Magnum Opus Con was ahead of its time; embracing movies, TV,
comics, gaming and all the other fandom categories that now make the various
Comic-Cons and Fan Expos gigantic spectacles, and doing so in secondary markets
far from typical con territory. MOC's peak attendance was somewhere in the thousands,
but in spite of the nerd appeal and an enthusiastic crowd, MOC was its own
worst enemy. After 16 years of conventions in Georgia
and South Carolina, it vanished,
never to rise again.
MOC began in Macon GA,
home town of its chairman. Early iterations of the convention were titled
"Macon Opus Con", the “Opus” apparently a reference to the penguin
character from the Berke Breathed comic strip “Bloom
County”. It soon moved to Columbus
GA, to their unique downtown Columbus
Ironworks Convention Center
and several satellite hotels, linked by a shuttle service. Combining a strong
media guest list with a crowd hungry for SF convention fun in the early Spring,
and a geographical location under-served by fan conventions, MOC’s second and third
years were busy affairs. The second MOC became infamous as the last
appearance anywhere of Dr. Who actor Patrick Troughton, who passed away in his
sleep late Friday night of MOC 2.
On the topic of MOC and Patrick Troughton and death, reader "A Million Masks" has this to say:
I am from Columbus, GA..where the infamous Magnum Opus Con was held in 1987. I didn't attend that show, but the guy who organized it was Pat Robinson, owner of Columbus Book Exchange which is the only comic shop left in that town. He's had the CBE since the late 70s/early 80s. At one point in the 90's, there were 7 comic stores in Columbus and Pat's the only one still going. He's also a kind and genuinely good man.
Anyhow, Pat told me about Patrick Troughton's death at the show that year. Apparently, he woke up, ordered his breakfast and talked to Pat about an episode of Dr. Who he personally selected for a screening at the show that day. When it came time for him to go down to the show floor, he was found dead apparently still sitting in front of his meal. Pat's still sad about that day. For one, nobody wants anyone to die on them and secondly (and certainly of lesser importance), it ended Pat's foray into organizing conventions forever.
For its fourth year MOC struck a deal with the city fathers
of Greenville SC and became South Carolina's number-one (and only) fan
convention. From 1989 to 1994 the downtown Hyatt Regency was filled with
Trekkies, SF writers, Whovians, martial arts instructors, and “Bimbo Pageant”
contestants of both sexes. The nightlife aspect of MOC began to take on
more and more importance as crowds of liquored-up nerds surged through the city
in various stages of inebriation and different crews
of revelers competed with each other in "party battles."
The convention added an extra day, becoming a four-day show, and events like
the slave auction, the “MOC-Alympics”, belly dancing, MOC(k) Marriages, Casino
Night, and the Mr Macho Contest captured the attention of congoers, to the
perceived detriment of more traditional SF convention activities.
MOC’s guest list impressed then and is more impressive now
considering many of them are no longer with us: Dr Who actors like the
aforementioned Patrick Troughton, Colin Baker, Jon Pertwee, and Louise Jameson
rubbed shoulders with Star Trek stars DeForest Kelley. George Takei and James
“Scotty” Doohan; SF writers like Marion Zimmer Bradley, Ben Bova, Robert
Aspirin, Timothy Zahn, David Weber, Lois McMaster Bujold, Roger Zelazny and the
unstoppable Brad Strickland mixed with astronauts and scientists like Dr. Story
Musgrave and film & TV talent Phyllis Coates, Chris Potter, Bruce Campbell,
Tom Savini, Bruce Boxleitner and Yvonne Craig, giving fans from all over the fandom
spectrum somebody to get autographs from.
MOC made good use of direct mail advertising and several
times a year would publish a magazine titled simply "Fandom", a black
and white newsprint affair of 48-72 pages advertising the upcoming convention,
highlighting the guests and events, showcasing glamour photography of the
convention's costumers, and serving as a bulletin board for MOC attendees to
ask questions and as a soapbox for MOC's staff and directors to sound off on
whatever topics came to mind, with varying degrees of coherence and readability.
During the Greenville
iteration of MOC, the Atlanta
convention scene was then witnessing a bitter if meaningless struggle between
the Atlanta Fantasy Fair and DragonCon. MOC's convention chair came down firmly
on the side of the AFF in this debate, accusing the DC organization of sabotaging
the AFF and any other fandom convention that threatened DragonCon's
hegemony. To this end MOC scheduled their 1995 convention directly
opposite DragonCon, and moved it to Callaway
Gardens, a resort complex located
in Pine Mountain GA,
close to Columbus and the
"Little White House" historical site near Warm Springs, far away from
anyplace fans had ever attended a convention.
 |
| "Fandom" |
This was a gutsy move, and as is so often the case with
gutsy moves, was largely a failure. Attendance figures plummeted as Southeastern
fans found themselves forced to choose between two conventions when they would
normally have attended both, and Dragon Con, having a larger guest list, more
attractions, and being in a city people could actually find, garnered the
lion’s share of attendees. MOC compounded their problems by staging the next
Magnum Opus Con in DC’s home turf of downtown
Atlanta,
on the weekend before the 1996 Dragon Con. MOC 11 itself was reasonably
well attended and its host hotel, the downtown Radisson, was a friendly if architecturally
confusing facility with a charming indoor pool built for late-night convention
socializing. Problems came when staffers from DragonCon rented a Radisson hotel
suite and threw a DC room party welcoming MOC to
Atlanta.
MOC's con chair saw this as an “invasion” and made very public his feelings on
the matter, removing the flyers advertising DC's party and at one point
attempting to physically eject DC staffers.
Atlanta fandom witnessed this in real time via posts to the Usenet group alt.fandom.cons, and the impression received was that of a friendly gesture irrationally
rejected by an angry con chair. The
chairman’s behavior both at MOC and online would continue to repel potential
MOC attendees for the remainder of the convention’s run.
Antics such as these by con chairs continue to happen in the
fandom world, but today social media gives fans the ability to spread news and
gossip far and wide and with amazing speed. These days,
bad conventions and/or bad con chair behavior usually won’t last long. MOC, however, continued on for several
more years.
MOC 12 would be in downtown Atlanta,
attended by a dwindling number of fans attracted mostly by the convention's
reputation for parties. MOC would move in 1998 to Athens GA, to a sprawling
facility known as the "History Village Inn”, which was extensively
remodeled in 2001 to become the “Foundry Inn & Spa” and after more
remodeling has reopened as a boutique hotel operating as “The Graduate”. MOC 13, 14, and 15 would be at the History
Village in Athens, a location closer to the con chair’s comic book shop and a
facility the convention could safely book every hotel room of, in order to keep
out the vandals and secret agents thought to be working to destroy MOC.
 |
| Pages from one of the final "Fandom" issues. Click to enlarge for more information about 'cronies' |
In MOC’s declining years, the chairman’s behavior became
even more erratic as guests, long-term staffers, and attendees alike were banned
for transgressions real and imagined. The most frequent and most famous charge
leveled against MOCs enemies was that of being “cronies” in the thrall of
Dragon Con. Repelled by this behavior, fandom ironically turned its back on the
convention whose magazine bore Fandom’s name. Surly, paranoiac, and
stressed, the con chair retreated to the safety of his suburban Athens
comic shop, where, with disturbing frequency, he’d ask female customers and employees
to pose for nude photos.
In 2001 the
convention would have its sixteenth and final show in Atlanta, in what was then
the Ramada Plaza Hotel Perimeter North and is now just the Presidential Hotel,
a mixed-use residential/commercial building recently
rendered bereft of electrical power owing to a billing dispute. MOC’s last year would wring
maximum drama from a minimum number of attendees; a mere handful of fans
attended the show and even this small group was subject to bannings, criminal
trespass warnings, restraining orders, and threats. The con chair suffered a heart attack while
prosecuting some of “the cronies” in court, and as a result of his health
condition and many other factors, turned MOC over to long-term staffers for an
attempt at a 17
th MOC that did not come to pass.
It's a shame MOC self-destructed. The convention mixed
literary SF, gaming, genre film celebrities, and fandom events in a way that
hasn't really been matched since, and when it was focused on its strengths it
was as fun a convention as could be. However, its successes – and there
were many - have been overshadowed by its apocalyptic and apoplectic end. MOC
endures as a cautionary example to convention organizers and staffers alike of
what not to do and how not to do it, and its legend still looms large in the
collective memory of Southeastern fandom.
More information and photos of past MOCs can be found here: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/magnumopusconmemorial/info
