Is President Obama a Geek?

One of our panels at CONvergence this year is Is our President a Geek?. Of course, one of the challenges of putting together a schedule months ahead of time is that events can pass it up.

And while Wil Wheaton may have won Paul and Storm's bracket, we now clearly have the *real* Secretary of Geek Affairs, John Hodgman:

I can't wait for this Resturant to open!

It looks like someone has decided that they need to open a resturant FOR ME in my neighborhood.

Galaxy Drive In - Intergalactic, Retro Futuristic Makeover Made On Earth™

Changing How I Get Comics

I've been a comics collector for almost my entire reading life. It's been my hobby reading for a long time for a wide variety of reasons. I've got wardrobes and bookcases filled with comics and comics collections.

So one of the things that I'm realizing is that I'm slowly moving away from buying regular issues -- and I suspect that for Marvel especially, I'm going to be moving almost exclusively to collecting in trade publications.

Recently I've been enjoying a number of big collections -- Captain America Omnibus, Vol. 1 is one of the best Captain America stories ever, and I can't recommend it enough.

I'm also enjoying other collections that I'm picking up -- sometimes new, sometimes used. Over the weekend I picked up the first two New Avengers collections and am enjoying them enough that I will probably get the the third.

And even for older comics, I'm preferring collected issues -- perhaps with the cheaper Essentials versions, but then various Absolute or other collected editions as well.

The sad part of all of this is I'm not sure how pure comics stores survive in the future -- I'm more likely to pick up these books in different venues -- Half Price Books, Amazon.com, or Comics Conventions are just as likely to see me pick them up. I'm not quite in as much of a "weekly comic store" habit as I used to be. I see more deals when I'm looking around in the collection market -- and more options.

And the "neighborhood comic store" has some virtues that I'm sad to see being more difficult. It's a community center -- you can have a friendly conversation with your "dealer" a couple of times a month, and get recommendations of useful things. You can run into other people on a regular basis; people that you collaborate with on your additional projects -- I've discussed CONvergence business more than once over a comic book rack.

I don't know how that stays around, or if it doesn't, what takes its place. It's a challenge.

A Gathering of the Tribes

I find this video of a speech by Seth Godin about Tribes
fascinating.

The phrase "gathering of the Tribes" has been used to describe CONvergence -- arguably, that's one thing it was set up to be, and it is in the convention name in a way. It is the bringing together of "sci-fi and fantasy aficionados of every stripe".

And one thing that hit me when rewatching another interview I saw a couple of months ago is that one other word for being committed is to be a fan.

President Obama on Star Trek

From Newsweek:

"And the last movie you saw?
Now, movies I've been doing OK [with] because it turns out we got this nice theater on the ground floor of my house … So Star Trek, we saw this weekend, which I thought was good. Everybody was saying I was Spock, so I figured I should check it out and—[the president makes the Vulcan salute with his hand].

Very good.
Yes, absolutely.

Did you watch that when you were growing up?
I used to love Star Trek. You know, Star Trek was ahead of its time. There was a whole—the special effects weren't real good, but the storylines were always evocative, you know, there was a little commentary and a little pop philosophy for a 10-year-old to absorb."

The Pros and Cons of Sci Fi Cons

However, since many fans enjoy both literary and media fiction, it seems ridiculous not to pool our resources in protecting one another.

There is a very interesting article about some of the recent national SF convention failures.

As we come across our final pre-registration cut off for CONvergence, something like the above article is very sobering. Not every convention *is* run well. CONvergence, which tries to run things as professionally as possible, is still a fan-run affair that is being run for fun.

One thing that is nice today is that technology makes conventions more open -- you can find out about CONvergence by searching for Minnesota Sci Fi Convention on Google; you don't need to find out about it only by going to the right book store, or knowing the right person.

The thirteen year old kid who had his or her mind blown away by Star Trek last weekend deserves the same rich community and opportunity that the Science Fiction Community has given me.

And another piece of setting up that legacy is the very interesting copy of Argentus dealing with convention runnnig. There are some things that are Worldcon specific (which doesn't really interest me) but different sorts of advice are always good to read and take on.

And don't forget -- preregistration for CONvergence ends tomorrow!

Speaking of Conventions

There really isn't any doubt from the previous post (among other references) that Star Trek conventions really energized the Science Fiction convention movement.

So it is interesting to see this report that there is an upsurge of interest in
Star Trek Conventions with the release of the new film. I'm not sure if that's because people are actively looking for Star Trek conventions -- or are they looking for pictures like in the above story.

But with the pre-registration deadline for CONvergence coming up on the 15th of May, and CONvergence being the closest thing to a Star Trek convention over the next several months in Minnesota, it is be interesting to see if that will also have an impact on CONvergence's attendance.

We're certainly going to have Star Trek panels, and almost certainly Star Trek themed room parties and costumes.

Early Star Trek convention photos

I love these pictures from various 1970s Star Trek conventions. Awesome.