Melbourne Convention and Entertainment Centre, 17 & 18 October
The Armageddon Pop Culture Expo is a huge annual event that brings together all the best elements of pop culture; from movies and TV, to anime, manga, comics, Cosplay and gaming. Held annually in Sydney and Melbourne, it’s the place to be for any pop culture vulture!
The Guests
Armageddon Melbourne featured a variety of special guests to cater to all kinds of fandom. Along with notable comic scribes, illustrators and animators such as Peter David, Bill Sienkiewicz, Dante Basco and Olivia Hack (among many others,) there we also familiar faces from TV and the cinema.
Comic fans were given the opportunity to not only meet the artists and have their comics signed, but for a small fee they could have unique, one-of-a-kind sketches drawn right there and then by many of the guest artists.
The TV and movie guests included Paul McGillon, Jason Momoa and Joe Flanigan from Stargate Atlantis, Gigi Edgley from Farscape, Robot Chicken’s Tom Root, Matt Senreich and Seth Green, Cameron Bright, Bronson Pelletier and Christopher Heyerdahl from the forthcoming Twilight Saga film New Moon and Noah Grey-Cabey from Heroes.
I had a chance to catch up with Noah Grey-Cabey before his panel. Noah started on the blockbuster TV series Heroes when he was just 10 years old, playing series regular Micah Sanders for 2 seasons. His character was eventually written out, but he reprised the role of technopath Micah for a few episodes of S3.
A child musical prodigy, Noah had previously visited Australia when he was about 5 years old to play a concert at the Sydney Opera House. This visit was his first time in Melbourne, and he said he was enjoying the cooler weather. I asked Noah if we’re likely to see Micah cropping up again anytime in Heroes… he smiled slightly and gave a rather enigmatic “I… don’t… know…!” as his reply! He went on to theorise that as Micah can control machines, including cash dispensing ATMs, he might be too busy living it up, off skiing in Switzerland or something, to keep saving the world! During his panel, Noah expressed his enjoyment of working on Heroes, and noted that he particularly enjoyed working with actor Leonard Roberts (who played Micah’s father.) For now, though, Noah is busy being a 13-year-old high school student. He was a lovely, thoughtful and incredibly articulate young man, and a great convention guest.
The Robot Chicken Panel with Matt Senreich, Tom Root and Seth Green was an hour of laughs- which, of course you would expect when talking to the 3 madcap creators of the Robot Chicken TV series.
On Saturday the guys introduced their new TV venture, Titan Maximum. Done in the same crazy stop-motion style as Robot Chicken, then show has more of a continuing story line and recurring characters. On Sunday their panel was everything Robot Chicken, and they enjoyed telling the crowd all about making the show, and were especially talkative about the joy and insanity of making the Star Wars specials. Being Star Wars fans themselves, they felt that the franchise was universally recognisable enough to appeal to a wide range of Robot Chicken viewers. Seth spoke quite a bit about working with Star Wars’ creator George Lucas, whom he described as a funny, self-effacing, hilariously sarcastic and generous man. The trio fielded lots of fun and interesting questions that they answered with enthusiasm and good humour.
Titan Maximum will screen on pay TV in Australia from January 2010.
Cameron Bright’s panel, not surprisingly, drew a large crowd of teenage girls! The young actor has been in a number of big budget films, including X-Men 3 and Ultraviolet. Cameron was at Armageddon to promote the forthcoming Twilight Saga film, New Moon, in which he plays the creepy Volturi vampire, Alec. Cameron fielded a lot of questions about his fellow New Moon cast members, and noted particular enjoyment in working with Dakota Fanning, Robert Pattinson and Ashley Greene.
At various times throughout the weekend, fans were given a chance to have an autograph or photo with the guest(s) of their choice. You had to pay for the privilege, but getting a photo taken with a star, or having some face-time with them while they personally signed something for you is quite priceless! All the guests, despite signing and posing for pics for hours at a time, were all cheerful, enthusiastic and clearly happy to be there meeting the fans.
The Cool Stuff
This year there were over 50 merchandise stalls where fans could snap up anything from Twilight t-shirts to Pokemon buttons! With comics, action figures, posters, even wooden samurai swords on offer, there was something to delight everyone. Next year I’ll bring more spending money!
There was also representation for a number of fan clubs, including Browncoats Downunder (Firefly/Serenity fans known for their involvement in the charity Equality Now) As well as tables for Star Trek fans, RPG gamers and many members of the 501st Legion, a very dedicated group of Star Wars Cosplayers.
The Fun
According to Urban Dictionary, Cosplay is: “Literally "Costume Play." Dressing up and pretending to be a fictional character (usually a sci-fi, comic book, or anime character).” Just in case you didn’t know…!
One of the most striking and enjoyable things about Armageddon was the number of fans who dressed up as characters from their favourite manga or TV show! Not being a huge manga/anime aficionado I didn’t know who a lot of the characters were, but even so, I couldn’t help but be impressed with the amount of time, effort (and money) people put into their costumes. One of the main events on Sunday was a Cosplay competition where costumed fans displayed their get-ups, and their hard work was rewarded with accolades and prizes. Many of the attendees came with groups of friends, all of who dressed in a particular theme. Over the course of the day I saw a group from the Batman universe (Batman, The Joker, Harley Quinn, Scarecrow, Poison Ivy and Catwoman!) Three of the Watchmen (Silk Spectre, The Comedian and The Silhouette.) Many, many Star Wars fans dressed as everything from Stormtroopers, to Jawas to the man himself, Darth Vader! There was a good turnout of Stargate fans in jumpsuits, and there was also a very authentic-looking Marvel comics’ Deadpool or two.
But wait, there’s more!
Other events over the weekend included an animation music video competition, movie and cartoon screenings, wrestling, pizza eating contests, musical and language performances, a tattoo contest and even a masquerade ball and burlesque performance!
It was a huge weekend filled with friendly people, quality entertainment and loads of fun! Be sure to check it out next time! Stay tuned to POPrepublic.tv for more info on next years rumoured events...
You can check out some photos from the event here
