THE CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN CASHES OUT JUNE 2018 WITH JULY 2013!!!

It's time to say a heartfelt goodbye...  To June 2018!!!  What?  You thought I was closing down shop? Hell no I ain't!  Why, we're just getting into the thick of things with the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN 2018!!!  We are now just weeks away from the biggest show of them all, so what better way to pass the time than with a look back at the great Comic Cons of the past? Thought y'all would like that, so let's jump right in!  The time portal's been set to 2013 and the event is San Diego Comic Con!  Enjoy...

Some denizens from Middle Earth made their way out to San Diego for a weekend free of monsters trying to hunt them down for a change!

Got another rare behind the scenes shot of the LED wall I helped build for the BBC America Network!  Normally these walls aren't too difficult to build, but the show they had just come from really manhandled some of the panels and their processors, so it took a lot of ingenuity to get this thing up and running in time for preview night.

The Regular Show Experience!  This was such an awesome offsite!  The line was super long, but the end result was well worth it!  After I won a pair of fuzzy dice in a trivia contest while waiting in line, they ushered us into the basement of the New Children's Museum in Downtown San Diego, where an entire retro arcade had been set up, complete with nonstop gameplay for 20 minutes.  We then entered a room where Mordecai and Rigby appeared on screen and we had to help them beat a video game!  After that, we were led into the prize room where I won ANOTHER pair of fuzzy dice!  And to top it all off, as we exited the experience, we were all handed exclusive, SDCC-only Regular Show posters!  It was easily the most coveted swag of the Con, and best of all, it was open to all, badge or not!  To this day, it's still one of my all-time favorite Comic Con offsite events!

Li'l Hellboy and Deadpool!  I could see this crossover working in real life!

It's Barf and Dark Helmet!  The Schwartz is always strong with these two!

These guys said they were on a mission from God, but I don't think the Lord would approve of some of their methods.  Particularly the 50-car pile up they caused outside of the Convention Center!

The infamous Stick Of Truth bus!  It had broken down BLOCKS away from the Convention Center in a part of town that's anything but safe.  Needless to say, some of the locals didn't take kindly to a truck with animated turds on the roof stopping through their neighborhood.  The driver and the workers were literally push-starting the bus and jumping into the back in an effort to avoid getting hit by the bricks and bottles thrown at them!  Guess it was a sign of things to come with this game, as its release was delayed into the next year!

Some Whovians gather in the Sails Pavilion, looking to get their Con on!  A tip to any first-timers coming this year: The Sails Pavilion is a great spot for cosplay pics!  Also, the Freebies Table is up there and is a great source for swag!  And now you know, which in this case is really only about 3/8's the battle!

Don't even remember what Defiance was, but they had a nifty wraparound on the Hard Rock Hotel!  Another beginner's tip here: The Gaslamp Quarter is also a Cosplay and Swag hotbed!  Not to mention, there are several offsites hidden about, so be sure to take a few hours to check it out!

The Doctor is in the house!  My friends Matt, Karen and Frank are likely gonna be very thrilled with the Doctor Who this post has featured!

 I honestly don't remember which offsite this was.  It wasn't the Petco Park Interactive Zone, but did seem to have a Fox influence since the short-lived Ax Cop show was clearly being promoted.  I'll have to look back through my program book and see if I can find any info on it.

 

Steampunk Hook and Tinkerbell!  Not sure where this steampunk craze started, but it sure does lead to some great costumes!

For many years, along the back of the exhibit hall, stood the Mega Bloks booth.  Meanwhile, the much-larger Lego booth stood tall aisles away, arm-in-arm with toy giants like Mattel, Hasbro, Bandai and Toynami.  I often stopped by the Mega Bloks booth and showed my appreciation towards the builders who took time to build these brick masterpieces.  Mega Bloks are now owned by Mattel and have their own spot in the Mattel booth.  It's a step up any way you slice it and still better than Kreo (Remember those?)!

And now we come to the end...  Of the post!  And since it's his 30th anniversary this year, we're giving the spotlight to the Ghost-With-The-Most himself, Beetlejuice!  Strange things occur when you call out his name three times, but during Comic Con 2013, the worst thing he did was zap the Joker into a leisure suit, so it was all good!

And that was Comic Con 2013.  Another great year at Con that I would love to relive again!  Lot's of great offsite action happened that year and plenty of good times were had with friends and family!  I also remember it being the year I saw a Jedi being arrested in front of the Convention Center!  Funny how it's the little things that stand out the most.  It was also the first year we held the Web Comic Meet-Up!  Things got a bit jumbled last year, but we're already working towards making the Meet-Up happen for real this year, so stay tuned as more info comes!

And that's a wrap for June!  I hope y'all are getting a kick out of these past Con pics so far.  The CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN 2018 still has five weeks to go, including two BIG posts, so be sure to come back and have some more fun in a new month!  Until then, take care and I'll catch y'all later!

THE CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN CONTINUES... TO 2012!!!

We are now more than halfway through the month of June which means only one thing: LESS THAN A MONTH TO GO BEFORE COMIC CON 2018!!!  Excitement is close to reaching its zenith here at the CRAZYVERSE, but work must be done!  So let's just get straight to the pics so I can get to my con prep, sound good?  Perfect!  Enjoy...

Some rare behind the scenes shots here as we take a look at the WB Booth, which was promoting the release of The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey that year.  I helped set up this booth, which took a long time to do, but was totally worth it!  Loved seeing all the Hobbit props and previews before anyone else!

GET TO WORK OR YOU'RE FIRED!!!  Benson didn't really appreciate us taking pics of him as he supervised the construction of the Cartoon Network booth.

The CBS Booth!  Nothing really remarkable about it, other than I did the lights for it.  That year was record breaking for me.  In three days, I did lights and video for CBS, The Walking Dead, Kaijudo Riders, Ubisoft Games and Warner Bros!  These days, I usually only get to do two or three booths by comparison.

After many years, a LEGIT superhero finally landed at Comic Con when Super Grover came and interviewed a few lucky fans at the Hasbro booth!

Rather than continuing to beat a dead horse by talking about what a lousy event the Dawn Of The Con "Party" was, I'll instead highlight something positive that came out of it: This really awesome shirt!  One of four designs available that year!  This was the one I got, hence the spotlight.  I'll post the others eventually.  They were cool shirts!

2012 was the year of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy!  Ernest Borgnine, who voiced Mermaid Man, had passed away weeks earlier, and many fans wanted to honor the late Oscar winner.  Was great to see so many tributes.

Tin Fish Square, during its annual NBC retrofit.  The police car and caution tape weren't part of the decorations, but they sure do tie the area together, don't they?  Heck, I'm not even sure if Revolution comes on still!

Man-At-Arms!  That 70's porn 'stache could make Tom Selleck blush!

The Yo Gabba Gabba crew stopped by the Con for a day.  I'm starting to think that the only things necessary to create a show for preschoolers is candy, bright colors and a large supply of LSD!

Steampunk Justice League!  Always love seeing fun variants!

SPOOOOOOOOOOOON!!!  It's The Tick and Arthur!  Now if only we could get Deflater Mouse, Sewer Urchin and American Maid to show up this year!

 My niece, Kristen, wanted to hang out with the Justice League.  With any luck, she'll be making her cosplay debut this year!

The Xbox Lounge at the Hard Rock Hotel!  This was a fun offsite, despite needing a badge for it in later years.  Hopefully this year, Microsoft will bring it back for us to have more fun at.  Couldn't hurt to have another option to help ease crowds.

We'll end this week's post with a frighteningly detailed Earthworm Jim cosplay!  EWJ was a great game and an awesome cartoon!  Kinda surprised/thankful that this one hasn't been rebooted yet.  Some things are just too good to do twice!

And that was Comic Con 2012!  Such a wild five days with so many awesome things happening!  Of all the cons I've done over the years, this is one that I really wish I could relive again.  In addition to winning a Gypsy figure for knowing the lyrics to the Mystery Science Theater 3000 theme, I also met Tom Kenny, the voice of Spongebob!  Each Con is special in its own way, but the 2012 addition was one of the greatest ever.

And that's all for today.  We'll be back next week to wrap up June in the best way possible: By continuing with the CRAZY COMIC CON COUNTDOWN!!!  So be sure to come back for some more pics and memories!  Until then, take care and I'll catch y'all later!

BURNING THAT COMIC CON OIL IN 2011!!!

Welcome back CRAZIES!  It's Week 2 of our 2018 COMIC CON COUNTDOWN and we are plowing right into this thing!  With so many great memories to look back on, it's very hard to sort out a select few for posting, but I've done my best at selecting and think y'all will get a kick out of these pics!  But first, I'd like to take a moment to remind folks of something important happening this Friday...

As I mentioned last week, I have framed art available for the Team Cul De Sac Art Auction this friday, June 15, at HeroesCon in Charlotte.  There will be MANY great pieces of art on sale and all for a very worthy cause: Sending Parkinson's Disease straight into the fires of Mount Doom!  Details of the exact when and where of it all can be found on the Team Cul De Sac Blog, as well as their corresponding social media pages.  I thought I'd take a moment today to describe the inspiration behind this year's piece.  For those who never read the comic (And seriously, you're missing out if you haven't!), Cul De Sac is the tale of a little girl named Alice and the wacky situations she and her family and friends always manage to get themselves into.  Among the running gags is her neurotic big brother, Petey, who isn't sure if one of his classmates, a bespectacled boy named Ernesto, is real or not, despite almost EVERY other character having encountered Ernesto at some point.  I felt it'd be funny if Ernesto, who did address his realness in the comics, pointed out to Petey that his own sister's antics are far more surreal than his own habit of popping up out of nowhere.  Indeed, Alice had a wacky streak to her, which is what made her such a lovable character to begin with.  I do hope this piece finds a good home and brings in a nice bid.  I was and still am a great admirer of Richard Thompson's work.  It's an honor to contribute.

And now, it's time to head back to a not-really-that-much-more-simpler time.  The year was 2011, the place was the San Diego Convention Center and the event was Comic Con.  Hold on tight to your Superman Underoos folks.  We're hitting the ground running!  Enjoy...

Got a very rare shot here: Comic Con Load In!  Hard to say exactly which hall it is, but if I had to guess, it's the back of Hall E looking diagonally towards the left to where Halls D and C meet.  Booth placement hasn't changed much from 2010-on, so along the front of the halls in this pic (From left to right) is where the Shonen Jump, Lucasfilm and Hasbro booths would be.  I took this pic seven years ago and the columns are blocking the hall signs, so sorry in advance for not being able to exactly place things.

I believe its a rule for getting a badge that you HAVE to take a pic of the logo banner through the center of the circular column support.  Frankly, I got so many of these, I could make a coffee table book out of them!

What better way for a father and son to bond than through cosplay?  The family that cosplays together stays together!

Speaking of fathers and sons, The Jones' decided to stop by and find the greatest treasure of them all: A secret path into Hall H!  No word on if they ever succeeded.

My first year as a pro, so I decided to wear a tie for the occasion.  Sadly, not everyone agreed with my fashion statement!

An all too sad reminder of why you don't cast Nicholas Cage in a superhero movie.  This was actually the first year that the famed Gaslamp Quarter got in on the festivities.  It's only gotten bigger since with 5th Avenue being shutdown completely and many restaurants getting in on the act.  There are even some hidden and not-so-hidden offsites dwelling within!  Also a great spot to score swag and get some great cosplay pics for those who couldn't get badges!

Adventure Time made it's presence felt in 2011 with several impromptu parades!  Although Cartoon Network premiered the show at the con the year before, 2011 was the first year they really did anything with it at comic cons.  By then the show had become a hit, so it made perfect sense to do so.

San Diego Comic Con brings out the mariachi in all of us!

Another con tradition: Quailman!

Cheetara!  This one's for all the old school Thundercats fans. We'll always have the memories and the DVD boxed sets.

It was one and done for the Hub Network Experience in 2010, as 2011 made way for what is now a proud Comic Con tradition: The Nintendo Lounge!  For seven years now, Nintendo has rented out the San Diego Ballroom of the Marriott next door to the Convention Center and turned it into a gamer's paradise!  And best of all?  It's all 100% free!  No badge needed!  And believe me, I know people who DO have badges that miss the entire con just to hang out in here!  Nothing's set in stone yet, but all sign's point to the Lounge coming back for 2018, so keep an ear out!

The steps between the old and new sides of the Convention Center.  Sometimes it's a great spot for cosplay pics, sometimes, it's a great spot to catch a break.  In recent years, security's curbed access to it, so not just anybody can hang around there anymore, sadly.  Still, you can usually find a great cosplay or two, all things considered.

HE HAS THE POWERRRRRRRRR!!!

Since Solo: A Star Wars Story recently came out, I thought Sci-Fi legend Billy Dee Williams would be a great dude to end this week's post with.  Not sure how much he wanted for autographs, but it was likely way the hell beyond my budget for that year!

And that was the year 2011 for Comic Con.  Honestly, it wasn't one of my better shows as my health had taken a pretty severe nosedive in the weeks leading up to it.  Thankfully, things started turning around for me afterward, but it was a tough week to get through.  Even though offsite events had started the year before, 2011 was really the first year that San Diego Comic Con as we presently know it happened.  The Nintendo and Xbox Lounges both debuted that year, the Petco Park Interactive Zone debuted that year, albeit much smaller than it would come to be, and the Gaslamp Promotions also began in 2011.  I felt it was a very kind gesture on the part of all these various companies and studios to give some free entertainment to those who couldn't get in.  I've said it many times before and feel it's even more true now as the free offsites grow in number and scale: There is so much to do outside of the con that you really can make a week of it without a badge.

And that's all she wrote for this week.  We'll be back next time with a visit to Comic Con 2012, but minus any potential time-traveling ramifications!  Until then, take care and I'll catch y'all later!

THE 2018 COMIC CON COUNTDOWN IS A GO!!!

Welcome to June my CRAZIES!!!  It's summer time again!  And that means the grand spectacle of Nerd Culture is returning to my hometown: SAN DIEGO COMIC CON 2018!!!  I'm pretty excited for this year's show as news is already starting pour into the social media atmosphere of some of the things we can look forward too.  As is tradition here at the CRAZYVERSE, the blog toons are taking another nap as we dedicate the next nine weeks to the Ghost of Comic Cons Past!  I always enjoy diving back into these past shows and this year is no exception!  But first, I'd like to take some time to promote was has quickly become another CRAZY tradition for me that happens around this time of year...

Any regular visitor here knows I was a huge fan of the comic strip Cul De Sac by the late great Richard Thompson.  Thompson was a remarkable artist and a great guy who's life was sadly cut short by a monster known as Parkinson's Disease.  Every year, Chris Sparks hosts an art auction at HeroesCon in Charlotte in an effort to raise money to help find a cure.  This will be my third straight year contributing art for the auction, so for those of you going, here's your chance to own a piece of CRAZY original art AND help send Parkinson's Disease packing once and for all!  This isn't a print folks.  It's inked, colored, signed and framed and is only available at the Team Cul De Sac Drink 'n' Draw and Art Auction at HeroesCon on June 15!  For more info, check out the Team Cul De Sac blog by clicking here!  This is a worthwhile venture folks, so I hope all of you who are going will bid on ALL the amazing art being donated.

And now, let's take a trip to another con.  The one known as San Diego Comic Con...  Or Comic Con International, which is what the corporate overlords wanna call it!  Either way, it's a comic convention that happens in San Diego every year, and it's pretty big!  For this first week of the countdown, we return for one last time to 2010 to take a look at the sights, the cosplay and the memories of what is always a wild five days.  So here it is, Comic Con 2010.  Enjoy...

The Breath of Wild often reeks of onion rings and and Starbucks during Comic Con!

Kermit the Frog and Rizzo the Rat do some on the spot reporting at the Disney booth, back when Disney actually seemed to have a plan for the Muppet's future.

It's not every day a legend like Danny Elfman shows up to Comic Con.  Seriously, I don't think he's been back since!

Optimus Prime stands guard over the entrance to the Marriott, making it safe for guests hoping to enjoy the Hub Pavilion.  For those who've likely forgotten already, the Hub Network was a joint effort by Hasbro and Discovery to launch a new kids TV channel in 2010.  Despite having access to some great shows, the network was more or less a 24hr commercial for Hasbro properties and it didn't take long for people to figure that out.  It quietly bowed out in 2014, but for one brief weekend in 2010, the Hub put on a pretty awesome show, for free no less, at Comic Con!

I'm deathly afraid of heights, but when swag calls, I had to answer!  This was done at the Clash Of The Titans challenge course held in the Hilton Park across the street from the Convention Center.  This was the first year that free, offsite events began to be held in an effort to give those who didn't get passes a chance to have some Comic Con fun.  In the first few years of the offsites, Warner Bros. usually rented out most of the Hilton Park.  These last few years, Fox has had control of it and turns it into the fun FX Experience.  This particular year though, it was all WB, and I had to go to each station to complete each challenge in order to get...  A cardboard shield.  Hey, I've done more intense challenges for even dumber prizes before and since!

Very special moments often happen at Comic Con, like this reunion between Waldo and his long estranged sister, Carmen San Diego!

With crowds getting as large as they do at Comic Con, it's sadly all too easy for tempers to flair.

The Green Hornet enjoys a con moment, blissfully unaware of the horrors that Seth Rogen had in store for him the following year!

As this overhead view shows, the exhibit hall is massive and gets packed!

Aw, 2010.  Back when TRON looked like a big future franchise for Disney.

Star Wars on the Mezzanine!  Few con goers realize that some of the best spots to get some great cosplay pics is right on the Mezzanine Level of the north side of the convention center.  It's a real hidden gem!

The Sails Pavilion, recently renovated even, is another great spot for cosplay pics, especially obscure ones like Love Boat, The Next Generation!  Even in an open space like that, there's always some diamonds to be found!

The Trekkies were out in full force in 2010!  With Discovery being a huge hit, I assume Star Trek cosplay will be huge this year!

I doubt Marvel will ever get to the storyline where Oscar the Grouch briefly usurped Odin's throne!

And that was, for the last time, Comic Con 2010.  Starting to run out of pics from the older cons, although I'm not opposed to using the leftovers that are good in the future.  We'll see how it all goes.  2010's con was a lot of fun.  It was also the last time I went as a regular attendee.  I applied for my pro badge not long after and was amazingly enough approved!  This was a benchmark year in many ways as it was the first year for free, offsite events and really the last year people were actually able to get into Hall H without having to completely sacrifice one's entire con schedule to wait.  It was also the infamous year that one attendee stabbed another in the face with a pen over a seating dispute in Hall H!  I've said it a million times and I'll say it a million more starting now: Personal comfort is a sacrifice you're going to have to make if you wanna see a panel at ANY convention!  Seats are close, people are tired, rooms are crammed and the days are long.  It's just something we gotta deal with.  And if people are being rude, there's a legion of overzealous security guards looking to abuse their power.  Seriously, just report rude attendees.  No jerk is worth having a criminal record.

And that's all for this first week.  We'll be back next time with a look at Comic Con 2011 and more info on the Team Cul De Sac Art Auction.  Until then, take care and I'll catch y'all later!