VisionCon 2016

by Caleb Brubaker with Joshua Heston

”And that’s when I created the first elven vampire,” said best-selling science-fiction / fantasy author Christie Golden from stage. I seated myself next to Batman and a stout fellow in a shabby Jedi cloak. I was, after all, at VisionCon — surrounded by cosplayers (those who dress in costumes associated with science-fiction and fantasy stories) — at the Hilton Convention Center in Branson, Missouri.

Here there is a plethora of strange. It is not every day you stand in line for a bottle of water behind Batman’s Riddler, the voluptuous Poison Ivy, and a Royal Guard from Star Wars. After paying for my Dasani, I looked over to see a man brandishing a katana. Beside him was a girl dressed in pure white, wearing fox-ear earmuffs.

Catwoman and another Batman posed for photos next to the catsup and mustard.

Scenes like these are not isolated at VisionCon. Cosplayers often put great effort into their costumes and each costume can mean many things. For some, it can be a fun way to express appreciation for some particular piece of sci-fi / fantasy literature. Some dress as characters they admire. Others dress as characters they relate to. Or characters they wish they were. Or characters they fear to become!

Each costume is a window into the human spirit. But how did this convention begin in the Ozarks?

Author E.M. Irvin has been a part of VisionCon from the start. “First and foremost,” she remembers, “it was a gaming convention. Where geeks can show up and be with other people like them.” Twenty years ago attendance was small.

“I love how much bigger it’s getting and how much it’s growing. How there’s more opportunity. There are more things happening. The Convention Center is huge and gorgeous. We have like a thousand more people than we did last year.”

She then shared something profound. “Most of us have been considered outcasts for one reason or another because of something we like — something we find interesting. It could be what we look like. Because of that we tend to come together and be more supportive as a whole. People [at events like VisionCon] are less likely to judge each other more harshly for superficial things.”

Keynote speaker Sam Witwer (Battlestar Galactica, Smallville, Being Human, Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels) specializes in playing broken characters. On Being Human, he gave depth to Aidan, a vampire haunted by his past debaucheries and tormented by inner demons. “Humanizing is really the only job on that set,” he noted as we sat down for a one-on-one interview. “For me I was just a guy battling addiction.” Witwer has since been nominated for an Emmy in his voice acting work on Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

People cosplay for the same reason stories have always been told: to manifest the human spirit. “All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril,” wrote Oscar Wilde in the preface of Dorian Gray. At VisionCon and events like it, that peril is openly embraced.

Attendees share their own oddness proudly, without fear of ridicule. Many cosplayers feel alienated by a media-driven culture glorifying certain ways of looking, acting or being. “Mainstream” it might be called and these people don’t fit in. Here, however, is a place where differences are celebrated.

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The crowded convention floor of VisionCon 2016 at the Branson Convention Center, February 26-28, 2016.

Best-selling author Christie Golden (left) converses with writer Caleb Brubaker (right).

Hollywood actor Sam Witwer (right) answers vampire- and StarWars-associated questions.

“You are like a trained ape!” Joss Whedon’s iconic though ill-fated Firefly is relived by fans.

Artist Josh Cullen is one of many Ozarks-region artists to share at VisionCon.

Cat woman and Batman pose for eager fans.

VisionCon 2016…

Continued from above

“No one will believe you’re Spiderman,” I told Deadpool, the comic book-turned-movie-anti-hero brought to life in the recent —and controversial — R-rated film. In the comic book, there is a long-running gag in which he is regularly mistaken for Spiderman. “Nice beard, Obi Wan,” he retorted, referring to my beard’s similarity to that of Star Wars’ archetypal wizard. This is the open, playful mood of VisionCon.

“Yer the boss, boss,” noted Captain Malcolm Reynolds in a live performance of Joss Whedon’s Firefly, a sci-fi show canceled in 2003 before it had even completed its first season. The Reynolds character was played by Nathan Fillion on tv but here was brought to life by a young and commanding woman. Gender roles reverse regularly in cosplay, a strange nod to classical Shakespearean times in which women’s roles were played by men. Despite Firefly’s brief time on tv over a decade ago, the room was packed with fans.

“Before I got invited [to attend as an artist] I didn’t even know it was a thing,” shares Josh Cullins, a Lebanon, Missouri artist who creates ‘80s and ‘90s horror and sci-fi art when he’s not teaching grade school. “It feels like family. It’s a weird thing that people with so many [diverse] passions are able to coexist. I’m not a very social person. This is my place to shine.”

Role-play gaming has been an integral part of VisionCon since its early days and entire breakout rooms are set aside for gamers. “Roleplaying is about creating a story,” explains Kenneth Kidder of the Tortured Earth game. “It’s not about these monstrous, over-the-top characters.” Tortured Earth is a “class-less, level-less game set in an apocalyptic future,” in which characters may “transition directly from medieval fantasy into futuristic sci-fi or Elizabethan horror without interruption to character development or story balance.”

Later that day, a Sci-Fi & Shakespeare panel led by Ozarks Technical Community College’s Donna Graham reminded convention-goers that Star Trek explored our own humanity even more than it explored deep space. Whether Shakespeare or Star Trek, the real monster was often within the protagonist’s heart.

VisionCon even provided its own folksy Star Trek song to hit the point home. Sung by a guitar-strumming man who looked more like an Australian drover than a sleek, brainy alien, the chorus was heartfelt.

“It changed our hearts, it changed our minds / It made us all a little bit color-blind.”

Shakespeare’s influence on science fiction goes deeper than you might expect. A ripe example is the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, a space adaptation of The Tempest. “O brave new world that has such people in it!” exclaims lovely Miranda when, after long isolation, she sees her handsome prince. Never mind the obvious science fiction feel of the supporting characters (an evil warrior sprite, a witch’s son, a long-dead sorceress) and focus — if just for a moment! — on the humanity. “How beauteous mankind is,” pines Miranda. It is her longing to touch humanity that draws her to the prince.

It is that same longing that brings people together at VisionCon. Isolation is the theme of The Tempest. People who cannot — either publicly or privately — live up to the superficial standards of a mainstream world feel isolated in so many ways. Here, they touch humanity.

“How much do I know about Shakespeare?” quotes Graham rhetorically. “Not as much as Shakespeare knows about me.” I propose a furthered aphorism. “How much do I know about science fiction? Not as much as science fiction knows about me.”  Each time we tell a new sci-fi / fantasy story, we place our shared struggles and ideas in new light. The humanity of VisionCon is its strength. As author Christie Golden says, “People are people. Even if they are orcs.”

Caleb Brubaker of St. James, Missouri, is a current student at College of the Ozarks where he studies English and journalism. He served as intern with StateoftheOzarks during the spring semester of 2016.