Category: Miscellaneous

Con Swag

October 20, 2015

We bought a bunch of stuff at the con. Here’s a selection:

That’s issue 1 of a magazine that ran for only 3 issues back in 1967. It’s basically a girls romance comic with some ‘true love advice’ and articles about dreamy male celebrities of the era. Some guy was selling scads of all three issues of this, probably found in an abandoned warehouse.

KLS bought this disapproving cat plush. I think it’s disapproval is due to it being the smallest and cheapest plush we bought at the con 🙂

I got these 4 old D&D Modules for a song. To my surprise, one of them is a single-player version that uses invisible ink to hide the events! Only two squares in the entire book have been inked in. I wonder if the remaining ink still works?

Autographed Chris Achilleos art, now framed and on my wall. The guy I bought this from (I also got an Achilleos poster) knows the artist, and was telling me how friendly and gracious he is. He said he had another print somewhere in his voluminous stand, and I was hopeful for some FF or DW art, but alas he couldn’t find it 🙁

More art, this time a lenticular Miku poster. See how her blue matches the colour of my study wall! We bought a lot of art at the con, from posters to prints to autographed works. Much of it is already framed and up on our walls (or KLS’s office wall).

Speaking of Miku, here’s the con-exclusive Nendroid they were selling at the Good Smile booth. It’s super cute, and somehow ended up leaving the con with me 😉

KLS purchased this tiny ‘sea bunny’ resin figure direct from the artist. It is based on the recently discovered ‘sea bunny’ species of nudibranch slug, which looks like this:

So cute! We stumbled upon this fortuitously, since the artist was only there for an hour and only selling 25 of them. I guess he’s somewhat famous since the person in front of us was very excited and had some of his other stuff for him to autograph. He was friendly and seemed genuinely happy people were buying his stuff.

Last but not least, could this be the find of the show:

All 36 packs, unopened! A world of spice and worms and Gom Jabbers and Kwisatz Haderachs just waiting to be uncovered! Plus there are stickers too. Even though they are already 31 years old I’ll let them age a bit before eagerly ripping into all of them…

…unless you want a pack for your very own self? If so, let me know in the comments.

NYCC 2015 Day 3

October 10, 2015

We awoke early and headed down the con to line up at 9 am for a bracelet that would get us into a panel over four hours later. Then we lined up for another bracelet to get us into another panel starting over nine hours later. All this took over two hours and while frustrating and boring is typical of Saturday – the day of lines – at this con.

We spent the couple of hours we had in Artists Alley buying prints before heading back to the main hall and lining up again for the first panel which was The X-Files.

And it was amazing!

We got to see the entire first episode (which screens next year) and it vastly exceeded our expectations. It was followed by a panel featuring Mulder (Duchovny) and Skinner (Pileggi) and series creator Chris Carter himself.

Since they didn’t want the episode leaking online security was very tight and included guys watching the audience through night vision goggles (!) to spot anyone trying to record it! Surreal…

The afternoon was the usual con overload, gawking and buying and dealing with the intense crowds. No matter how much you walk around there’s always something new to be seen!

Many things were bought, both for us and others. Dozens of 3DS street passes were obtained. Swollen feet throbbed in agony.

We headed out for some dinner and to drop our loot off at the hotel.

We returned for the cosplay contest, which was a lot of fun. Leaving the con after it has closed looks like this:

Tomorrow – KLS’s birthday! – is the last day of this years con. Even after over 20 hours on the show floor there’s still things we want to have a closer look at. Since we’ve only got a few hours before our train, it’ll be a busy morning indeed!

NYCC 2015 Day 2

October 9, 2015

Three shots taken from our hotel room which costs an arm and a leg and boasts a ‘deluxe city view’. The view earlier this evening during a heavy rainstorm was quite stunning.

I’ll get the obligatory ‘insane lines’ comment out of the first. Yes the lines are insane and yes it can be frustrating but as old hands we knew what we were in for and endure it calmly like saints… but Christ there’s a lot of people here!

That’s KLS getting her lips glittered. From the hundreds of exhibitors you can buy almost anything: it’s not all comics and toys. There’s actually a surprising amount of vendors selling clothing (mostly costumes), wigs, contact lenses and cosmetics. KLS bought some eyeliner from this booth last year, loved it, and was happy to find they were back!

I particularly like the guys selling the ‘vintage’ collectibles because you never know what you’ll find. Take the above shot: a view master reel next to nazi memorabilia and a vintage Star Wars toy. Wonderful! Occasionally these sorts of vendors have some treasures like this:

Which pales next to some of the ‘serious collector’ comics on offer, such as this:

There are also a dozen or so original art dealers, from which you can buy the original art created for comics over the years. It’s a bit daunting browsing their wares though, when tiny pieces of art run into the thousands!

No real comment on the above, other than its about 60 cm tall!

That’s the sort of thing I would have gone berserk for as a kid. Not only does the set contain 12 gargoyles and 6 titans, but it’s also got 12 dragonriders and a mind-boggling 40 demons!! The fun I would have had 😉

I wonder if this prototype shown at the Kotobukiya booth is a Force Awakens spoiler?

The last silly item photo of the days goes to these perler bead faces of Stephen Colbert. Each (that’s 2 different items) costs $400 and is (much) smaller and in fewer colours than the one I made of Bernard earlier this year…

On to cosplay! As usual it’s everywhere, and sometimes you feel like you’re in the minority not being in costume. The eye-catcher at the show so far is this massive Hulkbuster that towers over everyone and is build around a sort of power suit the guy inside is wearing:

You can see how popular it is! Here’s a shot of him putting the whole thing on:

Impressive as it is (and it really is), I tend to prefer quirky stuff like this:

Or creative (and pretty!) stuff like this:

I don’t even know who she is cosplaying 🙂

We’ve also spent hours walking ‘Artists Alley’, where hundreds of artists display and sell prints of their work to the public. Much of this is comic-related, but there’s also a bunch of other genres and themes and a good amount has made its way into our bags destined for our walls at home.

Tomorrow is the big day, and the only day with panels we are interested in (we missed the Rebels panel, which was held too soon after opening yesterday). Assuming we beat the lines and get wristbands hours ahead of time, we may even be able to sit in on panels with (omg) celebrities! I’ll swoon with excitement! Wish me luck 😉

Robot Claw