Fictionlet
“Well, well, well, my dear Alex, what do you think, eh? Rare and wondrous, as the dragon Smaug would say?”
“It’s uncanny, as Stan Lee would say, my dear Greg.”
They stood back and surveyed the room — or at least the small percentage of the room they could see. It was the dealer room at OneTrueCon, a room the size of a warehouse and packed from floor to ceiling and wall to wall with comic books, Star Trek props, Star Wars toys from 1991, and Harry Potter costume pieces. And people. Tons and tons of people crammed in, shuffling past dealers who tried to get them to buy stuff they didn’t want, or trying to get into a booth to see just how incredibly expensive that bust of Wolverine actually was.
“This is just the beginning, young initiate,” Greg said, pulling out the room map from his yellow bag. “For you see, this labyrinthine bedlam is just to ward off the faint of heart at the door. Beyond this you will find our destination — the Walk of Fame! There we will find such august personages as…” He stopped and read from the map. “Marina Sirtis! Lou Ferrigno! Richard Hatch! Vixen McBang?”
Alex looked sidelong at Greg. “Vixen McBang?”
“That’s what it says, I have no idea. Moving on to people that matter, we also find George Lazenby! And Gil Gerard!”
“I thought there were going to be some writers here,” Alex said. “Didn’t you say something about Harlan Ellison?”
“Oh, Alex, poor innocent Alex, Harlan Ellison doesn’t loiter among the rabble like this! Surely you should know better. But if it’s writers you want, we’re in the wrong place. The writers are all in panels! Even now, we’re missing Anne Rice and Terry Brooks in Grand Ballroom East.”
“Hmm,” said Alex. “What are they talking about?”
“‘The Future of Fantasy,’ it says here. A topic they all hate. I expect at this point they’re amusing themselves by throwing out bon mots and taking snarky comments from the audience. You’re not missing anything.”
“Alas. I was hoping to get Harlan to sign this copy of the City on the Edge of Forever photonovel I found.”
Greg chuckled indulgently. The poor innocent lamb!
-The Gneech
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