I Wish It Was Supanova Every Day - Day 1

If you don't want to hear about my recent trip to Supanova Pop Culture Expo in Melbourne, then you should probably go entertain yourself elsewhere for the next couple of days because I had SO MUCH FUN and I have SO MUCH TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT!!

Quick background info for those who either haven't been to Supanova, or aren't Australian and therefore have never heard of our tiny little backwater convention. Supanova is held once a year in Perth, Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and the Gold Coast, and they usually spread these events out into two "tours" - one around April, one around June. Different guests go to different events, which is pretty neat because it means over the course of the tour they can get a lot of different guests, and guests don't have to block out half a year to attend. However, it alsp means that inevitably all the guests I really reaally desperately want to see end up going to the events in cities other than the one I live in, and every other year I've just sucked it up. But this year I said NO MORE. I have a decent job, I can afford the ridiculously cheap airfares to Melbourne, and best of all I have a little posse of internet acquaintances who are willing to let me crash on their floor. This year The Boy and I decided to Do This Thing. I got together a classic Catwoman outfit, as pictured here, and The Boy made himself a kick ass Riddler costume, based off the Arkham City game.

We arrived in Melbourne absolutely exhausted from staying up all the night before sewing costumes, which seems kind of like a prerequisite for any cosplay attempt. We were put up by some lovely friends of The Boy, who I technically had only previously known online, who live in a fantastic share house in what the taxi driver warned us was a "bad" suburb.

My kind of place

Once we got there, we more or less passed out, and then it was time to get into costume and on to Supanova.

The tram is the best place to hide from Batman

Riddle me this, muthafucka!

Unfortunately we didn't get up and about quite early enough to see Gail Simone (who is currently writing Batgirl and has done some amazing work in comics over a stellar career), so the only panel we ended up going to on the first day was one with the creators of an SBS TV show called Danger Five. I'm going to go ahead and assume most of you haven't see it, which is a crying shame because it's the most marvelous exploitations spoof I've seen in a long time. If you saw Italian Spiderman during the ten minutes of internet time it was EVERYWHERE, then you might be interested to know Danger Five is what the creators of that wonderful thing did next. It's six episodes of dinosaurs, robot dinosaurs, ninja assassins, and poorly constructed volcanos galore! Happily, the presenters Dario Russo and David Ashby were just as entertaining as their show. They brought along some puppets from the show, and Dario did half the interview with the eagle head on, while David signed a poster for The Boy using the dog head to hold the pen.

It was particularly admirable how well they held our attention considering there was a conga line of cosplayers going back and forth for most of their allotted time. 

I put my hand up when they called for questions, because I though the creators might be amused to know there had been a cosplayer of one of the Danger Five characters, Ilsa, at Supanova Sydney last year. As soon as I mentioned it though, the girl sitting RIGHT NEXT TO ME squealed with excitement because as it turns out, I was talking about her. NerdWorld is so, SO small in Australia.

A Mystery Cosplayer who's name I have shamefully forgotten in the excitement, Dario Russo
(who looks eerily like an ex of mine), and me, grinning like a damn fool.

This was awesome Mystery Cosplayer's Ilsa costume last year at Sydney Supanova. HAWT.

Apart from my brush with very small time celebrity, Saturday was all about the cosplay - both doing it and chasing others doing it for pictures. So without further ado, let's get to the pictures!

Yay, my Catwoman costume! I will be tweaking it for Sydney, but I think it came out okay
on the whole. Heeled boots were a mistake however.

Classic + Modern Catwoman = Catwoman Squared. This is me (obviously)
and Paris "The Cat" Winston

I will never get tired of crossplay (cross gender cosplay), especially when it involves waistcoats.
I love TrustMeImBella's Joker because it's kind of a cross between old school and modern Joker.

When Brave came out, I think a million red curly haired cosplayers
cried out in ecstatic unison. This Merida played the part perfectly.

This is a recreation of an amusing photo from last year. If you've never played
Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, you can't possibly understand the utter rage the fairy Navi
(the little blue ball) engenders in everyone who has listened to her endless HEY LISTEN!
The actual person is cosplaying Link, the protagonist of the game.

This is the photo from last year - from the look on the kid's face, I learned to
warn the cosplayer before attacking their costume.

Aaaaaaaladdin!

The Boy with a tiny Riddler. His mum made him that suit! Geek enabling Mums are the best.

There were a LOT of TARDIS dresses this year - it seems to be the cosplay de jour.

This was my favourite TARDIS dress though.

This kid came up to take a picture of us, but I got him to pose for one
for me too - I couldn't let a tiny Blade go past.
He was SO badass for someone so small.

I saw this guy earlier in the day, but by the time I got a chance to stop him I was still
apparently the first person to ask for his picture. Has no one else seen TRON: Uprising?

You all know from my Vanellope Von Schweetz nail art how much I love this character
from Wreck It Ralph, and I was really excited to see so many
Vanellope cosplays this year.

SHE HAD TINY GUMMI BEARS IN HER HAIR!!

A fantastic Zatanna (DC Comics character)

Weirdest, and best couples costume of the day. Zapp Brannigan and Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama

And finally, me with a formerly internet only aquaintance, who is cosplaying Amy Pond from
Doctor Who. The actress who played River Song was at the con, and apparently
recognised her outfit and called her Amy, and she died of joy.

And that's the end of Day 1! You can see how why I decided to split this into two posts. Tomorrow, more cosplay photos, and some thinky thoughts about the whole experience in general.

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