NYCC '15 Final Thoughts

And now we close the books on another great New York Comic Con. Here are my final thoughts about the overall experience.

1) I loved the inclusion of the food trucks. As long as they stay stocked, it's great to have all the extra variety and not be stuck downstairs in the food court.

2) The organization for the Main Stage waiting pen was excellent. My only frustration was one day when my feet decided to rebel against me and I was in tremendous pain, I had to walk all the way down to where they were giving out the wrist bands to find out if the panel I wanted to go to still had availability. For the most part, the staff was good about keeping the white boards in the front updated, but there's still a little bit of room for improvement.

3) This is a little nit-picky, but I hope if anyone from NYCC reads this, they can pass on the message to future moderators and people who warm up the crowd. Please, please, please try to remember there are people sitting in the sides and the back of the rooms. I know time is limited and it's difficult to see through the crowds of faces, but it's frustrating for the fans who couldn't wait on line for hours or camp out in a room, who couldn't get close enough to the stage, to have a tiniest chance at winning a prize or answering/asking a question. Basically, the people who were lucky enough to get a good seat or were VIPs were the ones getting rewarded. I hate seeing how disappointed some kids were, because they would be jumping up and down, trying to get the attention of the warm up guys, and they were ignored because they were in the front, but on the side, or a little towards the back. I'm cynical and jaded, I don't expect to win anything, though it is always appreciated if and when it happens, but some of these kids looked so bummed, and all the guy needed to do, was look a little farther left or right. That's all. Give these people a fighting chance for a chance.

4) Crowd control is always desperately needed. I don't spend a lot of time on the main floor. My main focus is usually the panels. But this year, because NYCC has grown so much, it was nearly impossible to maneuver the main floor or downstairs with the panels. It was bordering on obscene how bad certain spots were. And those are the areas I think need an extra hand or two. The aisles right near any of the big booths could use additional staff (if there is any) to attempt to keep things moving. That could be something as simple as noticing someone looks lost and has stopped in the middle of the aisle, all that needs to happen is the person is either helped, sent to one of the help kiosks, or jus
t asked to step to the side, so others can walk through without bumping into them. Another example is with people taking photos of all the amazing cosplayer. I'm guilty of this too. If I see someone I want to take a photo of, I might end up blocking people for the shot. However, I strongly believe in taking the shot as quickly as I can and moving on. Some people don't do that or the cosplayers outfit is so good, they draw a crowd. That's great, but it would help is there was someone nearby to monitor the situation to see if too many people are stopping or being prevented from getting through. I've also had problems waiting on lines for some panels. If the line gets to big and goes past the designated roped off area, people get a little stupid and disorganized. There needs to be staff who understand what "walking the line" is. There are not enough people who know how to do that.

5) The addition of the Hammerstein Ballroom was interesting. There were panels I wanted to go to that were over there, but I couldn't because the distance would make it impossible to get back in time for other panels and events. i don't know anyone who went there, so if you know someone, please tell me what their experience was like. Did they have to walk over? Was there a provide shuttle? What was the environment like? Please hit me up in the comments and let me know. Thanks!

6) Do people actually use their NYCC Week card? The events are always so late. It makes it very difficult to go to them. Also, while the discounts are nice, I'm not a fan of spending a considerable amount of money on the ticket, to then have to spend more money if I want to go to one of the special events. I don't have enough money for that. I wish I did, but between the lateness of most of the events, coupled with the added expenses of the events, this is the second year, I have not been able to take advantage of my card.

7) Finally, I'd love to see Artists' Alley get a little more love. Yes, we know it's there, but it's also very easy to forget about it. Maybe an additional sign or two spread out throughout the Javits to just give it a little extra boost?

Please don't think I spent my time at NYCC miserable. I didn't. I got to see some amazing panels and meet up with friends I haven't seen for a long time. I talked to a lot of interesting people, and I had a lot of exhausting fun. I think I'm going to need a few days off my feet, but otherwise, it was mostly a good experience, and now it's time to start planning NYCC '16.

How was New York Comic Con for you? Do you have anything to add? Do you agree or disagree with me? Sound off in the comments!

NYCC ’15 WBTV Preview Night Screenings

As is the tradition, Warner Brothers treated us to sneak peeks of some of their upcoming shows. The shows listed were Supergirl, Containment, and Legends of Tomorrow, but instead of Legends, we were given Lucifer. We saw full episodes of Supergirl and Lucifer and the first half of Containment. Here are my thoughts on the shows.

Supergirl

Kara Danvers/Zor-El is bubbly, awkward, and desperately wants to help people. Her sister, Alex, thinks Kara should keep her powers under wraps, but an incident forces Kara’s hand and she becomes Supergirl. 

Tonally, Supergirl is closer to the Flash than Arrow, which is probably for the best. Kara screams bright colors. 

We’re introduced to Kara/Supergirl (Melissa Benoist), James Olsen (Mehcad Brooks), Winn Schott (Jeremy Jordan), Alex Danvers (Chyler Leigh), Hank Henshaw (David Harewood), and Cat Grant (Calista Flockhart). The relationships are fairly strong and well-developed. You believe Kara and Alex are sisters, Winn is Kara’s best friend, who has a massive crush on her, Henshaw is Alex’s tough boss, and Cat Grant is Kara’s boss and the Miranda Priestly/Perry White of National City.

The pilot is strong, but at the same time, I worry the show may be a little too bubbly. Kara’s perkiness occasionally borders a little close to being obnoxious. I hope I’m not wrong. I want Supergirl to succeed, because we need more strong female roles models like her, and the show seems like it will be a lot of fun.

Lucifer

Oh boy. Lucifer is going to be all kinds of trouble, and in the very best way. The gist of the story is Lucifer decided to take a “vacation” from Hell and now runs a nightclub with his trusty side-demon, Mazikeen, by his side. He lives a live of careless, reckless debauchery, but all that changes when a friend of his is murdered. Lucifer wants justice, so he teams up with LAPD Detective Chloe Decker to help solve the case. 

Tom Ellis as Lucifer is just… oofta. I can’t think of a better person to play this version of Lucifer (and I’m a huge fan of Mark Pellegrino’s version on Supernatural). He’s smarmy, charming, funny, a little repulsive, scary, and so damn magnetic you’ll want to sell your soul to him. 

I’m not sure how I feel about Chloe Decker. She’s a detective with a chip on her shoulder, and is somehow immune to Lucifer’s trick of getting people to tell him their deepest desires. She’s not a bad character, but she seems very stiff. I can’t tell if it’s the actress or the character. 

A fun surprise for me was DB Woodside. He plays Amenadiel, one of Lucifer’s angelic brethren, who’s been given the task to bring Lucifer back to Hell. He’s dark, broody, and seems to have a stick up his ass. I’m a big fan of DB, so yay! His chemistry with Lucifer is potent. They’re a powder keg ready to explode. I cannot stress how excited I am for this show. 

Containment

I hate to end this on a downer, but I don’t think this one is going to make it. Basically, an epidemic breaks out in Atlanta, and part of the city is quarantined. Families and friends are torn apart, people are dying left and right, there's rioting, and it’s your typical “what do you do in a crisis?” story. It’s not bad, but there’s nothing screaming “watch me.” If anything, Wilderowens and I couldn’t stop laughing at how many times the police/national guard/officials kept yelling “4-6 feet!” That’s how far the quarantined characters had to stay from people and the giant erected fence. It bordered on silly, and while I saw a few characters who might have been interesting, I’m writing this shortly after seeing it, and I can’t remember who anyone is. Here’s hoping the episodes get better as the show progresses, otherwise, it’s going to get cancelled. 

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LEGO Kicks Off NYCC with New Line NEXO KNIGHTS!

It's the end of day 1 at NYCC and already the amount of awesome is overwhelming!  LEGO kicked off the never-ending with the announcement of their new line, NEXO KNIGHTS! 

The Story of NEXO KNIGHTS from the LEGO Press Release:

Vixen and Its Diversity Problem

Vixen, Vixen, Vixen. I want to like you. I do. I just binged all six of your episodes. You’re a good show. The animation is nice. The actors are good. The story is good. BUT there is one big fricking problem – You don’t seem understand that there is more than one shade of brown. 

Okay, that’s unfair, maybe you know there are two or three, but come on! Mari kept changing tones, sometimes due to lighting, sometimes not. All of the African characters were pretty much the same light shade as both Mari and Professor Macalester. You showed two characters with darker tones, a cop and an assailant. This makes no sense to me. Look at your cast! They all have different skin tones. Why is that diversity not represented in your animation?

Also, have you been to Detroit? It’s consistently ranked in the top ten, usually the top five, of cities with the highest percentage of African Americans. So why did I see mostly white people?

And don’t get me started on Cisco? I liked how you handled Barry and Oliver. You captured their essences. And I liked the vibe of Cisco, but Carlos Valdes has a different skin tone than Grant Gustin and Stephen Amell. All you had to do was change his coloring a little bit, and he would have been perfect. If my Microsoft Word can give me customized shades, I think whatever animation programs you are using can do the same. It’s lazy. And this show is too good for to be screwed up by laziness.

Get it together, CW Seed. Vixen has a lot of potential. I want it to succeed, but I also want respectable representation of who these characters are and the environments they live in. You can do better. Do not fail this show.

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Review: Snowden by Ted Rall

By Reboot

Today I'm reviewing the new graphic novel from Seven Stories Press, Snowden, by Ted Rall. As you may suspect (or hey, maybe not. It has been a while.), this is about THAT Snowden. Edward Snowden. Before we go into this graphic novel specifically, I'd like to take a little time to tell you about who Ted Rall is.

For those of you who don't know, Ted Rall is an award winning syndicated political cartoonist who has been making contributions in that field for decades. However, his career is not without controversy. Over the years he's angered people with more than a couple of his cartoons. He was both incredibly critical of the American public for re-electing George W. Bush in 2004 and also called for President Obama's resignation. And in the field of comics specifically, he made remarks about Art Spiegelman that caused Ted Rall a great deal of grief shortly after. Even as recently as this past July, he caused controversy when a story he's shared in regards to an altercation with the LAPD back in 2001 was allegedly misrepresented, leading to him being dropped by the Los Angeles Times.

Now that you have some background on Ted Rall, let's dive into Snowden. The approach of this book is fairly 101. It goes over much of the basics of the story in an easy to follow, mostly linear narrative. In this narrative, we're usually given a series of facts, followed by Ted Rall's analysis of the data. Some of the analysis makes perfect sense and shows Ted Rall's experience as a seasoned political observer. 

A few of his observations, unfortunately in this review, really made me scratch my head. Ted Rall discusses how Edward Snowden was in the Boy Scouts and harps on it to the point of near obsession for a time, and tries to draw some sort of connection between what he was taught as a Boy Scout and how that may have some how directly led to what he has done. Moments like that sucked me out of the book and made me question the integrity of the piece. That's not the kind of reaction you want for your biographical graphic novel.

The art throughout the book is a mixture of both his own art, photographs, and screen captions. Ted Rall's style is fits well with a syndicated newspaper strip. It's rough, most of the characters drawn look similar, and lacks expressiveness.  Nearly every character has the same facial expression, but the art is just a tool to tell his story. Like how someone would drive a beat up used car with the idea of it is just meant to get you from point A to point B.

If you have a vague interest in politics, and have heard of Edward Snowden, but don't really know much about him, Snowden is a good book for you and I would recommend it. If you're a casual bio/autobio graphic novel reader with an interest in politics, I'd also suggest that you give it a peek. But if you are more into high art/experimental art in graphic novels, or are looking for deep cuts into Edward Snowden's life, you're not going to find it here.

Snowden is available in the US on August 25th.

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Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice - Comic - Con Trailer

The new Dawn of Justice trailer has arrived, and I'll admit I'm now a little more intrigued by it. I've been fairly ambivalent to the whole thing because of the usual reasons, not a Snyder fan, hated Wonder Woman's outfit, and didn't care for Man of Steel, etc. etc., but this trailer makes me think there might be more to the movie than it just being a piece of mindless action. Take a look and tell us what you think. Does this make you change your mind? And is it just me or does Jesse Eisenberg's Lex Luthor seem a little more like the Riddler than Lex?

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Black Widow Flash Mob #WEWANTWIDOW

Today, hundreds of cosplayers and internet supporters around the globe are taking a stand about the inequality of female super heroines in the media and on the shelves, especially for the First Lady of the MCU. We want to see Black Widow given the same attention as her male counterparts. She deserves it. We deserve it. Today, we want our message heard loud and clear ‪#‎WeWantWidow‬. 

Spearheaded by Kristin Rielly, mob captains from all over have been covertly coordinating these flash mobs to bring awareness in a positive and fun way. 

How you can help: You can find all the deets about this multi-city flash mob movement at http://riellygeek.com/WIDOW. If you're unable to get to one of these mobs, please spread the word online, using the hashtag #WEWANTWIDOW, change your profile/cover pic to featuring Black Widow or get dressed up at home and post pictures. Every little bit helps. 

Below is the press release:

“BLACK WIDOW FLASH MOB”

SATURDAY, JUNE 6, 2015 AT 12:00 P.M. LOCAL TIME 

WHAT :   We have coordinated a massive multi-city flash mob for June 6^th 2015, where hundreds of cosplayers will be dressed as Black Widow to send a POSITIVE message that this is a character we WANT to see more of. We want to see her star in her own movie, we want to see her on apparel, and she totally deserves her own action figure! 

Each city flash mob has a secret location where Natashas will appear, create buzz, get their images online, and trend our message #WEWANTWIDOW.

In collaboration with our cosplayers, we have hundreds of online supporters that will be simultaneously changing their profiles to a Black Widow image while sharing our flash mob photos across every social media site. 


When:    Saturday, June 6, 2015 beginning at 12:00 p.m. local time 

Where:   From Seattle to Boston, and Canada to Sydney

WHO:   We have hundreds of cosplayers and online supporters already signed up for this massive event. Our “City Captains” are the ladies organizing this important event in their hometown: Kristin Rielly (Founder & Event Coordinator), Jay Justice (Event Coordinator, Philly), Juli Mayers (Boston), Autumn Wheelock (NYC), Andrea Levine (NYC), Jennifer K. Stuller (Seattle), Theresa Marie Salvador (Tampa), Jennifer Williams (Las Vegas), Belle Bredehoft (D.C.), Tanya Wheelock (Orlando), Sarah Boutcher(Ottawa), Priscilla Crocker (Minneapolis), Kelly Kirstein (Detroit), Keisha Howard (Chicago), Courtney Cuellar (San Diego), John Marcotte (Sacramento), Stephanie Rector (Sacramento) , Catherine Kyle (Boise), and Variable (Sydney).

*In memory of Terrance Kelly, father of our honorary City Captain Bronwyn Kelly*

Lego History is Made on May the 4th Be With You!

Happy May the Fourth!  Today is the day that we all stop and celebrate Star Wars!  You know you love Star Wars.  Don't lie.  2015 is especially special since we are getting Episode 7 in December!

To celebrate all things Star Wars, the amazing people at LEGO decided to make history with a reveal of their new minifig Darth Vader, that for the first time has a life support collar and removable mask/helmet.

Courtesy of LEGO

Such great detail went into that minifig's face.  If you are eager to add him to your collection, you are in luck.   The new LEGO Star Wars Death Star™ Final Duel set including that awesome Darth Vader is available this June!

Until then, May the Fourth Be With You!



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May the Fourth Be With You!!

Happy May the Fourth!  Take today to celebrate all the awesome that is Star Wars!  Embrace the glory of the Force!  Or at the very least, wear a Star Wars t-shirt.

As a little May the Fourth gifty, check out Hasbro's time lapse video of fans building Cloud City! That's right, at Star Wars Celebration, Frank D’iorio’s Diorama Workshop built a massive Cloud City diorama at the Hasbro booth! They built it over four days, with the help of approximately 1500 fans who made custom pieces! The diorama is 640 square feet and consists of over 400 setpieces, including approximately 800 figures and toys by Hasbro and Kenner.

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BOOM! Studios Announces Debut of New Series: Broken World

Who doesn't love an adventure/thriller series during the Earth's last day? Very few people, and that's why BOOM! Studios is bringing us Broken World, a series that does just that. 

"April 29, 2015 (Los Angeles, Calif.) - Award-winning publisher BOOM! Studios is pleased to announce the June debut of Broken World, a new sci-fi thriller and survival adventure series from Frank J. Barbiere (Five Ghosts, Avengers World) and Christopher Peterson (Grindhouse, Mayday). Broken World explores the lives of people left behind on the last days of Earth, perfect for fans of Y: The Last Man or The Massive.

 “It’s hard not to fall in love with a well-crafted survival story,” said BOOM! Studios Editor-in-Chief Matt Gagnon. “From zombie viruses to post-apocalyptic wastelands, we all love to cheer for the last survivors. For BROKEN WORLD, Frank and Christopher have created an intense, riveting story about a woman who chooses to live on in a world facing an extinction-level event from the stars.”

 With a meteor days away from causing an extinction-level event on Earth, time is running out for Elena Marlowe. While most of the planet’s population and her family were approved by the government to escape on one of the giant spaceships headed to another planet, her application was denied due to her mysterious past. With the meteor fast approaching, Elena tries desperately to find a way to fake her way onto the last ship or else be left behind to die with the rest of Earth’s rejected denizens.

 Broken World #1 arrives in comic shops on June 3rd with a main cover by series artist Christopher Peterson for the price of $3.99 under Diamond order code APR151199. Also available in a limited quantity are a 10 Years incentive cover by Frazer Irving (Annihilator, Uncanny X-Men) and a retailer incentive cover by Christian Ward (ODY-C)."

Check out how beautiful this art is. 

I'm a big fan of Y: The Last Man, and I love those types of stories. I like Christopher Peterson and Frank J. Barbiere's previous works, so I'm into this. What do you think?

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First Glimpse of Justice League: Gods & Monsters

Bruce Timm is the pinnacle of DC Animation and has been producing some of the best animated shows over the years.  So you should be as excited as I that he is helming a brand new story in the newest animated release, Justice League: Gods & Monsters!  As per Warner Bros. press release:

Toy Fair '15: Must-Have Kickstarters

While wandering the toy fair floor, I checked out two Kickstarters up close and personal. And guess what? I liked them enough that I'm sharing them with you!

First up is the Four Horsies of the 'Pocalypse. It may sound ominous but who can be terrified of these cuties! Created and designed by Klim Kozinevich, this collection of art toys is just freaking gorgeous. I can't wait for the apocalypse to arrive at my house with Calamity, Clash, Ghost and Raven at the helm. These were preceded by the Maddie figure, whose Cthulhu-like presence is truly fearful. You can get the set of four in original coloring, glow in the dark or clear. If you want, you can also add in a Maddie figure too!

While at Toy Fair, the Bigshot Toyworks team highlighted these very limited edition colored Maddies, which are also available in very, very limited supply.

The clock is ticking on this, with about two days or less to hop on board the 'Pocolypse!

The next Kickstarter I'm highlighting is Ghostbusters:The Board Game from Cryptozoic Entertainment. Based on the original movie, this episode based board game is for one to four players.  It even includes original art from the comics!

While they didn't have many unrevealed tidbits at Toy Fair, talking with the Cryptozoic staffers about the game really showed the passion this team has for the product. They don't just want to bring out the game; they want to give fans the game they have been waiting for!

Everyday it seems a new stretch goal is unlocked and a new awesome character is revealed. They have more than doubled their goal and still have over three weeks left on the campaign. Get in while you still can!


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