Guests
met and discussed in this review (with the franchise(s) I most associate them
with personally) :-
- Misha Collins (Castiel from “Supernatural”)
- Mark Sheppard (Crowley from “Supernatural”)
- Jim Beaver (Bobby from “Supernatural”)
- Tomer Capone (Frenchie from “The Boys”)
- Karen Fukuhara (Kimiko from “The Boys”)
- Rob Benedict (Chuck from “Supernatural”)
- Alexander Calvert (Jack from “Supernatural”)
- Steven Williams (Rufus from “Supernatural”)
- Julian Richings (Death from “Supernatural”)
- Todd Stashwick (Dracula from “Supernatural”, Vocah from “Angel”, and M’Fashnik from “Buffy The Vampire Slayer”)
- Cindy Sampson (Lisa from “Supernatural”)
- Corin Nemec (Christian Campbell from “Supernatural”)
Two quick notes before we get started...
1) If this is your first time on "Shangel's Reviews", check the tabs
at the top of the website for a comprehensive list of all Comic Cons I’ve
attended and reviewed, as well as the guests met at that event. There’s also a
list of all the “Buffy The Vampire Slayer” and “Angel” episodes I’ve reviewed
in thorough detail so far. Will I ever finish them? If I can find the time.
2) If you enjoy my reviews, please subscribe to the blog! Over on the right-hand side there's a little box that says "Follow Shangel's Reviews by Email!" If you put your Email address in there and click "Submit", then confirm your subscription, you will get each review sent straight to your inbox! No junk mail, no bullshit, just my reviews.
Where to even begin?...
After 5 years away from the blog, I decided it was time to return….and, yes, I do intend to finish the Buffy and Angel episode reviews. My plan is to re-write the earlier reviews that were in bullet-point format and then write the ones I never got around to. The ultimate plan is to finish them all and turn them into two very, veeeery large A4 books.
So where have I been?
The short and boring answer is that I’ve been crazy busy. I bought my first house in January 2022 and basically lived at work for 3 years before it in order to afford the deposit, then I went straight from that into living at work for wedding savings. Yes, I did get married! Last summer. To an incredible woman called Susie.
I’ve gotten married, bought a house, switched career, switched job twice, and all-in-all not had the time to go near a keyboard. I have, however, gone to many, many cons during that time. Same as before; black suit and black bandana.
It's good to be back. In its heyday, Shangel’s Reviews was a pretty successful blog. A lot of people used to come up to me at cons and say they only heard about/attended the event because of the positive review I’d left. I also see my collage-related goodness and other detailed reviews popping up all over the UK con scene now, which fills me with a sense of pride.
Anyway, now all that shit’s out the way, onto Cross Roads! This particular Cross Roads was taking place at the Hilton Hotel in Birmingham.
Long time readers will know that I love Starfury Conventions. Their style of event has always been untouchable when it comes to the level of fun, level of guest interaction, and level of alcohol consumption. For the newbies amongst you, there are basically two types of Comic Con: traditional signing events (like the ones you see on TV) and hotel fandom events. Starfury is the latter. Typically speaking, it’s you and anywhere from 200-1,500 other nerds hanging out in a hotel for the weekend (Friday to Sunday) with 6-15 guests from one franchise or a small handful of franchises. It’s the best way to make new friends. It’s the best way to get yourself out of your comfort zone. Sean Harry has made a point time after time to ensure people know that when you attend his events, it is fully inclusive. It doesn’t matter about your nationality, gender-fluidity, sexual orientation, “disability”, or anything else. If you’re a passionate nerd, you’re in. You are part of the family….and once you’re in the family, you don’t leave as Sean’s events are addictive. If you’ve never been to a Starfury con, take a look here - http://seanharry.com/. Sean is currently running events for Supernatural, Lucifer, Ahsoka, Outlander, Hannibal, Motherland Fort Salem, Warrior Nun, Once Upon A Time, Our Flag Means Death, Marvel, DC, and Shadow & Bone.
“But Shangel, the entry ticket is so expensive!”
A small caveat. If you’re going for 1 or 2 guests, yes, the entry is expensive. The idea of running a show around one or two franchises is that you want to meet most people. If that’s the case, Sean’s events are the best value for money on the UK con scene. Bar none. Other events like Em-Con are very price-competitive too. Your ticket to a Starfury con doesn’t just include entry to the event, the panels, and the parties, it also includes an autograph from a number of the guests. There are 3 types of guests (and they are all labelled on the website for each event as the event draws closer) :-
· Regular Guest – 1 autograph included as part of the entry ticket
· Bonus Guest – 1 autograph included as part of the gold entry ticket, but not standard entry
· Extra Guest – 1 autograph included as part of the diamond entry ticket, but not standard entry or gold entry
That’s about it. Plus, the extra autographs you can purchase are cheap. Crazy cheap. Sean-should-be-knighted cheap compared to almost every other con on the UK scene. There is an autograph sales area at the event where you can purchase an 8” x 10” picture of the guest you want the autograph from and the autograph itself is included in the price…or if you have your own item you want to get signed, you can buy a “badger pass” for the same price, which gets handed over at the autograph table.
If you want more info. on Starfury cons, I’ve written many reviews about them before. Here are a few samples: http://shangelsreviews.blogspot.com/2014/10/vampire-ball-5-review.html, http://shangelsreviews.blogspot.com/2015/11/vampire-ball-6-review.html, http://shangelsreviews.blogspot.com/2016/12/vampire-ball-7-detailed-review.html.
One quick note before diving in too deeply....the "Supernatural" fandom is awesome. So many people make little gifts for other attendees to find. I found a couple myself for the first time ever!
The event itself was dedicated to the memory of the late, great Chance Perdomo.
Cross Roads 8 was fairly unique in my Starfury history in that I could only attend for one day due to pre-existing plans. As the autographs are spread across both days and the panels/photos are both Saturday and Sunday, this left a dilemma: skip some autographs and try to get all photos done on Saturday. I was hoping the autograph schedule would be kind to me as I really wanted autographs from Alexander Calvert, Karen Fukuhara, and Tomer Capone. Over the years, I’d already gotten autographs from basically every other guest at the event, so even though they were technically paid for in the entry ticket, I didn’t mind missing them if I had to.
Success! My entry ticket number was called for the autograph session on Saturday including Alex, Tomer, Karen, and Rob Benedict! Fantastic! Now all I had to do was get it all done.
My plan for the day was as follows :-
- 09:00am Corin Nemec photograph in photo room C
- 09:00am Todd Stashwick photograph in photo room B
- 09:00am Jim Beaver and Steven Williams photographs in photo room A
- 09:30am Cindy Sampson photograph in photo room C
- 09:30am Julian Richings photograph in photo room B
- 10:00am Alexander Calvert and Rob Benedict photographs in photo room B
- 10:30am Tomer Capone and Karen Fukuhara photographs in photo room C
- 12:00noon-1:00pm stage panel with Tomer and Karen
- 1:00pm-2:00pm stage panel with Mark Sheppard, Rob, and Alex
- 2:00pm-3:00pm stage panel with Misha Collins
- 3:00pm-5:00pm autograph session with Rob, Alex, Tomer, and Karen
- 5:00pm-6:00pm stage panel with Jim and Steven
- Drive back home and try not to fall asleep
Busy day, right? Can you see a problem already? Photo clashes!
If you’re at a Starfury con and you have clashes, don’t panic. The crew are awesome. They will make sure you’re covered. I have never missed a photo in my entire history with Starfury and this weekend was no exception. Shout-out to Marco, Lee, and the 3rd photographer (sorry, I don’t know your name!) for being professional and getting everyone through promptly without it feeling unnecessarily cattle-marketesque.
There’s not a huge amount to say about the photo sessions. They are as you’d expect: you go to the relevant queue, get to the front, have the picture taken, and collect it later in the day. Photos aren’t typically a place to chat to the guests outside of exchanging pleasantries; that is what the autograph session and fan meets are for.
10 photos, 3 hours of queuing, and one sore back later, that section of the day was done. Shout-out to Ally for keeping me company in nearly all the photo queues…and giving me some cash to buy a Karen autograph so that I didn’t have to faff with cash machines (I bank transferred the money to her, don’t worry!).
My Supernatural collage is taking
shape rather beautifully! This isn't everyone from the show I've met, just some of the highlights....
Next up were the panels. I will give some of the highlights below, but this isn’t an exhaustive list. If anything was said that I think might get the guest in trouble, I’ll skip it. This is the highlights, nothing more. The aim is to give non-attendees a flavour of the panel, while also helping attendees remember the fun. It is not for getting guests into trouble with clickbaity nonsense.
The first panel was Tomer and Karen from “The Boys”. Due to Alex’s photo session overrunning, I missed the first half of this panel. Here are some highlights from the second half :-
· The Little Nina torturing Frenchie and Kimiko arc of season 3 was being filmed at the same time as Herogasm. While Tomer and Karen were trying to stay in character and process the emotional weight of the scenes, Laz Alonso (Mother’s Milk) was sending them messages about Herogasm and how they were missing out on naked people everywhere!
· Tomer made a point of saying that Karen gets all the badass fight scenes on the show, while Frenchie is in the corner yelling “mon coeur” and being lazy.
· It took 9 months to film season 4 of “The Boys”. They teased multiple times that season 4 will be bigger and crazier, while also maintaining the emotional beats that the show is also known for.
· Somebody asked them who on “The Boys” they are most like in real life. They struggled at first as “most people on the show are shitheads”. Tomer said, “can you imagine if I said Homelander?!” Karen ultimately said Hughie, while Frenchie said Translucent.
· They told the story of Termite and how the prosthetics team had to build a “three-storey-high” penis. Imagine getting that request if you’re in the props department! Bit unique to “The Boys”.
· Karen wants to build a “The Boys” themed theme park where you can ride into the penis, into the whale that the Deep makes friends with, buy dildos in the gift shop, etc….I mean, it’s not a bad idea.
· Tomer mentioned that his stunt-double, Geoff Scovell, portrayed one of the people that Kimiko battles in the infamous dildo-fight scene. He said it was hilarious to see Geoff around set all day with a dildo attached to his eye.
· Apparently the cast of “The Boys” have a backgammon addiction and often play it on set while waiting to film. Tomer introduced it to the cast and now he’s “created a monster” in Karen as she’s obsessed…she even brought a backgammon board to the con to play against Tomer!
· Honestly, the big takeaway I had from this panel is that Tomer and Karen are clearly really good friends in real life. They both made a point of praising each other constantly and stating how much they enjoy working together.
Next up was Mark Sheppard, Rob Benedict, and Alexander Calvert.
· If you’ve ever been to a Mark Sheppard panel, you know the man can’t sit still. He goes off into the crowd. This was no different….except that part of the panel was sarcasm-free as Mark went into details of his recent heart attacks – plural. Evidently there were 5. We are very lucky to still have Mark here with us. I can only assume that a fan didn’t know this detail as they asked Mark (heart attacks), Rob (stroke), and Alex what they think happens to people when they die. Wowza! Shit just got real. Mark gave an entirely honest answer: he saw the streets of San Francisco as he’d recently been watching a TV show that was set there. When you’re dying, your body releases a chemical called DMT that is basically to reduce the pain, but it also makes you hallucinate. He said it felt like when he was on acid in Sweden in 1982! A voice in his head was saying, “just relax, it’s over” and then he thought “fuck that! I’m not done yet!”. After regaining consciousness, he said he was constantly talking to the EMTs, which is very abnormal for someone having a heart attack. He said the EMT asked “why is he talking?”, and Mark said to us con attendees, “you guys know me very well….”, which got a big laugh as Mark has a tendency to never stop talking.
· If you’re interested in hearing Mark’s story in a lot of detail, check out the podcast episode he did with Michael Rosenbaum. It’s a fascinating, graphic look into the whole scary ordeal…
· Mark also said that he had some tests done on his heart a few weeks ago and his heart has no scarring from the ordeal, which is fantastic news!
· Mark also made a point of saying that THIS is Heaven. Here. On Earth. Heaven is just a new pair of glasses. It’s reframing how we see the world. The beauty that is already here. Our family, our friends, nature…life.
· Evidently, whisky on “Supernatural” is just watered down diet Coke at room temperature. Bleaugh!
· Someone asked their favourite blooper reel memory that never made it into the blooper reels that were released. Alex said that one day he had a pop at Jared and Jensen, calling them the Wincest Bros and saying how they wanted to bang each other, etc. It didn’t make the blooper reel, but it did make the wrap party blooper reel. Mark mentioned that Jensen almost never messes up a line, but one time he did in front of Jared, Mark, and Misha, and they didn’t let him live it down. It ultimately took 38 takes because they kept taking the piss out of Jensen every time he tried to deliver the line again. Rob mentioned that his was from season 15 – Mark suddenly chimed in with “I was dead so I don’t care!”…Classic Mark. In season 15, Richard Speight Jr. was directing an episode and Rob was supposed to drink a whisky shot. Obviously a fake whisky shot. Probably the watered down diet Coke at room temperature that was previously mentioned. However, unbeknown to Rob, Richard had swapped it for an actual whisky shot, which ruined the take due to Rob’s shocked reaction.
· Rob then sung us one of his songs. It was “Medicated” by Louden Swain (Rob’s band). The man can sing! It was awesome! This is the song (not the version from the con itself as recording isn’t allowed)…
· Alex doesn’t like birthdays. He actively dislikes them. Rob is the opposite. Rob once threw himself a surprise birthday party. He told everyone to be at his house by 6:00pm and he’d arrive home at 6:30pm. When he got home he acted surprised and everything. Mark then quipped “is this the short-term memory loss?” (from Rob’s stroke)! Ha!
· Mark said that Castiel was as thick as a brick. Just wanted to add that in.
· Richard Speight Jr., Jared, and Jensen once filled Mark’s trailer with dozens and dozens of Misha Collins calendars.
· Jared once pranked Misha on set and hit him in the face with a pie….it accidentally broke Misha’s nose!
· Alex said that when Jack receives a lovely video message from his mum - you remember the one? Her saying goodbye and that she loves him, etc. - he was getting himself into character. Ready to watch the video. He asked not to see it beforehand so that his reaction was genuine. Little did he know that Jared had changed the video to a compilation of dicks. Amazing.
Next up was the one and only Misha Collins!
· Misha started the panel by asking someone in the front row if they were taking a picture of his crotch. Misha said that he is excited to be at the con….as the woman in the front row taking the picture can tell.
· Misha talked a lot about Destiel slash fiction. He said that he’d never heard of slash fiction before Supernatural. He created a LiveJournal account not long after starting the show in order to gauge people’s reaction to his character…then he stumbled across some Destiel slash fiction…a little while later at a con – one of his first cons – he was asked a question in a panel and LiveJournal came up. He asked the woman her name on LiveJournal and it turns out it was the exact person who wrote the slash fiction that Misha read! She was mortified that Misha had read it.
· Misha made a chessboard for his son for Christmas in 2023. It took him 2 weeks. His son has already lost a piece. Misha said that parenthood is a rollercoaster. You start by adoring everything they do. They learn to walk. To talk. They go to school. Now, as a teenager, Misha loves his son dearly, but sometimes wants to break his legs. Hilarious.
· Misha said that while starring on “24” he had to perform a sex scene. Typically, the man wears a cock sock (flesh-coloured pouch to cover double-o and 7) and the woman wears nipple pasties. This particular woman had written “hello Misha” on the pasties.
· The major story from Misha’s panel involved a trip to the White House last autumn. Misha was an intern at the White House 25 years ago when Hillary Clinton was the First Lady. Hillary was there at this trip. Misha saw Karine Jean-Pierre across the room. He had interviewed her on his Instagram account previously and wanted to be 100% sure he was pronouncing her name correctly. So he got his phone out to Google it. When on his phone, he received a video message from Richard Speight Jr. (as did Jensen and Jared). It was Senators at a hearing earlier that day debating whether or not to remove certain books from school libraries. Some of the Senators were highlighting that some of the books were unfit for a school library and they read out some of the raunchy passages that were in the books. These raunchy parts had been collated into one video by someone that was making the rounds online. This is what was sent to Misha by Richard. Accidentally, Misha clicked on the video. Here is a video of that very debate. The raunchy readings from this video are what Misha’s phone was playing. In the White House. On loud speaker. As Hillary Clinton walked into the room.
· Misha was frantically trying to turn the video off. His hands were fumbling. He tried covering the speaker. Didn’t work. He tried turning it down. Didn’t work. He then DROPS THE PHONE as everyone tries to figure out if they should be looking at Hillary Clinton entering the room or Misha sweating profusely trying to silence his phone, which was saying such things as “I began to slide into him from behind” and “I pulled out of him and began to kiss him while he masturbated”. Misha turned to the Chief of Staff and said the only thing he could think of…”Republicans!”
· Misha said that when he first joined “Supernatural”, he was told that Castiel had been observing humanity for thousands of years, but this was the first time he’d been amongst them. That is how Misha approached his performance. Misha said that so many autistic people have approached him since being on the show, saying that they see themselves in Castiel, which makes total sense to Misha as they too are viewing the world through a different lens and trying to make sense of it.
· There seems to be some debate as to whether or not Misha can actually ride a bike as during his previous "bike tours" he was always photographed next to the bike or sat on the bike, but never actually riding it. Misha assured us that he can ride a bike. Even though I wasn't there on Sunday, I know that someone hired a bike so that Misha could prove it during his Sunday panel! The dedication of the Supernatural fandom knows no bounds! That is NOT the face of a man that feels comfortable riding a bike.
· Great panel! Misha owns the stage whenever he’s on it.
Time for autographs!
Many years ago, after attending numerous conventions, I devised a system whereby to categorise my experiences with guests and their level of interaction in order to compare the quality of my experiences across conventions and time. I have O.C.D., shut up. The following three types were found :-
· The Responder: This type of guest is often polite and friendly. If you ask them a question, they’ll happily answer. If you comment on something, they’ll respond or smile gratefully. However, they won’t carry the conversation forward, you have to. These are the most common type of guest, and this is what you expect when meeting someone at a convention. This is a great category to be a part of.
· The Groucho/Big Guest: There are two aspects to this category. Firstly, you have the groucho. The groucho is there for monetary purposes or is generally just having a bad day, or is a bit of an ass. If you meet enough people, one of them is bound to be an ass! The grouchos aren’t interested in conversations above a few words. They’ll say ‘hi’ (sometimes they don’t bother with that), sign, say ‘bye’ (sometimes), and you’re on your merry way. Of course, in certain situations this is relevant and expected, which brings me to the second part of this category, the ‘big guest’. Some guests are going to be insanely popular. Such as Stan Lee at LFCC ‘14, who had an entire building to himself basically. When you get a huge queue like that, the guest can’t take a lot of time with everyone. If they did, many people would go home disappointed at not getting to meet them at all. Therefore, the convention company and the guest want to get through as many people as possible. You cannot have a huge guest and expect to get above 30 seconds with them, which is perfectly fair.
· The Conversationalist: This is easily my favourite type of guest. They’ll answer your questions with a smile, ask you questions in return, and are happy to chat for an extended period of time (extended = above 2-3 minutes), regardless of where the conversation leads or how long you’ve been talking. Obviously, there has to be some cut-off point if there is a queue behind you, but you leave the experience feeling euphoric and like you gained a lot more than just the autograph you queued for.
Historically on my reviews, I’d write down everything that was said at the autograph table. I’m not going to do that anymore as I feel it’s personal between myself and them. What I will do is give a few little notes and the category.
Karen Fukuhara: Karen was my first autograph of the day and a total sweetheart. You could tell that she was really enjoying being there. Guest Type = Responder.
Tomer Capone: Tomer was my favourite guest of the weekend for sure. Unlike half of the line-up, I’d never met Tomer before so didn’t know what to expect. He was awesome. Really talkative, really engaging, really funny, steered the conversation. He just seems to be a ball of positive energy all of the time. Both Tomer and Karen are definitely worth meeting if you get the opportunity to do so in the future! Guest Type = Conversationalist
I’m aiming to get this signed by Laz Alonso in August. Hopefully Jack and Karl aren’t too far behind either!
Alexander Calvert: Alex also seems to be a big ball of energy all of the time. I can definitely see why he fit in well with the Supernatural cast as he’s highly sarcastic, which is a staple of most of the cast (Jensen, Jared, Jim, Mark…basically all of them!). Great guest! Guest Type = Responder.
After concluding the autograph session, it was time for the last panel of the day: Jim Beaver and Steven Williams. I’m going to be honest; by this point I was hanging. I’d been up since 5am. Driven from Gloucestershire to Birmingham. I was beat. Cons take it out of you! People that don’t attend cons don’t really know how draining they are. You get constant adrenaline peaks and falls all day. Fall during photo queuing, peak when you’re at the front, fall again, peak again, lather, rinse, repeat.
Thankfully, Jim and Steven are so good on stage together that I remained wide-awake throughout the panel…and usually crying with laughter. Definitely the best panel of the day. Highlights! :-
· Steven was shocked at the lack of “brothers” within the crowd. Jim quipped that it “doesn’t look like Alabama!”
· Throughout the panel Steven was having trouble hearing the questions that the attendees were asking. He blamed the sound system. Jim rolled his eyes and said, “yes, it’s the sound system!”, implying that the problem is Steven’s age.
· I will say that Steven and Jim are very similar to Rufus and Bobby. Both in their personalities and in their chemistry with each other. They constantly playfully rip into each other and it’s a delight to watch. An example: someone asked what brings them joy. Steven went into a long, beautiful explanation about how life itself brings him joy. Jim said that what brings him joy is Steven reaching the end of his answer finally, to which Steven laughed loudly.
· Lina asked Jim and Steven a very important question: ZOMBIES ATTACK THE HOTEL RIGHT NOW! Who is the first to die and who survives? Steven said “you’ve all watched enough television to know who dies first”, which crippled everyone in the room.
· “If you could go back in time to anywhere, where would you go?”
Jim: “At this point I want to go back into the womb.”
· Jim had to relive the painful memory of Bobby and Crowley kissing on “Supernatural”. He said he was too distracted by the stubble to pay attention to whether or not Mark Sheppard was a good kisser. He did enjoy kissing Kim Rhodes though.
· “Steven, what was your favourite memory from Supernatural?”
Steven: “That’s easy! My first paycheck!”
(in actuality it was meeting Jim Beaver and becoming friends with him. Naaaw!)
· Steven: “Did you die in the show?!”
Jim: “YOU WERE IN THE EPISODE!”
Steven: “I WAS?!”
· Jim is currently reading a book about the Lincoln assassination. A young boy from the audience asked Jim and Steven what the difference is between acting now and acting…back…then (heavily implying a long, long time ago)…
Jim: “Back in the caveman days?! I wasn’t actually AT the Lincoln assassination, you know!”
· Steven said that he struggles with streaming and apps as he’s an old school guy. He used to look for his shows on television, but now he doesn’t because he can’t get his head around all the tech…
Steven: “I’ve stopped trying
to find stuff I’ve done.”
Jim: “Most people have.”
Steven: “That one hurt, Jim.”
Hilarious.
· “If you both had panic rooms like Bobby, what would be in your panic room?”
Jim: “My whole life is a panic room.”
Steven: “Tequila and three beautiful women.”
Jim: “…At this stage of my life I’ll just take the tequila.”
Bloody brilliant. A fantastic way to round off a great day.
After this, it was time to collect the photos that were taken earlier in the day and head back to Gloucestershire.
As always, I had a blast at Starfury. Already got my ticket sorted for Cross Roads 9 – details here: http://seanharry.com/home/cross-roads/. Do yourself a favour and get a ticket. I promise it’ll be worth it.
- Your Friendly Neighbourhood Shangel
FINAL SCORE: 8/10
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