Y’all know what a ma-hoosive geek I am. Blake’s 7, Doctor Who, Thunderbirds, to say nothing of X-Files, Babylon 5, Star Trek DS9, Battlestar Galactica. Yes, I’ve been to conventions, written fan fiction, edited and published a fanzine, stalked actors to the stage door, yes, I admit it all.
Never done filking or cosplay, but that’s a general rule in life. I’m the one who turns up to the fancy dress party in my own clothes. (Except when my hosts lend me an outfit…) Effort.
So IMAGINE MY JOY to be invited to not one but TWO scif-fi conventions this year already, to discuss the exciting new project GERRY ANDERSON’S GEMINI FORCE ONE!
The first was BritSciFi at the National Space Centre in Leicester. Jamie and I did a Q+A about GF1, showed a whizzy presentations with videos and images (some secret, for now!) and I read an as-yet unreleased excerpt of the final manuscript for BLACK HORIZON to a small but very receptive audience (thank you for that, Anderfans!).
I then dashed off to sit in the audience of the Blake’s 7 panel discussion over in another room, apparently having missed some shenanigans in which one actor objected vigorously to having photos taken by members of the audience.
After spending time in Anderson Alley, exhibition space devoted to the shows and models of the worlds of Gerry’s shows, I then spent an absolutely delightful evening in the company of Jackie and Diane from Horizon, the official Blake’s 7 fan club, to which I was a signed up member in the 1980s and 90s.
Then this last weekend, was the very exciting first ever Anderson Entertainment convention – ANDERCON – dedicated to all of Gerry Anderson’s marvellous productions. Even more excitement for me as I finally met and hung out (!) with many Anderfans that I’ve met via Facebook, brilliant backers of our Kickstarter campaign for GF1, as well as the wonderful Andrew Probert, Hollywood designer extraordinaire, who has been working with Team Gemini to bring Gerry’s ideas for the design of GF1 to reality.
Like BritSciFi, Andercon was run by Mark Dando and Tom Huang of Basestar, which was brilliant because these two guys are totally charming and exactly the guys you want to see when you arrive at a convention. I must admit that I was blown away with the whole look-and-feel of the convention. All the exhibition spaces and the lobby were decorated with wonderfully presented artwork, photos of Gerry, original art, photos and graphics from the shows. It was easy to see how wraparound the Anderson universe could easily be – an Anderson theme park wouldn’t have a single boring corner. (WHY ISN’T THERE ONE?)
I didn’t have too much time available, so I decided to spend it as much as possible with fans, collaborators like Andrew Probert, Henry Gewanter (our press supremo), Dave from IDOTV (who designed one of the Easter egg websites for GF1 as well as more to come…), Phil Ford, lead writer for TV shows NEW CAPTAIN SCARLET,SARAH JANE ADVENTURES and DOCTOR WHO. Even my literary agent Robert Kirby managed a supportive swing-by to attend our GF1 event and to chat.
There was real excitement for me in the green room (where I hung out with the TERRAHAWKS team, comicbook artist Lee Sullivan and the actual Nicholas Parsons yes!), as well as Matt Zimmerman (THUNDERBIRDS) and Dave Graham (Parker!), and Georgina Moon from UFO (Uncle Johny! I met Georgina Moon! She’s lovely. 🙂 )
There are lots of photos and some videos on the Andercon 2014 Facebook page. I now have a lovely collection of photos of puppets and models. Gorgeous! (I wanted to play with them!)
Anyway, I guess this post is probably a bit tiresome by now. I went to some cons and you didn’t, right?
Well, what do you expect? I was getting my geek on good and proper.
