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Con Haul

Monday, October 31st, 2016

I’m shamelessly borrowing a post format from AW here; everything I purchased at the local comic con I attended yesterday. I arrived with $106.50 on me, and left with nothing! Here’s the swag…

A pack of Voltron tattoos from 1984. The guy that sold them to me (from a mostly full box) seemed surprised when I said I’d use them. ($2)

Three packs of trading cards. As should be obvious by now, I can’t pass up non-sports cards. At $1/pack these were a bit pricey though. ($3)

A stuffed stegosaurus. I bought this for KLS from the girl who made it. This is actually the second one I’ve bought over the years, although this one is cuter and fatter! ($7)

A Japanese money box ‘sound bank’. I haven’t opened it yet. I think it’s a tiny bank that plays a sound effect from Super Mario Bros. when you put coins in. ($5)

Loads of comics. The average cost was just under $0.50 each. I tend to gravitate to non superhero stuff pre 1990 if possible. That’s the first eleven issues of Indy! ($14.50 in total)

An Avalon Hill fantasy board game from 1979. Yes it’s complete, and yes it will be played. The rules seem delightfully complex! ($10)

A fat Rilakkuma thing. I overpaid for this, but it was my white whale in a UFO catcher in CA early this year. Plus it’s cute! ($40)

Dungeons & Dragons lite-brite set (from 1983). Yes it’s unopened and yes it will remain that way! How could I have passed up such a curiosity! ($15)

Not a bad load of loot is it? For those keeping tabs this totals to only $96.50. What about the other $10 you ask? That was the admission fee.

After a string of disappointing years the con roared back this year and impressed me to no end. Next time I’ll be sure to have more cash with me 🙂

Posted in Books & Comics, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys, Trading Cards | 2 Comments »

Rogue Friday

Friday, September 30th, 2016

Today was ‘Rogue Friday‘, which is the day that merchandise for the new upcoming Star Wars film Rogue One hit stores. Obviously I had to go and check things out.

Apparently Toys’R’Us opened at midnight! Of the five stores I went to, they were the most disappointing so I suspect anyone that did arrive at midnight may have regretted it…

Target seems to have made a bigger deal out of it, with signs on the doors, this display just inside the entrance and…

…a whopping big (cardboard) AT-AT towering over the toy aisle endcap! They had the most new stuff by far, with all sorts of toys, costumes, models and Lego kits.

I don’t know much at all about the film, having only seen the trailers. It’s my intention – as I did The Force Awakens – to go into it as spoiler free as possible. Even so, these toys give a little glimpse at what’s to come 🙂

That’s the Walmart display, or at least some of it since they were still setting up! Happily I found the new Rogue One trading cards there, which made me a happy nerd 🙂

My last stop was probably the best, and that was (surprisingly!) the Disney Store. They had oodles of exclusive stuff including some very nice diecast figures. I bought the hell out of this one:

No I don’t know this character, who appears to be an R2 unit but is called C2-B5. He looks like a baddie with his dark paint, but then almost everyone does in this film. My guess he’s a lovable rogue of a droid 🙂

So it was a pretty good day of Star Wars toy shopping; certainly better than I had expected. In addition to C2-B5 I bought a couple of figures, a bunch of trading cards, some kitchenware (!) and a few other things that may end up as gifts.

Now the hype can really start for the film!

Posted in Miscellaneous, Movies, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

Con Swag

Tuesday, October 20th, 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.

Posted in Art, Gamebooks, Games, Miscellaneous, Otaku, Toys, Trading Cards | 2 Comments »

NYCC 2015 Day 4

Sunday, October 11th, 2015

Since we could only stay at the con a few hours today we focused on one last sweep of the main hall (well, about a third of it) and some last minute purchases.

As always I love the vintage and the unusual, and were it not for getting sidetracked by a pile of ancient D&D modules (all of which I then bought) I nearly purchased a crazy expensive boxed Ultraman villian from the 80’s.

I didn’t buy this though:

Or any of these:

And certainly not this:

I have to say though, I love that someone’s even trying to sell that. Yet another reason this con is so much fun.

I haven’t spoken of our celebrity sightings yet. Aside from the X-files panel, we probably saw fewer this year than ever before, and much of the sightings were like this:

There were also much fewer people signing autographs this year as well, which may have been good because I doubt anyone could have topped the bizarre John deLancie from last year 🙂

Eventually, it was time once again for us to turn our backs on the con and head home.

Since it’s KLS’s birthday today, we had sprung for a first-class room on the train home! It was cozy and comfortable, and came with a delicious meal in the dining car!

Doesn’t she look happy!!

After four long and packed days we’re super tired, but once again we had a great time at NYCC. I’ll follow up in a few days with a post about some of the unusual loot we brought home with us…

Posted in Books & Comics, Celebrity, Models, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

NYCC 2015 Day 3

Saturday, October 10th, 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!

Posted in Books & Comics, Celebrity, Miscellaneous, Models, Otaku, Toys | Comments Closed

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