London Comic-Con 2015 (London, Ontario)

Hey Everyone! I'm a couple weeks late with this post but I was busy doing things like trying to finish Disgaea D2 and watching NXT....yeah I'm coming up with terrible excuses...moving on to more important things:

My friend and I went to go see Michael Jai White on September 27th at the London Comic-Con (a 2 hour drive from where we are). Black Dynamite aka Spawn is the main reason we went but there were more people and attractions that we checked out. I will say that London has some of the nicest people in regards to how they act at a con. The amount of people that attended was ideal since it wasn't over packed and to top it all off, parking was free! (might be the first time we didn't have to pay for parking).

When we first entered the con, Michael Jai White was already on stage doing a Q&A and talking about his previous and upcoming work. We found out that Black Dynamite 2 and Never Back Down 3 are both coming out in the future. He also said his favourite blaxploitation film is 'Three the Hard Way' which I just realized I own in my Jim Kelly DVD collection (I'll probably watch it after I finish this post!). He also mentioned how he use to be a teacher back in the day which is something I never knew about him. After the panel, we went to go meet him and get a picture:

We pretty much achieved our main goal as soon as we entered the convention. Walking around the con, I noticed Maurizio Guarini from Goblin who had a booth in the horror section. If you haven't heard of Goblin's music before then I highly recommend it! They did the Suspiria album which I think is one of the best movie soundtracks:

I talked to Maurizio for a while and told him how much their music has helped out the movies they worked on. He was genuinely a nice guy and I got a DVD and picture with him:

Afterwards, I went to go meet Charles Martinet who does the voices for Mario, Luigi, Wario and a bunch of other Nintendo characters. You could tell Charles has a passion for what he does because he would make the signature sounds of the characters he's signing for (my picture had about 8 characters on it and he did the voices for all of them!). Not only that but he had a section set up for people that wanted photos with him! This was the first time I've seen someone set up such an impressive area for photos, so of course, I had to get in there:

The last person I met at the con was Ani-Mia. She's a cos-player that also makes appearances on Youtube, Twitch and other places. I talked to her for a little bit before she had to go judge the cos-play contest. She said she really enjoyed the con and it was the first time she visited Canada and everyone spoke English (I think she visited Montreal before where most people speak French). She said she would be back at her booth after the contest but we didn't really have much time left. It was great to meet her and of course I got a pic with her!:

Now I'll post some of the cool stuff that I saw around the con:

This Wolverine Car was the first thing we saw when we entered the con. Below it is some TMNT comics and a wallet.

A customized Hungry Hungry Heroes board.

Some TMNT and He-Man collectibles

Conan the Barbarian and Pop figures.

Jumbo Video is still ALIVE! Only in London though lol. They said they have a location in the area that has the popcorn and everything!

These are 3 pieces that I had to buy from Eric Vedder after looking through his portfolio. We got Rival School, Street Fighter and a character from a new series that he's working on.

I have to say that I was really impressed with how this con was run and would definitely visit it again. There was also a little haunted house that they had but my friend didn't want to go inside and I didn't want to go in alone lol. They also had pinball machines and old school video games set-up which is always a good thing to see. So yeah, if you live in the London, Ontario area or are close to it then keep a look out for this convention next year. That's all I got for now guys! 

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Until next time!

My Experience at Unplugged Expo 4

Yo! As promised, I am back with another blog entry and this time I will be covering the Unplugged Expo. Also, I found out that I can pretty much copy and paste these posts and put them on my blog's that are on IGN (maybe get more viewers? Who knows? doesn't hurt to try though!). Anyways, let's get started!

This was my first time attending this con and I got the 3 day pass because there was a Street Fighter tournament that was scheduled. When I went on Friday the con was empty but that was to be expected since a lot of people work that day or are too tired after work to head out. There was an after-party that was around 10 PM but I didn't go because I was too tired. My friend did end up going but he said it was dead and the reason they had the party on Friday instead of Saturday was because of Caribana Weekend (the hotels were packed with people celebrating Caribana).

I also bought a Street Fighter gift bag that said it had 90 dollars worth of SF product in it and they were selling it for 60. Of course I bought it because I'm a big fan and I find out it has: a street fighter character book, an E.Honda mini figure and a huge Guile Hello Kitty plushie. I have no idea what to do with that plushie but at least I got that E.Honda mini figure though!

When we went on Saturday it was more of the same. The con was still pretty empty and it turns out there wasn't enough people to have a tournament. I wasn't too mad about this since they at least tried to plan something at such a small event. All the guys running the gaming section were really nice as well so I just played a couple matches when I felt like it. I also got to try that mixing game that I've seen at previous cons! It's really fun when you get the hang of it.

Also, there were a lot of cool looking tables which you can check out below:

My favourite table was of course the Toronto Power Ranger table because they had all sorts of raffles and fundraisers for charity. When you donate some money you get to shoot a member of your choice, so I had to go with the putty since he's a bad guy and promised to make the weird noises they make when he get's hit lol.

 I also got this sick picture with them! Unfortunately, I didn't get any of the raffle prizes but I ordered the Limited Black MegaZord from Toys R Us after finding out it was available from this con.

 I also visited a bunch of panels. One of them was about comics with Valentine Delandro and Adrian Alphona. They were very informative with their answers and it made me want to check out more of their stuff. There was a bunch of other ones but I'm not going to cover them all. The other panel that I found interesting was the Kill La Kill panel because I never watched the show but I was tired and decided to sit down and pass some time while listening to them. I found out that one of the voice actors in that show (Carrie Keranen) also voiced Caska from Berserk! So of course when I went home I did more research and found out that the other voice actor (Erica Mendez) does the voice for Annie from Skullgirls! The final day goal was to get my Berserk DVD signed by Carrie and get a picture with her:

I also got a Kill La Kill card from Erica Mendez and her and Carrie both signed it:

On the final day they had an X-Men musical. Unfortunately, the main stage is right beside the gaming area so it was hard to make out some of what they were saying at times.

I will say that the musical was pretty funny and it had my girl Jubilee so of course it get's extra points for that lol.

This con overall was pretty fun but they have a couple of things that they need to work on. I would suggest not putting the main stage near the gaming area since it's really distracting for the people on stage to talk when loud noises are happening right beside them. I would also suggest not doing this around the same time as Caribana since A LOT of people will be going to that event instead of this one. They should also make the gaming area bigger. It was hard to walk around in that area which makes no sense since they had a bunch of room for eating (I didn't see much people in this area btw) but none for gaming. There is potential in this con and hopefully they can improve on it next year. They need to find a way to get more traffic because it seemed like the vendors weren't selling much and some didn't even show up on Sunday.

 I'd say overall this con was just a little short of meeting the mark in some aspects. As previously stated, I think there is great potential with these guys and I think with the proper changes they can have something great here. I might check it out again next year but we'll have to see what the line up is looking like. Until next time guys!

Niagara Falls Comic-Con

Hey Guys! A couple of weeks ago I went to the Niagara Falls Comic-Con to meet the first blue ranger (David Yost) and second yellow ranger (Karan Ashley). The first yellow ranger (Thuy Trang) died in a car crash in 2001 (R.I.P). She was my second favourite ranger and unfortunately I won't be able to meet her. I didn't watch the show long after the original red, black and yellow rangers left but I did think Karan Ashley was the best of the newcomers. Looking back, they all did a pretty good job filling in, but as a kid, I was mad that my original team was split up lol. Moving on, let's talk about the con and some of the stuff that happened.

This con took place at the Scotia Bank Convention Centre and I have to say, this was one of the most organized cons I have been to. We reached there about an hour late but we were able to walk in, show our tickets and that was it. Usually, there's a huge line-up even with pre-purchased tickets but not here. We did have one friend that had to buy his ticket at the con and he waited for like an hour and a half. That is the norm for places like this so it wasn't surprising. What was surprising was the fact that it wasn't packed (for a con). The space they provided for everything was really well thought out and I never felt congested. A lot of the panels even had extra seats available. The first thing I did when I entered the con was get a picture with none other then...

...Alfonso Ribeiro aka Carlton! He's a really nice person and I attended his panel later that day aswell. He's a naturally funny person and he talked about his new gig at Americas Funniest Home Video's among other things. I also notice he has some of the same views I do about things such as: just because someone is calling you on your phone, doesn't mean you have to drop what your doing to answer it.  He also said if he was calling someone and they don't answer immediately then he would understand because he grew up with the old school mentality that if someone called your house phone and your not there then you'd miss the call. His panel was packed and people were standing up to hear what he had to say (all the chairs were taken). At the end of his panel he did the signature Carlton dance lol:

After meeting Alfonso, we attended the Power Ranger panel that was being hosted by David Yost and Karan Ashley aka the blue and yellow rangers.

It was great to hear their view on things that happened in the series as well as behind the scenes. David talked about how he is close friends with JDF, his thoughts on the Power Ranger short film and what he thought about Billy's last appearance. I share his same thoughts on the Power Ranger short film and that's the fact that they changed Billy's sexuality to match that of David Yost's (he didn't think that was a good idea). It's because David has been taunted all the time about it during his time at PR and to have people change a character depiction because of it just doesn't seem right. Plus, Billy was always into the ladies during the show.

Karan Ashley talked about her audition, her relationship with Johnny Young Bosch and how she had friends auditioning for her role before she even knew she was being replaced. The JYB story was really interesting to hear because when he first got hired and got money to rent out an apartment and live on his own for the show, it wasn't enough. He had to sleep on the floor with two sweat shirts because Saban didn't provide them with enough money. Karan Ashley didn't have that problem because she got stuff from her parents and friends but when she heard what was going on with JYB, she went and complained to Saban and they all got a pay bump to help better accommodate the living situation. They also hung out a lot because they lived close to eachother and even starred in a movie together in 2005 (wasn't well received but still).

You always hear about Saban under-paying their actors from back then and it's unfortunate to hear because they make so much off the Power Rangers but don't even show the actor's proper pay. I doubt we'll see any of the former Power Rangers make an appearance in the new movie reboot when they do things like this:

It was great to hear everything David and Karan had to say and I learned a lot during their panel. At the end of it, they gave everyone a chance to win a signed comic from all the original rangers if we could guess the number they were thinking of from 1-100. I chose 99 and the number was 13...No one guessed that number and they went with the person that was closest which was 12....

After the panel, we went to get a picture and autograph from Karan and David. They were both really nice and Karan offered to take another picture with me if the one that I took didn't come out right (not a lot of people offer that). David also commented on my Instagram picture which was awesome! Here are the pics:

After meeting everyone that I wanted to, I decided to walk around the con and see what they had to offer. The place was huge and had some great stuff such as a Star Wars, Dr, Who, horror and arcade areas. They also had places to play card games and speed dating (you had to pay to enter though). Here's a picture of some of the areas:

These are costumes that were used in horror movies such as Saw:

I took these pictures in the Star Wars area:

This was the arcade area

This was the room where you could play card games

This was part of the the Dr. Who area

This is a view of the main expo floor taken from the second floor

As you can see, there were alot of great things to check out! I just have a few more random pictures to show!

I thought the detail on these costumes were amazing

I wanted to play this game but it was out of order when I got there lol

 An art piece I got from Greg Horn

Some Final Fantasy 7 Figures

 Some cool posters and a Mikey statue

I highly recommend this con and would definitely go again. Now all I have left to get is the original green rangers autograph and picture and I'll be done the collection! Hopefully he shows up in Canada this year. I got two more cons that I'll be going to for sure which are the Hamilton and London ones. There are A LOT this year and if I go to any then I will definitely update this blog. Until next time, 

Peace!