Before anyone saw a single episode of Con Man it was already the only web series to present in Hall H of San Diego Comic-Con. If you know what that means and how huge that is, then Con Man is your kind of show. Ever since the Indiegogo campaign exploded, eventually closing as the highest-funded web series ever with $3.2 million, Con Man has been burdened with a lot of expectations. We spoke with Con Man writer and director Alan Tudyk about the whirlwind process of bringing Con Man to Vimeo On Demand, and finally showing Tudyk’s madcap, Firefly postmortem comedy to all of fandom.

Con Man Web Series Teaser Trailer

Con Man - Teaser from Con Man Web Series on Vimeo.

Written and directed by Alan Tudyk, Con Man is about actor Wray Nerely (played by Tudyk) as he tours geek culture conventions and tries to live down the spaceship pilot role that’s trapped him in fandom hell. Yes, it’s about Firefly, or at least a similar show named Spectrum. Fittingly, Nathan Fillion appears in multiple episodes of Con Man as the spaceship’s captain whose acting career has moved on to bigger and better roles.

But while Con Man is about sci-fi conventions, it’s much more than light observational humor or fan service. Instead, the first season of Con Man is a more outlandish comedic experience, heightening nerd interactions and eventually achieving a surreal, Curb Your Enthusiasm plus peyote vibe.

Nowhere is this more evident than in the numerous Con Man cameos. Tudyk twists them into more than “hey, it’s _________!” moments, often putting familiar faces in outlandish situations.

You’ve got Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers) as the world of Con Man’s only bartended (enter a bar anywhere in the world and he’s there) and, as Tudyk describes him, “an oracle of some kind.” Then there’s Felicia Day and her magical wardrobe, or Tricia Helfer (Battlestar Galactica) with her living baby doll.

For Tudyk, it’s about having character actors play actual characters and stepping beyond the cameo. It’s a strategy Tudyk hopes will pay off in Con Man Season 2, which will “create more interesting stories with the growing troupe of actors.”

Alan Tudyk got in-depth with iDigi on Con Man, its cast, and its relation to fandom.

This is your both first writing and directing project. So why this project? Why Con Man?

“Sci-fi conventions are such a rich backdrop for comedy. I’ve been going to conventions for over a decade now so I have a lot of experiences to pull from that are funny to me.

I knew someone was going to write something about this world. I wanted to be the one to do it.”

Your on-screen persona is typically very affable… was it fun playing a bit of a dick for once? How much of writing Wray is cathartic?

“It is most fun playing the dick and then facing the repercussions. The selfishness and vanity and insecurity and lasciviousness and greed is also fun too. So, yeah.”

Mindy Sterling is one of my favorite parts of Con Man. Had you worked with her before? How did you sell the show to her?

Mindy is brilliant. I sent her the scripts and she said ‘yes' the next day. Bobbie is such and extreme and fun role. I felt like if she got the role then she should get it. Mindy gives Bobbie class even in the most crass and classless moments.”

Con Man hits on one of the great tensions in fandom: the friction between corporate profit and human hearts. Have you noticed a change in fandom as all these scifi/nerd properties have become increasingly mainstream in the past decade?

“ The fandom has grown as Hollywood has ginned up the Hollywood machine to capture a larger audience or at least create it. Most people seem to like it. It has made for more fans and more shows that create more fans who tell two friends and then they tell tow friends and so on and so on… that’s a plus. I have been able to meet more people now that conventions are more popular, although, smaller conventions are the best for Con Man future episodes.”

One of my favorite things on Con Man is how you slowly flesh out your show-within-a-show, Spectrum. Did you find yourself fleshing out the Spectrum lore as you developed Con Man? Any secrets you can share with diehard Spectrum fans out there?

Spectrum was fleshed out in the form of a novel outline we wrote out before we started. Fleshed out? Sounds gross right? Or dirty.

You’re also writing a Spectrum novel (or novels, maybe?) with PJ Haarsma. How’s that going?

The comics are our first focus. We are well into the first four. The novel will approach the same story from a different point in time filling in all the deeper shades and purposely unanswered questions. PJ Haarsma, the third producer of Con Man, is a sci-fi novelist. Spectrum is a new story that bumps up against the universe he created in his Softwire four-book series. So the universe is already alive. We are now writing a different story in that starts on Earth - what’s left of Earth anyway.

The universe is very crowded with different races and creatures that may look and function differently than humans but they share the same human traits of love, greed, cruelty, fear, savagery — all the hits.

You and Disney are pretty tight now. Not only are you in Zootopia but Rogue One too. With all that and Con Man you’re living both extremes of the industry. What’s the advantages and disadvantages on each end?

Disney has cast me in their last four animated movies. I have been lucky at convincing them that I am their good luck charm. I hope to be in Moana even as a passing smart-ass bird or a cowardly, incontinent shark or something. It’s an extreme business but massive budget jobs end after a few months just like itty bitty little budget jobs. It’s best if I give the same amount of passion to whatever I am working on no matter the extreme.

Are you ready to be both the Firefly guy and the Star Wars guy? Any new experiences that will seep into Con Man Season 2?

It will all seep in. My best writing comes from the deepest of seep. That sounds gross. The second most disgusting word next to “flesh" is “seep.” What the hell?

Con Man Season 2 is in the works. You can watch all 13 episodes of Con Man Season 1 right here.