Supanova Perth 2013: Fruitless Purs-loots!

There is nothing quite like the thrill of stepping through the doors of a convention on the morning of it's first day, knowing that you are entering a gigantic nerd shopping mall where there are a million different ways to spend your cash. Want autographs? Sure. Photos? No problem. Commissions? Come right this way. Statues? Comics? Tshirts? Cat ears in a thousand different colours? You're covered, no matter what you're after.

We here at Fruitless Pursuits are in no way immune to any of this, so please join us under the cut to see a few of our favourite things that we ended up with after Supanova Perth this weekend.

Capey

For me, a convention is all about the artistic geniuses of the comic world. Supanova brought the amazing George Perez, Alex Saviuk and Mark Brooks among others to the table this year. So aside from the epic pile of books I got signed, I snagged a few commissions. The Thanos is by Perez and it's easily my favourite piece of loot. I put my name down for this bad boy way back in September and it was so great to see it turned out so well. I also grabbed a Spidey from Saviuk the next day. He's a classic Spidey artist, I couldn't resist. The Vampirella I won in the raffle at the Sketch-Off. I'm still shocked I won. I would of loved another Brooks (got one at STGCC last year) but the wallet only goes so far. Now to find some frames..

Vanessa

Last year I had the pleasure of meeting Colin Morgan who plays Merlin in the BBC show of the same name and had him sign my season one DVD. This year at Supanova Bradley James who plays Prince Arthur signed it as well. It's always exciting when you get an item signed that requires more than one signature and you have to hope that someday you meet the other people who will complete the set. I am really excited that the two main characters on this one are done and even though their faces aren't on this DVD I would love to add Katie McGrath and Angel Coulby's signatures to it one day.

Courtney

1. Prints that I bought from my friend and most excellent artist, Pearl Yang.
2. Batman figurine that Luke Milton didn’t want, possibly the only example of Batman smiling ever.
3. TARDIS key from the West Lodge Club for my Doctor Who cosplays.
4. Old school Data action figure that a friend of mine didn’t want.
5. A toy soldier given to be by an awesome cosplayer who was dressed as an anthropomorphic personification of Dean’s Chevy Impala from Supernatural. There’s also a little note tied around his leg that says “too precious for this world”. Understated but clever cosplay.
6. Sonic screwdriver used by the 4th to 8th Doctors, also for some upcoming cosplays.
7. I collect pins and badges and now I have some of myself. I also bought a badge of my favourite Doctor, the 8th, from West Lodge. Beneath that is a holographic card of Tom Baker.
8. The novelization of the 8th Doctor movie for a certain podcast

In the end I managed to walk away from Supanova without inflicting too much damage to my purse, people just keep giving me stuff!

Luke

Meeting Carrie Fisher and getting her autograph was a massive highlight as I've already said. Born in 1976, I lived and breathed Star Wars as a child. But it goes beyond that. Having read her book and seen her stage show, I am fascinated by what an incredibly sharp, funny and strong woman she is. She has lived an incredible life and is one of those top five people that I'd have at a dinner party.

Carrie's first attempt at writing on it failed as the colour didn't show up, she then tried a second one, and then shifted to a third. She looked up and assured me that she was going to try out all of her pens on my photo. Which I was kind of thrilled by. Look! She said "love" and did some kisses. We connected, right??

Oh... And I also got this Hot Toys Joker. More on that soon...

Suzanne

My loot is girly/booky. I've been meaning to get the Making of Tintin for ages, and from a WETA stall with a terrifying lifesized Gollum leering over my shoulder seemed like a good time. Haven't had a chance to delve too deep yet. It'd have to work pretty hard to make me unimpressed.

I also harassed the lovely Linda Foote into doing a commission for me, though the character isn't going to ring any bells for anyone since she's from something me and Linda are working on. Regardless I'm thrilled to bits with it and also the sketch she did for me in the front of Rampant Cleavage, which I'll admit to being my favorite Linda 24 hour comic. It's delirious and offensive and you can taste the 3am desperation.

DragonFall Press are a Perth based publisher of fantasy and sci-fi which I am completely eager to get behind, and thus I bought a copy of Gary Stowe's The Child of Hope. I know absolutely nothing about this. Adventures in reading!!

And - there's a llama. Yep. A llama. He's fuzzy and charming and that's the only justification I needed.
Elsewhere I ended up with some awesome jewelry from Jubly-Umph, an indie jewelry design team from Melbourne. I bought the big sugar skull statement necklace (look at the tin!!!), bought the horseshoe earrings from the lucky dip pile and was kindly gifted a second lucky dip at the end of the day since the stall was next to ours and I guess we were eyeing off the stock too obviously. Thus I also have an awesome key-skull perspex pendant as well. I'm very happy with my quota of spur-of-the-moment buying - usually I end up with far more ridiculous shit that I'll never use/display. Jewelry and art always wins.

Jacinta

Some of the guests for Supanova had already been announced by the time Oz Comic Con rolled around earlier this year, so I pre-emptively bought a Wash print from Jason Palmer's Firefly series and prayed for several months that Alan Tudyk wouldn't pull out of the con. Thankfully he didn't, and I now have a really great print signed by both the artist and the subject. I'd say that I'd love to eventually have a whole signed set, but Nathan Fillion might be a hard ask. We can only hold out hope that ONE DAY he'll have enough spare time to come visit us.

Every time I strolled up and down Artist's Alley on the Saturday (which was a lot), my attention was always caught by the striking Nightwing headshot pinned up behind local artist Lauren Marshall. I loved her style and vibrant colours, and luckily enough when I enquired about a commission she still had a few spots left for the Sunday. My word of the weekend had been 'handsome' (Karl Urban was so handsome, Hot Loki was so handsome, Alan Tudyk was surprisingly handsome in a dorky way), so it only made sense for me to get a portrait of Gambit, my most favourite handsome mutant. It turned out so great that it's almost dangerous; I want one done of ALL my favourite characters!

We'd love to hear about all your favourite things that you left Supanova with! Post your pictures/links in the comments, we wanna see it all!