Philip Dobson | Geekscape

Here’s Some Of The Best Cosplay We Saw At Fan Expo Canada!

by Philip DobsonSeptember 7, 2016

Fan Expo Canada took over the Metro Toronto Convention Centre this past Labour Day weekend, and while we’re reallye excited to share our thoughts on the massive Canadian convention in the coming days, we simply had to show you some of the coolest cosplay that we saw on the show floor.

Take a look at the images below, be sure to let us know your favourites, and stay tuned for more Fan Expo Canada coverage!

Geekscape TV Reviews: ‘Jessica Jones’

by Philip DobsonNovember 29, 2015

Jessica Jones is a character that most people gloss over when they think of the pillars of the Marvel Universe, so it’s kind of crazy that she just got her own 13 episode TV show on Netflix. The character is very young compared to nearly every other property, but clearly she has a backstory that needs to be pushed out into the mainstream. Art should make us feel something by definition. Good art should start conversations as we share our thoughts, opinions, and feelings on the human experience. Jessica Jones does this in the best of ways, and one of its greatest factors is that it doesn’t feel preachy while it gives you its messages. The show is gritty and the presentation of the story is very adult, which is both a blessing, and in part a minor annoyance as it would be great to have these kinds of themes in it for a younger audience, an audience that needs to be exposed to some of these free-will concepts.

As an adaptation it’s a fairly solid work, of course, with some changes made. There was nothing there that didn’t make sense, in fact I would say that the choices made to adapt this story were exactly what was necessary to get a wider audience and at the same time, make the story believable, especially for people just not into super heroes. The story reveals are somewhat obvious, and it was certainly more the execution of the story line that came out as stellar. Casting was well handled with a cross over from Daredevil showing up to fit the show into the Netflix portion of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Acting was fairly solid throughout as well; Krysten Ritter turned out a great leading role, but although she shows a fair bit of range, I wish she’d been given more to show off that range. David Tennant was just fantastic, and in reading the reviews of this show from some mainstream writers, it’s pretty funny when you realize that people hadn’t seen him in Doctor Who. The difference in characters was fairly pronounced, but it was interesting to see how some of the choices on how to portray things stay the same between the two characters. Then again, the one constant is David Tennant, so why wouldn’t he act some of those things the same way?

Looking purely on the surface, the show is shot in New York, just like Daredevil, another Netflix show. It does that thing where the city is treated like a character in the story. We’re given locations within NY that we’re familiar with, and some not so much, but they don’t beat you over the head with it. They spent the extra money to film there, but didn’t act like show offs once they were there. They found a perfect balance on that count. There was the occasional film noir nod, in the way it was shot, the narration at the start, it had a lot of the tropes of a hardboiled detective story but we quickly lost that initial feel, so that it was more like an after-thought after the first episode. Still, they did stick with somethings elements of this, the 1940s soundtrack was there, and the Alias Detective Agency door was there throughout, but honestly, it spent most of its time broken so maybe not.

The cinematography of the series is as you’d expect, thinking outside the box, but within the panel, and then some. Jessica Jones produces those same classic comic book angles, creating story boards on the screen. Then they’ll bring subjects in or out of focus, something that wouldn’t be done in comics. It’s like comics recognized that TV and movies were being storyboarded via comic book-type artists, and so the one medium was feeding the other. The comic book response was to this was to give us very angled views of the world so that it seemed more like film noir within a comic book panel. In Jessica Jones, it’s like they’re taking back showing off what it can do, like MCs trying to out-do each other, as if to say, “your move comic books”.

Good science fiction will use its story as a way to say things that may be unpalatable to speak about directly. Star Trek would speak about racism by showing two seemingly similar characters with a black and a white face, but they were black on opposite sides of their face. They showed us how ridiculous the concept of racial color was. In Jessica Jones, the storyline deals with so many social issues, how we deal with rape, with post-traumatic stress disorder, mental health, how we look at group therapy, homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and finally our inability to engage others with our pains by throwing up a wall of tough, when we may be broken inside.

There is a rather ham-fisted attempt at addressing racism and homophobia by using ‘gifted’ as a euphemism for being different. They didn’t seem as committed on that as if it’s been done before and they’re only doing it to make sure the points were made. It’s good to include, but it felt out of place to the rest of the show. They linked the show to the ‘event’ from the Avengers Assemble section set in NY.

Kilgrave’s powers weren’t a direct parallel to alcoholism or drug abuse, but there was something there that connected these things. Within the show there was a great deal of concern over what happened to people who’d been pushed under Kilgrave’s spell. That there was a complete separation from the individuals to the actions they were performing. Kilgrave isn’t the addictive substance, he is an amalgam of the substances, and the situations people place themselves in to get those substances. I wouldn’t dwell too much on that part though, it was more the outcome of his effect that we looked at and how different people were effected differently. That group therapy even produced different individual goals and responses. It’s something we don’t see much in TV shows, but perhaps that is something that should be explored more as it’s usually the victims of crime that are forgotten.

Overall, a fantastic show, and one that I highly recommend to anyone who doesn’t mind not turning off their brain if they want to enjoy an action series. Having said that, it works on multiple levels, you can turn off as well, if that’s your thing.

A Tribute To Patrick Macnee, Superstar And Gentleman

by Philip DobsonJune 25, 2015

Part of old England died today when Patrick Macnee passed away. Macnee represented the classic aristocratic man, one who served his country in the Second World War, and later gave us performances that were always engaging, even if some of the productions themselves were or not.

Born in 1922 to parents who were fixtures of English high society, he enjoyed privilege as he came from aristocratic lineage, and was Eton-educated.

At the age of 20, he joined the Royal Navy during World War II, and went from an enlisted man to a sub-lieutenant within a year, patrolling the coast of the northern UK.

In the early 1950s, Macnee went to Canada, then the US, and appeared in various stage productions, eventually making his way into film. By the 1960s, he was well-known enough to be cast in The Avengers, not the Marvel comics, but rather a spy series with heavily mod stylings. It was an onscreen romp through a fantastical world of spies situated somewhere between the hallucinogenic Prisoner series and James Bond. While the original series paired Macnee’s character of Steed with a few different female leads, it was Diana Rigg who most people remember.

Later in the 1970s, when the show was resurrected, Macnee rejoined the series, but this time opposite Jennifer Lumley, who is now mostly remembered as the blonde 1960s-addled friend on Ab-Fab.

No matter whom he appeared with, Macnee was always the uber gentleman spy. Not a ladies man like Bond, trying to bed anything that moved, but rather a man’s man, who would do whatever was necessary to save anyone who needed saving.

He has been in many movies and TV shows, even appearing in one of the pivotal story lines in the original Battlestar Galactica. In doing so, he became the Sir Alec Guiness of the show for the time he was on, adding a level of acting that no one else was able to meet.

It is said that no matter what he was in, people on-set were drawn to him, that he made friends easily, and kept those friendships. In life, and on the screen, he gave us a hero to look up to, and a role model to be like. He will be missed, and the likes of him may not be seen for a long time.

Fan Expo 2013: A Proud Dad’s Convention Cosplay Tale!

by Philip DobsonAugust 24, 2013

2013 is the 8th Toronto FanExpo under my belt. This year, I finally got to experience being a proud dad at the geek festival as I lived vicariously through my son, as he experienced his first cosplay outing. My son and one of his friends from school came with me to experience the geek-fest, and we had a blast.

Held at the Toronto Convention Centre in downtown Toronto, FanExpo 2013 is the meeting of all things geek. For many years it has been the largest such show in Canada, and this festival juggernaut continues to roll on with great success, increasing in size in booths, symposiums, talks, tournaments, and attendance.

I bought a $35 ticket a month ago, and the great part is that kids under 13 are free if they are with an adult with a pass. When I asked my son if he wanted to go, he was pretty excited, and then when I said that my wife and I would help make him a costume of his choice he was pretty much over the moon. We asked that he keep it within reason, and get back to us in the next couple of days with what he was thinking. He came out with Yellow Jacket, not someone I expected as a first choice amongst costumes.

My wife and I set about coming up with a design that we thought we could achieve based on what the Marvel costume had been designed to be. There were a couple of areas we had concern with on how to achieve a workable solution, but we either redesigned, or simply left certain elements out. It was a labor of love, and it was great seeing the little guys face every time we made a further part to the costume. The final outcome was met with wild squees of joy, and we knew we’d done the right thing overall.

The morning of the Expo, my wife said to me “now you’re sure other people are going to be in costume, we don’t want him feeling awkward.” And of course that would be a concern, but I’d taken the little guy last year and he seemed pretty comfortable knowing not *everyone* was going to have a costume, but that enough people would be wearing them that they’d still have fun. We had some parts to some other Halloween costumes kicking around and so my son’s friend borrowed a couple of things so he wouldn’t feel left out.

We got down to the Toronto Convention Center, parked the car and walked a few hundred feet to the entry. My son made some cracks about people not looking at him ‘funny’. It was like he was a little let down that people weren’t dropping their ice creams to stare at him. Still, he was pretty proud when he heard someone say “Hey, it’s Yellow Jacket”!

Hobbystar has you print, and then redeem an online coupon to get your child in for free. You go to the south building in the Public Relations office, and it’s a pretty painless experience. The people working there are very helpful with advice on any child related questions. I was also impressed that regardless of how exhausted they must have been interacting with different kids with different special needs the staff there remained pretty upbeat and engaged with the children… it also might have helped that my kid is the most awesome kid ever! OK, maybe he’s as awesome as all other kids, but you know, I’m a dad, and I’m supposed to think that.

Lines ups were limited, we pretty much walked in once we had picked up our children’s wrist bands. Both North and South buildings were used this year, which was a huge bonus because once again Hobbystar has improved upon it’s entry model keeping line-ups much shorter and dealt with much faster than in previous years. Still, Saturday always has the biggest turn out, but I’m confident that entry is about as efficient as the convention center will allow.

Using the North building also allowed the newly added sports area to be parsed off from the rest of the expo. Being new, it appeared to be doing ok considering sports and general geek culture have, for years, been somewhat in opposition to each other. This has been changing over the past three years, with cross-over happening from one area to the other. There weren’t great numbers of people in the sports area, but being the first year I think it’s doing fairly well.

Couldn't pass up the Dalek shot. — Couldn’t pass up the Dalek shot.

We pretty much skipped over the sports area, and just beyond it was a sort of Doctor Who area with some wonderful Daleks of various build levels. It was pretty great to see what people had put together in various states of amateur to semi-professional finishes. My little guy seemed to be somewhat interested until he saw the Minecraft swords and swag. I do get the draw of Minecraft, but honestly, I can’t figure out how Minecraft is a bigger thing than Doctor Who… I mean one thing has bowties, and Fez’s, and the other doesn’t…

We moved on to the Lego area, and wow, did they go all out. Lots of great free stuff, and lines that, again, were managed very well, with no pushing, no shoving, everyone being respectful, and the Lego staff keeping everyone happy as they handed out their loot. The little guy was totally hooked on that booth and I had to take both the kids back there 3 times because it was just their favorite thing ever.

Also a favorite booth was the Max Steel booth. Channeling the latest iteration of Tron, Max Steel has toys and a TV show, perfect hooks for kids. Again, the little guys were over the moon to go to this booth. Two visits later we had a DVD with 2 television episodes, and a couple of kids who really wanted to pick up the Beyblade like toys for Christmas.

All the while my typically shy son was getting comments about his costume, and at some point he took the mask off because I think he *wanted* people to know who was wearing this outfit. We ended up at the DK Canada booth and one of the people running the booth just latched on to Miles and said: “Yellow Jacket!” and promptly took a picture of him, tweated it on their website, and then gave my son a $20 book on Marvel super heroes with a picture of Yellow Jacket in it.

Overall we had ourselves an amazing day, and by that point we were all pretty exhausted so the day had to end. We left on an up note and with big smiles on our faces we shuffled back to the car. I can’t recall a time that my son has been more proud, and it made for a great experience for all of us.