On March 3rd and 4th, I attended the annual Comic and Toy Expo here in Winnipeg, Canada. The event isn’t anywhere near as massive as Comic Con. There were less celebrities, vendors and weirdos (actually, I’m not entirely sure about that last one), but the event was still a lot of fun. By the way, does anyone smell… Klingon?
One of the main reasons why I like going to these conventions is meeting the people, especially since many of them are decked out in some pretty elaborate costumes. I saw a guy in full Klingon garb and makeup, a Heath Ledger Joker, and a Mario who obviously must have put on Luigi’s coveralls by mistake (let’s just say they were kinda tight), among many others. Some of them are really creative. My absolute favorite out of everyone this time around was this young lady as Marvel Comics’ Elektra:
Wow. Doesn’t she look amazing? If I was going to die via assassin, this is definitely the way I’d want to go. I’m not sure if she won the costume contest or even entered the thing since I didn’t stick around for it, but as far as I’m concerned, she’s already a winner in my book.
Speaking of meeting people, I also got a chance to talk to Michael Dorn, better known as Worf on ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation‘. He’s a very laid-back kind of guy, basically the exact opposite of frantic Jonathan Frakes, but still very friendly and very funny. On Sunday afternoon, I attended his hour-long Q&A session (a transcript is available here), and it was highly entertaining. Be sure to check it out.
Here’s a little more proof as to how cool Michael Dorn is:
Now I’m seriously considering setting a course for Calgary, Alberta late next month to attend the annual Calgary Expo, where the entire ‘Trek’ bridge crew will be on deck for their 25th anniversary! Engage!
EM
The only problem Ms. Elektra might have in the costume contest is disqualification on the grounds of insufficiency of costume. đ
Speaking of insufficiencyâcan we put the apostrophe in Qaplaâ where it belongs? Reading it sliced off hurtsâmuch like listening to Dornâs pronunciation of KlingonâŠ
Josh Zyber
That would be my fault. Better now? The apostrophe looks a little weird with the exclamation point, but I wouldn’t want to violate the rules of Klingon grammar. đ
If Michael Dorn doesn’t know how to pronounce a made-up language for which he is the most famous public speaker, who does?
EM
majQaâ! đ I think the apostrophe looks great there. It represents a consonant sound; omitting it is somewhat like writing success as succe.
As for who knows how to pronounce Klingonâoh, I donât know, maybe Marc Okrand, the creator of the language (more or less) and author of The Klingon Dictionary, published two years before Michael Dorn landed his gig. In the episode âThe Emissaryâ, Worf says âI am a Klingonâ in Klingonâbut he manages to egregiously mispronounce even the word for Klingon. I like to think that his childhood isolation from other Klingons is at fault, but the truth is that actors lacking Okrandâs coaching usually make a qagh-like mess of itâprobably not their fault. Okrand did cover this problem somewhat by discussing dialectal variation in the introduction to the aforementioned book.
Tom Landy
It’s funny, I originally had Qaplaâ! in there but in a different spot and thought it looked weird so I removed it. Josh put it back in only in a better place. I was like, hey I thought I remove that, and realized it wasn’t mine. Glad it’s back though! đ