Sunday, May 18, 2008

Super Con

I'm going to completely break character for this one and simply rave for a while.

I just got back from Super Con a little while ago, and it was an awesome experience. Not because of all the people in costumes. There was a creepy portly guy dressed as Speed Racer and a dude in a Predator costume that looked like it was made by Nerf. It wasn't because of all the people selling comics, which seemed to be all the area comic book stores taking the opportunity to sell their back issues to excited fans. It wasn't because of all the no-name comic book artists who, though seriously talented, I had never heard of and therefore couldn't get excited about. It was because of the uncrowned (as far as I know) King of the Geeks: Wil Wheaton.

WIL WHEATON... has a hilarious blog!

WIL WHEATON... has written several awesome books!

WIL WHEATON... is the voice of all geeks!

WIL WHEATON... yes, he was Wesley Crusher on Star Trek!

Now, some obligatory pictures of me completely failing to keep my composure at the idea of having my picture taken with Wil Wheaton:

But it's not just that I got my picture taken with Wil Wheaton. It's that before and after the picture I got a chance to chat with him and hang out. Now, I had heard before that Wil Wheaton is awesome to meet and talk to and all that, but I really wasn't prepared for how easygoing and friendly he was.

We also saw him read from one of his books and his blog. The audience was disappointingly small, which led to my realization: when it comes to appearances like this, what's bad for the guest is good for the audience. To me, all I was thinking was how awesome it was that there weren't a lot of people around, because it meant that I could take every opportunity to talk to Wil Wheaton. To him, however it was disappointing, because he had to come all the way up here and then drive all the way down, and he probably didn't get to sell as much swag and meet as many people as he had hoped.

People actually walked out during his reading because the con people had scheduled the dude from Lost to appear at the same time, and when people realized that they were at the Wil Wheaton speech instead, they just stood up and left. All I can say is... whaaaaat? I'm sure the guy from Lost is hot (I'm not sure which guy from Lost it was, that's all I remember hearing: "That guy from Lost.") I'm sure he's more famous to mainstream audiences than Wil Wheaton. But at a convention, that shouldn't matter for beans. At a convention, geekdom should count, and nobody has more of that than Wil Wheaton.

Now, just so that I can pretend to have some semblance of Steampunk to this post, I should mention that I asked him if he likes Steampunk, to which he responded that he *loves* Steampunk, especially the Steampunk aesthetic and the Victorian feel of it. So there you go: Wil Wheaton is awesome. Enough said!

4 comments:

bluefish said...

That is truly righteous.

Elizabeth E. Grey said...

I GOT TO MEET WIL WHEATON!!! AND HE WAS SO COOL!!!! AND HE TALKED TO US!! AND HE LIKED THE ROBOT WE BROUGHT HIM!! AND...AND...AND....!!!!
*must go hyperventilate*

bluefish said...

You brought him a robot? Kick ass!

Kawaika said...

Very cool, sir!