From writer to moderator at Wizard World

April 11, 2016

4:00 PM

Chris Collins

It’s not always immediately apparent to the pop-culture hordes and cosplayers who trek to comic conventions, but the celeb lineups for these events can shift as quickly as rumors about which hero is making a cameo in the next Avengers flick.

At one point, Matt Smith (Doctor Who number 11) and — WTF? — former Milwaukee Brewers great Robin Yount were supposed to be on the docket for the second annual Wizard World Madison convention, which wrapped up April 10 at the Alliant Energy Center. (Maybe it was Yount’s successful lemonade line?) Their last-minute replacements included Joey Fatone, the man who sang baritone for the boy-band NSYNC in the 1990s, and Nicholas Brendon, best known for playing Xander Harris on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, aka the show that helped catapult Joss Whedon to Hollywood writing superstardom.

Last-minute additions apparently create last-minute staffing issues, a sequence of events that led to me being asked to step in to moderate the Saturday panels for Fatone and Brendon. From observer to participant in the course of an hour — it’s not much of an origin story, but it’ll have to do.

In the interest of scouting the worst-case scenario, I ask the con staffers on Friday to share their most catastrophic panel experience. They glance at each other for a second before unanimously picking Gilbert Gottfried, the nasal-voiced comedian perhaps best known for providing the voice of the parrot Iago in Disney’s Aladdin. Once upon a time, Gottfried apparently poisoned a pre-show video interview by discussing the ever-timely topic of geeks masturbating; when it came to the actual Q&A panel, he confounded the moderator by deciding to go full Don Rickles, answering every single question with a 10-second insult. Entertaining?

And sure enough, on Saturday, there’s a moment where things feel like they might be taking a hard left into Gottfried territory: Brendon comes onstage on the heels of my introduction and announces that instead of answering questions, he’s going to sit there and journal. He pops open a leather tome and responds to my first question — it’s about what it’s like having being able to act and then write comic-book stories about Xander — by scribbling on the page with his pen. Luckily, he drops that riff quickly and moves into the kinds of content the crowd’s there to hear: stories about his relationships with his Buffy cast members and insights on certain episodes. Turns out he never had to worry about his character getting unexpectedly offed during Buffy’s seven-season run, because Whedon promised he’d never kill the core three (Buffy, Willow and Xander).

You get a very different perspective on the nature of modern fandom staring out into a crowd like this rather than sitting among it. The adoration is aimed at the guys sitting to my left, obviously, but it’s a palpable thing, and it buoys the room. A woman with blue hair stands up and thanks Brendon for publicly talking about his recent struggles with depression, substance abuse and suicide. Even though he cracks a joke about calling security, it’s clear he also connects with her. A father of three thanks Brendon for keeping his daughters at home watching Buffy instead of out doing god knows what. Even though there’s an impossible-to-miss financial angle to all of this — aside from the price of admission, autographs and photos with these folks can set you back $50 a pop or more — this is a stark an example as you’re gonna get of the ways pop culture actually affects the lives of the people who experience it.

Fatone, thankfully, decides to skip trolling the moderator, and it’s easy to see why he’s leveraged a wide-ranging post-NSYNC pop-culture career (second only to Justin Timberlake): The character Fatone played in My Big Fat Greek Wedding still resonates; he hosts a show on the Food Network where contestants try to re-create snacks like Twinkies and Jell-O pudding; and he just starred in a Sharknado-esque flick on the Syfy Network called Dead 7. He’s affable, self-effacing and a killer storyteller. The behind-the-scenes NSYNC anecdotes are the ones that land strongest. Turns out JT wasn’t above snarfing half of Fatone’s pre-show burger as a prank before room-servicing 20 cheeseburgers to him the next morning, and Lance Bass once asked Fatone to switch places with him during a concert stunt because he was worried about a death threat. #firstworldproblems.

Elsewhere, the con oozes with the fandom of the moment. The number of bow ties, trench coats and long striped scarves is commensurate with the con’s Doctor Who-centric guest list. The cosplay’s still stellar, with evergreen stalwarts like Halo’s Master Chief, a menacing Predator and Captain America being joined in the posing parade by a note-perfect Kylo Ren, multiple members of the Guardians of the Galaxy and a crew of Hydra soldiers. One guy has cleverly and successfully married Deadpool and Deadmaus, while another has created a jaw-droppingly detailed Dock Ock costume from Spider-Man 2. Seriously, those metal tentacles looked like they were coming to life any second.

Friday’s still the best time to experience the vibe. The line to pay artist Phil Ortiz to draw you into a colorized Simpsons sketch never gets more than two to three deep, and the line to refill your faux-pewter Wizard World mug with Pepsi — holy shades of RenFest! — is only about as long as the monster in Anaconda. It’s possible to stop and chat with artists and goggle at the sheer tonnage of action figures, tchotchkes and replica weapons on offer.

The event feels slightly smaller compared to last year — David Tennant, the con’s headliner, packs the Alliant Energy Center’s arena for his keynote, and the lines for another Whovian, Alex “River Song” Kingston, are unexpectedly huge. That may be in part due to the absence of pop-cult titans like William Shatner, who appeared at last year’s inaugural event. No matter. As long as the pop culture universe keeps expanding, we’re gonna keep coming.