Geek stuff: Supernova Sydney 2014 - and yes, a bit of WoW in there too!

I had not been to a Supernova, an Australian Pop Culture Expo, and this year Lushnek told me that Stan Lee was coming.  OMG I really wanted to go!  My sister wanted to go as well, so together we made our way out on Saturday to see not only Stan Lee, but she wanted to see John Barrowman, Katie Cassidy and Manu Bennett (Malcolm Merlyn, Laurel Lance and Deathstroke from Arrow), as well as Ming Na Wen (Mulan, Melinda May in Marvel Agents of Shield) and Nikolaj Coster- Waldau (Jamie Lannister from Game of Thrones).

Stan Lee had come in earlier in the week.  Image from the Daily Telegraph.

While Lee might have met his fans by the thousands over the years, he never gets sick of it.  "So many grown-up people have said to me they felt very much like Peter Parker when they were young and they read the stories and it made them feel better that despite all his problems he still managed to win in the end and they felt that maybe they could too.  It always touches me when somebody says something like that to me."

My sister brought snacks, some takeaway lunch, and we got ready for a long day of queuing.  We bought online normal tickets and queued up with the rest of the crowds for tokens for signatures and photos.

My sister only wanted photos but my cousins wanted autographs so we had to get those as well.  In hindsight, I will NEVER DO THAT AGAIN!

It was PACKED!

And we really did not do anything except wait in queues for photos!  Our first photo was with Nikolaj, then we tried to line up for some autographs but we had to get out of the queue for our next lot of photos which was with Ming Na and then it was our "Starling City" shoot.  Each queue was 45-1 hour and we spent a lot of time just looking around at the cosplay around us.  I didn't take any pics but I'm trying to search hard on the net for some pics to show!

Akansha's instagram pics

Ming Na's Instagram pic from yesterday

In the few hours between photos we lined up for the autographs for our cousin.  And I still had difficulty getting my Stan Lee autograph - I was thinking that it was a huge mistake and that I should have just stuck with the photo.  The line for his autograph had closed due to too many people and there were even MORE after that!  So I could only head back to line up again after we had our Stan Lee photo.

There was a MASSIVE crush of people around the photo area as people milled around trying to get in line for it.  But eventually the seething mass settled and my sister and I progressed through the queue got our few seconds with Stan the Man (even managed to get a pose!) and I went to line up for the autograph.

I borrowed Roshii's avatar for my sister - I'm sure he doesn't mind!

You can see that I eventually got my autograph!  But it was 3.5 hours of sitting in line and Stan said he was going to stay and sign EVERYONE'S stuff - OMG he was such a trooper, his hand was going to be damned sore after that!  Can you believe he's 91??

I am sure I've said this before, but Spiderman has been my favourite superhero since I was young.  I feel like one of those cliched people who say to Stan Lee that the character he created made a big difference to my life - all my life I wish I could be a superhero like Spiderman!  Being smart and nerdy and not fitting into the popular crowd at school, but secretly being able to be awesome!  I am sure he realises what a difference he's made to people - why would he keep going to every convention and meeting people and signing and taking photos?  He doesn't need the money, I really do think he'd like to meet the people whose lives he's touched.

Supernova officially closed at 6pm but we were there till 730pm and a fair few people left the line by then - maybe they were going to come back on Sunday for their autographs.  But it was worth the wait.  Whilst I was waiting in line, I chatted to people around me - one behind me was talking about Marvel comics and movies and he said to me that there was a short scene after the credits in XMen Origins: Wolverine - I know I normally stay for the end credits but I don't remember that scene!  So there you go, learned something at Supernova!  Later, I sat on the floor and the guy next to me pulled out an iPad and started playing Hearthstone and we started chatting!  He was worried because he had to go take a pic with Stan and I said I would mind his spot in the queue for him - though as his wife was there, it was not necessary but I think they appreciated the offer!  They ended up giving my sister and I one of his 10 packets of chips they had stored in their backpack as we had gone through our nuts, peas, chocolate, biscuits, lunch, slushy and lollies by 630pm!  He even left me the iPad to finish his hearthstone game as he ducked out for his photo.. bad move, because I LOST his game (and his wife refused to play it)!  The girl sitting a few along from me in an elfy cosplay had the Alliance Gryphon plushie sitting on top of her bag - WoW was everywhere!

So my sister and his wife had plenty to chat about with french bulldogs, bull mastiffs and doggies in general, and he and I chatted about WoW and Hearthstone.  At the end of the day, we had a pic together (my only free picture of the day) and swapped battletags and phone numbers - though as he was an Alliance player, we probably wouldn't interact much!  But it was kinda cute that by the end of that day there was a bit of WoW in it :P

And I got my signature.  I thanked Stan for waiting so late and staying back for us and he said "I should hope so!" as he furiously signed another item shoved in front of him.  "We love you Stan!" I yelled as I walked away and he said back "Now that's a great attitude! Glad you had fun!" and I thought gosh, I wonder how he can still be making jokes after signing all day long!