to speak informally with Luciana Carro aka ‘Kat’ from SyFy’s Battlestar Galactica series. After totally geeking out with her about the TV series and obtaining my autographed photo I proceeded to try and ‘over nerd’ myself and remove from my backpack a copy of the new paperback The Science of Battlestar Galactica by Kevin Grazer / Patrick Di Justo (a technical manual written about the series by one of its NASA consultants). Amazingly since the book is very new, she had not received her copy and was delighted to peruse it there with me. Yes with me! When you get to sit and talk sci fi technology with a member of the cast, one on one, in real time, and hear their experiences on the set, stuff that you would only read about – that’s the reason enthusiasts like us storm these cons, (well me anyhow). Luciana was super polite, signed my book, I went on my way with another con experience up there on my list, as again knowing affirmatively, ‘why we do what we do, and why we love doing it’.

We closed out the evening with a Q&A panel lead by Ghostbuster’s Ernie Hudson, followed by a quiet intimate showing of the Ghostbusters movie where we sat alongside several of the members of Texas’ Ghostbuster cosplay fan clubs as they quoted lines along with the film – ‘Aim for the flattop!’.

Overall, Austin provided a great welcoming for the Wizard World show, and we were happy to be able to attend. And magnificent props to those of you who were able to get some photos with our Gamettes Taffeta Darling and Deathwish Dena (pictured above), they did a fantastic job representing with us, and of course it just is never the same doing cons without them! So until the nerds gather in the masses again…

Crutchboy – Out.

Photos by Dave Martindale / www.emptyallegory.com, click below to see more pics of Wizard World Austin!

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