All-Con: Day One, Part One. A Pictoral Report

My day began early on Friday. The Con officially started at 10 am and I had a class on the history of American comics to teach at 11 am. After doing a quick circle around the second floor, where most of the convention rooms were, I found my room and began to set-up.

The first class went better than I expected. The first morning of a Con is usually slow but I had a good size crowd. More importantly, they were very receptive and asked some good questions at the end. I got a lot of complements on my PowerPoint and one woman was particularly thankful that I discussed how the portrayal of women improved during The Bronze Age. Thankfully, there was nothing else scheduled in the room until 1 pm, so I was able to spend a good bit of time talking to people afterwards.

After checking into my room and unloading a few things, I went and caught the first show by The Damsels of Dorkington.





An improvisational theater troupe who specialize in comic book Cons and other geeky gatherings, The Damsels are comparable to The Reduced Shakespeare Company in that they do a lot of shows based on classical works. The key differences are that, apart from one bloke in drag, they are an all female troupe and they are about ten times filthier than the RSC. Well, at least the last show I saw them do was. This was the first time I saw one of their "clean" shows and... well, you could tell they were struggling a little to keep things on a child-friendly level. Despite this, there was still a lot of things that would likely make your grandmother uncomfortable, like the scene in which my buddy Rick from United States of Geekdom was called upon to play the part of Igraine, mother of King Arthur, giving birth to her son.

Once the show was over, I had an hour to kill before my next event - a class I was teaching on the history of Anime and Manga. With not much else to do, I decided to wander the floor and check out some of the costumes.

Todd Ingram and Envy Adams from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

Twilight Sparkle & Discord from My Little Pony

Doctor Horrible from Doctor Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog

I wasn't aware they they had Slave Leia outfits in the dark future of Fallout. Perhaps the players controlling these Vault Dwellers are running some sort of mod?

Either way, the costumes are all amazingly detailed. Apparently, they had to sew the jumpsuits special. The soda bottles in the holster have custom-printed Nuka-Cola labels and their Pip Boys have working, light-up screens!

Barbarella? Psychedelia!

There was quite a lot of Steampunk at All-Con, but this was the best outfit I saw the first hour.

Luke Skywalker & Mara Jade from Star Wars