The 40th annual LepreCon science fiction convention was held at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Mesa, Arizona on the days and nights of May 8-11, 2014. This is Phoenix’s oldest science fiction convention. Believe it or not, I helped start it back in 1974 or so, and was Con Chairman in 1979. I usually attend–as a guest or participant. I think I’ve only missed 3 of them. I went again this year, mostly to see my friends. I’m long past the stage of gathering autographs, buying things, and paying any attention to the panels.  I took a lot of photos this year, and I’m going to share most of them with you here.  You should take my comments with a pinch of salt or pepper, as I’m frequently crossing my fingers and/or distorting the truth in what I say about things.

THURSDAY NIGHT

When I walked into the Con on Thursday night, the first person I saw was Jason Youngdale. Jason is a friend of mine. I joined him to listen to some music and drink some beer.

The band is called Squid Dog. They are a motley and aged crew, but they produce a rocking sound.

 

This is my artistic composition in honor of LepreCon. You can see the program book in the foreground, and the best drink I had for the weekend in the background.

Paul Tanton, Jason Youngdale, and I went off and played some card games. I took a selfie shot of myself while I was playing cards, but it’s way too accurate in representing the real me, and thus too horrible to look at. I’m not gonna show it.

FRIDAY

They gave me a grilled cheese sandwich in the staff lounge.

 

Griller of cheeses. With volunteers like this, the future of LepreCon is in good hands. Of course, this is the only volunteer like this that LepreCon has, so maybe it’s doomed!

I went to the Art Show. I was mostly not impressed, but I did like this troll skull, so I bought it. I’m sure I’ll find all sorts of uses for it. Troll skull by amateur artist David Perrine.

 

Back in the gaming room, my main home at conventions, we wound up playing Magic for the rest of Friday afternoon.

 

Late Friday night, I walked into the command center for the whole convention. Yes, friends, this is what the high command of these affairs look like when no one can see them.

Saturday, I spaced it and left my camera at home.  I have no pix from the most important day of the Con.

SUNDAY

Walking into the Marriott Convention Center from the rear. The Marriott in Mesa has been quite the popular convention site for SF fandom in Phoenix for the last 5 years.

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here! Beyond these doors lies much that is fannish.

Some of the usual suspects. From left to right: The Flash (out of uniform), Paul Tanton, Victor Bugg, Jason Youngdale, and ???. I should know the last guy, but I don’t.

The entrance to the Dealers’ Room. There are many wonderful things and even more wonderful people inside this room.

The woman in white is author Gail Carrigher, our Guest of Honor, best known for her steampunk fiction: The Parasol Protectorate.

An ever-changing cityscape lived on this table. I don’t know why.

The fans of David Weber and Honor Harrington owned this real estate. Spiffy space marine uniforms they have.

Lobby,

Flag desecration in poster form.

Artist, dealer, weird female person. I like her.

Oooh, oooh! That fan might buy something!

Bennie Grezlik, author, nice guy, creator of Princess Pain.

Since she was all painted up like a mime (Harley Quinn for DC Comics) I asked costumer Krysta Crawford to do the “I’m Trapped in a Glass Box” routine.

Local authors. I ought to know everybody. They know me, but I don’t know these guys.

I don’t know this guy either, but he has some cool steampunk weapons for sale.

I took her picture because she was wearing a mask. Doesn’t she look like someone just hit her in the head and knocked it sideways?

Fabulous artist, friendly guy. I don’t know him.

You, too, could be wearing a fabulous mask. Buy them here.

I took her picture because she was wearing a corset. You can’t really see it very well.

A complete gallery of the bizarre art of Steam Crow.

Friendly woman, weird art.

Intentionally weird art for a weird magazine.

Steampunk grandees. I vowed to photograph every corset that came my way.

Phoenix has another small sci-fi convention called CopperCon.

Artist Gilead (yes, that is his whole name) teaches a few people the finer points of drawing tentacles for fun and profit.

They’ll let anyone on these panels–even officers from Star Fleet.

I was trying to take a picture of a table full of fannish t-shirts when a woman wearing a fannish t-shirt walked into it and blocked out half the picture.

The “mand” in Mandy stands for “Command”. She ran the art show, helped with registration, and generally tried to keep the convention functioning normally.

Scientce!

The hotel has a beautiful fountain. We’ve been here before in earlier blogs.

Would you believe that Curt Stubbs here was once known as Captain Coors, and that he helped bring the World Science Fiction Convention to Phoenix in 1978? It’s true. He was also Con Chairman for LepreCon 1, I think. I was there, but I can’t really remember that far back.

The Staff Lounge–where hard working staff and con participants like me could go to party.

The staff lounge had food . . . and television, and comfy places to sit.

My favorite hangout was the game room. Here’s a game much too complicated to even consider playing.

The Pathfinder role-playing game over there ran for the whole weekend.

Many goodies were to be had in the Barry Bard movie previews panel late Sunday afternoon.

Eager fen wait for their number to be called.

Mark calls the numbers. There was a prize for everyone who attended. I got a black t-shirt (of course).

They call your number. You go up and claim a prize.

My son James is developing a bald spot (and he’s only 23). He looked so frustrated every time they called a number that was almost his number. It was kind of funny to watch him from across the room.

 

With the loot all distributed, James and I went back to the game room for a few more games of cards like Parade, which uses an Alice in Wonderland deck that I want. By 5 p.m. it was time to go home, and so farewell to another fabulous science fiction event!

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If you have things to tell about LepreCon or funny stories from other sci-fi cons, why not leave a comment?

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I’ve been doing science fiction conventions for over 40 years now.  Part of any good con is the art show, and I used to go to them a lot, drooling over the art I liked, occasionally bidding, occasionally winning.  Now the last few months I’ve been in transition to a new house, an apartment actually, and back to the good old bachelor existence.  And I have been rediscovering some of the treasures I collected Back in the Day.   Here’s one that I found last week.

Peacock Fan. Ink and colored pencils. Liz Danforth. 1977.

I don’t remember where or how I got this.  I’m guessing I won it in an art auction in 1977 or 78, probably LepreCon–the first of the Phoenix science fiction conventions, and one that I helped start.  My scanner wasn’t quite big enough to get the whole thing, so the brown part you see on the right is the mat.  Back in the day, when role-playing was young, and so was I, Liz and most other artists would simply mat their works and put them up for sale at convention art shows.  I hadn’t known her for long–she was like the second decent artist to appear in fannish Phoenix circles–the first being Rob Carver.  Prices were ridiculously low in those days–an original piece of art would often start at $5–some of them had no minimum bid.  I don’t know what I paid for it, but I was happy to get it.  Then when I got it home, I discovered I had no place to put it.  My wife would not let me put fannish art up around the house.  So this piece of art nouveau went into the back room, where it graced a wall for a while, then got taken down and buried in a stack of other originals that I acquired over time.  I have a lot of these treasures–most by artists who never went on to acquire the kind of reputation for excellence that Elizabeth T. Danforth has.  In those days I wanted art for fanzines, for T & T, and just because it looked good, but most artists sold their stuff without reprint rights, and I never got to really use most of it  IMHO, art should be seen, shared, and appreciated.  When I found this again, I sent Liz a scan and asked her if I could share it on the web.  She graciously agreed.

The Peacock Fan is very early Danforth, but you can already see the beauty of the characters, the gracefulness of line, and the balance of composition that characterizes her work.  There is nothing overtly fantastic about this piece, but it has that fantasy feel.  This redhead could be the heroine of any early 20th century fiction.  She’s a real beauty.

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If you like Danforth’s art, feel free to leave a comment here.