We at MarsCon are very sad to report that the rumors are now confirmed. Our guest of honor Richard Biggs unexpectedly passed away this weekend, May 22, 2004, at age 43. More info and a few pictures here.

MarsCon 2004 Guests Of Honor

2004 is a very exciting year for MarsCon. We're pleased that we've already booked these wonderful guests to join us at MarsCon this year.

Doctor Demento

Dr. Demento, a horny guy Doctor Demento is the host and deejay of The Dr. Demento Show, radio's weekly two-hour festival of "mad music and crazy comedy" heard on stations coast to coast. It is a free-wheeling, unpredictable mix of music and comedy. Along with legends like Spike Jones, Tom Lehrer, Stan Freberg, Monty Python, and Frank Zappa, the Doctor plays new funny songs sent in by amateur and professional singers and comedians. That's how the world was introduced to "Weird Al" Yankovic, who went on to become rock music's best-known funny person. A home-made tape that Al made at age 16 and sent to the Doctor provided him with his very first media exposure.

Those who've listened carefully to the Doctor's show have undoubtedly realized that somewhere between his lively larynx and elegant top hat there resides the mind of a seasoned musicologist and dedicated scholar...a world-renowned record collector and music historian, whose lifelong passion for music of all kinds is reflected in his weekly selection of "rare records and outrageous tapes" for the Dr. Demento Show.

Doctor Demento is a local boy, born Barret Hansen in Minneapolis in 1941. It is MarsCon's distinct pleasure to welcome one of Minnesota fandom's favorite sons back home to be our Media Guest of Honor.

More information on Doctor Demento and his show can be found at Doctor Demento's official website.

Richard Biggs

Richard Biggs as Dr. Stephen Franklin Richard Biggs was born in Columbus, OH and was raised on Air Force bases across the United States. At the age of 17, he discovered that his passion was for acting. Biggs was on the path to becoming a doctor, but after playing the title role in The Wiz for the local drama club, he realized a hidden passion for acting. As Richard changed his plans of becoming a doctor, he was awarded a scholarship from the University of Southern California, where he received a Bachelors of Arts Degree in Fine Arts.

Richard's interest in a medical career has been transformed into several successful portrayals on television. He played Dr. Marcus Hunter on NBC's Days of Our Lives for five seasons, followed by five more seasons as Dr. Stephen Franklin on the critically acclaimed series, Babylon 5. In addition, Richard has guest starred in numerous series including Diagnosis Murder and Crusade. His television films include CBS's highly rated Forever Love with Reba McEntire, and TNT's Babylon 5 movies Third Space, River of Souls, and In the Beginning. Richard's current role is Detective Bill Moody on the Lifetime Television's critically acclaimed series, Any Day Now.

MarsCon is thrilled to welcome Richard Biggs as our Actor Guest of Honor.

More information on Richard Biggs can be found at his website.

John M. Ford

John M. Ford has lived in a variety of places, but has now spent the longest single span of time in Minneapolis, in what in a proper fantasy yarn would be a Garret, but is really just Upstairs. There he writes stuff.

Since his first sale (to Analog, in 1975) the stuff has come to include nine novels, several dozen shorter works, two children's books, a poetry collection, a collection of general short work (with another imminent), a couple of comics, and five major gaming books.

For this, he has collected two World Fantasy Awards, the Rhysling for SF/F poetry, the Philip K. Dick Award, the Minnesota Book Award, and three Origins Awards for game design. There were also two Nebula nominations, but he didn't win. Does that count?

He is currently at work on Aspects, a Great Big Novel -- probably mulitvolume, if we're still using paper by the time it's finished. The most accurate answer to what Aspects is about is that it's about time it got done.

His next book will be Heat of Fusion and Other Stories, a collection of short stories and poetry, coming from Tor in March. Please join us in welcoming John M. Ford (a.k.a. "Dr. Mike") as MarsCon's Author Guest of Honor.

Baron David E Romm

Baron David E Romm has produced Shockwave, the Twin Cities radio program, for nearly 20 years. It first aired September 19, 1979 (or The Year of Our Moon Landing 10, as the Shockwave site puts it) on Twin Cities radio station KFAI and has brought a variety of strange and interesting material to the airwaves. Mr. Romm describes the show as follows: "Shockwave is a weekly radio program without a format. I specialize in science fiction humor and science fact with a spin, but it is and has been much more, and much less. Basically it's me being weird on the radio."

Beyond his involvement with Shockwave, Dave has also been a fixture of Minnesota science fiction fandom for over a generation. He's helped plan several conventions, done strange and often highly entertaining "micro-programming" events for local conventions, written mid-convention newsletters such as the Bozo Bus Tribune, interviewed guests of honor for his radio program (you have been warned, Mr. Biggs and Dr. Demento), and of course has performed Shockwave live on stage during conventions.

And yes, he is a real Baron of the not entirely fictitious country of Ladonia.

We are honored to welcome "Baron Dave" to MarsCon as our Fan Guest of Honor.

More information on Dave Romm and Shockwave can be found at his website.

The Great Luke Ski

The great Luke Ski, a.k.a. Luke Collis Sienkowski, writes, records and performs comedy music on a variety of pop culture subjects ranging from Lord of the Rings ... to Star Wars ... to Spider-Man ... to Keanu Reeves. Luke has enjoyed repeated success on the Dr Demento show, by taking top honors with the #1 most requested songs of both 2002 ("Peter Parker") and 2003 ("Stealing Like a Hobbit"), making him the first artist in 20 years to have the #1 song for two years in a row. (The last was Ogden Edsl with "Dead Puppies" in 1982 and 1983.) He has released 4 CDs, "Fanboys 'n da Hood" (1996), "Shadows Of The Bunghole" (1997), "Carpe Dementia" (1999), "Uber Geek" (2002), and "Worst Album Ever" (2003).

Luke Ski's costume-and-prop-filled preformences have made him a fan favorite at many Science Fiction and Gaming Cons including including GenCon, GenCon SoCal, Star Wars Celebration 2, MarCon (Columbus), WindyCon and CapriCon (Chicago), Archon (St Louis) and both MarsCon and CONvergence last year. In addition to MarsCon, Luke is looking forward to attending PenguiCon (Detroit), TolCon (Seattle), Origins (Columbus), and DragonCon (Atlanta) in 2004.

Luke is also an artist, specializing in caricatures and cartooning. He recently completed artwork for some of his fellow comedy musicians, including cover art for Tony Goldmark's upcoming CD "Rage against the Mundane" and a promotional comic book for Hot Waffles' upcoming CD "Will Rock for Food". He is available for birthday parties, weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, and Klingon Rite of Passage Rituals.

We warmly welcome Luke Ski to Marscon as our 2004 Musical Guest of Honor.

More information on Luke Ski can be found at his website.

Davina

Davina Dawn "Davina" Devine Brown has been a performing belly dancer since 1985. Between then and now Davina has danced at Ren Faires, restaurants, student shows and, yes, cons. She is also an accomplished costumer, and served a stint in theatrical cosume design. Davina teaches workshops and classes in both Middle Eastern dance and in costume design. Davina has merged all these interests, expanding her class handouts into three books "Costuming from the Hip", "From Turban to Toe Ring", and "Bedlah, Baubles and Beads" as well as a booklet series and an on-line newsletter.

We're excited to have Davina as our 2004 Artist Guest of Honor.

You can read more about Davina at her website. Davina's somewhat furry dance troupe, Tiger Tribe, has its own website.