How I met Peter…
Posted By Kathleen David on March 14, 2004
It was an Atlanta Fantasy Fair in the early 90s. This was after the convention moved to a hotel/convention center near the Atlanta Airport from the Omni Hotel. The Atlanta Fantasy Fair had always been a good convention for me. I started going to it when I was in high school with my friends. Made a lot of friends from that convention. AFF was one of the conventions we lived for. I did some of my first costumes at the convention. Including the X-Men vs. the Hellfire Club (I was a minion that Wolverine took out) and the Hellions vs. the New Mutants (I was Danielle Moonstar) [Tastes great! Less Filling!]
This was the first time I had entered the art show at a convention. I had been screwing around with some puppet ideas and did a Klingon quartet as a lark. The puppets came with a half hour lesson on how to operate the hand and rod puppet. I take pride in that I can teach just about anybody in 30 minutes the basics of operating a hand and rod puppet. Sunday I went to the convention and walked over to the art show. The con chairman is there with his co-chair. He says with great glee,
The 1978 AFF was my first con of any sort, and one I only attended part of. I was actually down from Western NC for a chess tournament just before heading to Chapel Hill for my freshling orientation. I enjoyed it, but for some reason didn’t decide to continue attending, not really getting into convention fandom until 1982 with Boskone.
AFF was perhaps notable for my entering the comics trivia contest, and first getting an idea that I might actually be decent at this. I figured there’d be multiple people in it who could quote every comic ever written verbatim. To my surprise, I knew all but one question (ironically, where did Lois Lane attend college, since it’s a significant bit of evidence that pre-Crisis she might be from North Carolina. Answer’s the non-existant in the real world Raleigh College), and the format was just to run down the contestants until someone knew the answer to each question. Two misses and you were out.
Someone got the Lois question before it got to me, so when there were about eight people left they asked everyone who’d missed one to raise their hand. Everyone else raised their hand…and looked funny at me. I ended up winning with no misses.
I’m guessing I must have learned about that AFF from Book Nook, which I’d discovered on a previous visit to Atlanta and which had a lot of stuff not available on the newsstands, this being when the direct market was just starting up. Very nice store for that sort of thing at the time.
When or where can we see some images of your puppets and/or costumes?
“Peter and I ran into each other over the years at various conventions and he became one of my convention friends. Then his life changed and my life changed and now we are together.”
And may you all “Live long and prosper!” _V!
It’s really kinda weird. I’ve been a fan of Peter’s work for sometime and I’ve been aware of his personal situation due to his “But I Disgress” column. So, I’ve virtually been there for his kids growing up, his career ups and downs, his divorce, his life as a single dad, him finding new love, his creation of new life, and much more. In a way, I feel as if Peter (and you, by extension) was a good friend or relative that has kept me “in the loop” of his life. I appreciate that. I know that neither of you know me personally, but I am Your Friend — Joe.
That’s a very sweet story. I remember meeting your husband at Shore Leave in the early 90s. I asked him to sign a Trek book, and he asked me what my favorite book was. I thought he meant Trek, but the look on his face immediately corrected me. He had a good sense of humor about it, and thank goodness I am/was an English major so I had a wider range of authors and titles from which to choose!
Thanks for sharing! I, too, would love to see your puppets.