by Kerrie Hui, Reporter

Finally! For the past few years I have always wanted to attend Supanova in Sydney but I have never had the chance due to scheduling conflicts. So on the morning of the (disappointingly rainy) Saturday the 16^th of June, I was more than happy to enter the double glass doors into the convention centre at Sydney Olympic Park to get my geek on. Literally. I treated this experience as training for the San Diego Comic Con this coming July.

For those of you who don’t know (which is most of you), there is only one train service into Sydney Olympic Park, which meant that I was already greeted with cosplayers on the train long before we even got to the venue. It did not however, prepare me for being assaulted with the amount of Pikachu onesies (If I were to play a drinking game for every Pikachu I saw, I would have been very drunk) and other various detailed costumes that were dressed proudly by my fellow nerds.

After some minor hiccups with getting people with prepaid tickets into the centre, unfortunately (or rather, fortunately) the first stall through the doors happened to be Popcultcha, which happened to have some of the best merchandise at the convention. This meant that getting into the venue was slow as people stopped to fight to the death “ooh” and “ahh” at the items that were on display. The amount of collectibles, figurines, key chains, lightsabres, plush toys and others were amazing. And right next to the stall, lo and behold, were comic books, magazines and a wide array of nerdy literature.

Once we were able to push past the crowd and delved further into the geekiness, we quickly developed a zig zag approach to reach all the stalls and exhibitors to see what they had to offer. Wacom, Filmink, the Doctor Who Society of Australia were just some of the stalls that were in attendance. Artists, game designers and filmmakers had their own two aisles to show off their designs.

Here I was able to spot Jennifer Hale, the infamous voice actor of the female Commander Shepard in the Mass Effect series, Satele Shan in Star Wars: The Old Republic and whole plethora of other voice roles. I got my swag signed by her, got to chat with her a bit and proclaim my love of the Mass Effect games and Commander Shepard and take a photo with her (insert fangirl *squeeee*). Another ‘supastar’ guest I was looking out for was Christopher Paolini, the author of the infamous Dragon Rider Eragon and Inheritance series. Photo and signature of the two guests I wanted to see the most obtained. Achievement accomplished, +200 points.

Of course the one thing you have to do when you attend these conventions is to go to those Q&A sessions. And for a whole three continuous hours, I did just that. I was able to get into the Christopher Lloyd (Back to the Future, The Addams Family), Natalia Tena (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones), Christopher Paolini (Inheritance) and Tricia Helfer’s (Battlestar Galactica, Mass Effect) panels.

I wasn’t able to attend Day 2 of Supanova due to my schedule, however I do have some photos of Callum Blue (Smallville, The Tudors), Jennifer Hale’s panel, Verne Troyer (Mini-Me in Austin Powers) and Stanislav Ianevski (Harry Potter) that my sister was so kind to snap up. My wallet was a bit lighter at the end of the day but all in all I had fun and had a great first experience at Supanova. I think I’m ready to tackle Comic Con!

To sum up things discussed in the panels I attended:

Christopher Lloyd

• If he could choose any car other than the DeLorean as a time machine, it would be an old Chevy
• He almost did his own stunt in Back to the Future 3 where Doc Brown chases the train on a horse and jumps onto said train. He was about to grab the railing to the train but thought, “If this doesn’t work out, I’m done.” He ended up letting his stunt double do it
• If he had a time machine, he would either travel back to the time of dinosaurs, or go 150-200 years into the future to see how it turned out
• The episode in which Christopher Lloyd’s guest stars in Psych pays a homage to his movie ‘Clue’
• Einstein was his inspiration as Doc Brown
• If he could work with one actor/actress, it would be with Christopher Plummer

Natalia Tena

• When she got the role of Nymphadora Tonks in Harry Potter she didn’t know it was such a big phenomena (she later found out at the premieres) and was just glad to be employed
• She has read all of the Harry Potter books. The little girl who asked her hadn’t
• She prefers Game of Thrones over Harry Potter
• If she were in Hogwarts, she would be a Hufflepuff, or as she so aptly describes, “the badger one”
• She loves hanging out with the GoT cast and thinks Uma Chapman is the coolest woman on the earth
• She was disappointed that Teddy Lupin didn’t make an appearance in the Harry Potter movies. Also, she “really wanted to be pregnant on a broomstick”.
• When told that her character in GoT was loved and would therefore have more scenes in Season 3, she placed her hands up in the sky and shouted, “YES! MORE EMPLOYMENT!”
• If she could play any character it would be Harley Quinn of Batman. She would also love to work with Christian Bale
• She tried to nick everything off the set of Harry Potter. There was a particular accordion that she really liked in the Room of Requirement

Christopher Paolini

• YES THERE WILL BE A 5^TH BOOK EVENTUALLY!
• He hated to read as a child and told his parents so
• Eventually he fell in love with reading and thinks that words on paper and into your imagination is the closest thing to magic we have in this world – this is why he writes
• He graduated High School at 15 (due to being homeschooled and never having any Summer breaks thanks to his mum)
• Two weeks after said graduation he got so bored that he started digging a hole in his backyard. It was 8 feet long and 8 feet wide. A combination of a satellite dish, some hay bales and a tunnel later, he had something that resembled a Viking mead hall
• After that experience he started writing Eragon. When he finished it and read through the first draft he discovered he was horrible at writing. Don’t believe me? Eragon was originally named Kevin. Kevin the Dragon Rider seems rather cool though doesn’t it?
• He plans to set Book 5 in the future. However, he wants to write a science fiction book first and eventually write a prologue for Inheritance in regards to Brom and Morzan and the fall of the Dragon Riders
• His finger was gnawed on by a sugar glider when he petted one at O’Hare Airport. It was someone’s pet. His reaction? Bitten by Marsupial. Achievement Unlocked. +200 points.

Tricia Helfer

• Battlestar Galactica was her first major acting job
• Her first experience at these conventions (San Diego Comic Con) was a little bit hostile and because she was new to the cast no questions were directed to her
• There was one particular scene in Battlestar Galactica where she didn’t realize a boom mic operator was lying on the floor and as she peeked over the bed in the scene she got a good scare
• One time when she convinced her husband to visit her on set on BSG instead of going to the airport, she had told him there were no intimate scenes but in the end there were. Her husband went to the airport.
• She just finished voice acting her part in StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty and thinks that the story arc for the game is spectacular and one of the best things she’s participated in
• She’s really pretty and amazingly beautiful, have I mentioned that yet?
• She grew up on a farm and never expected to be where she is today
• The whole time she spoke I kept imagining I was on the Normandy and EDI was talking to me

Want more coverage to satisfy your geek cravings? Visit ComicsOnline.com for more in-depth coverage of Supanova events and celebrities and for everything geek pop culture!