Fantasy is flesh for fans

http://cuttingsarchive.org/images/c/c0/1985-08-23_Commercial_Appeal.jpg

Publication: The Commercial Appeal
Date: 1985-08-23
Author: Gregg Gordon
Page: Playbook, p. 1
Language: English

Roger Shuffield, also known as 'Wolfhunter,' had a primitive fur cape draped over his bare shoulders and an otherworldly medallion on his chest. He turned to an Indiana Jones on his left and a medieval knight on his right and rubbed the stubble on his chin.

"You know, I'm still trying to figure out how to say why we do this," he said.

But starting today, no one will be asking, as the strange becomes the standard. Shuffield, in real life a graphic artist, will have plenty of company in the form of superheroes, Ewoks, adventurers and aliens of literally all stripes. "Son of Con II" the third annual Memphis Fantasy Convention - is three days of immersion into everything that never was.

The convention opens at 10 a.m. today at the Rodeway Inn-Riverview, 271 Alston, and runs through late Sunday afternoon. Throughout the weekend, gamesters will negotiate the netherworlds of the Dungeons and Dragons role-playing game, while collectors buy and swap everything from rare comic books to Mr. Spock dolls to Tom Corbett decoder rings.

There will be fantasy and science fiction trivia contests for the more cerebral. Members of the Society for Creative Anachronism will don their armor for a display of medieval jousting, or as Tom Feaster, cochairman with Shuffield of the convention, calls it jokingly, "beating each other over the heads with sticks."

A sure-to-be-bizarre costume party will be the highlight tomorrow night. Feaster is hoping the event will not prove too much to bear for the "mundanes" fantasy freak talk for normal people who happen to be in the motel. "I'm sure there'll be some double takes, but I have a mundane identity too," he said reassuringly. "I go to work 8 to 5 and cut the grass on Saturdays. We're really pretty amiable people."

Sure they are. That's why another of the events will be an "assassination game," where 10 people will roam the convention site trying to "kill" each other. It's actually quite nonviolent, assured gamemaster Curtis Vazquez. And just to show sports manship, there's a consolation prize for the "best death" scene.

Then there will be movies three rooms, around the clock, from Star Wars to 007, Indiana Jones to Sherlock Holmes. One of the film rooms will be devoted to science fiction series from British TV, particularly Dr. Who.

And if it sounds too good to be true for movie buffs, the convention also will feature an Incredibly Bad Film Festival.

"We have some horrible movies, some of the worst turkeys ever made, like Mexican wrestler vampire movies," said Dave Walker, president of the Memphis Area Dr. Who Society and a collector of bad movies.

But the convention will not be entirely escapism and silliness. There's going to be some serious stuff going on, too, with well-known writers and comic artists.

"We'll have panels on things like how to create a comic book character and how to break into science fiction writing," Feaster said, "and why did you leave off Spider-Man's thumb in Issue 161."

Professional fantasizers like Marvel Comics' Bob McLeod, who has drawn Spider-Man and is the co-creator of The New Mutants, and Joe Staton, an artist for First Comics and creator of E-Man, are among the panelists.

And Memphis' own resident alien, Prince Mongo, will hold a panel tomorrow night on Zambodia, but you really don't 'well, last year he talked about know what Mongo's going to do," Feaster said.

Interest in science fiction and fantasy is growing year by year, Feaster said, and it wasn't hard for the organizers of the Memphis Fantasy Convention Association to find each other. A disparate group in mundane life, they were the ones who were always at Memphis Comics and Records the day a new delivery of comic books came in.

The first year, the group expected 400 guests, planned for 500 and drew about 1,200. This year they're preparing for 600 and are ready to be overwhelmed. The cost is $7 a day or $15 for three days, with profits going to St. Jude Children's Research Hospital.

But no matter how many show up, the guests will have one thing in common-the imagination of youth. Whatever their ages, fantasy enthusiasts always describe themselves as "going on 18."

Shuffield said, "We think of fantasy as a way of life, as opposed to just a hobby. But there's a time and a place for everything. We all squeeze in time to pay the bills."

Caption: Dressed for the Memphis Fantasy Convention are (front, from left) Roger Shuffield and Malou Kaleta and (rear, from left) Terry Davenport and Jim Vazquez.

Fantasy is flesh for fans

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