Supanova Sydney 2012 Review

I’m back from my weekend at the Supanova pop culture convention in Sydney (http://www.supanova.com.au/) where I had a table in the Artists Alley.

I’m aching all over and only half awake, it’s going to take me a while to recover. It was a very busy weekend, but so much fun!

The costumes of visitors to Supanova were fantastic. When I had time, and recognised the costumes (some were pretty obscure, I’ll admit I didn’t get a lot of them!), I kept a tally of what I saw. Pikachu and the Sailor Scouts were by far the most popular costumes, but there were also a lot of Jedi and Dr Whos (there was even an Inspector SpaceTime!). The Doctors were evenly split between Bakers, Tennants, and Smith’s, but oddly enough the majority of Matt Smith versions were girls. It was pretty cool that gender had little role in picking costumes, with girls in boys roles and boys in girls roles, which I normally see less of. The world of Portal had a strong presence, with loads of Aperture Scientists in attendance. Marios and Luigis were in abundance and Batman characters seemed to top the comic superhero range, but lots of Supermen and Spiderman characters too. There was also more than one Hitgirl, Nyancat, and a harem of Slave Outfit Leias had traffic stopped for ages. There were as many costumes again of various anime characters I couldn’t identify.

Some of the more unique characters I spotted- Hellboy, Dr Horrible, The Dread Pirate Roberts, Monkey!, Totoro, the Invisible Man, Gumby, Elizabeth Bennett- Pride and Prejudice and Zombies version, 3 of 300 Spartans, Duffman, Fantastic Mr Fox, Frodo, Bob the Builder, The Human Being, and She-Hulk.

The effort people put into their costumes is incredible. I wish I could have taken photos of them all, but I was stuck working, so you’ll have to take my word for it.

On Sunday, hubby visited with my baby girl, dressed up in her first convention costume, as Chewbacca! She was stopped for many, many photos, and generally confused to be a little boy. Not anyone’s fault but mine for dressing her like Chewy If anyone has photos they took, I’d love to see them!

I met so many fantastic people, but since I was a one woman show I didn’t get to talk to everyone as much as I wanted. A few people introduced themselves from Facebook, but I’d have to excuse myself to handle a sale, and by the time I got back they were gone. Sorry if that was you! I met a lot of people who knew my work from my Australian Bookmark Company bookmarks in bookshops, the Wild Wisdom of the Faery Oracle deck, and a few who recognised Fallen from back in 1999 when I finished it and it was in Art Express exhibition, which blew my mind a bit! One woman actually saw Fallen in Art Express and then did her HSC drama performance based on the story. Wow.

I loved having a table in Artists Alley and I will be there again next year for sure! I might even try to get to the Brisbane one. For now, I need to go pass out and sleep for a week. Have a photo of Sephy in her Chewbacca costume (with her matching Chewy doll) before I go-