Saturday Six – Comikaze Expo 2014

Welcome to the Saturday Six, where each week I let you get to know me a bit better with the help of a list. Any idiot can do a Top 5 list, which is why I kicked it up a notch to a Top 6. This week’s topic: Stan Lee’s Comikaze Expo 2014

So content has been light of late, because I left the frosty confines of the east coast to venture west, to the land of shitty hotel wifi and sun, California, to stop at Disneyland and take in Stan Lee’s Comikaze last weekend. This is the first con in probably 5 or more years I was not there as a vendor, and was just there to have fun. I highly recommend going if you have a chance. I only went Friday and about half of Saturday (my feet could only handle so much of wearing wooden sandals), so I missed some of the marquee events (like the Power Rangers Megaforce panel, will they just get to the epic battle already!), but it was still a great time.

1. 

   Wood That I Could – When I saw their exclusive on the website, I knew I had to talk to them as soon as I got there. Unfortunately, I don’t have the space in my apartment, or a way to get it back on the plane, so I did not purchase one of their beautiful wooden Enterprises for $1250. They are all solid mahogany, come with remote control multi colored lighting, and take about 10 days of work to complete. Not only do they do Enterprises, they also make a much more reasonable priced wooden phaser at $125, with the delta shield phaser stands being $50. They don’t have a website or anything yet, but if you are interested, you can either see them at San Diego Comic Con, or contact craftsman Mark Lentry at 818-427-2128 or email him.

2. 

   Artists – My favorite part of any con is wandering though the artist alley to see all the creative things people have made. I did not pick up alot of new prints this time around because I am out of wall space, but there were some cool artists there. My favorite of course had to be The Many Arms of Misha, who designed my awesome Meowth tattoo based on a production animation cel I have. She also does paintings and other design work, and is all around just a very cool person. Also there was cartoonist/animator/good girl artist god damn Dean Yeagle, creator of Mandy. He was just there chilling in a booth on the main row. Needless to say, I picked up a print of one of my favorite Mandy cartoons.

3. 

   Cosplay – The environment at Comikaze is less hardcore and more casual than at some other cons. I didn’t see any super intricate cosplays in my time on the floor, but there were a bunch of people just dressing up and having fun. It also helped that Friday was Halloween, which keep the mood light. All of the more hardcore stuff apparently ended up in the costume contest, and didn’t really walk the show floor, at least that I saw. But I did spend most of my time with the rest of my cosplay group as a bunch of Naruto characters. Everyone loved our costumes, all hand made by Kat’s Anime Hats, so we didn’t make it very far without being asked for pictures. But we did make it into LA Weekly, so that’s a thing that happened.

4. 

   CrunchyRoll – Our group spent about 2 hours on Saturday hanging out at the CrunchyRoll booth. They had something I’ve never seen before, but it was pretty awesome. They had a camera livestreaming the show floor with a TV showing a chatroom of all the people watching the stream, so the people who were there could interact with the people watching at home. It wasn’t until we were there for about 45 minutes until we found out that not only was it video, it included audio as well, and everyone heard what we had been saying. Everyone loved us on the stream (CrunchyRoll is the home of new episodes of Naruto Shippuden), and we had fun doing what they all told us to do, including taking selfies and singing the entire extended Pokemon theme song, (with the second verse that not many people know). Everyone happened to include the voice actor of Neji, Steve Staley, who was at the CrunchyRoll booth and asked for a pic with our group. More cons need to have something like this to keep fans involved that couldn’t make it out in person.

5. 

   Celebrities – Celebrities at Comikaze are very approachable and fun. Jim Lee, president and CEO of DC Comics, had a table and like 4 people talking to him. That’s insane! I got to walk right up to David Yost, original blue Power Ranger, shake his hand, and tell him he was a great role model for nerds and that I somewhere still have his appearance on The Circus of The Stars on VHS somewhere. We spent a good 5 minutes talking with John Paragon, Jambi from Pee Wee’s Playhouse, and he told us how he used to act as Jambi, then have to jump out of the box to do the voice of Pteri, then jump back into the box for more Jambi. But the best had to be Roman Dirge from Lenore and Invader Zim, who talked to us for a good 10 minutes, and even drew two original sketches when he signed our graphic novels. He even snuck in a hidden penis in them. If there was one complaint, it would be the line management for some of the bigger guests like John Barrowman and Stan Lee. While most signings are off to one corner off the hall, the big lines weren’t really roped off or managed well, and just kinda became large lumps. But they all self organized and tried to stay out of the way as much as possible. If that’s the only complaint, it’s pretty minor.

6. 

   Small Press – Comikaze isn’t so big yet that DC and Marvel have large presences, but a lot of the smaller presses show up in force. I was happy to stop by the Aspen booth and find out that all of the Big Dog Ink books will be starting back up in March after the two companies merged. But my favorite had to be Brian Pulido, Creator of Lady Death, who not only confirmed that I was not out of my mind and the series at Boundless just kind of stopped (there is now a kickstarter to continue it), but that he is now the sole owner of the Lady Death character, and has some exciting plans for her in 2015. Let’s just say I paid for his booth with the amount of exclusive covers I bought.

So there you have it, my favorite things from this years Comikaze. And now, in case you missed the facebook gallery, here’s all the cosplay photos I took.

RKO OUT OF NOWHERE!

JohnScott is the proud owner of a life size replica Captain Kirk Chair. He is a hoarder of Comic Books, Transformers, and Star Trek action figures. He attended Space Camp as an adult. He has taken vacations to the closing of the Star Trek Experience and the final night Shuttle launch. He has been known to yell at his television when the kids can't put together the damn statue in the Shrine of the Silver Monkey. When not writing for InsufficientScotty, he is a Software Engineer for a major healthcare communications company. You can Email or follow on Twitter @NotEnoughScotty or Facebook