I attended the Chicago Comicon (now Wizard World Chicago) early on in my fannish days. The most memorable of those conventions was back in 1982, when it was in the Americana-Congress Hotel, right there on Michigan Avenue across from Grant Park in downtown Chicago. That was the next-to-last year there: the convention moved out to Rosemont in 1984. It still stands out as one of my favorite conventions and one of my favorite experiences at a convention, for several reasons and several fond memories.
Doctor Who
“Doctor Who” was a major fannish attraction in the Chicago area, mainly because the local PBS station, WTTW (Channel 11) ran the Third and Fourth Doctor episodes Sunday night. Because of the interest in the series, the convention merged with a Doctor Who convention that year and invited several Doctor Who celebrities as guests, especially Terry Nation, Sarah Sutton and Anthony Ainley. Since this was also the year that Peter Davidson assumed the role of the Doctor, several of the new episodes fresh from Britain were shown long before they hit the states.
Degrees of Villainy
One panel in particular stands out in my memory. At the end of the Doctor Who panel, someone asked Anthony Ainley what was the Master’s degree from the Time Lord Academy. Ainley leaned into the microphone, and in the Master’s voice, said “Why, a Bachelor’s of Villainy, of course.”
I was the first, but the rest of the audience all yelled out that of course, it was a Masters degree.
Serenade
The Americana Congress Hotel was an old hotel, built in 1893 and expanded twice since, so there were little architectural “quirks” such as stairways and doorways in the oddest locations. That included a door in an alcove on the second floor near the function rooms. Several friends and I were sitting on the short flight of steps leading up to the door, when all of a sudden the door opened and Anthony Ainley stepped out. We all knew who he was so he asked who we all were. One of my friends there said her name was “Rosie, just Rosie.”
In this deep baritone voice, Ainley immediately sang “Rosemary, my little Rosemary.”
Rosemary was actually her real name. She hated it. She was so flustered that she was speechless, which was a rare thing for her.
Mistaken Identity
Somewhere at one of the room parties, I happened to run into a friend of mine at the door to the room, who was talking with another younger fan. When I approached my friend, he turned and said “Hi, Terry!”
That fan’s eyes almost bugged out. “Are you Terry Nation?” he asked, breathlessly.
I, of course, had to say that I wasn’t. What was more amusing was that Terry Nation himself was sitting in the very room we were standing outside: I could see him over the young fan’s shoulder. I didn’t say anything at the time, though.
SweatCon
Downtown Chicago. The middle of July. Summer weather. Maybe 6,000 attendees?
And the air conditioning system couldn’t handle it.
The convention soon became known as “SweatCon” and “SweatCon II”, after a similar occurrence in 1978. What made all this worse was the eagerly-anticipated costume contest, for which contestants had to muster three hours early. There were several Cybermen in shiny costumes made from metalicized plastic trash bags that probably could have been poured out of their costume after the contest. Either that, or drains set into the boots of the costume.
My friend Rosie (above) was a huge Cerebus the Aardvark fan so she came in a fake fur costume as Cerebus. Fortunately she was able to remove the head of the costume, but that only helped out some.
Speaking of Cerebus
One of the reasons Rosie created the costume was that the creator of Cerebus, Dave Sim, was a guest at the convention. Dave was on a panel, in the biggest function room of the convention, she Rosie, wearing the Cerebus costume, marched right up the center aisle and demanded Dave’s autograph. (This was something definitely in character for the character.)
Nothing Fancy, Certainly Memorable
One of the costume contest entrants was certainly memorable for nothing more than their presentation.
This entrant wore a very good U.N.I.T. officer uniform. All they did was march out to the center of the stage and assume the “At Ease” position, come to attention and salute, perform four geometric right-face turns, giving the audience a full view of all angles of the costume, salute again, perform another right-face turn and march off stage.
Most Memorable Costume
The most memorable costume was one that most of the audience would not recognize, but I recognized it immediately. (It was also one of those costumes that probably would have caused heat stroke in the wearer.)
It was a Tralfamadorian. These were 4th dimensional beings from the writings of Kurt Vonnegut, particularly from “Slaughterhouse Five”.
… they were two feet high, and green, and shaped like plumber’s friends. Their suction cups were on the ground, and their shafts, which were extremely flexible, usually pointed to the sky. At the top of each shaft was a little hand with a green eye in its palm.
I recognized them the moment the entrant came on stage.
My Camera for a Roll of Film
At the end of the costume contest, there was one final entrant.
A Dalek.
There was no way they could roll the Dalek on stage, so they just rolled it out in front of the corner of the stage, and then Terry Nation, who create the Daleks, stood next to it.
And I was out of film. Seriously, after shooting several rolls on my trusty Minolta SRT-101, I was out of film.
Bummer.
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