Notes filed several hours after driving home and 350 miles away from the convention:
The first Tekkoshocon wasn't five hours old before fans started asking the
author if he thought there would be a second one. This writer isn't in charge
of anything, but he'll guess that there's no reason that another Pittsburgh-area
convention can be held in 2004, if the organizers can find a date and a location.
Early spring dates can be tough to find because of the Easter and Passover
holidays, and you can add the start of the baseball season as a Pittsburgh
factor.
The location might have to change from the Wyndham hotel south of the Pittsburgh
airport because the hotel staff may not have liked how the convention fans
behaved. This author didn't see anything unusual, but something happened
that shook someone up. It was enough to get the convention security head
to make an announcement at the end of the costume contest: no more "roughhousing"
or the fans were going to be ejected.
Unless someone got extremely rowdy during the time the author was uploading
updates from his room on Saturday afternoon, there didn't seem to be anything
unusual at Tekkoshocon, unless you were one of the mundane business travelers
who wasn't ready for the sight of a bunch of young people enjoying themselves.
The hotel clearly was worried about prop weapons, which is no surprise, but
there may have been more going on. Something happened with a person (a fan?)
that prompted police to be called on Friday. It didn't appear to be a huge
deal, and one of the officers was so casual about the situation that he hung
around the convention and visited the dealers' room afterwards. That room
was among the smallest seen by the author in the previous five years, but
the convention was small, too. We'll guess that around 500 people were on
hand for Saturday.
Usually, conventions are Friday-though-Sunday events. Tekkoshocon started
as a Saturday-Sunday show. The author got to Pennsylvania on Friday afternoon,
saw no familiar faces when he checked into the hotel, went downstairs for
lunch and watched the world drift by...until a few guests of honor started
to arrive.
After the quiet Friday, the author figured that Saturday would have a slow
start, but he was wrong. Costumed fans already were hanging out at 7:30 a.m.
Saturday, and the event was in full swing at 9. But while most conventions
build through Saturday afternoon to a Saturday night climax after the costume
contest, Tekkoshocon got as busy as it was going to get around 2 p.m. Saturday,
and tapered off from there. The convention had what looked like 300-400 seats
in their main events ballroom, and the security staff told the first fans
in line for the costume contest that they could expect a standing-room crowd.
That never happened.
The convention had to go to a pinch-hitter for an acting guest of honor.
Chris Patton, probably entangled in Rahxephon dubbing sessions, wasn't able
to get from Texas to Pennsylvania. Fortunately, a substitute was available
- Doug Smith, who thought he was going to spend the weekend drawing at the
artists' alley after chauffering Jan Scott Frazier from Maryland. Instead,
Smith was brought off the bench as a guest of honor and quickly filled the
spot in the lineup.
Tekkoshocon's star guest was musician-actor Vic Mignogna, who was raised
in the Pittsburgh area. He wore a Pirates jersey on Friday and had fans cheering
at the opening ceremonies when he mentioned the places he remembered. Dancer-turned-voice-actor
Monica Rial was astounded by the fervent acts of worship from fans; one presented
her with a big inked drawing of her anime characters, and several female
fans appeared in Noir costumes - including two Kirikas.
This road trip really was on the road for the author; five and a half hours
on interstate highways each way. The duration of the trip did not impress
hardcore veteran fans, who said they routinely drove 8-10 hours to get to
a convention. At least the drive took place on dry roads, as the Sunday morning
snow flurries coated some car windows and grass fields, but rapidly melted.
The author could brag that his old car got 33 miles per gallon on the four-state
trip to the convention.
The convention started a couple of days after the University of Pittsburgh
lost their NCAA basketball playoff game. On Friday night, the bar's television
showed the Connecticut-Texas game. On Saturday, the big TV set in the hotel
lobby was briefly tuned to an old episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000
before it was switched to Cable News Network. Basketball and cheezy movies
were replaced with the war against Iraq, with its televised talking heads
and visions of wrecked buildings.
Does life imitate anime and manga? The TV coverage of the bombing of of Baghdad
looked like the first episode of Rahxephon. The politics behind the war resembled
the conflicts that Masasune Shirow created in Appleseed in the 1980 (thankfully
minus that manga's divided U.S.). A potential war between the Koreas exploded
in the pages of First President of Japan in Raijin Comics.
Tekkoshocon fans didn't seem concerned about the war; they were intent on a celebration.
