Stan Lee’s ComiKaze 2012 wrap up

If you want to skip right to the cosplay pics and panel videos, jump to page 2.

This past weekend I ventured out to my first west coast convention, Stan Lee’s ComiKaze in Los Angeles. Being as it was my first time in California, two thing’s immediately came to mind for places I wanted to see besides the con proper. The Cabazon Dinosaurs from The Wizard, and Vasquez Rocks from like everything ever, but most notably the Star Trek episode “Arena”, where Kirk fights the Gorn. Unfortunately the two are in exact opposite directions, so we only had time for one. If you’ve been reading this site regularly, I think you know what won.

I brought along a whole extra outfit, including boots and props, and bought a brand new camera specifically to shoot these pictures

This was a working con for me, as I was there to help work the table for my friend Nurse Kat from Kat’s Anime Hat’s / Super Takos, so I didn’t really leave the booth much, making this wrap up much shorter than our other ones. We loaded in all day Friday, taking nearly 6.5 hours to get the finished booth below. We were to the right of the Quidditch pitch, and right across from both Elvira and Stan Lee’s “Museums”. I didn’t really get a chance to run through them, but Elvira’s was much more a museum than Stan’s. Her’s had the couch from her TV show and her car, along with a bunch of branded merchandise. Stan’s museum was just a bunch of display cases filled with statues like you see at any good comic book store. It did have a few signed replica props, but it wasn’t really anything I couldn’t see at my local shop. It was just designed to be something to look at while you waited for signatures, but calling it a “museum” is a bit of a misnomer. But being as we were across from her booth, we did get to see Cassandra Peterson, or Elvira, out of costume and walking around a good deal. I must say, for a 61 year old woman, she looks fantastic out of character, and even better in character.

One of the big draws of the show was the Zombie Survival course, which took up an entire hall. It certainly sounded cool on paper, but I get the feeling it fell a little short. I only got to see them setting it up, but I don’t think I was the only one more than a little disappointed it was all inflatables. I can certainly understand why they did it that way for safety and insurance reasons, but I was expecting something more like the eliminator from American Gladiators, especially when they said they brought in outside arena designers to help setup. It also might have helped if all the inflatables were camouflage colored. A few were bright circus colored and it kinda ruined the immersion. The reason I think I’m not alone in my disappointment is because starting late Saturday afternoon they kept coming on the loudspeaker like once a hour announcing times were still available, and that Activision was offering $10 off the price to run the course, making me think not a lot of people were doing it as they had hoped.

To celebrate 20 years of Power Rangers, Saban brought in a giant like 20′ tall red ranger statue. It wasn’t really for anything, just kinda there off to the side of the stage. They did have a variety of Power Rangers there, but they had the wrong pink ranger there (we’ve discussed my love of Amy Jo Johnson before), so I didn’t much care to go see them all.

Friday Night concluded with a pre party kick off concert by Peter Murphy with opening act The Dark. I’m not a huge Peter Murphy fan, but he did do the theme for one of my favorite direct to DVD movies, the 1997 Will Friedel / Jennifer Love Hewitt vehicle Trojan War, so I was excited. The Dark was OK. If I had to classify them, I’d call them a cross between Stabbing Westward and Rammstein, but a lot angrier. It was advertised as having a special guest duet, and being hosted by Elvira and Stan Lee. The way it was presented I was hoping it would be something awesome like Trent Reznor or possibly David Bowie, both past collaborators with Peter Murphy. It turned out to be Peter Murphy and Stan Lee singing “That Old Black Magic”, with Stan being horribly off key, and about 8 seconds too early with every verse. It was really a train wreck, but a funny train wreck. I can’t say I was surprised that that was the duet, but I was hoping for something cooler. I feel that at this point, Stan has no idea what the fuck he’s doing half the time, and has been on autopilot for years, but because he’s Stan Lee he gets away with it. It’s a little sad. That was Stan’s only involvement, and Elvira wasn’t even there. It was kinda funny, one side used black gaffing tape, and the other side (the side Stan entered from) bright green so he wouldn’t trip. Peter Murphy went on to play for nearly two hours, including two encores. As I said, I only know a little bit of his stuff, but he’s one hell of a singer. One I did recognize was his cover of David Bowie’s “Ziggy Stardust”. All and all, it was a fun time, and we ran into Walking Dead‘s Norman Reedus at the bar, and Adrianne Curry outside.

Who wouldn’t wanna see this movie with a poster like that? For what it is, it’s actually not too bad.

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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