The mind-boggling and unexpected (well, to me, at least — I really didn’t think it’d fly) success of Salt Lake’s first-ever official Comic Con last fall, followed by the even-bigger Comic Con Fan eXperience (or FanX) this spring, has inspired another promoter to try their hand at throwing a big party for Utah nerds. FantasyCon will be held this coming weekend, July 3 through 5, with an impressive line-up of celebrity guests that includes many of the hobbits and dwarves from Peter Jackson’s Tolkien films, as well as genre favorite Simon Pegg (Shaun of the Dead and, sadly, JJ Abrams’ Star Trek reboot… but I won’t hold that against him!), who is making his first convention appearance anywhere. Considering that Pegg is British and will have to spend a lot of time on a plane to even get here, that’s quite an honor for my little backwater city.

To help spread the word about the fledgling event, FantasyCon has commissioned a series of amusing TV spots in which a group of familiar character types — an elf, a knight, a cleric, and an orc — are engaged in a role-playing game called “Cubicles & Careers,” with a white-bearded wizard as their “Cubicle Master.” That’s right, the premise here is that their imaginary game world is our ordinary reality. And as you might imagine, these rollicking freebooters who live lives of romance and adventure, who are accustomed to solving problems with magicks and steel and strength, have a bit of difficulty navigating through the mundane horrors we face every day. My favorite of the ads is “Episode 3: Cleric”:

The lovely cleric’s increasingly exasperated expression and simmering attitude as she roles the dice over and over without getting anywhere crack me up. I know exactly how you feel, fair lady.

There are five of these ads, all produced by a local Salt Lake agency called The Brute Squad. Here are links to the others, if you’d like to check them out (and you know you do!):

Episode 1: Orc

Episode 2: Elf

Episode 3: Cleric

Episode 4: Knight

Episode 5: Wizard Cubicle Master

Anne and I are on the fence about whether we’re going to this — honestly, I’m still trying to pay off what we spent at FanX — but if nothing else, I wanted to share these clever ads that gave me a chuckle, and to wish the organizers success…