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!

Fan Expo 2015 (Last time I went before this was 2008)

Yo! How has everyone been? Con season is almost over and it has me thinking about what I should focus on after. Twitch? Youtube? blog about different topics? make a comic? write a script? make skits? these are all things I've been contemplating but I haven't decided yet. Anyways, I went to Fan Expo yesterday (Sunday) for the first time in 7 years. The reason I didn't go for so long is because it was really disorganized and overcrowded. Plus, the staff seemed like they weren't properly trained to deal with so much people. The only reason I went this year was because my friend wanted to meet PJ Phil (he's a YTV host from back in the day) and since I grew up watching Phil as well, I decided to tag along. I was sceptical going in to this con because of my past experiences, so I was prepared for the worst.

My friend and I went on Sunday because we knew it would be the least packed that day. The good thing about this year was the fact that they used both the South and North parts of the Metro Convention Centre (it's about a 15 minute walk between the buildings but they really needed it with their huge crowd). In 2008 when we first attended, the convention was only in the South building which caused overcrowding, so it was good to see that they got more room for the event.  We entered the North building first and this area had the celebrity signing, horror and community sections. The vendors there all had great products to check out and take pictures of. Here are some of my pictures from the North building:

This was a signed poster from the group Goblin. I wanted to ask if it was the same Goblin that worked on the Suspiria soundtrack but forgot to go back.

Just some random props I saw hanging around the horror section.

Had to take a picture with Jason! This was selling for 350 which is a pretty good price.

Those were all the pictures I got at the horror section. They also had free face painting for kids in that area which I thought was a good idea. Now I will show some of the stuff that was being sold in the North building.

I have a lot of friends that play League of Legends (I play as well sometimes) so I had to get pics for them.

Had to take a picture of all these great banners!

Some artwork that was in the area. I never seen this Army of Darkness one before.

Some street fighter and Simpsons figures. I got the Honda one in a Street Fighter surprise bag that I bought at Unplugged Expo.

These were probably the greatest find at the expo. Unfortunately they weren't being sold because of how rare they are to get nowadays.

I didn't take pictures at the celebrity section because I planned to come back to the North building and get the autographs at 3 PM; Unfortunately, Tara Strong and Nolan North left before then and Gillian Anderson costs 90 dollars for a personalised photo and 80 dollars for a photo-op...so those didn't happen. I did manage to get Steve Blum's autograph and it was great to meet him.

I was really impressed with everything that I saw in the North building and it got me wondering...what could be in the South building? So my friend and I walked there (took about 15 minutes) and this area had the artist alley, video games and movies. To my surprise, they also had a Street Fighter V beta with all the announced characters so far! Unfortunately, they didn't have arcade sticks and we weren't allowed to record any game-play. I picked R.Mika both times and lost but she seems to play really different in this game. Also, it's going to take a while to get familiar with the new mechanics but I had a blast trying it out. My friend did manage to get some footage before we were shut down:

I didn't take much pictures on this side because I was too busy playing the games lol. Here are the few I did take:

Doing the signature pose near a Halo Lego Figure

The Witcher trying to stop the signature post

Had to get the power rangers and TMNT in there

Can't forget Deadpool!

And of course, I have to include the whole reason we went to this expo...to meet PJ Phil!:

It was a pleasure meeting him and it brought back memories of watching the Zone when I saw his table lol. He's a genuinely funny person and you could tell he enjoys meeting everyone that grew up watching YTV back in the day.

 All in all, I would say I was pleasantly surprised with how good this event is now compared to the last time I went. They have really come a long way and hopefully they can find ways to continuously improve this event. They also had other attractions that I took pictures with but didn't include in this blog (you can always check out my Instagram if you want to see more). There was one problem and it was the fact that it was almost impossible to leave their official parking area near the North Building. We waited about an hour and a half before we went back to the car to exit and there were still problems. I would suggest getting some workers to help remind people to pay before they exit and to help them out by the exit bars so that they can leave with little issue. Other then that, it was a great expo; This pretty much sums up my feelings:

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Two cons left and then it's back to hibernating lol. Until next time!

Going to ConBravo for the First Time

Hey guys! As you all know, I have been going to a lot of cons this summer and I recently went to two that I haven't attended before. These cons are both still fairly new and don't have much guests appearing at them. Fist, I will talk about ConBravo, let's get started!

I initially wasn't going to go to this event because I had a wedding to go to the previous day. I thought I would be tired, but I wasn't, so we headed to the event a little late (around 3 hours late). I had no goal at this con, mainly because I didn't know any of the guests there (they were all youtubers that I was unaware of) so I was just following my friend to see how the con was. My friends goal was to meet the Black Nerd and he did just that at the TMNT panel. The TMNT panel that was hosted by the Black Nerd and his colleagues was handled really well. They talked about the good memories:

And the bad memories:

I didn't take much pics at this con because it was fairly small and I wasn't there for a long period, so taking pictures wasn't really on my mind. In addition to that, when I found the game room, I didn't leave that area. I had low expectations going into this con, so when I found the game room and it had a Street Fighter and King of Fighters arcade cab, I was like:

At first, I thought you had to pay 25 cents to use the arcade cabinets but then I found out you didn't have to pay anything! This was pretty awesome because I doubt people would've been playing otherwise. Some of the arcade cabs that were there were: Street Fighter Alpha, Street Fighter 3, Mortal Kombat 3 and a Neo-Geo collection one.

They also had a set up for Ultra Street Fighter 4, Killer Instinct and CVS2. It was my first time playing Killer Instinct and it seems like a fairly easy game to jump into (I was beating people that played the game before). I still don't know how to play that game but it was fun and the people that I played were all really nice. The guys that were good at fighting games were pretty much crowded around the Third Strike cab (I got some wins and losses there).

You could tell whoever was in charge of setting up this area was a big fighting game fan and knew exactly how to set up a gaming area. There were all types of games including: dancing, mixing, fighting, retro and the list goes on. 

Now I will show some of the stuff I saw in the video game area:

This is the E.T videogame that is famous for being terrible. I played it for about 3 minutes and couldn't get out that area. I have to say they might be right about this one lol.

Of course I had to hit the classic SF2 for Super Nintendo. Props to the guys that still have a working SNES from back in the day (I don't sadly).

This was the retro area that had SNES, Atari, PS2 and other retro systems running the classics.

This was a mixing game that I didn't get to try out but it looked awesome! Overall, ConBravo did exceed my expectations because of the one gaming area. This con had the best gaming area I have seen at any of these events. The con itself is small but for 20 dollars admission, there's not much to complain about. This is a con I would visit again for the games. Hopefully they get more guests that I know of in the future.

That's pretty much my experience at ConBravo. I will try to get my post about Unplugged Expo (the second con I attended recently) up soon. Until then,

 Peace!

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!