Category Archives: Comics

Comikaze Expo 2011

Comikaze Expo SignI wasn’t sure what to expect from Comikaze Expo, and I’d just been to Long Beach Comic-Con the weekend before, but I was curious about the new show, and for $12 a day, I figured I’d check it out. Getting a discount on that already-low price through Goldstar clinched it, and when I found out my friend Wayne was going, we decided to carpool.

Cobra ConfluenceWhat we found was a surprisingly big show, with a wide variety of exhibitors, though I’d hesitate to call it a “Comic-Con.” More of a general geek pop culture show. There were certainly comic book artists and dealers (a few of whom I recognized from last week), but it reminded me a bit of the last Wizard con I went to (Anaheim 2010). There were actors & celebrities, artists, indie publishers, authors, dealers, T-shirt and nerdy craft sellers, costumers, fan groups for everything from G.I. Joe to Firefly, tattoo artists (that’s a new one), a giant card game area, a giant tabletop game area, and a video game demo trailer. All in all, it was somewhere between Wizard and San Diego without the big names.

The Crowd

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Long Beach Comic and Horror Con 2011: Still Got It

When I heard that Long Beach Comic Con was rebranding itself as Long Beach Comic and Horror Con this year, I was a little concerned. One of the things I liked most about it the first two years was the heavy emphasis on comics compared to San Diego (which has plenty of comics, but is so big that it’s easy to miss them) or the Wizard conventions (which seem to have refocused around celebrities). As it turns out, the horror didn’t drown out the comics at all. The front of the hall was still mainly comics publishers, with dealers (mostly comics and collectibles) behind them in a U shape, wrapped around the core: a gigantic Artist’s Alley.

Of course, Halloween and horror did make their presence known, starting with the signs for zombie parking, and continuing with programming, guests and costumes. (Jump straight to the photos.)

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Overheard at a Comic Con

Overheard at Long Beach Comic-Con:

Some guy asked me, “What’re you dressed up as?” And I said, “…a Muggle?”

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Friday at San Diego Comic-Con (2011)

Darth JokerThis year, we approached Comic-Con International a bit differently than usual. For the last seven years we’ve been staying in town for all four days. This year, with the baby, we decided to just do one day. So we left him with relatives and took the train down to San Diego for the day. We arrived in town about 9:00, walked down to the convention center, and had our badges just after the floor opened at 9:30.

(Full photo set on Flickr.)

Jack Skellington Puppet/CostumePlanning a trip to Comic-Con is always about trade-offs. It’s so big that you can’t see everything, and there are so many events going on that you can’t attend them all. With four days, there’s some wiggle room. With just one, it seemed like I was constantly thinking about those choices.

One of the first choices I made: No news panels. I could get that the next day online (and did). I wanted to focus only on what was unique to the con: exhibits, meeting people, the art show, etc. Basically, I wanted to experience as much of San Diego Comic Con as I could in one day.

Katie decided to pick two things and build her day around them: visiting The Field, an Irish pub our friend Sean introduced us to a few years ago, and seeing the new Thundercats screening. Continue reading

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Comic-Con Photos are Up (2011)

Cheetara and Snarf

(No, that’s not us.)

I’ve posted my 2011 San Diego Comic-Con photos at Flickr. Actually, they’ve been up for a week, but I was so focused on coverage at Speed Force (when I had time for blogging, anyway) that I forgot to post a notice here.

I’m still working on a con write-up. It’s going to be a lot shorter than last year’s extensive coverage, probably a single post, mainly because we were only there for one day this year.

Enjoy the photos, and check back for the write-up. I’m hoping to have it done by the end of the weekend. We’ll see how that goes. Update: It’s done! The write-up is online!.

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Lord of the Rings as an “Event” Comic Book

Today, I watched Green Lantern at the same theater where we’ve been watching a series of special screenings of the extended-edition Lord of the Rings movies. Afterward, thinking about the two ring-focused stories and the in-progress event comic book Flashpoint, I found myself imagining: What would The Lord of the Rings have been like as a modern “event” comic book like Final Crisis or Blackest Night?

No doubt it would have tie-ins, side stories, spinoffs, and a bunch of extra tie-ins added to plug the inevitable gaps in the schedule. Check out my full list at Speed Force!

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Recent Tech Links: Unmaintainable Code, XKCD on The Cloud and More

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Recent Links

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Recent Links: Comic Strips, Moon, Hotspot Safety, Flash Forward and More

Comic strips and art:

Sci-fi and fantasy:

  • Keeping Up With the Cardassians. For months, this is what I heard every time someone mentioned the Kardashians. (What can I say? My brain is more attuned to Star Trek than to reality TV.)
  • Author Robert J. Sawyer answers pointed questions about Flashforward and the TV adaptation, including what went wrong. I have to agree that it was really hurt by focusing too heavily on the conspiracy arc.

Coolness!

Tech stuff:

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(Mad) Scientific Fact: The Girl Genius Novel is Out!

For the past decade, Phil & Kaja Foglio have been spinning the mad science/gaslamp fantasy adventures of Agatha Heterodyne in the award-winning comic book-turned-webcomic Girl Genius. Now they’ve stepped into a new medium, adapting the first story into a prose novel: Agatha H. and the Airship City.

The Industrial Revolution has escalated into all-out warfare. It has been sixteen years since the Heterodyne Boys, benevolent adventurers and inventors, disappeared under mysterious circumstances. Today, Europe is ruled by the Sparks, dynasties of mad scientists ruling over – and terrorizing – the hapless population with their bizarre inventions and unchecked power, while the downtrodden dream of the Hetrodynes’ return. At Transylvania Polygnostic University, a pretty, young student named Agatha Clay seems to have nothing but bad luck. Incapable of building anything that actually works, but dedicated to her studies, Agatha seems destined for a lackluster career as a minor lab assistant. But when the University is overthrown by the ruthless tyrant Baron Klaus Wulfenbach, Agatha finds herself a prisoner aboard his massive airship Castle Wulfenbach – and it begins to look like she might carry a spark of Mad Science after all.

The comics are great fun, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how they’ve filled in the details in the novel version!

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