Seattle's Museum of Pop Culture - Sci Fi

We've delved into the depths of Horror and taken a trip through Fantasy, now it's time to blast off into the worlds of Science Fiction! And again, there's a lot of glass displays and lights so please forgive my photos.

Starting off with a piece of classic TV history, a screen used Mork from Ork costume worn by Robin Williams. One of the really cool things about the Sci-Fi section is that there is a good mix of movies and TV here.

October 2015 Loot Crate - Time

Disclaimer

Loot Crate supplies me with this product in exchange for review/promotion.

Unfortunately, October's Loot Crate theme was not horror/Halloween related so I had to put off this review until now. On the plus side, it's one of the most bodacious Crates I've received in awhile! Station!

October's theme was Time, so it's kind of fitting that we're talking about October in November! It's like we're going Back in Time! No? Stretching too much?

Anyway, to get things rolling, here's the monthly magazine and button. I love that the cover brings together the top three (to me anyway!) time travel franchises. Contents include tips on cosplaying the time travelers, interviews with some of the folks that make Loot Crate happen, and a tri-page foldout featuring the DeLorean license plate on one side and an elaborate flow chart on the other to help you figure out which Doctor would fit your tastes.

This 1:5 scale Hoverboard might not actually work but it's still pretty darn cool! They did a fantastic job on the details with this and it was a great design decision to put it on top of a mirror so you can see the under side as well. I have to wonder why they didn't make the stand parts out of translucent material so it would have more of a hover look to it.

Jump starting this post up to 1.21 gigawatts is a Loot Crate exclusive Doc Brown Funko Pop. These figures are normally adorable anyway, but the goggles make Doc extra cute. And look at that, he's missing an eyebrow.

Because even Time Lords need to eat, we've got a Sonic Spork! The handle is fashioned after the 11th Doctor's sonic screwdriver. It doesn't do anything fancy like light up or make noise but I don't know what you expect from your spork other than it functioning as a spoon and/or fork.

Rounding things out is this excellent shirt. Sadly, it seems to be an athletic fit shirt. Totally bogus since I would wear the heck out of it!

Speaking of excellent things, check out the interior of the Crate. It's not one of the complex interiors where you have to reconfigure the box but the graphics are awesome! I'll be adding this into my rotation of desktop wallpapers. If you look on the sides, you can see a couple of familiar vehicles behind the stage curtains.

Rating this Crate on a speedometer, I'd say it gets up to around 80 out of 88 mph. I'm only dinging it a little for the fit of the shirt because I can't wear it.

You don't have to play games with Death to get your own box of geeky goodies every month. Just head over to Loot Crate and subscribe using promo code AEIOUWHY for 10% off any subscription plan of your choosing

Until next time, be excellent to each other.

Boston Comic Con 2015

This weekend was the annual Boston Comic Con. The organizers did a pretty good job this year but I still think they need to relocate to a larger place. I know it's a con and maybe if you go to SDCC, you expect the aisles on the show floor to be packed from side to side, but this ain't San Diego. A lot of people packed in = a lot of heat.

Last year I had several posts covering different aspects of the con. This year, it's all jammed into one. The biggest reason being I didn't take as many photos as I would have liked. Mainly because I was miserable for at least half of the day due to being overheated and light headed. Not the best frame of mind to make me want to take photos. The second reason being sometimes there were just too damn many people to be able to shoot what I wanted.

We got there a couple hours after the doors opened and had no wait to get in. Unless you count having to walk around the convention building. They have it set up so that you check in in the front left corner, then walk all the way around to enter in the front right corner. I can appreciate this as a good idea when crowds are waiting for the doors to open but it seems a bit excessive to force people to do this when there's no line.

Stan Lee autographed guitars

We trolled the con floor until it was time for our 3:30 photo op with Billie Piper. I have to give them serious props for relocating the photo area this year and despite the length of the line, it went super quick. After picking up our photo that was nearly instantly ready, we went to the autograph area. Billie was scheduled to come back there at 4:30 and with it only being 4, we thought we'd get a jump on the line. The good news is, we did. The bad news is, for whatever reason, she didn't get there until 5.

It wouldn't have been such a huge deal, but also at the con was Elvira. I'm not talking just Cassandra Peterson, but full-on Elvira! Figuring Billie would probably arrive the moment I left the line, I wasn't able to meet Elvira. She had started, and finished, her signing time while I was waiting in line. That kind of bummed me out.

Other celebs included the a lot shorter than you'd think Robin Lord Taylor, (Gotham's Penguin). Marvel stars Brett Dalton (Agents of SHIELD, Ward) and Haley Atwell (Agent Carter). Oh yeah, Stan Lee was there too but there was no way I was getting anywhere near him at those prices!

Speaking of Agent Carter, the Carter cosplayers were out in force in a variety of outfits and she was probably the most popular costume I saw. There were also quite a few Age of Ultron Scarlet Witches, a number of Gravity Falls, and Supernatural characters among the usual assortment of comic characters.

There was even a whole family (parents included!) that dressed up as the gang from Gravity Falls, the dad was Grunkle Stan and it was great. There definitely weren't as many Deadpools as last year. I did spot a couple of Netflix Daredevils and even a Kingpin.

After I took this photo, Foggy handed me this...

How's that for going the extra mile?

Not only does this guy look like Peter Griffin, he does the voice and everything!

I also picked up a few things, because what's a con without shopping, right? I hemmed and hawed at a few booths that had LEGO bootleg figures but I didn't like how shiny they were and ultimately passed on them.

But I did snag this book because Halloween! The Pumpkin Wizard is about a kid that stands up to his bullies with the power of his imagination and a pumpkin army. The creators say it's going to be a six book series so I guess I've got some waiting to do to see how it all turns out.

And I also got these buttons from Monsters Are Good. 

They have some pretty rad shirts, check out their site!

There was one booth I didn't get pics of but I really wanted to share. It's called Gilded Dragon Designs. This woman handmakes some very cool stuffed dragons inspired by different characters ranging from Star Wars to classic Monsters to superheroes.

I think that about wraps it up!
If you want to check out the rest of my photos, head over to Flickr.
 

Holiday Haul Highlights 2014

Hey everyone! Hope you had a great holiday. Things have been...interesting around here the last couple weeks. But overall, I'd say we landed firmly in the plus column!

Despite not having a camera, I'm going to make due with my iPad for the time being so I can keep posting. I mean, what's the point of blogging without images? Then it's just a bunch of words, who wants to read a bunch of words with no pictures?
Today I'm sharing some of my holiday loot.

Seriously, what more could you want than a LEGO Rocket Raccoon and Groot? Not pictured is a Guardians wall calender which is already hanging to get the most out of the sweet group shot they used for the 2014 months. Remember when calendars only had the months for the upcoming year on them? I also can't wait to get into that Star Wars desk calendar, it looks to be all art instead of film scenes.

Speaking of Star Wars....I may never wear this on any kind of regular basis because it would be warmer than sleeping inside a dead tauntuan, but it's pretty cool. I also got two other sets of sleep wear. I don't think I've gotten this many jammies for Christmas ever! One is Jack Skellington and the other is the Weeping Angels from Doctor Who. Also got a matching set of Angel boxers, which I don't really understand since my wife (who gave them to me) is creeped out by the Angels...



And she also got us this tree topper! I love it because you can pretty much put it out somewhere year round. It's about a foot tall. I guess you can put it anywhere that you want people to never look away from because don't blink.



Lots of geeky reading to do next year! The second book down that appears to be hiding is Haunted Air, a collection of some of the most nightmare inducing vintage Halloween photos you'll ever likely find. Seriously, look at some of these!

Pumpkin Cinema will likely serve as a checklist for my movie viewing. I know I've seen quite a few of the movies but I'm hoping to stumble on some good stuff I never heard of.

The Corman book is absolutely gorgeous. Glossy, full color pages with plenty of movie posters and stills. People give Corman crap for some of his work, but that's why he's called the King of the Bs. He's done some of my favorite Vincent Price films and brought us DeathRace 2000, you can't argue with that pedigree.

I also got a pair of e-books.Star Wars: Jedi Academy, Return of the Padawan, the second book in the series. The first one was a lot of fun, highly recommend it for your younglings. And The Making of The Empire Strikes Back (Enhanced Version). The enhanced versions of these Making Of books are amazing. As someone that's been a Star Wars fan as long as there has been Star Wars, seeing something new regarding the original trilogy is mind blowing. And to get short audio and video clips is just icing on the cake.



I'm listening to the Golden Records Halloween CD as I'm writing this post. It's about the most perfect children's Halloween album I've ever heard. Even if you don't have kids, if you're a Halloween fiend, add this to your collection. You can thank me later. It perfectly nails what I love about Halloween.

And finally, the Price set I've been dying for: The Raven, Comedy of Terrors (one of my favorites), House on Haunted Hill, Last Man on Earth, Dr Phibes Rises Again, and a couple more all in HD. I really hope they keep releasing more of these sets.

So there's some highlights of what I got this year, what cool stuff did you get?

Boston Comic Con 2014 - Celebs & Cosplay

Welcome to the second post all about Boston Comic Con 2014. 

Today is all about the celebrity guests and cosplayers!

First is Sam Witwer. You might know him as Doomsday on Smallville, the voice of Starkiller in the Star Wars: Force Unleashed video games, Darth Maul in the Clone Wars animated series, or his current role on Almost Human. He didn't have a huge line so we got to speak with him for a few minutes. Not only was he super cool, but he's also a fan.

When I mentioned I was a big Star Wars fan, he started talking about working on the Clone Wars series and how big of a fan he is himself. I said it's great when you have people that are fans working on something they love. He said everyone at LucasFilm is like that. He said Dave Filoni calls him sometimes just to talk Star Wars after he's been working on Rebels (the new animated series) all day. As we were finishing up, I asked him if Dave had mentioned anything to him about doing voice work on Rebels. Sam kind of cocked his head and said he had no idea what I was talking about while giving me a look that said he totally did. So we may be hearing more from him in the Star Wars galaxy!



The main reason we went to the convention was to see John Barrowman (Doctor Who, Torchwood, Arrow). We had a professional photo-op with him and then got in line for an autograph. After finishing his photo ops, he sat down and told us he was going to take a little break and laid his head on the table. He got in either late the previous night or early that morning and hadn't gotten much sleep. When the crowd gave a sympathetic "aww" he started hamming it up for a bigger reaction. If you only know him from Arrow, you probably wouldn't have any idea just how funny he can be.

Sitting next to him, was his Torchwood co-star Eve Myles. She snuck over while he had his head down and gave him a playful spanking.

They chatted for a few minutes and then he got to the meeting and greeting.  Also present were James Marsters (Buffy, Torchwood), Jewel Staite (Firefly), Jason Momoa (Game of Thrones), Sean Astin (everything), and Run DMC's Darrell McDaniels. We didn't get autographs from any of them but we did see them while in the autograph area. Jason walked by us on the con floor and let me tell you, he's a big dude!

There were a ton of cosplayers at the con, which I always love. There were so many Doctor Who and Supernatural costumes that I actually ended up not taking photos of any of them. There were even a few Welcome to Night Vale cosplayers! Also present were a lot of Deadpools. I don't know if they have a club or what but there had to be at least 20 of them, one of which was a female Deadpool in a wedding dress.

Here's a few of my favorites. You can see all my Con photos on my Flickr page.



This guy was a huge hit, which is no surprise. You don't see Orko everyday! He had some kind of light up rods on his left hand to simulate magic.



Carl from Up! He even has the grape soda bottle cap pinned on his left lapel. We saw him later in the day and he was still holding those balloons. I wonder if his arm got tired from doing that all day.



These were the only Gravity Falls people I saw all day. I don't know what's cooler, seeing younger people or older people dressing as Mabel and Dipper Pines.



I caught this Agent Venom in a little park outside the convention center. I had to chase him down but it was totally worth it! He's one of my favorite newer Marvel characters and was the only one I saw all day.



Kasima from Orphan Black! Before getting her pic, I conferred with my wife to see if she also thought this was a cosplay and not how she normally looked because I didn't want to come across like a weirdo for asking this girl to take her photo if she wasn't dressed up as someone. So I asked her if she was supposed to be Kasima and she said yes but she forgot her lab coat. I told her if I knew who she was supposed to be without it, she didn't need it.

I saw this group as we were leaving and what a gathering! Archer and Lana on either side. Harley Quinn, The Flash, an unmasked Deadpool, and Thor behind Leonardo. And the Red Hood next to Lana. The TMNT costume was pretty impressive in person.

And the award for best parent ever goes to this guy! You can't see it too well in the photo, but little River is doing her split fight pose. They were so cute! Dad also had a couple of dinosaurs just in case the outfits and oodles of guns weren't enough to sell it.

And the last one I'll leave you with is Spider-Man dressed as the Fourth Doctor. Why? I have no idea but there you have it! There's more to see over on Flickr, so stop by!

Boston Comic Con 2014 - Vendors & Artists

This past weekend Boston Comic Con was in town again. It seems like they're committed to improving it every year, which is good news because I think it has big potential, but they're going to need a bigger space to hold it! Friday night they posted cautioning people that were planning on buying tickets on site Saturday to consider getting tickets for Sunday instead due to the expected crowd.

I'm breaking my one day at the con up into a few posts to avoid making one TL;DR post where everyone is just looking at the photos. Today, I'll be showing off an incredibly small fraction of the artists/vendors at the con.



I didn't grab a card from this vendor, so I can't tell you where to find their work. They had a whole display of characters made from recycled metal covering all sorts of properties. I'm presuming this is Jango Fett because of the dual pistols he's sporting.



Here's an Alien and Predator not trying to kill each other.
You can see the top of a Dalek in front of them. They also had a kick ass mini AT-AT.



These custom Adventure Time figures were done by Shaun Nakasone. He had a few amazing customs on his table but if there's one thing that gets me, it's Simon and Marcy. Shaun works with all kinds of vinyl figures like Munnies and Mighty Muggs. You can check out his work at Flying Sciurus.



These "Companion Suitcases" are functional works of art featuring Firefly, Star Wars, and Doctor Who. They also had an assortment of geeky lockets, earrings and prints. You can find them at Ursula and Olive.



One of my favorite crafty booths was by Geeky and Cheeky. These doll characters stand about a foot tall and are infinitely squishable! They also take custom orders online. The people running the booth were overjoyed when I asked if that was Dungeonmaster on the bottom left. They said I was only the second person that day to identify him, which I couldn't believe. Parents, educate your kids!



They also had a 3' tall Weeping Angel doll which is a little more creepy at that size!

Super Sox Shop is the perfect place to go if you need a little something special to hang by your chimney in the winter. They also have plush weapons like Thor's Hammer, Cap's shield, Zelda sword & shield, and the Mario star (a good tree topper!). I also really like the Pac-Man stuff which you can see on the table in the left pic.

Before I get to the art that I actually bought, I had to show this postcard I picked up. This artist is doing a piece of Bea Arthur art every day for a year. I looked through his print book and there is some hilarious stuff in there combining Bea (and the Golden Girls) with all aspects of pop culture. He plans to compile them into a book when finished. Follow him on Twitter for daily updates and check out his online shop.

 

I've got a fever and the only prescription is more raccoon! I mentioned it during Guardians of the Galaxy week, but I've been a fan of Rocket since the 80s and now that he's in he spotlight, you can't swing a twig and not hit something he's on. This postcard size print was only $3 and I couldn't pass it up. The art is just too cute, but don't tell Rocket. 

Artist: TinaT8m

This is artist Katie Cook working on a custom piece for me. Can you guess who it is? I've been following Katie's work for years when she started doing work for Star Wars. Currently, she's best know for her work on the My Little Pony comic. She said she had a lot of people ask for a dancing Groot custom.



On the left is (surprise!) Rocket that I had her do for me. On the right is Snoopy that was one of the many pre-made cards she had on her table. Other people had her do custom work while we were waiting our turn and it was pretty cool to watch her knock out these little works. The cards are maybe a quarter inch bigger on all sides than a playing card to give you an idea of their size. Rocket is about as tall as my first thumb knuckle.

Finally, the Pièce de résistance... (ooh la-la)

How awesome is this??

Artist Matthew J Fletcher had a few other Peanuts gang prints and even a mashup with Star Wars. This was the big winner. I can just picture Linus/Drax assaulting people with his blanket. Or Chuck's "Good grief!" when he tells someone his name is Star-Lord and they reply "Who?" Honestly, I'm a little freaked out at the thought of a 9' tall Woodstock though.

Well, I said I wanted to break this up so as not to make too long of a post but this was plenty long by itself! Stay tuned this week for more from Boston Comic Con 2014!

Final note: I linked to all these artists and shops because I like what they do. I'm not getting any kind of kickbacks or discounts from them. Support your local artists!

League Post - Shelf Expression

I've been away from the League of Extraordinary Bloggers for a bit and am happy to be back this week! The topic is pretty straightforward this week...

Shelf Expression. Take a picture of your shelves, featuring a few of your favorite things.

The "correct" term for this is Shelfie. Yup, it's a thing!
Here are a couple Shelfies for ya

This is the SciFi/Pulp/TV tie-in shelf. The Star Wars books on the left are maybe 10% of all the Star Wars reference books I own. I just can't get enough info beyond the movies. But now that that whole Expanded Universe has been tossed out, do I still need these? There's also the multi-color trades of the original Marvel Star Wars series from the 70s/80s. Fun!

In the middle-ish are a few pulp reproduction books including The Shadow, Domino Lady, Doc Savage, Captain Future and an Eerie Stories. I absolutely love these because they reproduce the entire pulp as it was printed, including the illustrations and even the ads!

There's also the only physical Doctor Who novel I own: Forever Autumn which takes place on Halloween. And as you can see, there's a variety of Doctor Who things on the shelf too.



And here is the spooky shelf! Starting on the left is my growing Gris Grimly collection. I highly recommend his Nursery Rhyme books if you've never read them! Although looking at Amazon, it looks like a lot of his older books aren't available. That's sad.

Next to those are a mixed lot of monster lore/field guide books. I've always wanted to have something like a Watcher's library filled with books dealing with all things occult and how to fight monsters. But lately those kind of books have been cranked out like nobody's business and there are too many to choose from.

Most of the right half is Halloween-eriffic! October Dreams is a great 650+ page anthology that will put your in a festive mood. I also suggest checking out I Luv Halloween if you like twisted comics. The book on the top (Stars, Spells, Secrets, and Sorcery) is one of my most cherished books. I got it at a book fair when I was in middle school (early 80s) and it was the first "magic" book I bought. Of course this was also around the time of the D&D/Satanism scare, which I also got into then (D&D, not Satanism).

What's on other League Members' Shelves?
Revenge of the Toy Box has the kind of storage space I dream about.
While Goodwill Geek has the more crowded shelves I'm used to.
You want monsters? Head over to Monsterfink's place!

And you can see the rest at Cool and Collected!