This past weekend I attended No Such Con for my third year. NSCon is a little student-run convention on the campus of Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, NY, and it’s always a fun time. While attendance seemed to be way down this year, the energy was still present and everyone seemed to be having a pretty good weekend. And I must say that the talent of the artists and guests that they brought in this year was nigh-overwhelming.
I did several panels – two of them will be made available to listen to online (I’ll post about them when they are), and the third was my annual webcomics panel. The first two were an artist and a writer Q&A, each moderated by author extraordinaire Thomm Quackenbush. My own panel was quite special this year because of the assistance of Kez of What it Takes, who was also kind enough to provide me with transportation to the con this year, as well as our newfound friends Kaiser and Richard of Eagle Ordinary. The combined experiences and enthusiasm of all of us webcomic folks made for a deeper well to pull from and I hope the people present in the panel got something out of it.
There were a few other artists that had the pleasure of meeting and chatting with over the weekend. There’s J.M. DeSantis, an amazingly talented artist who does the comic Chadhiyana as well as Gentleman Cthulhu. Sitting next to him was Matt Farley, a very prolific and funny musician, and sometimes actor. On the other side of the room was Emily of the webcomic Anarchy Dreamers, and her friend whose name is escaping me at the moment Danielle (but with whom I bonded over our enjoyment of Blue Oyster Cult after I noticed her BOC/Godzilla t-shirt), both lovely and talented young women. There was also Dezi Sienty, who I unfortunately didn’t talk to much in the artist alley, but with whom we had some good discussions in the artist panel.
My two favorite highlights came from the folks sitting to my left, though, at Adam Tilford’s table (Adam was at the writers panel with me the year previously, but I didn’t get to talk much with him this year because he was so busy with panels). One was meeting Natalie Van Sistine, a voice actress and podcastress who approached my table with a surprised look on her face, and she proceeded to tell me that she used to read Bardsworth when she was in high school. Hearing that and seeing the nostalgic look in her eyes would have been enough to make my weekend. And then I met the other voice actress at the table, Amber Lee Conners, who has done a number of voices I don’t know, but then mentioned being the voice of Android 18 in Dragon Ball Z Abridged, which I just recently finished rewatching all the way through. After also learning that we shared a love for fairies and the underappreciated Final Fantasy 8, I had to get a picture with her.
So while the weekend was not great for me financially, I did have some amazing moments meeting some great people. I hope I can head back there again next year and see what adventures await me.
Other NSCon Write-ups:
J.M.’s – http://jmdesantis.com/2017/02/no-such-con-2017-write-up/
Kez’s – http://acityinaplace.com/
Natalie’s – http://nvansistine.weebly.com/updates/no-such-con-2017
