Emerald City Comic Con 2012: Top 5 Highlights

We booked our hotel and registered our tickets for Emerald City Comic Con 2012 months ago. I was especially excited about the prospect of meeting Katee Sackhoff AND Edward James Olmos, so I didn’t spend much time prior to the convention planning or even reviewing the comic book guests. Decided to use this as my pop culture/media frenzy event for the year. A few weeks ago when Sackhoff cancelled her appearance due to acting engagements, I was more than a little bummed. Still excited to meet Edward James Olmos, but was *this* close to having both those items crossed off my nerd bucket list.

With considerably less enthusiasm, I downloaded the Guidebook App and went through their schedule of events, plotting out a handful of interesting looking panels. I think we averaged about one panel a day, but again – they were mostly for media guests so you won’t find any breaking news items here.

Top 5 Highlights from Emerald City Comic Con 2012:

5. Ready Player One Panel. For me was the most interesting panel we attended because the author of the book series, Ernest Cline, not only discussed his enduring love for Star Wars but the Hollywood process behind the making of his original screenplay Fanboys and the years long journey to publish “Ready Player One” which has now been optioned for the big screen. We didn’t stay for the Q&A session, but he delivered an inspiring few sentences on the writing process which have given me a long, hard look at my novel.

Ernest Cline, Author of Ready Player One

4. Meeting Wil Wheaton and Witnessing his Awesome Hour. In which he plugged his table-top gaming series on Felicia Day‘s recently released Geek and Sundry YouTube Channel. I’m certain Dan and I will check it out. He also wrote a book Memories From The Future, Volume 1 about his experience with the first season of Star Trek The Next Generation we will hunt down as well. He was very gracious when we snapped pictures and was super complimentary about my tattoo.

Mindy, Wil Wheaton, and Dan

X-Men First Class: The Review

There’s some saying out there about expectations and how you shouldn’t get them “up” when you don’t know exactly what the outcome will be. It’s a saying because it’s mostly true. So there you have  it. I had ridiculous expectations for this film which didn’t translate to what we actually ended up viewing.

But I blame it on the pre-release fervor and those stupid Rotten Tomatoes numbers. 98%! 92%! Now it’s down to 88% – which sadly does not beat out The Dark Knight. But then again, X-Men: First Class hardly carries the same gravitas.

Not that it doesn’t make an attempt. It suffers a bit from Thor syndrome – it feels like three films in one and there’s hardly a moment to pause and breathe (except for maybe that wacky week-long montage). Really though, there’s much too much crammed into one film. It teeters perilously close to drowning in its own ambitions, but there was enough to rescue it from mediocrity (still kicking Thor’s Asgaardian ass).

*THAR BE SPOILERS BELOW*

THE GOOD: MAGNETO AND XAVIER

Who would have thought it was possible for Ian McKellen as Magneto to be upstaged by a young, muscular James-Bondy version of himself? Certainly not this lady. I had high hopes for Michael Fassbender after realizing I’d seen him in at least two other movies where he effortlessly stole the scenes. You might have missed him in Inglourious Basterds, Centurion and 300. In case you forgot how dead sexy and mostly naked he was in that last movie, here is a refresher:

That jump scene in the man-diaper? Delicious! And such intensity.

He has seriously made me fall deeply and madly in love with Magneto, who I’ve always kinda crushed on in the comic books especially when his clone Joseph was hanging around adding some extra tension to the Rogue and Gambit relationship. Though it was really hard to like him after he ripped all of Wolverine’s adamantium out of his body. Yeah, that happened. Kinda cruel.

Deeply surprised at a lack of similar sexual attraction to James McAvoy, who has been an actor crush since Atonement. No matter how hard they push the Charles Xavier as sex-kitten vibe, he cannot surpass the years of history I have with Xavier as a bald wise-old-sage. It would be like dating Buddha or finding him appealing during his younger years. Kinda skeevy.

Magneto however, has the bad boy image thang going for him. The heart-wrenching back story. Xavier’s evil-stepfather was non-existent and instead he spent his life apparently playing patriarch to Mystique if you can buy that. Which I can’t. That was the first bitter pill to swallow in this film. But that’s for later.

BFFs for Life! Until we spend the rest of it morally at odds. Whatevs. Chess is fun!

The Xavier-Magneto man love story was the drive of this film. Everything else, including the other mutants seemed secondary, dull and wasted. When you have two solid, attractive actors of their caliber – the entire film could have been hinged on them.

I wanted more of their story. I wanted the entire movie to be theirs because we only saw them on-screen for about 10-15 minutes of bonding before…you know, all the craziness happens (not going to spoil all of that ya’ll).

These two actors were hands down the best part of this film and decidedly rescued it from itself. The same cannot be said for the rest of the flick.

X-Men First Class: The Trailers

In lieu of a super awesome X-Men: First Class review, please humbly accept a short amusing breakdown of the trailers attached to the film instead. Full review by Wednesday!

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THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

I’ve read the book and seen the Swedish version of the flick, so of course I’m drooling over the trailer, Daniel Craig, the soundtrack of the trailer. Pretty much everything. Dan hasn’t heard anything about the Millenium Trilogy of books and plans on watching it. He has no fucking idea what the movie is even about, but that trailer completely sold him.

Led Zeppelin Immigrant Song? You are bad-ass.

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MR. POPPER’S PENGUINS

Yet another film logged in the “work-a-holic Dad needs to pay attention to their kid” file. Egh. Even the lovable if slightly bonkers and freakishly thin Jim Carrey can’t salvage this crap heap. Apparently the children’s book is delightful but everything about this film screams “soul-less.” At least it’s not a major Hollywood studio shitting all over the childhood cartoons or Television series I loved. Thanks?

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X-Patch: The Conclusion

Here are the results of the crafting experiment.

Once we actually got the freaking image to print on the transfer paper correctly, it was just a matter of setting up the ironing board and iron:

Image and ironing board

The test shirt came out kinda MEH, so I was hoping that the image would look better on a lighter shirt:

Test shirt. Hmph.

Not so much. Here is the unveiling and the final results:

Had this feeling it was going to turn out in such a fashion. Ah well. It’s the image I wanted, if not the right quality. Glad I didn’t devote the track jacket to it. Can’t wait for the ACTUAL iron-on patches to arrive in the mail. 

So ready for X-Men: First Class. 🙂

X-Men Nonsense: No Patch For You

So I woke up last week with this brilliant idea to make an X-Men: First Class track jacket by obtaining an Iron-On Patch and augmenting an article of clothing. And then in the shuffle of the weekend and getting ready for the weekend, it was lost. Only to be resurrected yesterday with the idea that I could easily locate an “Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters” patch in Portland, Oregon.

Like THIS

Because it is, after all, Portland Oregon. The home of Dark Horse Comics and Oni Press. Brian Michael Bendis, Matt Fraction, Greg Rucka, Scott Allie. You know – it’s kind of like comic book heaven. And at all the conventions, there were patches galore. So OF COURSE one of our 10 or so comic book stores in the Portland Metro area would carry them.

Right? Right?

Dead fucking wrong. After spending an hour yesterday calling around to all of our local comic book stores, toy and hobby shops – I came up with nothing. The only place remotely close to PDX is in Everett, Washington. That’s about an hour North of Seattle. So my only alternative was to drive four hours away or try and convince someone to air-mail it to me. Neither option was feasible. For an Iron-On Patch.

Guess that means I’m not especially nerdy?

So then it occurred to my feeble, yet sometimes winning brain that I should make one of my own. I mean, I can knit. I can sew. How hard could it be to create a patch?

Turns out – not that difficult. The hardest part so far has been in obtaining a usable image of the symbol I want. Tonight I will procure the right kind of iron-on transfer paper for our Photosmart printer and test-run an old shirt. Then I will apply it to an item I intend to wear. Target has shirts for $8, so in the very least I’ll be able to sport an X-Shirt.

To avoid further embarrassments such as this in the future – Dan and I purchased THREE X-Patches from some shop in the UK. They are flying across the Atlantic Ocean and across the country as we speak. There is something exceptionally nerdy about getting packages from foreign countries. I kinda love it.

X-Shirts: Female Mutant Inspired Fashions

Do you know how difficult it’s been to find an attractive, properly fitting ladies shirt with one of the X-Womenz emblazoned across the chest? Well, it’s been damn difficult. This may shock some of you but Storm, Phoenix and Rogue just aren’t the most popular Marvel faces affixed to an item of clothing.

This also goes hand in hand with another rant/beef I have: even though Rogue is much-beloved by fangirls (this fangirl at least) there is not a single mass-produced costume inspired by her character. Any Rogue costumes and wigs have to be custom made. Which SUCKS if you want to dress up but can’t sew your own.

It’s only been recently that the Storm and Phoenix pre-fabricated costumes have appeared for purchase through major retailers (in varying degrees of skankitude).

PHOENIX:

Weird mix of old school costume and original Phoenix. With just a dash of sleaze.

STORM:

I really adore the head piece to this costume. And all the silver. It pretty much rocks 100%.

I love the Storm version, but wonder about cosplay race-bending.

Is it appropriate for a white person to cosplay as a comic book character of color? According to this blog post, no. And for all intents and purposes, I tend to agree.

So then, would it be weird for me to wear a shirt with Storm on it? Unfortunately there is no guide post on the internet for that particular question (THE NET HAS FAILED ME!)…so I’m gonna also go with “no.” And use a similar set of logic: there are enough white female X-Characters with whom I can identify. If anyone wants to argue I would be interested in hearing your thoughts.

Anywho – the whole point of this post was to highlight the trend of using the X-Ladies (the BEST ones, sans White Queen) on more clothing attire. And jazzing them up a bit, so it’s not the old Jim Lee 90s version or the throwbacks to the original crew either.

“X-Men: First Class” Fever

**LEAKED SCENE**

I normally don’t go in for this kind of crap, but I’m anxious about this movie being good and redeeming the franchise. Here’s a leaked clip on YouTube. Watch it before it’s pulled:

 

It’s happening again – Fox has control of one of my favorite properties and is teasing me with a potentially good film. Literally – teasing. Dropping intriguing character vignettes YouTube videos and releasing 40 still images in the last week.

Glad to see the black leather is not making a come-back.

I KNOW I should have learned my lessons by now. But I actually liked Matthew Vaughn’s Kick Ass and the writing team looks pretty solid – Ashley Miller, Zack Stentz and Jane Goldman have all proven themselves on movies and TV shows which have plenty of nerd credentials.

Also – the lineup of qualified and talented actors and actresses further serves to muddle my usually quite rational thinking when going into a film like this. Yes, the continuity continues to be further eroded and fucked up. Yes, it makes no sense that Emma Frost has now appeared in two films completely out of a rational timeline (maybe all will be explained?). I’ve no hope of ever seeing my favorite characters interact on-screen in a normal way. Ahem, that would be Rogue and Gambit. I’m a child of the 90s animated cartoon series, so there’s no changing my mind. The best thing is just to accept that I love these two characters together and walk away.

Against my better judgement: I do think “X-Men: First Class” has the potential to be good. And potential potential is VERY exciting.

When it gets right down to it – X-Men are my favorite superhero group. I’ll support them no matter what shitty-ass movie or cartoon series or spin-off is being made. I’ll give them more of my time and energy than I would donate to any other Marvel, DC, Dark Horse property. It’s an abusive relationship, and I’ll keep coming back for more until they close up shop.

Here are the aforementioned character introduction trailers to entice you:

MEET BANSHEE

Matt Fraction Signing + Wonder Northwest 2011

I’ve got a Matt Fraction recap plus the discovery of yet another convention in Portland.

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MATT FRACTION: Fear Itself Signing

That's right bitches - Matt Fraction drew me an elephant!

For those not in the know – Matt Fraction is a big fancy writer at Marvel on important titles like Uncanny X-Men and The Invincible Iron Man. Even though he lives in Portland, Oregon, he doesn’t get out to events in town much, so this was a pretty rare opportunity to meet and interact with him.

Hit this up solo because the DH has a head cold. It was cool, because it was inevitable that I’d  run into at least one friendly…there was free beer and food afterall. That person happened to be my buddy Joe, who I spotted within a minute of walking in the door. We met up and chatted, collected our free Fear Itself print (pretty art by Stuart Immonen and grabbed refreshments.

Unfortunately we were standing in the back of the room and even though the Hollywood Things From Another World is relatively small for a comic shop, we still had trouble hearing him. The conversation drifted in and out – so for the highlights you should check out the TFAW blog, they were filming and a video should be posted in a few days.

For those who can’t wait, here’s a video of Fraction describing the latest Marvel “event.” If you can’t tell, I’m highly skeptical of these annual cross-over, universe altering archs in which a beloved character usually dies. Ugh.

Thumbed through Issue #1 that I picked up to have Fraction sign. Mostly because I want to support the comic shop for hosting the event, and because publishers will agree to more events if they see folks purchasing the wares they are pimping.

ALTERNATE GOAL: To put a human face to the scribes of Marvel, to remind myself that despite the things I loathe about comic books…there are real people writing them. And I thought, perhaps, it would re-energize my interest in mainstream superhero books if I could invest an evening getting to know one of it’s most popular authors.

Just as Stumptown Comics Fest and the Portland Comic Book Show were able to sell me on Bendis, I think this event proved to me that Matt Fraction isn’t the hipster D-Bag I was guessing from his photos and the one interview I read a year ago. Though the comments he made in that particular Mercury article about not wanting to write crap like “Jubilee” still really chap my hide…and the fact that he killed off both Nightcrawler and Cable is not winning any points with me. *APPARENTLY HE DID NOT KILL OFF NIGHTCRAWLER OR CABLE – MY APOLOGIES TO THE INTERNETS* It was the dudes who wrote X-Force. Blame them. 🙂

Love that my friend Joe asked him why he didn’t kill of Emma Frost instead. In response he wrote “RIP KW” in Joe’s X-Men tpb book. Poor fuzzy blue elf.

OVERALL: the event reminded me that I need to return to the X-Men fold because I miss the merry band of mutants. I don’t give much of a crusty crap about Fear Itself. The last cross-over I truly enjoyed was Civil War because it felt like it had real social and political commentary. I like my comics best when they’re making a statement or making me think.

Spreading the Link Love 8/20/2010

Lazy Friday blogging – but I’m  pretty excited about a number of these links, and if you can’t link spam at least once a month, then what else is the internet for?

BATTLESTAR GALACTICA: THE EXHIBIT

The Experience Music Project and Science Fiction museum in Seattle, Washington is hosting a BSG Exhibit starting in October. You can also enter to win tickets for two, along with free airfare and a hotel for the grand opening. It features three full-size prop spaceships, costumes, exhibition films, music and other props from the original and re-imagined series. Battlestar Galactica opens to the public Oct. 23, 2010 and runs through March 4, 2012. It’s a bit lame, seeing as the exhibit closes the first day of the Emerald Con. Perhaps we could tack an extra day onto the trip and plan to see this on March 3rd.  I’ve been meaning to see the Science Fiction museum for quite awhile, I’m sure it will be filled with enough nerdosity we could justify an entire day of it.

The idea of planning a whole separate trip to Seattle is not terribly enticing. And yes, when we do go (no ifs about it) we will totally dress in costume. In fact, we’ve been talking about making the BSG costumes a convention mainstay and decking them out/beefing them up to be as realistic as possible.

If anyone else is interested in joining us, lemme know. And if you haven’t started watching BSG yet…why the hell not? It’s a fantastic series, and you don’t need to love space or robots for it to make sense.

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THREADLESS: The X-MENAGERIE

This one will be short and sweet. The history behind this shirt: Addie picked one up on Preview Night of Comic Con. Threadless had a small store presence there featuring comic book related desigins on Wednesday and Thursday, but our schedule was too busy to allow us to take a detour and pick one up.

I guess the moral of the story is that patience can be a virtue for a lady who loves hoodies. Yes – this awesome design is now available on a hoody, with a schweet X-slash on the front. The only frustrating thing is that I wasn’t quite sure if the sizing is right, so I ended up with a Small because it’s a uni-sex/dude size chart. Hope it’s right, or if not, I can swap it out for Medium before they all sell out.

Got an email that it shipped on Thursday afternoon. The hoodie is $30, and the shipping/handling is only $5, which is pretty damn reasonable for purchasing clothes on the internetz. It’s supposed to arrive in 5-8 business days, so I’m looking at next week to bring me the most fantabulous hoodie a nerdy-ass girl could ever want.

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RUNAWAYS CASTING CALL: Racebending?

It’s tough to watch beloved pieces of entertainment being white-washed yet again. It sort of makes me want to slap Hollywood’s hands away from anything that features women or characters of color, because it’s nearly impossible for them to not fuck it up – even when a minority is at the helm or race plays an integral part in the story line.

As if The Last Airbender weren’t insulting niche fans enough – Runaways the movie is promising to offer up more of the same. Seriously Hollywood, you can’t fuck with niche fan-groups like you can with huge, best-selling franchises and expect the same kind of loyalty or money. In fact, you can pretty much guarantee some kind of completely valid boycott.

No one has been cast yet – so the concern is just being raised over the casting call announcements, which are purposefully color blind in regards to Nico Minoru, who is a major Japanese American female figure in the comic books. The casting call assumed to be for Nico reads:

Girl 1: Uniquely beautiful, nurturing but guarded
Female, must play 16-18
Must be at least 16 by January 2011

“Uniquely beautiful” must be the way that Hollywood chooses to describe a biracial person, without actually having to use that descriptor. It also leaves it open for one of the movie’s main characters to not share the same race as her comic book counter-part.

Bonus Post: NEW X-Men First Class Cast Members

Brand spankin’ new cast members have been added to the  roster of the X-Men: First Class flick directed by Matthew Vaughn. And then there’s some folks who’ve been rumored as well.

Mostly it’s dudes. Act surprised though, they like that!

Caleb Landry Jones has been cast as Banshee. Honestly, not that tough to cast this character. Find a ginger with freckles that can speak in a semi-decent Irish accent. Chances of him actually speaking in an accent? Zero to none. But he’s so damned cute!

Nicholas Hoult is cast as Beast. Apparently he’s the kid from About A Boy, which means that he’s either grown up super fast or I’ve gotten ridiculously older than I have any right to be. I’m sure he’ll be fine, but he comes from a string of Europeans attached to this project. Hmph.

Aaron Johnson is rumored to be playing Cylops. He’s the Kick-Ass kid. His voice is just a wee bit too whiney for my taste, Cyclops has already been portrayed as a wussy leader type before. I saw Mr. Johnson as a spectacular Spiderman stand-in. His slim frame seems more suitable for cracking-wise and scaling buildings in tight clothes than leading the merry band of mutants. I’m hoping this particular rumor stays a rumor.