 |
| Credit: Pixabay.com |
In less than a week
I will be attending WorldCon 76! I’ve been looking at the programme
schedule (the newly revised one ): the number of panels
and other events are overwhelming! A person can’t say there won’t
be enough events or activity there. There are going to be plenty of
writing and art panels, fiction reading panels, author signings, game
panels, film screenings, cosplay and of course the Hugo Awards!
You can find the programme schedule here for more activities. One of the events that I don’t dare fail to
mention, though, is the charity auction. It is the main charity event
of the world science fiction convention for this year. I was looking
at the list of donated auction items the other day and it has some
really neat sci fi and fantasy stuff!
My Donation In Honour of a Horror Show Host
WorldCon’s charity
auction will benefit the Alzheimer’s Association of Northern
California and Northern Nevada. The Alzheimer’s Association is a
non-profit organization that helps people with Alzheimer’s, a
disease that causes severe memory loss, and supports research in
finding a cure. As a sci fi author, artist and fan, I felt the need
to contribute to an important cause such as this and so I did (see
below).
WorldCon’s choice
of charity for this year was inspired by the late Bob Wilkins and chosen with the help of Mr. Wilkins’ surviving family. Mr. Wilkins was a late-night horror TV show host back in the 1970s. I
grew up on his shows, The Bob Wilkins Show and Creature
Features. The first aired on Sacramento local TV stations and the
second broadcasted from the San Francisco/Bay Area. Watching his
shows and the A-rated and B-rated movies they featured played a big
role in becoming the writer and artist of science fiction and fantasy
that I am today.
I had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Wilkins and his
very good wife, Sally, back in the mid 2001s at WonderCon, the sister
con to San Diego’s Comic Con, when it used to be held in San
Francisco. He suffered with Alzheimer’s. So, after he passed away
in 2009 and the family asked for donations to the Alzheimer’s
Association in lieu of flowers, I was much obliged to donate.
So
in honour of Bob Wilkins, I have donated an item for WorldCon’s
charity auction that’s
proceeds are to benefit
the Alzheimer’s Association.
I donated an approximately 6-inch action figure from a series of
action figures called, believe it or not, Creature Features! However,
I don’t believe the series was based on Bob Wilkins’ show.
“Creature features” has just grown to be a common term for horror
films in general. And the funny thing was that, when I donated the
item, I forgot the name of the series it was from. It wasn’t until
I saw it displayed on the WorldCon website that I remembered the name
and realised it, even if unintentionally, reflected Bob Wilkins’
locally famous show. For that reason, I officially declare that
donation as an honour to Bob Wilkins’ show of the same name:
Creature Features.
 |
| Credit: WorldCon76.org |
The specific
character the action figure depicts is the monster from HBO’s
made-for-cable movie, The She Creature. The movie was a remake
of the 1950s B-rated film of the same name. The action figure is a
replica of the special effects artist’s, the late Stan Winston’s,
sculpture made for the production of the film. For more about this
item that’s up for auction, see the post for it at WorldCon 76’s
blog.
Other Donated Items
There are a lot of
other donated items for auction displayed on the con’s website.
Some of these are:
- A Hugo Loser’s “Award” Plaque (a good-humoured novelty, I’m sure!)
- An iron coin based on George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of novels that HBO’s Game of Thrones is based on. (The author himself is scheduled to make an appearance there!)
- Audio books
- The first four issues of Asimov’s SF Adventure Magazine from the 70s
- A limited illustrated edition of Larry Niven’s Ringworld (who is also scheduled to appear!). I’ve read his first two books of the Ringworld series and they were fantastic! This edition of the first one should be even more fantastic with the beautiful art inside. Sure, its a French translation, but even if you don’t speak the language the artwork alone will probably make it worth bidding on!
- Frank Frazetta’s Princess of Mars statue: this beautifully painted statue is based on Frazetta’s depiction of the Edgar Rice Burroughs character. Frazetta is one of the best sci fi/fantasy artists who did illustrations for numerous book covers when science fiction and fantasy books actually had freehand illustrations.
- Star Trek memoribilia
And more! So check
out the website!
I’m not sure if
I’ll be posting next week since it will be a very busy weekend for
me. I’ll try to squeese in a short post, probably a mini update of
the con. If not then I’ll have a more full report of the convention
the following week. WorldCon 76 is the world science
fiction and fantasy convention that gathers some of the most famous
artists and writers of the genre. It will be held at the McEnery
Convention Center in downtown San Jose, California, 16 August to 20
August. Maybe I’ll run into some of you there!
Are you attending
WorldCon? If so, what events are you looking forward to? Feel free to
leave your answers and any other comments in the box below!
Until next time . .
.
Comments
Post a Comment