My Day at the ICon

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Yesterday was the first day of the ICon and I was scheduled to volunteer from 6 Pm to 8 PM.I took a bus from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv and got to the ICon at 5 PM, which I figured would give me enough time to look around and see if there was anything interesting going on. Ten Minutes later I had determined there nothing interesting was going on.

I had received five free event tickets but none of the lectures interested me and the workshops were all centered on gaming and comics, which don't interest me either. Aside from these events, which took place in closed off rooms throughout the building, there was not much else happening. Groups of teenagers were sprawled all over the place focused on the colorful cards spread out in-front of them. I'm not too familiar with role-playing games, but that seemed to be what was going on here.

I then walked around the vendor area a bit. There were mostly Hebrew books, comics and roleplaying games for sale. And only one person was dressed in costume. Very disappointing.

So I went on the Cinameteque where the film

festival portion takes place, to see if there was anything happening there. But it was mostly just people milling around and more vendors selling games.

I did see the Guest of Honor, Bill Willingham, and I took his picture. I didn't bother to introduce myself since I'm not too familiar with his work as a comic artist and if I talked to him he would probably figure that out pretty quickly. There was some other guy with him who looked vaguely familiar and it wasn't until I got home that I realized I recognized him from my Twitter account, though I have no idea who he is or why I am following him.

As it was now close to 6, I headed back to the

main ICon building to the room I was told to it was my duty to supervise. I peeked in at the five people inside, quietly sketching a drawing that was on the blackboard and wondered what exactly I was supposed to be supervising. But I guess it didn't matter because a moment later I was told that I would not be needed until 7 so I can run along and have fun .

So I retraced mysteps and ended up back at the cinamateque where a small stage had been set up with two fairies, one dancing and one playing the harp. Another fairy stood by a table, to the side, mixing potions.

This was a bit more like it. Though a strange boy in an elf costume made me a little nervous. Outside a couple of people were exchanging blows with plastic swords in front of a small audience. It wasn't the DragonCon but things were looking a bit more interesting.

With nothing else to do, I sat down to read until 7:00, at which point I returned to my assigned post only to be notified that the event I was to supervise had been canceled and my services were not needed after all. Sigh. So I got back on a bus and headed to the bus station and arrived home in a rather foul mood with nothing but a few pictures to show for the day. On the plus side, I did get a lot of reading done.

I'll be back at the ICon tomorrow to sell books though I'm curious to get a look at the children's events that are scheduled to take place.

More ICon pictures:

Guy dressed up as ogre

Bloody stump created at the makeup corner

Picture from the exhibit outside of the Cinameteque