Tag: SDCC 2019

Lauren Ridloff’s Casting In Marvel’s ‘The Eternals’ Is A Huge Win For Disabled Representation In Film

by Melissa Sanchez

On Saturday, July 20th, Marvel’s president Kevin Feige took the stage at SDCC (San Diego Comic Con International) to announce the much awaited Phase 4 of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Among the numerous projects slated for release the next few years are Thor: Love and Thunder, Black Widow, The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness. Also being developed is a handful of TV shows like Hawkeye, Wanda Vision, and Loki created for the upcoming Disney+ streaming service (set to launch in November), with most of the original actors from the films reprising their roles. What caught our attention the most though is the movie adaptation of Jack Kirby’s 1976 comic series The Eternals.

Arguably including lesser known superheroes than its Marvel predecessors, The Eternals is about a group of celestial beings with superpowers who are sent to Earth to protect mankind from the Deviants, a destructive alien race. At the much anticipated Marvel Studios panel in Hall H, the upcoming cast for the movie adaptation was unexpectedly announced and presented to thousands of screaming fans. With a mixture of big A-list actors and smaller names, Angelina Jolie (Thena), Richard Madden (Ikaris), Salma Hayek (Ajak), Kumail Nanjiani (Kingo), Brian Tyree Henry (Phastos), Lia McHugh (Sprite), Don Lee (Gilgamesh) and Lauren Ridloff (Makkari) took the stage as the titular characters. For us, the most exciting casting announcement came with newcomer Lauren Ridloff who will take on the gender-swapped role of Makkari, a speedster with super strength. 

Ridloff, who you might recognize from the most recent season of AMC’s The Walking Dead as Connie, is a Deaf American actress. A former teacher and Miss Deaf America (2000-2002), she’s been nominated for a Tony for her Broadway performance in the revival of Children of a Lesser God. With an already diverse cast, Lauren’s inclusion in The Eternals marks not only the first deaf superhero in the MCU, but also the first disabled actress to star in a mainstream superhero movie. In the original comics Makkari is not deaf, so the fact that they cast a deaf woman because of her talent and not her disability is a huge step for Marvel and the film industry in general. Marvel’s parent company Disney is no stranger to inclusion and diversity in its TV shows with openly gay characters (Andi Mack) and people with disabilities (Raven’s Home) being series regulars and making guest appearances. Even this Summer’s Toy Story 4 featured a little boy with a cochlear implant. 

Less than 2% of characters in movies and television are disabled. It’s not due to the fact that there’s a shortage of disabled actors, there’s plenty, but rather it’s the industry’s unwillingness to give the chance to those actors, to showcase their talents and abilities despite their disability. To complicate the situation more, disabled actors are rarely even cast in disabled roles! Heartbreakingly, 95% of roles that feature characters with disabilities are played by able bodied actors. Take in point the controversy in Bryan Cranston playing the role of a person in a wheelchair in 2017’s The Upside. This was a huge issue in the disabled community because once again instead of first offering the role to a capable disabled actor, Hollywood went for a big name draw instead of authenticity and accuracy of telling the story. Cranston himself saw no issue in taking the role comparing it to “playing a gay character as a straight man or a poor character as a wealthy person.” His argument was that an actor’s job is “to act”, to play a role of which is not your norm. While technically he is correct, the point is he took a role that could have potentially went to a disabled actor, which he was well aware of, yet defended his choice as purely a “business decision.” Yes, actors play different people in different roles, but think about it this way: Bryan Cranston, an able bodied man, is playing the role of a man in a wheelchair, but say for example if Daryl Mitchell (NCIS: New Orleans) a wheelchair bound actor, went in for a role and they wanted him to play a man who could walk, then what? There is no physical way he could do that! Disabled actors are limited to the roles they can play already, so when Hollywood casts an able bodied actor in a disabled role it makes it that much harder and scarcer to find work.

Currently, 1 in 4 Americans live with a disability, yet are the most overlooked minority because they are not as vocal as other groups. Disability Representation in film and media is important. In 2015, actress and singer Ali Stroker became the first woman in a wheelchair to star on Broadway. Micah Fowler, who has Cerebral Palsy, starred for three seasons in ABC’s Speechless which also featured comedian Zach Anner – who also has CP –  as a writer for the show. And we can’t forget the extraordinary Jamie Brewer from American Horror Story who was born with Down Syndrome. Things are starting to change! Think about how many people went to go see Avengers: Endgame or Black Panther? Now imagine how many people are going to see The Eternals when it comes out because of it being a Marvel film?! Millions of movie watchers are going to be able to see Ridloff on screen kicking ass in a role that primarily goes to able bodied actors. Makkari from The Eternals is a white male with no physical disability being played by a half Mexican, half African-American deaf woman! Can we just take a minute to applaud Marvel for looking past disability and purely casting on talent alone? Which is really how it always should be. Whether they know it or not, The Eternals is going to bring awareness to actors with disabilities and how they can do just as an amazing job as any non-disabled actor, despite their limitations.

That is why representation matters. That is why Ridloff being cast in The Eternals is a huge deal. This is a giant step for Disabled America. Most importantly, think of all the young kids who are deaf and hard of hearing who will see Makkari on screen and see themselves! We’ve already witnessed the positive effects of movies like Black Panther giving strong newfound role models to so many people that may have felt unrepresented. Compared to a few years ago, Hollywood has come a long way with diversity, but how many on screen heroes and heroines are there for a little boy in a wheelchair with Spina Bifida or the pre-teen girl who uses a walker because she has a rare muscular condition? None. In an interview with NowThis Entertainment, Ridloff states “I feel representation is so important whether it’s in real life or on TV or on the big screen. We need to see other people who are like ourselves to help us define who we are.” Lauren Ridloff is paving the way for Hollywood to include more disabled actors in major blockbusters for years to come. We are excited to see what she brings to the character of Makarri and once again we applaud Marvel for looking past the disability of a person, but at their abilities. *cough* Now we just need Disney to make a princess in a wheelchair *cough*.

The Eternals is currently in production in London and will kick off Phase 4 of the MCU. Be sure to mark your calendars for Friday, November 6, 2020 when The Eternals is expected to open worldwide.

Geekscape Roundtable: Our Top 3 Moments Of SDCC 2019!

by GeekscapeStaff

It’s still hard to believe that it’s over, but SDCC 2019 has come and gone. Our blisters are beginning to heal, our sunburns are beginning to peel, and we’re here to reminisce about some of the amazing moments that we had over the past weekend.

If you weren’t able to make it to SDCC yourself, there’s tons of coverage right here on Geekscape.net to catch you up. Derek and Mikaela provided numerous recaps detailing just what can happen over the course of a day at this massive, massive event. Among other things, you can read (and watch) all about the impressive offsite events from around the Gaslamp District (including Amazon’s amazing Prime Video Experience, and FX’s terrifying and hilarious Fearless Forum), Mikaela also chatted with the co-creators and author of the new Audible Original Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light, and Jonathan has posted up the annual SDCC episode of Geekscape, where he interviews many of the multitudes of individuals that stop by the Geekscape Booth each year, including Daryll ‘DMC’ McDaniels, whose conversation with Jonathan about mental health is worth the download alone.

We had a myriad of amazing moments at SDCC this year, and here are some of our top three!

Jonathan London

For me, San Diego Comic-Con is more than just the biggest pop culture convention in the world. It’s what I have long used as a  barometer for Geekscape’s growth and success over the years. Are people still discovering the brand? Are they excited to find out what we’re all about? Do old school Geekscapists still use SDCC as their yearly chance to hang out with us face to face? The resounding answer this year was “YES”! So with that being said, here are my Top 3 experiences from SDCC 2019!

#3 – Super Action Man announces his 2020 Presidential campaign at the Geekscape booth.

Many of you enjoy Super Action Man’s antics. Perhaps you see them as a necessary evil for all the good he does day in and day out in keeping America safe from various threats around the world. Personally, I don’t like him. I think he’s a psycho. That being said, his multiple appearances at the Geekscape booth this year had everyone who witnessed them talking. He handed out campaign buttons, took photos with fans, kissed babies and shouted campaign promises like “Make DC Comics great again” and “Less Alt Right and more All Night!” I for one am glad that SAM has finally chosen to perform his All-American antics in the bright light of day instead of clandestinely carrying countless unspeakable acts of violence in the name of patriotic babes, barbecues and bravado.

#2 – Mandatory Geekscape team dinners unless your name is Derek Kraneveldt.

This is an SDCC Geekscape tradition that I had let fall by the wayside for the last few years. I’ll admit it. I was not in a good headspace and after spending the day at the Con I often found myself wanting to just step away from everything. But in retrospect, what I was stepping away from was the entire purpose of going: experiencing a week with the Geekscape team and keeping my finger on the pulse of how the team was doing (see above on the whole “yearly barometer” thing). What’s worse… I had missed countless hilarious moments with Matt, Derek and the team that were crucial to what larger companies would call “team building”. Since I’m not going to have anyone from Geekscape walk on coals anytime soon, not attending our nightly dinners are a pretty big missed opportunity for me. I found myself so distant by this past January that I literally told Derek and Matt that I was instating mandatory team dinners at SDCC. Matt responded “oh, Jon… we’ve been doing them. You just haven’t been around.” That was a pretty heartbreaking moment. Well, unless you’re Derek and have promised yourself to Amazon Studios every single night in the pursuit of free food and liquor (I’d say he’s a cheap date but his fiancé Mika was shackled to him for these events… read more about them here), our nightly team dinners were some of the brightest moments of my SDCC. From singing “God has a new thang” out loud in restaurants to hearing how the Geekscape team spent their day and acquainting myself with new members like Stephen Bay, the Geekscape dinners were the best parts of my day. I love my team, they crack me up and I can’t wait until we’re causing a scene next year or just picking on Matt for continuing to insist on Old Spaghetti Factory.

#1 – Talking mental health with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels at the Geekscape booth.

I’ll tell you right now why none of the SDCC 2019 exclusives, panel announcements or giant parties and events are on this list: I intensely do not care about them. In fact, other than an hour on Friday and Saturday night spent at parties, I actively avoided all of them, choosing to put my limited time and energy (during the single week each year where these are in the shortest supply) towards what I really care about: all of you! This is my 15th straight Comic Con. None of the big pop culture events or announcements or parties have lived in my brain during that time like the conversations, dinners and times shared with friends, both old and new! The majority of what is celebrated at SDCC each year is so incredibly disposable that I suggested to the team that we should start a betting system on our site to see which shows, properties and brands wouldn’t exist in just one year (but, you know… “don’t hate, create” and all that). What matters are the people who are there and make up our community. And we are suffering through a real mental health epidemic that is costing people their lives. Knowing that, I don’t really enjoy the disposable pop culture stuff anymore but I see the importance in using metaphors, stories and the shared passions that bring us together to keep us all going. I’d rather talk about the “real shit” than the things that just don’t really matter. Because of that, the highlight for me was my talk with Darryl “DMC” McDaniels on the podcast we recorded at the Geekscape booth. Darryl started the podcast interview thinking he’d be talking about his comic book and I think he was taken a bit by surprise when I turned the conversation towards mental health and his battles with depression. But like the “real gangster” he is, he didn’t blink and went all in in talking about it. Listen to the conversation on this week’s episode and tell me that wasn’t some real shit. And the real shit is what Geekscape is all about. Thanks for an awesome week full of real experiences, everyone!

Stephen Bay (of Analog Jones and the Temple of Film)

This was my very first time going to San Diego Comic-Con, and the journey definitely did not disappoint. I had a ton of experiences that I could have listed here but for speed, I’ll narrow it down to three. Without further ado, here we go!

3. Ray Harryhausen: The Lost Movies Book Panel

If you know me, then you know that I love stop-motion animation. There was no way I would turn down a chance to hear about the godfather of stop-motion himself, Ray Harryhausen, and his lost movies and scenes. Filmmaker John Walsh put together this book with never before seen drawings, projects, and characters from more than a dozen films from Ray Harryhausen. His presentation of how talented and hard-working Harryhausen was was a fantastic window into Harryhausen’s incredible career in Hollywood. 

A bonus was sitting with two of Weta Workshop’s special effects contributors that were just as big of fanboys as I am. I loved every moment of talking with them before and after about how he affected their childhoods and their work today. 

The book will be available on September 10, 2019. Pre-order today! That should earn me a free book.

2. The Angry Video Game Nerd Panel

Not many YouTube stars are as well known as James Rolfe in the gaming community. He’s the angry video game nerd that plays the sh*tty games, so you don’t have to. James Rolfe shared his experiences of being a YouTube star and filmmaker. He’s always well-spoken and honest about the struggles and successes of his long career on YouTube. 

The most memorable and bizarre moment of the panel came at the Q&A when a fan asked about James Rolfe’s friend and contributor on AVGN, Mike Matei. A fan waited in line to ask about the size of Mike Matei’s penis. I’m not kidding. Why anyone would ask that is beyond me but talk about a strange moment! 

1. San Diego’s environment!

San Diego’s embracement of nerd culture was by far the best experience for me. The entire city just gave me a big dorky hug that I will never forget. Every restaurant and bar had drink and food specials based off comic hero’s and villains. The streets were loaded with cosplay characters and street performers at night. On top of all that, it seemed like every block had events planned with stars or personalities based on anything comics or anime. All this was before you even stepped into the convention center to be overwhelmed and amazed with trailer drops and displays of future movies and streaming shows to come out soon. 

I have to take a second to call out the Geekscape crew that gave me this opportunity. I can’t thank them enough for getting me a press pass and letting me experience SDCC 2019. All seven of us stayed in one hotel room and got along great. It was like I knew all of them, and we had just met. Thank you Geekscape for one hell of a trip. Let’s do it again!

Josh Jackson

3: The Nintendo Lounge

I was expecting to ignore the Nintendo Lounge this year since nearly every game on display was either out already or was covered during E3. Then I found out that MyNintendo members could scan their QR ID’s for free Splatoon 2 keychain sets that represented Team Chaos and Team Order from the Final Splatfest, (which happened to be going on during the con). That may have got my foot in the door, but there was plenty of reason to stay, including a special Southwest Airlines sponsored stage in Mario Maker 2 and a very odd digital claw game. Plus, being able to play games like Luigi’s Mansion 3 that I can’t wait to own come October was a huge plus.

2: Borderlands 3 Museum of Mayhem

Coincidentally, I had just finished Borderlands 2 a few days prior to the convention to prepare for the upcoming third game, so I was on a huge Borderlands kick when I happened to walk by the museum. Once inside, the room was filled with framed concept art, character statues, game themed paintings and a variety of cover ideas that ultimately failed to make the cut. Speaking of cutting, a free barber was on site to brand the game’s logo in the hair of fans, while Moxxi’s bar and photo ops kept the party going in the back. But it was easy to ignore all of that when we learned that codes were hidden throughout the exhibit that would grant points on the Borderlands VIP website to unlock in-game gear. We’d have to be psychos ourselves to pass that up.

1: Ryme City (Detective Pikachu Activation)

It was cool enough to be surrounded by the sights and sounds of Ryme City. From the subways to the alleyways and storefronts featured in the movie, I would have left satisfied based on that alone. It wasn’t until we got to Howard Clifford’s office however that it became my favorite activity of the convention. Mocked up like his desk from the film with Mewtwo leering in the background, (but not in a way that would lower our Defense), the room was loaded with a collection of items from the game that an evolution obsessed mastermind would surely collect. Seeing classic items like the Fire, Water and Thunder Stones and newer ones like the Shiny Stone and Prism Scale was a lifelong Pokemon fan’s dream come true. Even non-evolution based items like the Nevermeltice sat proudly on display. I literally wanted to leave with the entire office!

Derek Kraneveldt

3: The Offsites (it’s too hard to narrow it down to just one)

I absolutely adore experiencing all of the different offsite events at SDCC. The fact that these incredibly impressive events are built from scratch at the level that they are… just to be torn down a few days later is just baffling to me. Every year these things seem to get bigger and bigger (and I always wonder just how much return these companies get from them), and this year was no exception. From the Amazon Prime Video experience (check it out here) that took fans through memorable experiences for upcoming shows like The Boys and Carnival Row, and the anticipated return of The Expanse (or even the premiere events that had the likes of Orlando Bloom and Cara Delevingne dancing around in animal costumes), to the FX Fearless Forum, which turned sunny San Diego into a terrifying 1980’s Summer camp (and right across the lawn provided much-needed It’s Always Sunny sunscreen to those waiting in line), to the activation for EPIX’ upcoming Pennyworth, which transported visitors to a 1960’s club rife with influence from the mysterious Raven Society.

I could go on and on and on, but while the charm of the show floor itself starts to fade after this many years (and as it gets busier and busier), the insane offsite events are an experience that I’ll never tire of.

2: The Team

SDCC is tough, because the event itself is the only time of year where much of the Geekscape team comes together, and there are simply so many things pulling for your attention that you never get to spend as much time with everyone as you want to.

Usually I’ll try to fly into LA to spend a couple of non-convention days with some of the Geekscape crew, but this year I wasn’t able to make it happen. That said, the moments that we spent together this week are moments that I’ll remember for far longer than any activation or exclusive. From reconnecting at Rockin’ Baha (pretty much my favourite place in the world) just an hour after my plane landed, to standing in line waiting for badges while Jon and Matt badgered me to experience ‘Nu Thing’ (see Jon’s list above), to nearly dying of laughter as we reminisced about old SDCC stories in Seaport Village one night after the convention, to realizing that in our ‘Goodbye SDCC’ photo that Matt looked like a ventriloquist’s dummy without a hand in it, to running into Josh and Megan completely by accident while in line for the Borderlands 3 Museum of Mayhem. There were just too many moments to list them all, and I absolutely adore all of them.

I consider all of these people family, and I wish that I could spend more time with them than I do.

1: Seeing the convention through fresh (Mikaela’s) eyes

This event is crazy. This event is exhausting. After seven years, there are absolutely elements of SDCC that don’t feel as fantastic as they once did (like the actual show floor, for instance).

SDCC is an event that you can describe, show photos and videos of, and tell people just how insane it actually is, but until you’ve experienced it yourself you really have no idea.

This year, my fiancé Mikaela joined me for SDCC. We don’t actually get to spend all that much time together, so if this wasn’t sweet enough, being able to experience the convention with someone who has never been to an event of this size before was absolutely reinvigorating. Seeing her excitement for grabbing an exclusive here, or for spotting a celebrity there, or for experiencing an offsite here, or for figuring out how we were going to get all of our crap home was simply phenomenal, and was a stark reminder as to why I started attending these things in the first place.

She also did a ton of work at SDCC that I’m still catching up on, and I can’t wait to see all of the incredible cosplay that she captured on the @GeekscapeForever Instagram page!

Mikaela Maxwell

How does one even pick a top 3 of SDCC!? I feel like I could have a top 3 of each day, however I will try to narrow it down so this isn’t a novel! So here they are in no particular order: 

Meeting Daniel Danger

We have been collecting prints by Daniel Danger through Mondo for years now, and some of my favourite art is by him. I totally did not realize that he would have a booth at SDCC and was so pleased to accidentally stumble across it! I got to meet him, and hear him talk about the meaning of some of his pieces, and I got to buy a couple of prints directly from him (check out his store here)! Amazing!

Getting to go to the premiere of Carnival Row.

It was super neat to attend this exciting atmosphere where everyone was so jazzed about this project and stoked to present it to the world. The actual show was really great too, I’m now anxiously waiting to see the rest of it! And to top off the experience, Orlando Bloom was there!

Having the b’jeezus scared out of me at the American Horror Story activation.

This activation was so well done that I was almost grabbing the stranger in front of me to avoid getting lost or murdered in the middle of it. I haven’t watched American Horror Story in a few years, but I’ll probably have to now cause it was freaking intense!

And as a side note, my personal favourite was getting to spend so much time with Derek. We don’t very often get to spend so much time together and it was a real treat to get to share so many fun experiences! On top of that I got to meet the Geekscape team who are a bunch of his favourite people in the world! All in all the trip was amazing and I am so glad I got to go to SDCC 2019!

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX

Matt Kelly

Most of my Comic-Con is spent by sitting at a table and shaking hands but that doesn’t mean that I left SDCC without a few highlights!

3) Scooters with Derek & Mika

Some people complain about the scooters but just riding through the streets with Derek and Mika and taking in the beautiful city is a blast for me.

2) Hacking at the table

Multiple times this week we’d start some hack circles with Jonathan’s Punchline branded Hacky Sack which lead to some great memories and a fantastic way to meet new people.

1) Dinner with the Team

Didn’t matter if it was Rockin’ Baja, Old Spaghetti Factory, Lolita’s or Coin-Op. Everywhere we ate had great food, even better conversations and laughter for hours.

SDCC 2019: ‘Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light’ Author, Co-Creators Talk Creating A Universe, Working With Stan, And More!

by Mikaela Maxwell

I’ve always been a huge reader, but as life shifts and changes, and commuting takes up more of my day, I found myself not making as much time for it. Then I discovered Audible, and it changed my world! In the couple of years since joining Audible I have listened to almost 50 different titles! A lot while commuting, but also while cleaning, gardening, getting ready in the AM… you get the picture. So naturally my interest was piqued when, shortly before commencing my first SDCC trip, I received an invitation to have an experience and do an interview with the creators of a new Audible Original, Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light!

Photo Credit: Audible

Not only was this an Audible project, but it was also one of the final collaborative projects from the illustrious Stan Lee, in a totally new universe, with totally new characters, created for a totally new format! Needless to say, my interest was extremely piqued. That being said I almost didn’t jump at this opportunity because I didn’t know if I was a good choice for the job. It’s not like it would be my first interview (I interviewed my face off at last years PAX West) but this project just felt so precious and special, and like it needed to be handled with such respect and skill. I wasn’t sure if I could do it justice. However with much support and encouragement from my Geekscape mentor (AKA Derek!), I decided to say yes to this amazing opportunity!

Photo Credit: Me

On Thursday, July 18th, the first Full day of SDCC, I was able to head into the A Trick of Light activation. This was a super neat experience, and I wish everyone was able to try it out. The activation allows you to experience excerpts from the story, narrated by the incredible Yara Shahidi, accompanied by captivating lighting sequences and effects. There are no characters or scenes laid out in front of you, you are required to create the image of the characters through your imagination, but the way light is used inside the activation creates an atmosphere that plunges you directly into the story alongside the characters.

Photo Credit: Audible

The activation kicks off by having you experience the storm that changes the life of one the main characters; through lights, and mirrors, and narration you feel immersed into this character’s experience. You are then lead into, as Ryan so eloquently described, a light labyrinth. Here you find yourself turning corners and coming to dead ends, where there is a cone of sound around you, allowing you to have a private-feeling experience of the narration, while being mesmerized by an accompanying lighting sequence. As you go to leave, you are lead down a hallway, accompanied by Stan Lee’s voice, and I doubt I was the only one to tear up at this point in the experience!

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible
Photo Credit: Audible
Photo Credit: Audible

Saturday hit and that meant it was time for the interview! This was meant to be a round table interview, which means that a group of interviewers sits down (in this case at a literally round table) with the people to be interviewed, and take turns asking questions. My expectation was this would be beneficially because other people would have really smart questions that I would get to hear the answers to, and that it would be extra stressful because I would be feeling self conscious in front of peers. I was very wrong.

As it turned out, during the time slot that I was there, it was myself and one other interviewer, Josias Arebalo with The Comic Syndicate, accompanied by co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert, as well as co-writer Kat Rosenfield. Turns out I needn’t have been nervous at all! Everyone was very nice, and the interview went off without a hitch. Together we asked a few good questions, and more importantly heard a lot of really great explanations about how this project was developed, the process of making it come to life, and how important and exciting it is to have developed it for the Audible platform.

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible

So please take a read and enjoy getting inside the head of these incredibly creative and talented humans!

Josias Arebalo: All right guys, we are here reporting from San Diego Comic-Con 2019. We’re here with some very special guests from Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light. Please feel free to introduce yourselves.

Luke Lieberman: Luke Lieberman. I’m one of the co-creators.

Kat Rosenfield: Kat Rosenfield, author.

Ryan Silbert: Ryan Silbert, co-creator.

JA: And we have another very special guest.

Mikaela Maxwell: I’m Mikaela Maxwell, I’m with Geekscape.

JA: If you guys could please just break down exactly what this experience is and how it came about. Start off with a little bit of everything, that way our listeners can get a better background.

KR: I think we should talk about the book first. This is an Audible Original. One of the most innovative, and one of the last collaborations that Stan [Lee] completed in his lifetime. It’s a totally immersive experience and it’s the story of, I’m gonna keep broad strokes here, two young people who have gifts and whose connection with each other is so powerful that it could save the world or it could destroy it.

JA: Awesome premise already! Since it is one of Stan’s last projects he was working on, how did it grow from there? How did it come about and what was the collaboration process?

LL: I met Stan in the year 2000 when I was a film student at NYU. At that point Stan was very excited about the Internet and what it could mean for us as a tool to communicate ideas, and for people to communicate with each other. Cut to about a decade and a half later, Stan was my mentor so I knew him throughout, but you cut to a decade a decade and a half later and he became much more keenly aware of how that tool was being misused and how the Internet had become a tool for division. Manipulating people’s perception and manipulating people, and how the anonymity of the Internet was causing us to dehumanize each other. This story is very much about finding real connections in a, you know, virtual space. The idea of A Trick Of Light is that all of these digital realities, virtual realities, augmented realities, and just what you see on your phone or on your screen every day, that’s not real. That’s A Trick Of Light.

RS: Just the brass tacks of it: this was a multi year process of working and world building, creating many characters and many story threads, and the foundations of what became Alliances. Then, once the choice was made to introduce the story through A Trick of Light, bringing it out as an Audible Original was something very exciting for all of us, especially Stan, because it allowed us to tell this story and introduce this universe in a really immersive way. These are characters developed for audio, and it allows you then to have a very personal connection and, co-authored with Kat here, it brings you inside the journey of Cameron, Nia, Juaquo and Zoll, and all of the other characters, in a way that really no other format allows. So that’s what was really special for us in terms of how we decided to release the project.

RS: Now in terms of where we’re sitting right now, we are at SDCC at what was a mind blowing experience for the three of us because we walked in here, and it is a completely dark room [with] basically a light labyrinth that brings you inside of the story in a way that I have never, ever, experienced. Truly I wish all the listeners could come step into Fourth Avenue and walk through the A Trick of Light installation because it is mind blowing!

KR: This activation really encapsulates perfectly how gripping it is to be told a story in audio. So many of the other spaces at Comic-Con rely on visual spectacle, in here it’s really just about the story; and it’s about the voice of Yara Shahidi, our incredible narrator.

JA: The writing process for this, how long did it take?

LL: As Ryan was saying, the world building started years ago. We were just building out characters and story threads, and when Stan decided that he wanted to introduce this universe through a long form narrative, then Audible became an opportunity. First of all for Stan I think just working the audio medium it was something he hadn’t done a million times and at that point in his career that got him excited.

RS: Yeah.

KR: He’d never done it, it was completely new!

LL: Right. Exactly. Finding a new storytelling medium for Stan Lee in his 90s…

MM: What an incredible opportunity!

LL: That’s when we took this this universe that was created, and the characters, and started to focus them into a single narrative, which is A Trick of Light, the story that introduces you to the characters in the universe.

RS: The foundations of the Alliances universe come from the question that Stan asks in the intro which is: ‘What is more real? The world we’re born into or the one we create for ourselves?’. You know as fans you wait your whole life to hear Stan ask that ‘what if’ question. Cause we’ve read all of that work, and to hear that it unlocked so many opportunities and potential, to develop Alliances, to introduce Cameron and Nia through Trick of Light. That question is is so meaningful to all three of us and Stan.

JA: How big is the space we are in right now? [For the A Trick of Light SDCC Activation]

LL: Well there is this room, which is where you’re first introduced to it, then there’s a hallway that takes you to a larger space, and then there’s a hallway with Stan’s audio that brings you out.

RS: For listeners [or readers] you walk in and it says here ‘The Great Beyond’, and that’s where you experience the beginnings of the journey of the story. Right, and you go into the great beyond…

LL: The great beyond lies within.

RS: ‘The great beyond lies within’, which is from the book. Each space is developed and each little experiences develop from a piece of the narrative. There are massive audio modules that allow you to focus in on Yara’s terrific performance and the terrific writing of Stan and Kat, and really walk out of this experience with a different understanding of the story in a way.

KR: I just want to add on, because we haven’t actually made this explicit yet, what you’re doing in this activation is that you’re experiencing our main character Cameron’s transformation from an ordinary person into something a little bit superhuman.

LL: Cameron 2.0.

KR: Yeah, Cameron 2.0.

JA: I know you’ve been working on the project for years, but for the activation in general how long did it take to put something like this together?

RS: We don’t know.

LL: We are the wrong people to ask!

RS: We create the world, there are geniuses here that create this world. I think what’s really moving about this installation, not only as people who have worked on the project for so many years, is Stan has such an amazing connection with fans. We’re sitting at this table because he built the fan community basically brick by brick prior to the 60s and then into the 60s with the Marvel Age. You know, through soapboxes and through his talks on campus, and then came connections, and then came the Internet. Prior to that was sending letters around from penpals, through the fan pages. Here it’s great because you get to experience the Stan Lee story with fans. Then on the way out Stan, is no longer with us, but he is present. As you exit the intro plays and it’s very very moving. For us during this part of the experience we really miss him, because this is what he really enjoyed so much, he was a long [time] mentor of Luke’s, and you know this is really special activation experience.

KR: He feels present in this moment, not just because you hear his voice as you leave this experience, but you just see how excited everyone is to share in this story, and we’re so excited, and it really just feels like he’s kind of here.

LL: Also actually when you leave and you’re hearing his voice it just remind me of how excited he was to work. This was a project he was excited about, and you sort of hear it. And Stan’s excitement is contagious, it’s infectious, and it gets all of his collaborators excited, it gets you motivated.

MM: So Alliances is a universe, does that mean there will be other things to come of this?

KR: Well for the moment we are very focused on the release of the Audible Original, we’ve been working on this for a long time and couldn’t talk about it for the longest time because it was all under cloak and dagger and it was super secretive. So you know, we’ll say that universes tend to expand and it would be a little weird if this one didn’t. But right now we’re very focused on A Trick of Light and just getting the fan community excited to be part of this journey and to get in with these characters.

MM: Do you think that this particular Audible Original could expand into VR or something? Because walking through this experience I could totally see sitting at home in like a VR world kind of experiencing the light and sound and stuff all at once.

KR: That is a cool idea.

RS: I think one of the things that’s so beautiful about audio is that, I believe and we all believe because we’re working in it, it is like the most immersive experience. There’s a lot of spectacle to virtual reality, but when it comes down to it 52% of your experience in a film, probably more but let’s just go with 52% percent, is the sound. You forget it because it becomes part of the story, it becomes part of the backdrop, but it is so important. So I think the most immersive way to experience the story would be through audio.

KR: I will say we we have a print edition coming out in September. So you know there’s a lot of raw material here that I think can function really well in any number of mediums.

LL: When we were talking about how [Stan] was excited about the opportunity to do something he hadn’t done before, which was an Audible story, one of the things that got him excited was the idea that his fans would collaborate with him and that they would visualize the story, and that they could be the [Jack] Kirby or the [Steve] Ditko and they would create their own versions of the characters. We didn’t really overly describe the characters because we wanted everyone to be able to sort of visualize their own version of Cameron and Juaquo and Nia… and Zoll… and Six [and another character that I could not make out on the audio]

KR: You just named off every single character!

RS: You just named off every character!

KR: We never talk about Barry, the old man.

LL: Yeah we really should, he is like one of my favourite characters.

MM: Just out of curiosity I feel like I’m noticing a trend of technology and humans kind of intermingling in a way that they haven’t previously, in comics and movies and stuff like that. Do you have any ideas on why that is, why that’s happening at this point in time.

KR: I think it’s happening in real life! [Said simultaneously with one of the guys, to peels of laughter from everybody]

KR: What this story is really reflective of is what it’s like to live right now, in a world where technology influences our lives, where it’s our primary medium for connecting with and communicating with each other. Sometimes it’s even our exclusive medium for knowing somebody. So I think that this story is another way, a different angle, to explore the anxieties and the questions and the concerns that arise from already living in an age where technology is so much a part of our lives. It’s already a part of our identities, you know, you shape this self online. So I think it flows very naturally from something that’s actually happening.

LL: We’re not experts in technology, we’re not scientists or anything, but we did a lot of research to just kind of see where things were at, and what was coming and what was around the corner, to sort of inform the storytelling.

RS: With A Trick of Light, as Luke was saying, we did do real world research, we went up to Cornell, Stanford, the Human Interaction Lab where the Oculus was created and were informed by a lot of the real [technology] that the fantastical was developed off of. But all of Stan’s stories, and I think this is why his stories tend to stand the test of time, they are mythologically based, they’re character based, but they also are set in a world that’s familiar to ours. With [Fantastic Four] or with the Hulk, these are amazing characters that can develop and be set in different kinds of context, but where they were set originally were and things that felt very real like: Spidey swings down Sixth Avenue, Hulk is dealing with the nuclear age. We hadn’t been to space at the point at which Reed Richards [of Fantastic Four] went up there [to space]; Kirby and Stan rendered that from their imagination. So great storytellers, I do think on trend, will notice and be able to set great stories and great characters inside of things that feel familiar to us. And I think that’s something that in this story Kat and Stan achieved.

JA: You know any goal starts with an idea. I’m gonna ask you guys and odd question, but it might be different for each of you as far as the answer goes. What was the most difficult thing about the project to get it to where it is now. Did you find a certain stage where it was like we’re not getting this, or part of the script, or was it more the technological aspects?

LL: The nice thing is that we have a very very experienced storyteller to kind of help. We had a Gandalf guiding us through the path, and it was a team sport. So you know, if you’re bumping up against something maybe Kat has a solution or maybe Ryan has an idea you can throw out. That I think was the benefit of the collaborative process.

KR: Yeah, I will say that when I came on board I expected it to be so much harder than it was. You know I’m coming from a background of writing novels and in my experience that’s always been a very lonely solitary thing. You spend two years just rattling around in your head trying to create something, it’s just you and hopefully you emerge at the end, back into the sun with a manuscript that’s in decent shape. Getting three more brains into the mix I thought would be difficult, you know, to kind of create that mesh. I was like oh my God how is this going to work are you going to be able to see the seems in this narrative where each person contributed something, but it’s not like that at all.

RS: The hardest thing that I bump up against is just getting creeped out every time a certain sequence happens in the Audible Original. I can’t help but hear it and be like ooh super spooky.

KR: What creeps you out?

RS: Well I don’t know, no spoilers here.

LL: Have you met Six? [All laughing]

KR: I have I lived inside his head. [laughing]

RS: Yeah. Creeps me out.

LL: Have you met Zoll?

RS: What do you mean, that happens on Sixth Avenue every day!

JA: For our listeners and audience can you let us know where we can find you, and if you are working on anything that we can get on board with?

LL: I have a mini series out now called Red Sonja: Birth of a She Devil. I also control the Red Sonja franchise so I’m sure you know everything else that’s being done on the publishing side for us!

To learn more about these crazy talented people you can find them on social media at:

Luke Lieberman: @TheRealRedSonja on Twitter

Kat Rosenfield: @KatRosenfield on both Twitter and Instagram

Ryan Silbert: @RyanSilbert on Twitter

And if you are looking for a new listen, or want to get in on the newest Stan Lee endeavour, I highly recommend heading over to Audible right now to get started on Stan Lee’s Alliances: A Trick of Light!

Photo Credit: Audible

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part VI

by Mikaela Maxwell

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! (I really hope you are hearing that announcers voice when saying Sunday 3 times in your head!) I hadn’t actually scheduled anything for Sunday, so I kinda figured it would just be a day of wandering the floor, lookin around, and not really having anything to write about. Welp, I was wrong.

Sunday did start off pretty chill, having a coffee in the lobby of the hotel so I could catch up on writing and not be distracted by wanting to hang with our posse. When I did decide to mosey over to the convention centre it was well past the early morning crush of standing in line for an hour to just get in the building. As I casually strolled in, I immediately started coming across the most amazing cosplay. I easily hung out in the lobby for a couple hours just snapping pics of all these amazing outfits. So keep an eye on our Instagram @geekscapeforever over the next couple months to see what I found, and here are a few of my favourites!

@fellowhermit As Faun from Pans Labyrinth
@claire.e.rose As Eleven from Stranger Things season 3
@cosplaymom99 as Carl Fredricksen from Up
@magnetomystique as Mystique from X-men

Once I’d had my fill of cosplay and Derek tracked me down, we decided to check out the harbour side area of the convention centre, to grab a street meat and enjoy the salty windy air, before it was time to go to the FX area to experience the newest American Horror Story activation. This visit with FX was a last minute gig for us so it hadn’t really been on my radar, but I am sooo glad I got to experience it. Hard to say what my top experience was, but this definitely falls into my top 3!

The FX set up was pretty sweet. It was all on the lawn between a hotel and the back of the convention centre, in these big white irregularly shaped structures that kind of formed a circular central area. In addition to American Horror Story they had an It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia sunscreen station, which I didn’t use soon enough 🥵, an Archer oxygen bar, a Mayans temporary tattoo trailer, a Fox swing station, and a What We Do in the Shadows vampire house.

We sampled some flavoured oxygen, which allowed you to switch between various fruity smells for you to enjoy through the nasal prongs pumping O2 into your face. That was a weird experience! Derek wasn’t able to tell the difference at all and said it just smelled like plastic, so we’ve decided in addition to his colour blindness, he also has oxygen smell blindness.

We then headed into the American Horror Story: 1984 area, where you and 6 other people walk into a camp councillor’s office as the new recruits, and are greeted by the friendliest and most enthusiastic camp running guy you’ve ever met! The room is set up as the perfect picture of what I imagine a camp office would be in the 80’s, with a CB radio, a rolodex filled with marked business cards, a dart board on the wall and some mounted canoe paddles. Within moments, you start to hear another camp councillor over the radio panicking that something has gone horribly wrong out there in the woods.

The friendly old man leaves to solve the problem and we are left with a bubbly ditzy terrified camp councillor, sporting the perfectly crimped hair (in a side pony) and bubblegum pink lipstick. Shortly after we all run out into the woods, which is legit terrifying, it’s so hard to see anything, there are trees everywhere and I wanted to hold onto the stranger in front of me so I wouldn’t get lost in the forest (it’s mind boggling to me that they can create an atmosphere that feels so real and creepy that I was legit scared of getting separated from our group)!

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX

As we are rounding a corner to get into the shelter of a cabin, a man with a balaclava emerged from the bushes and started heading our way. I don’t remember the last time I was so legitimately scared by something that I knew logically was all a ruse!? I’m pretty sure I tried to push past people so that I could be further away from him.

Once in the cabin we had to search for a key, and then were instructed to hide in a closet which turned into a long hallway, while the scary tall man continued to stalk toward us. As we ran down the hallway hands were coming out near the ground and grabbing onto our legs. Once at the end of the hall we managed to close a door and lock ourselves in another room as the masked man almost reached us. At which time lights flashed and a chain saw began to cut through the wall.

Turns out the lights flashing was actually a photo being taken, which managed to capture the back of my head as I both turned away from the lights to avoid what ever terror that was about, while nervously inspecting the closed door behind me sure that the masked man was about to burst in!

I can not give this activation enough praise! It was absolutely immersive, I was on edge (or terrified) the entire time and convinced that I was deep in some creepy camp woods. This experience has me well ready to get back into watching AHS when 1984 premieres this September .

Once we finally escaped from that horror, and took a minute to recovery and laugh our faces off, we headed over to the What We Do in the Shadows installation.

For Shadows you go through an elaborate door and enter into the living space of two Vampires. The space consists of dark Victorian era decorations, making up a bar area and two little living areas, with a photo opportunity in one corner. I’m not sure if the two Vampires in this place were actual characters from the show, but either way they were right on point with the shows humour! They were improvising like nobodies business with such amazing dry humour, working off of each other, as well as the visitors. Just standing around watching them bicker at each other was perfect! Once again I have another show to put on the list as a must watch!

We got out of FX shortly before their activation shut down for the day at 2pm, and finally it was time for me to try to walk the convention floor!

Almost as soon as we got in the building I wanted to escape. My previous experience of conventions has taught me that the final day of the show is usually a lot more chill than the rest of them. Oh how very wrong I was. We headed into artist alley, and I swear I couldn’t actually see any artists or their art cause there were so many freaking people!

We did manage to walk most of the show floor, but I really didn’t feel like I saw that much, and it definitely wasn’t very enjoyable. It’s so stressful trying to even move, and if you want to stop and look at something or god forbid change directions, well you better be ready for a trampling!

I managed to find my way back to Daniel Danger’s booth, where I got to meet the artist himself. He was so lovely and open, sharing with the people in the booth the meaning behind some of the quotes on his prints and what the art represents to him. He was willing to talk about mental health and some of the struggles he has faced. It was so amazing and refreshing to meet someone you admire, and have them be so kind, honest, and vulnerable. Honestly he is so talented and I am such a fan he had the opportunity to be snooty and above it all, but was the most approachable stranger I met all weekend.

Daniel Danger and I, with a backdrop of his amazing work!

After much deliberation I picked a print for my self and went on my way. About ten minutes later while searching for a gift for Derek’s dad I realized Danger had done a print of Batman standing on top of a Blockbuster building and it would be the perfect gift for Derek’s dad. His dad is into comics and super heroes, and pretty much every conversation I’ve ever heard Derek and his dad have has started with ‘So have you seen (insert movie title here) yet?’, plus we are both huge fans of Danger, so this seemed like it would be the perfect meaningful gift.

“i’m sorry again for everything i’ve been”
By Daniel Danger on Instagram @tinymediaempire

We rushed back to the booth only to find that the spot where these prints had been was now filled by something else. Knowing there had only been 2 left I was sure we had missed our opportunity, but upon asking discovered they were sitting underneath the new print, PHEW! We asked him to write a note to Derek’s dad to which he agreed and then proceeded to write the most hilarious little love note from father to son. I’m stoked. What a great experience, and lovely gift. Maybe sometimes it is ok to meet your heroes 🙂 (Now we just have to cross our fingers that it makes it home on the plane!)

Shortly after that, SDCC 2019 came to an end. Our posse gathered at the Geekscape booth and took a final group shot before immediately heading to Old Spaghetti Factory for a much anticipated (by Matt and Derek) final meal! After which we broke down the booth, said goodbye to Gui and headed to the hotel for a much needed hot tubbin! What a time!

#GeekscapeForever. (Sorry Matt, I had to use the lifeless ventriloquist dummy photo, cause it’s just too good!)

Overall I had an amazing time at my first SDCC! The activations were amazing, everything felt like a spectacle, the floor was huge, the variety insane, the literal amount of different entertainment and products to consume were absolutely baffling. Some of these things were a double edged sword which left me with a little FOMO, such as being so I busy I didn’t end up getting to any panels, the crowds made wandering the floor less enjoyable, and getting your hands on many of the exclusive exciting SDCC products next to impossible. But the incredible experience of getting to see premieres while seated next to their stars, being immersed in the worlds of various tv shows, meeting new and interesting people, eating yummy food, and getting to meet and spend time with the Geekscape team, all of these far outweighed the drawbacks.

Thanks for following along with my journey. Keep an eye on the site for more in depth looks at a few of the things we got up to while at SDCC. And remember to follow @geekscapeforever on Instagram to catch some of the sweet cosplay we saw on this crazy journey!

Xoxo Mika!

SDCC 2019: FX ‘Kills’ It With This Year’s ‘FX Fearless Forum’!

by Derek Kraneveldt

I’m so sad that San Diego Comic-Con is already over.

The Geekscape team descended from all over (like Philadelphia and Canada) to take in, hang out at, and cover the phenomenal event. If you’ve missed our coverage so far, you can check out the brand new Geekscape.net for daily recaps from myself and Mikaela, as well as coverage on some of the amazing offsite events that we were privileged enough to attend. There’s more coming down the pipeline as well, so be sure to keep your eyes tuned right here!

Mikaela also spent hours taking photos of so much of the next-level cosplay on display at SDCC, so be sure to follow the @GeekscapeForever Instagram page for a steady stream of incredible outfits.

As I mentioned in my spot on the recent SDCC special episode of Geekscape, I feel like after seven years, as the show floor gets unfathomably busier and as the few things that you actually want to buy require more and more and more work to do so, the expo hall itself definitely begins to lose some of its lustre. What continues to amaze me, however, is the absolutely insane work that these studios and distributors put into these temporary installations. The amount of work required to build these temporary buildings and giant logos and building wraps is just unbelievable… just for them to all be torn down like they never even existed days later.

This was Monday morning. Nothing is sacred.

Over the past few years, FX has been located on the back side of the convention centre, right across from the Hilton Bayfront hotel. In previous years the offsite event has been labelled as the FXHibition, and has always featured some cool art pieces, and absolutely impressive activations based on some of FX’ flagship shows, like the mixed-reality experience for Legion in 2017, or the insanely freaky ‘Fearless VR’ for American Horror Story. Looking back on previous years (not just for FX, but for SDCC as a whole) it’s certainly interesting to note that there appeared to be very few VR-driven experiences vs. previous conventions — this time around, nearly everything was practical.

As always, this year’s event was all new, and it brought with it a new name. The FX Fearless Forum was in the same location, and featured awesome (and practical) activations for series like Archer, What We Do in the Shadows, Mayans, It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and an incredible haunted house for American Horror Story: 1984. Keep scrolling for a few photos and impressions for each activation, and a description of the haunted house that basically had Mikaela peeing her pants.

The Fearless Forum seemed to have decent-length lines all of the time, but one thing that I was super thankful for was an open area where essentially anyone could just walk in and help themselves to sunscreen and hand-sanitizer. The area was themed after It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia, and I think it’s really nice that something super practical like sunscreen wasn’t locked behind a giant lineup, so a huge thanks to FX for this.

There was also a small setup for Mayans, that had a small trailer, a few motorcycles, and some biker-looking dudes giving airbrush tattoos to fans of the show.

Archer had a cool oxygen bar setup for Archer: 1999. I had no idea what an oxygen bar was prior to this event… and I kind of still don’t but it was a neat setup. The activation looked like a spaceship, and had a few interactive pieces around the area (and even a trivia game on some tablets, which you can also play at home using your Amazon Echo). At the bar itself there were a number of different oxygen stations. You stick a plastic tube in your nostrils (thankfully FX provided a new one for each person), and select between different ‘flavours’ of oxygen to breathe, like Piña Colada, Orange/Peach, Chocolate/Cherry, and Lavender/Balsam Fir needles. I think that my sense of smell may be nearly as bad as my sense of sight, because while Mikaela could sense a stark difference between each ‘flavour’, I was definitely struggling to tell any difference. The oxygen apparently perks you up, but I didn’t really need it, as the next activation for American Horror Story: 1984 absolutely pumps you full of energy.

The next activation was called American Horror Story: 1984 – Face The Darkness, and is basically a very impressive (and very scary) haunted house experience. Coming out of this experience, I think that it was the very best singular activation held at SDCC this year. I also thought that Face The Darkness utilized its small space so well, and that the way that the aviation weaves you through the different rooms and areas made the space feel far, far larger than it actually was. You start out with six other ‘camp counsellors in training’ in a small room filled with 1980’s paraphernalia like VHS tapes and old board games, and this marks your introduction to Camp Redwood, where you’ll be spending the next ~15 minutes (and probably much of September/October when the show airs). After a couple of moments, the lead counsellor comes in to tell you about all the training that you’re about to go through (this guy was super charismatic and kept making great dad jokes, and was even wearing the same shorts in this 1984 experience as Matt Kelly was that week), like how to use the very convenient and sophisticated night vision goggles when another counsellor bursts through the door to tell you all that something has gone terribly wrong in the forest, and that there is something out there. The lead counsellor tries to reach the camp director on the radio, and decides to go after her when he can’t. Seconds after he leaves, a terrified camp director warns us over the radio that something is in the forest and to get away while we can.

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX

So, just like the 1980’s slasher films that the experience (and upcoming season of American Horror Story) is based on, instead of running in the opposite direction, the counsellor that’s left instead leads us into the forest (and she didn’t seem to hear me when I asked “Why don’t we bring these night vision goggles with us?” either).

So we leave the cabin, and are all of a sudden in a foggy forested area that sort of reminded me of the swamp from the DC Universe Swamp Thing activation last year. You could see a truck off in the distance, you were having to fan through branches and leaves that blocked your path, and you had no idea where counsellor was leading you. Again, we’re inside in the middle of a temporary building in the Gaslamp District of San Diego, but this forest felt real as hell. The counsellor ends up leaving us in a wrong director, and as we turn around, a tall man with his face obscured appears in the fog and begins walking towards us. The counsellor screams, Mikaela and some of the other attendees scream louder, and beginning running through some tight forested corridors towards a cabin in the distance. I’m at the back of the pack, and just as I’m about to turn each corner, I look behind me to see the tall man right there, pacing relentlessly with the classic Jason Voorhees walk.

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX
Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX
Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX
Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX

We get into the cabin — I somehow make it through just before someone else and in their terror they nearly slam the door on my hand (it would have been worth it). Everyone is freaking out, and the camp director has taken refuge here too. She asks us what we’re doing there, and reiterates that we need to escape, and tasks us all with finding a key somewhere in the room (I’m not sure if it was to the truck outside or something else), all while the killer is outside banging on the door. After a couple of minutes, someone screams, as the killer is now crawling through the window on the opposite side of the cabin. The director tells us to all go into the closet, which ends up being a way out of the cabin, and we’re now walking through a nearly pitch-black area with people randomly grabbing at our feet (there was a lot of screaming here, naturally).

Joe Scarnici/Getty Images for FX

We finally make it to another room, where for a moment we think we’re safe, until we see that the walls are covered in bloody writing. We start looking around at what to do next, when a huge banging sound freaks everyone out even more, and when a chainsaw juts through the wall in front of us. The lights come up, everyone starts nervously laughing, and the experience is over.

We’re led into the final room, where we have our badges scanned so we can be emailed the GIF of the final jump scare, and where we could help ourselves to some AHS themed goodies.

Again, the activation freaked the hell out of everyone, and I loved every second of it. It’s still completely crazy to me that they were able to pull of such an insane, and truly scary experience in such a small space.

The other standout at the Fearless Forum was the What We Do In The Shadows lair. This was a small-ish room (with great AC) that was, naturally, a vampire’s lair. Inside there was a photo-op where you could “become” a vampire, which was cute, and the decor of the room felt just like what you’d expect from watching the series. The best part here were the two vampires that were walking around, interacting and making fun of visitors, and bickering to each other in hilarious fashion. I swear I could have watched these two all day, it was wonderful.

The general area itself also housed a few photo opportunities including some cool FX logos (one made of PVC pipes that only looked like the logo when viewed from certain angles), a giant screen that showed just what people were tweeting about the Fearless Forum, and there were even areas where you could get customized merchandise like phone cases or hats. Overall, it was another phenomenal year for FX at SDCC, and the Forum was absolutely successful, as I definitely started watching the What We Do In The Shadows series on the way home, and after a couple of years of not watching American Horror Story, the September 18th premiere of 1984 is absolutely in my calendar.

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part V

by Mikaela Maxwell

Saturday actually had a pretty chill start to the day, I don’t think any of these crazy early risers that I was sharing a room with were really crackin’ until almost 7am. What a treat! It also started with groggily acknowledging the new additions to our Geekscape SDCC 2019 team: Steven and Kate. What a weird situation to stumble over people in the middle of the night and then meet them for the first time by waking up practically right next to them first thing in the morning.

My first scheduled appointment was a round table interview at 11am, so I had a slow easy start, waiting for everyone else to do their bathroom things and head out for the day. I headed out to my interview around 10:30, and realized as I was walking over that I was not nearly as nervous as I thought I would be, and I felt like I had totally no idea what to expect or if I was prepared. So I secretly stopped just around the corner from my destination to do some rapid Googling in hopes of feeling a little more confident!

Continuing my journey, I was working under the impression it would be myself and approximately 5 other press people along with 3 creators having either a discussion or taking turns asking questions. In one way I was happy to be with other people as they may have more insightful questions than I have, but more nervous cause now there are even more people paying attention when I talk.

When I arrived I asked the first person waiting in line if they were there for the round table, and he responded that he was, and pointed me toward the 2 PR people to check in. Everyone was super friendly and the 4 of us stood around chatting for a few minutes. I immediately discovered that this gentleman and I were going to be the only interviewers at the table, which left me feeling extra nervous! It quickly came out that this was my first round table (because I have no poker face), and I was asked if I was nervous, to which I replied yes very! Honestly though I’m glad I was straight up about it, all 3 of them were very reassuring and the gent who was heading in with me was all about that team work and offered to share his audio with me if mine crapped out. (Which ironically was the exact scenario of my first ever recorded interview about a year ago!)

Walking into the space we were introduced to co-writer Kat Rosenfield, and co-creators Luke Lieberman and Ryan Silbert. They were very friendly and obviously very passionate about this project. It was interesting to hear their thoughts on how this came about. We talked a lot about how audio is the most immersive way to experience a story, which is so true, and was totally enhanced during this activation by the various lighting spectacles within the space. I won’t go too in depth here,but will be posting the whole interview in the days to come!

Photo Credit: Jerod Harris/Getty Images for Audible

After the nerves of interviewing had been released I realized I was staaarving, and I need to catch up on some writing! So I head back to the hotel and and did just that while I waited for Derek to be available for lunch. It was nice to catch a quiet moment in air conditioning, with good wifi, away from all the chaos.

For lunch we decided to head to the BBQ place right across the street from our hotel: Kansas City Barbeque, which seems to be just on the periphery of the con craziness. It also happens to be well known as the iconic ‘sleazy bar’ scene from Top Gun. Now I have never actually seen Top Gun (shhhh don’t tell anyone) but I can usually tell when it’s being referenced, and I understand people are huge fans! So it was pretty neat to see all the paraphernalia and people so excited about this place. It was pretty entertaining too, it had that local pub vibe, the bar crowded with people drinking jugs of beer and telling jokes and singing songs, while a fan stacked with tons of bras whirled over their heads. And to top off the already great experience the food was super delish too!

Our next stop was the Borderlands Museum of Mayhem, presented by Nerdist. I always forget what Borderlands is, and once reminded I realize I actually quite like the game. I especially appreciate the art style and the way in which it lends itself to wicked awesome cosplay! I’ve only played it a couple times, but each time it’s been really fun with our good friends Mike and Laura, who live far away from us and it gets to feel like we are just hanging out in the same room. Video games are kinda neat how they can connect people from so far away and give you a space and activity to share experiences together. Technology is insane.

The line up for the Borderlands Museum wasn’t too bad, they were handing out really neat prints and fun masks while you waited. And we stumbled across OG Geekscape writer Joshua Jackson and his wife Megan, so it was nice to get to meet them in real life! The outside was decorated really cool with big Borderlands style painting in the windows, and a big statue of the robot assistant guy from the game. But as soon as you got inside it was even more amazing!

Where the Picard museum was very precise, proper, subdued, and felt like a real museum, this felt more like a super neat art show. There were huge statues of characters, and different Borderlands art pieces in so many different mediums, from a huge wall tapestry, to 3D paintings, and regular paintings, and pieces hanging from the ceiling. They also had 2 barber stations where people could get the Borderlands logo shaved into their fade. There was a bar, and a face painting station, as well as a green screen with props where you could create your own Borderlands GIF. It was actually super freaking neat and I’m really glad we made it happen.

When we were through with Borderlands we headed out to find food for Matt. Matt had been manning the booth all week, and was getting sick of eating from the same food places for days on end, so I had promised him we would bring him a meal from somewhere off site! We found the place called Berkeley Pizza, and I wished I didn’t have so much delish BBQ in my belly cause this deep dish looked soooo good. We grabbed a couple pieces for our boi and headed toward the convention centre. Only getting distracted one time by a quick piece of Panda Express chicken (where we also snagged Matt a pair of Panda ears!) before making it into the con with the rest of the convention crush!

After chillin at the booth for a few minutes I decided it was time to do the job I thought I had actually come here to do, and headed out to take some cosplay photos! It’s been interesting finding my role here with Geekscape. I do some writing, I do some podcasting, and I do a lot of social media. Usually social media looks like posting cosplay photos to Instagram, which I thought would be my main focus once landing at SDCC, however that hasn’t seemed to be the case. I’ve had interviews, taken part in experiences, and have been posting a lot of other stuff on our social media. Turns out when you are here participating in the experience (remember it’s my first time at SDCC) it’s a lot easier to stay on top of posting what is happening in the moment, instead of trying to post things randomly sent to you by the rest of the team while simultaneously cramming food in your face on your lunch break at work!

@jennalynnmeowri

I had heard many things about the cosplay at SDCC and it is actually quite amazing! I think I’ve been spoiled because the cosplay at ECCC is also very high caliber, but I’m at least equally impressed by what I’ve seen here! I also haven’t spent that much time at the convention centre this week (how in the eff did that happen!?) so I think I haven’t seen as much of it as I thought I would! I did see a guy dressed as a giant transformer, and a stranger dressed as Wonder Woman give him a water bottle cause he was having a struggle, so my heart was pretty full from that!

Once I realized my battery was almost dead and the convention would be closing for the day, I headed back to the floor to wander for a few minutes. I found some books to bring home to my nieces, and marvelled over beautiful art. I even stumbled across Daniel Danger’s booth! Daniel Danger (check him out here) is an artist that I absolutely love. We have several of his prints hung up at home, all of which we got our hands on through hard earned waits at the Mondo booth (hard earned by Derek over the last few years). I didn’t realize he would have his own booth here, and that it could possibly be so danged accessible! I literally just walked right up to the empty booth and started talking with the guys there. The artist himself had just left to wander the floor a bit, but the fella I was talking to had lots of info and actually had time to talk to me about the process and what not. It was really neat, and I’m a little concerned I will end up there again Sunday to buy more things!

When the convention closed some of the Geekscape posse went to horror panels, some went to the Old Spaghetti Factory, and Derek and I headed over to the Carnival Row Premiere.

Derek and I having a great little night out at the Carnival Row premiere !

Unlike The Boys premiere, we had press passes to this one, so we didn’t have to wait in line for hours. I had also learned my lesson about the sun going down and getting cold so I had brought a sweater.

As soon as we got in we snagged some great seats right in the centre of the second row, scored ourselves a graciously provided blanket, and grabbed some food and drink. There was once again an awesome DJ, Daisy O’Dell, and neat characters running around and/or dancing. I was particularly excited for this premiere as Orlando Bloom stars in this show, and 13 year old Mikaela was super jazzed on the possibility of being in the same space as him!

As the time was coming for the showing to start, four mascot characters showed up in the audience, surrounded by all of the official media crew. Needless to say we were pretty certain Orlando and the rest of the main cast were right there in those suits. They danced in the aisles and walked right past us to the front of the stage. Derek was pushing me to try to get a selfie with the purple hippo who I had decided was definitely Orlando, but I just couldn’t do it.

Cara Delevingne & Orlando Bloom

Fan girling is just too danged awkward and the whole situation did not feel conducive to it! I was still pretty thrilled to be there doing what we were doing. Even more so, when the mascots lined up less than ten feet in front of us and revealed themselves to be the stars of the show!

Once the show started, after Orlando and friends had taken their seats 20 feet to the right of us, I was mesmerized. The show is set in a society wrought with racism between humans and fairies and other creatures, and feels super relevant in today’s political climate (well, actually in every climate, cause history shows that humans have a real struggle with ever accepting other humans that are different than them). The characters are fierce and relatable, and you just wanna learn more about them. Amazon Prime seems to be hitting it out of the park, both with their SDCC presence, and their actual shows. I was immediately swept up in this show, and can’t wait to see the rest of the season, which begins to air August 30th!

This time when we got back to the hotel everyone was still awake, so they got to hear my excitement about Orlando, and the guys were none too impressed. Kate however was there to share in my excitement thank goodness (as was my BFF Nicole who I had texted immediately!) I crashed pretty hard and am looking forward to whatever the final day, Sunday, throws my way!

I can not believe we are going into the final day. I feel like there is so much happening. So much I haven’t done and seen, and no way to experience all the things. It’s amazing how ever single person here is having such a hugely different experience, but all sharing in the same geeky fandom! What a time!

Geekscape 516: The San Diego Comic Con 2019 Special!

by Jonathan

San Diego Comic Con is always my yearly barometer for how Geekscape is doing! Am I still having fun? Are we still meeting new people? Do people still get excited about being a part of Geekscape? Well, this year the resounding answer to all of these questions was YES! And I think this SDCC 2019 Special episode is evidence to that! We take you behind the booth to talk to Geekscape guests and contributors alike, including our friend Satine Phoenix, Dwarven Forge creator Stefan Pokorny, the director and star of your new favorite cult film ‘Velocipastor’, Rock and Roll Hall of Famer DMC and more! Along the way, Derek and I freak out over the Marvel Hall H presentation, Stephen Bay guests on the show for the first time and Matt Kelly runs the booth like a boss! It’s all here on this brand new episode… which is kinda like going to SDCC for yourself but without all of the body odor! Enjoy!

Subscribe to Geekscape on iTunes!

Follow Jonathan on Twitter and Instagram!

Join the Geekscape Forever Facebook Group!

Visit Geekscape.net for more Geekscape goodness!

Derek’s SDCC 2019 Recap: Friday / Saturday

by Derek Kraneveldt

If you missed my pre-con / Preview Night recap, head here!

If you missed my Thursday recap, head here!

Note: Friday was a bit of a chill day, so rather than publishing a smaller piece, it’s been combined with Saturday. That said — the Star Trek Picard Museum here is definitely worth a look!

Friday

With Mondo changing their line policy yesterday, I knew that I had to be at the convention centre early if I wanted any chance to get the Metal Gear poster that I completely fell in love with when it was announced last week.

So, as I did yesterday, I went into Hall E, went up the escalator and around the building, and waited. And waited. And waited. Today’s sea of people took far longer to be let in. The moment we were headed down the escalator to gain entrance to the exhibit hall, every door seemingly opened and people that had just arrived were getting in well before those of us who arrived 90+ minutes prior. This sucks, and I wish that 50 years in they had a better way to manage the opening of the convention. That said it must be an incredible stressful process, and I can’t imagine that any way that they could do it would result in everyone being happy.

Yep. That’s the line to get in.

As I did yesterday, I speed-walked over to Mondo as fast as I possibly could. They ran out of tickets about five people in front of me — as I sulked my way away from the booth, there were, naturally, a bunch of people in the very first line of the day, who also somehow had several tickets for later in the day proudly displayed in their SDCC badge holder.

Lame.

I went to take a look at the Mattel booth, as that Macho Man figure is still calling my name, and it was capped as well. The show floor at this point had a more hectic than usual feel, and for whatever reason I wasn’t feeling super hot, so I decided to dip out of convention centre until the morning rush calmed down a bit.

I traversed over the skybridge to meet up with Mikaela (she was just finishing up at the apparently tiny HBO Watchmen activation). We planned to head into the Petco Interactive zone, but I thought it would be a better idea to go grab some food instead. We walked around for a bit before finding some delicious tacos (and some breakfast soda because the coffee machine was broken).

At this point I just kind of wanted to sit for a bit, so we ate slowly and worked on articles, and after awhile decided to head over a couple of blocks to the Jean-Luc Picard exhibit. This offsite over at the Michael J Wolf Fine Arts at 363 Fifth Ave, from 11-9 on Friday and Saturday, and 11-5 on Sunday. It’s basically a museum exhibit celebrating the life and career of Captain Picard, and even though I’m not super into Star Trek, I absolutely appreciated the event. You can take a look at a couple of photos from the exhibit below, and check out my full write-up right here.

Following the Picard exhibit, we headed up just a few blocks further to a short but sweet meet up for Quantic Dream. We weren’t too sure what to expect here as details were light, but there were a ton of fans in Quantic Dream-themed cosplay (mostly Connor from Detroit: Become Human). Once we were inside, we got some cool Quantic Dream swag like stickers, a lanyard, and a bracelet, and both Bryan Dechart and Amelia Rose Blair from Detroit: Become Human were there to sign posters, chat, and take photos. Mikaela definitely fangirled as she absolutely adored the game (even writing a great piece about it here), and I was very glad we went.

Next up, I actually ended up winning a spot to the Funko X SDCC booth for 1:15. This wasn’t the main Funko booth, but a special booth selling just three SDCC 50th Anniversary items, including a Toucan Pop!, a Toucan PEZ, and a Batman with an SDCC 50 shopping bag. It was the only slot for the entire convention that Mikaela or I won in any lottery, so I’m thankful to have been able to pick up these items (and to start my Pop! collection which Mikaela has been resisting for years.

We then made a quick stop on fifth to check out the Syfy drum line, which featured some cool music, and some 90’s trivia between convention goers hosted by Orlando Jones. It was a super cool time.

Once we were done here, we headed back to our hotel for some water, and to get off of our feet for a bit (and to write up an article), and then Mikaela and and I headed down to the Amazon Prime Video Experience (once again) to try to jump into the The Boys premiere. The line was long, but shaded, and we met a few interesting people from Australia and Winnipeg that made the wait go by much more quickly. We made it in, had some food and drinks, and watched the first two episodes of the upcoming series (introduced by much of the series’ cast, including Karl Urban). As you can probably expect if you’re familiar with the book at all, the show is pretty hyper violent, super vulgar, and got a lot of laughs (and groans) from the crowd. On each seat there was a cool ‘F**k Supes’ foam (middle) finger, which is definitely a cool piece of merch that I didn’t see given out at any other point. Overall the event was a blast, I can’t wait to see more of the series when it launches on 7/26. Also I got to say hey to Karl Urban, which was a pretty rad moment for sure. A huge thanks for Amazon Prime for hosting us!

One the event was over, we walked back to our hotel and promptly went to sleep.

For Saturday, I’m committed to finally getting that Macho Man Randy Savage figure (unless the line is too long and then I’m not that committed), and we’ll also be hitting up the premiere of Carnival Row in the evening!

Saturday

After a semi-late night, I woke up far less tired than I’d originally anticipated.

I didn’t have too much on the docket today, but really wanted to try to get that Macho Man doll. Instead of flooding in and waiting forever in Hall E, I decided to just wait outside for B to open up, which is much closer to Mattel’s location, and which always seems to open up before I’d ever get down the escalator.

Because of this new strategy, I didn’t get to the convention centre until about 9AM. I knew that these doors wouldn’t open until 9:30 or so (and I think everyone else did too) but that didn’t stop much of the line from groaning and complaining every few minutes that they had to wait. I get that this part of the waiting definitely stinks (especially out in this heat), but I just don’t anticipate any good way to get this many people into a building at once. That said — I wish that they’d do as they say they do, and let everyone who goes through Hall E as instructed in first.

I b-lined it to Mattel. Naturally, the line was capped, and the crowd around the capped line was so heavy that security was threatening to shut the booth right down. I hung around for a few minutes to see if things would clear up. They definitely didn’t, and within 10 minutes both the best John Hammond figure, and my precious Macho Man were sold out for the day. I then ran over to Entertainment Earth to see what the cool Kenner Darth Vader Prototype stock was looking like, and it was sold out as well.

Yep, pretty much all of these people were trying to get to Mattel.

So I gave up on that stuff, and instead went over to the Geekscape booth to find team playing hackey sack in the middle of the aisle. I joined in for a bit, and we were freaking terrible at it, but it’s absolutely these weird little moments that make SDCC super memorable.

Shortly afterwards, a signing was about to start at the booth, so I decided to get out of everyone’s way. I ran down to Mondo to check stock on a couple of the day’s drops, not that I had a ticket, but for the last hour of the day, the booth was open for purchases. I asked a couple of guys how they managed to get such early tickets, and which door they entered at as it simply feels like there are no good options. One of them offered to grab the poster that I was looking for (since it was different than anything that they were looking for, and a ticket let you buy up to one of each thing available at any given time), and I was stoked. Then, unfortunately, the poster that he was hoping to grab sold out, so he just gave me and our other line friend his ticket and left.

So… I went wild and bought three more items. I went very quickly from “Oh I haven’t spent very much money yet,” to “Oh shit I’ve spent way too much money.” But I don’t buy anything like this for most of the rest of year, so I’m not too worried about it. I ended up grabbing this year’s limited The Babadook and The Transformers: The Movie poster, along with the somehow-still-in-stock Metal Gear Solid vinyl (the poster, however, was long gone). In any case, I’m super thankful to have had this opportunity at all, so a huge thanks to those friends in line who helped me it.

I then went back to the booth, grabbed my big-ass poster tube, and then very carefully walked everything back to the hotel (new Mondo’s dangling in the wind rather than in the tube, as there was simply no good place to put everything together).

Then, it was time for BBQ. We ended up at Kansas City BBQ, which is just across the street from our hotel, and which was used for a couple of scenes in Top Gun, and has become the self proclaimed ‘Top Gun Bar’. It didn’t take long to get in, but took about an hour for our delicious meat to arrive. They warned us of this though, so it wasn’t a big deal.

Mmm. Bbq.

Next up, we moved onto the Borderlands Museum Of Mayhem, which somehow only had about a 20 minute-long lineup. It was pretty busy inside, but it waiting in line got you some pretty rad swag, like masks, cool posters, and keychains. The are a ton of art pieces up around the museum, including a number of pieces of fan art, alternate key art for Borderlands 3, some amazing pieces made out of stained glass. There are also some huge standees of prominent Borderlands characters throughout the exhibit, and a couple of photo ops as well. You can also find some hidden codes around the area that should unlock sweet goodies in (I believe) Borderlands 3, and also a sweet gift shop covered in cool Borderlands merch. If you’re really brave, you can also have a Borderlands logo shaved into your head.

If you’re in San Diego, you can head to the museum at Sparks Gallery – 530 Sixth Ave, San Diego, CA 92101 from 12-5 on Sunday. It’s a cool experience, with a generally short wait, and some sweet swag for stopping by.

Following the Museum of Mayhem, we grabbed some Berkeley Pizza to bring back to a hungry Matt at the booth, and Mikaela went out to take cosplay photos while I hung out with the guys at the booth. Jonathan and I recorded a quick podcast segment talking about all of the in-progress Marvel announcements in Hall H (fuck yeah Blade) and soon after it was time to head out.

Side note — if you’re leaving SDCC at close, don’t expect to get anywhere quickly, as this is what it looks like, and also, this Starscream cosplay may be the best outfit I’ve seen this year:

At 7, we were back at the Prime Video Experience for the premiere of Carnival Row, a series created by Pacific Rim creator Travis Beacham, which stars Orlando Bloom and Cara Delvingne. The series is “ set in a Victorian fantasy world filled with mythological immigrant creatures whose exotic homelands were invaded by the empires of man. This growing population struggles to coexist with humans — forbidden to live, love, or fly with freedom. But even in darkness, hope lives, as a human detective, Rycroft Philostrate (Bloom), and a refugee faerie named Vignette Stonemoss (Delevingne) rekindle a dangerous affair despite an increasingly intolerant society. Vignette harbors a secret that endangers Philo’s world during his most important case yet: a string of gruesome murders threatening the uneasy peace of the Row.”

Travis himself, and a bunch of the cast, including Orlando Bloom, Cara Delevingne, Tamzin Merchant, and David Gyasi we’re present, and actually showed up dancing in weird costumes for some time before finally revealing their true personas. Take a look at a few photos from the event below!

This definitely ended up being Orlando Bloom

The series looks impressive as hell, and I was beyond excited to attend the event and check out the first two episodes. Reviews on the series are embargoed for the time being, but I’ll just say that I cannot wait for August 30th so that I can see what happens next. The world of Carnival Row is beyond fascinating, and I just can’t wIt to jump into it. Again, a huge thanks to Amazon Prime for hosting us again.

Following the premiere, and with just one day left of SDCC (which both feels like it just started and like it’s been going on forever at the same time), it was then time for some much needed rest.

As Sunday is typically a smaller day at the convention, and as following the close of the show floor I’ll be busy breaking down the booth and spending one last night with my Geekscape family, this will be the final recap for SDCC this year. Look for additional coverage from the team in the coming days, and look for an SDCC wrap-up episode where Jonathan talks to booth guests (and me) about everything SDCC.

Thanks for following along! I really appreciate you coming along for the ride!

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part IV

by Mikaela Maxwell

Friday! Friday felt like the first reeeally big day of the convention. I managed to go to bed freaking early the night before, and sleep in until after 7am, so that was a win! By the time I was up and getting ready most of the guys had already ventured out into the world. Jonathan was at the Cosplay 5K, and Matt and Gui has headed to the convention centre. I didn’t have to be anywhere until after 9am, and had no desire to wait in the chaotic line to enter the convention centre. Derek was hoping to grab the sweet Metal Gear Mondo print, so he ventured into the line, unfortunately to no avail as by the time his spot in the line was entering the convention floor, all the doors had been opened and people were entering willy nilly anyways. So no sweet Mondo for us today.

It seems like it’s generally impossible to be able to get the exclusives offered at SDCC, as you either need to be randomly chosen, or you try to get in a line that is capped before you were even in the convention centre. The one silver lining to this is we have probably saved a whole pile of money!

Once I left the hotel room I scooted by the convention centre to see if I would have a better shot of organically just walking through the doors once they were all opened. I didn’t. So after hovering for a few minutes, and watching people be outraged that they had to stand in line with the masses, I moseyed on to my first appointment: HBO’s Watchmen experience.

So. Many. People.

I had stopped by Watchmen the day before and was told to come back the next morning during press preview hour. The person who I had initially talked to explained it in a way that left me thinking they were letting 30 people in at the top of each hour. That was totally inaccurate. In actuality the whole experience lasted about 2-3 minutes, so I don’t know where I had concocted my ideas about timing.

The activation was actually pretty freaking cool. It was really tiny, about the size of an elevator, and had doors that slide open to let you in. When you enter you stand in front of a screen which instructs you to move around the booth in order to calibrate the camera to your body.

Once calibrated, your own Dr. Manhattan transformation begins. You watch on screen as your body is electrified and then as your skeleton rebuilds into Dr. Manhattan. Through this process as you move around in real life you move around on the screen in whatever form you happen to be in. In my particular experience however I definitely was a wee bit confused and mostly just sooo still waiting for things to happen. It wasn’t until close to the end that I realized that I coulda been moving around a whole lot more! It was still pretty neat though and regardless of my own slowness, I’m glad I was able to get in there!

Following my transformation into Dr. Manhattan I met up with a grumpy, disappointed (about no Mondo), and very hungry Derek. We decided to head a little bit further away from all the action to find a restaurant that would be a little bit less crowded and hopefully not too expensive. We stumbled across a Mexican place that was suuuper delish! I had no idea what I was ordering but ended up with a sandwich full of yummy seafood.

Post food we had a much less grumpy Derek who was up for some activity! Word on the street was the line up for the Picard Museum wasn’t too insane so we decided to head that way, it also turned out that the lone was on a side walk that was totally shaded *the dreeeam*.

I am definitely not a Trekkie, and have never really been exposed to much Star Trek, I mean I know what it is And I know the Jean-Luc Picard is a played by Patrick Stewart, but other than that I got nothing. It was however still a really cool exhibit. It actually felt like a legit museum exhibition, with glass cases displaying different paraphernalia, and a little write up on the wall about the significance of each particular piece. Even as a none Trekkie I found it pretty interesting. It kinda made me wanna get into it with the upcoming show! (And it definitely got Derek invested, so I imagine I’ll at least watch some of it!)

By the time we got through the Picard Museum I was having a pee-mergency! We had been planning on heading over to the Detroit: Become Human fan meet up at a little pub we had been to a few nights before, and decided to expedite our stroll over there so I could have a pee ASAP.

While in the washroom I received a message that Bryan Dechart, who is the ‘voice actor’ for the character Connor in the game, had just walked into the place. (!!!!) I walked out into the pub and went to turn a corner immediately recognizing Bryan and a mystery girl sitting at a table getting prepped for fans to come in. Pretty danged exciting, I then used all of my will power, and knowledge of my awkwardness, to leave them alone and get back into the line up.

Once we got in we waited in line to meet them and grab signatures. If you’ve ever read my ‘I don’t know how to play video games’ articles, you’ll know that I am a BIG fan of Detroit: Become Human. I played the game all the way through a while back in a very short period of time, and then had to go back and play through the last few chapters a second time so I could get an ending where I didn’t accidentally kill Kara. I was secretly hoping that the super handsome Jesse Williams would be there, but was definitely not disappointed when we discovered the also super handsome Bryan Dechart was there! I feel so bad cause I’m not totally sure who the female actor was, but someone in line thought she was likely the main girl from the Eden Sex Club in the game. Regardless they were both super friendly, chatted with us for a minute, Bryan talked about how even his mom had played the game all the way through and done really well at it, and they took a selfie with us!

Next up we headed back to the convention centre, I to our Geekscape booth and Derek to the FunkoxSDCC booth for our one and only opportunity at getting SDCC exclusives. I was shocked and delighted to find out the Darryl McDaniels was at our booth selling and signing his DMC graphic novels. I was very confused when I walked up to the booth to find a huge crowd around it, and delighted when I figured out why! He even freestyled about hanging out at the Geekscape booth, such fun! He is supposed to come back to the booth Saturday so it’ll be fun to see what he gets up to next!

A little while later I met up with Derek again and we headed over to the Gaslamp district to catch the SYFY drum line. I had no idea what to expect from this but it was actually super fun! This group of drummers and general music makers and dancers took over the street playing drum line versions of popular music, while creating an awesome dance party. Then they invited members of the crowd up to do trivia competitions, hosted by Orlando Jones. It was super fun and so freaking random. SYFY is doing a really great job of creating a presence and a street party vibe both with this, as well as their trivia trolleys and karaoke bus.

We took a breather at the the hotel for a couple hours in the afternoon to catch up on writing and recharge both our batteries and ourselves. Then got ready to go out for the evening.

Due to Derek’s thoroughly preparedness we had scored general admission tickets to The Boys premiere party, where the first two episodes would be shown to an audience for the first time. This would be my first premiere party type situation and I was pretty danged I excited for it. However because it was generally admission, even though we technically had tickets it would still be a first come first serve thing. So, although the parted started sometime after 7pm, Derek assured me we needed to be in line before 5pm. Although I would usually roll my eyes and whine about this, I decided to be a good sport and go along with his plan. When we walked up to the Amazon Prime Video Experience activation I was immediately grateful for Derek’s habit of getting to places ridiculously early, as already there was a line up forming and chaos was about to ensue.

As we were standing near the entrance to the line up we over heard conversation between staff members discussing how many people would be let in and who would be controlling the line up etc.. Derek was luckily able to download the tickets onto his phone so we could prove we were legit and get into the line ASAP. When we got into the line at 4:45 it turned out there were approximately 150-200 people ahead of us already! We stood there for over 2.5 hours and made friends with the people in front of us, who turned out to also be Canadians, from Winnipeg! Initially I thought I would melt, and was so grateful for the umbrellas covering the line. Then the sun ducked behind the trees and immediately I wished I had brought a sweater! Luckily I didn’t have to be cold for too long as they had graciously provided blankets for the viewing, which took place in the open space of the Prime Video Experience area.

Caught this sweet Ghost Bustin’ ride while waiting in line, so… worth it!

The Amazon activation was the first one we had gone to during Wednesday’s press preview, and it has been my favourite one so far (although Pennyworth’s set up was wicked awesome too). So it was neat to see the open space transformed for the party.

The central structure was being used as the DJ booth, as well as another short The Boys performance, There were bars and food stands for people to enjoy, the open area had been filled with rows of seats for the screening, and The Boys activation was still being run for party goers to experience. Shortly before they began airing the first episode the stars of the show all filed into the activation area, and I really hope they got to experience it they was we all do, as I imagine it would be pretty trippy. It was very Meta as some would say.

Right before the show began there was an introduction by Eric Kripke, and all the cast was brought to the front of the stage for applause and pictures. It was all very exciting and pretty cool to be a part of. I was a little disappointed I didn’t get to rub shoulders with anyone big and famous (as far as I know), and especially disappointed that Seth Rogan (who is part of the providing team) wasn’t on site (as far as I know), but really those were just little things in the big scheme and the experience in all was absolutely super rad!

It was also an effective marketing strategy, cause I definitely want to see more of the show now! It’s such a neat premise to consider what it would mean if super heroes weren’t all happy sunshine and following all the rules. There were lots of laughs and a few shock and awe moments. I think it went over pretty well and I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes off!

We got back to the hotel around 11pm to a room full of sleeping people, and after trying not to wake anyone while stumbling around in the dark, I passed the eff out!

SDCC 2019: ‘Jean-Luc Picard: The First Duty’ Feels Like A Real Museum Exhibit!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Sadly, I’ve never been much of a Star Trek guy. I’ve seen the recent movies, and watched (and do plan to catch up with) some of Discovery, but aside from a kick-ass Super Nintendo game, the franchise has eluded me for most of my life.

Though I hadn’t heard too much about it, the idea of Captain Picard returning for a new series sounded like a super neat idea. The series is set to debut on CBS All Access sometime this year. Details for the series itself still seem fairly light, but it sounds like it has something to do with Picard being ‘haunted’ after something that occurred in 2009’s Star Trek, and EW has also learned that the series will be serialized rather than episodic like The Next Generation.

Over at Michael J Wolf Fine Arts at 363 Fifth Ave, from 11-9 on Friday and Saturday, and 11-5 on Sunday, CBS has prepared an exhibit called Jean-Luc Picard: The First Duty. It’s a beautiful space that literally feels like you’re walking through a museum exhibit. There are tons of props, costumes, and other items on display, and there’s even a gift shop selling shirts, mugs, and other cool, limited merchandise (you also get a cool limited edition pin when you enter the experience). If you read the descriptions on some of the items, you’re treated to some powerful world-building that fills you in even more on what you can expect whenever the series actually decides to drop. The plaque as you enter the exhibit brings you a little into the story as well:

One of Starfleet’s most decorated officers, Admiral Jean-Luc-Picard retired from Starfleet in 2386 after more than 50 years of service, returning to a quiet life tending to his family’s storied winemaking tradition in the Chateau Picard vineyards of La Barre, France.

Many of Picard’s personal mementos and rare artifacts from his life and career are stored in the Starfleet Museum Quantum Archives located at Starfleet Command headquarters in San Francisco.

For the first time, many of these artifacts are now available for view in a special touring exhibition celebrating his career of service and lifetime of dedication to the principles of Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets.

You can take a look at some of the items on display via the photo gallery below, and again, if you’re in San Diego for SDCC, the line for this one seems to move quickly, and even as someone who is not a huge fan of the franchise, I thought that it was an absolutely fascinating experience.

  • There was even a gift shop, selling ‘Picard’ branded items.

SDCC 2019: ‘Snowpiercer’ Bug Bars Mark Some Of The Coolest Swag Of The Con!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Briefly: Whatever your priorities are at SDCC this year (mine, as always are catching my favourite WWE superstars at the Mattel / WWE panel, and picking up an assortment of amazing screenprints at the Mondo booth), you’re going to work up an appetite at inopportune times, and you’re going to want to have some small, prepackaged snacks on hand to satiate that hunger.

Granola bars are a great portable snack, but what if I told you that there’s an even cooler (and more daring) option on the show floor itself?

There’s a Snowpiercer television series in the works over at TBS which is set to premiere next spring (and has already been confirmed for a second season), and the company has set up a neat little booth over at #4215 (just a stone’s throw away from Geekscape #3919). Basically, you jump in line, type your email into one of three vending machines, watch a video that shows you bugs being essentially mushed up and turned into food (just like in the movie / graphic novel!), and then the vending machine spits out a beat little branded protein bar. A protein bar… made of crickets.

Also, apparently crickets are considered crustaceans, so if you have a shellfish allergy you should absolutely not eat it.

In any case, every year it seems like there’s a super neat, clever piece of simple swag that really stands out at me. This year, it’s the Snowpiercer cricket bars, which have absolutely piqued my interest in the upcoming series.

Fans present in San Diego should also note that Snowpiercer will also have a panel on Saturday, July 20 featuring stars Jennifer Connelly, Daveed Diggs, Alison Wright, Mickey Sumner, Lena Hall, Steven Ogg and executive producer and showrunner Graeme Manson from 3:00 p.m. – 3:50 p.m. in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront

Here’s a few photos of what you can see at the booth:

Side note: Our pal Eric Francisco Of Inverse is the biggest Snowpiercer fan I know, and I just wish he could be here to experience this.

Mikaela’s Journey to SDCC 2019: Part III

by Mikaela Maxwell

Thursday started once again with a danged early morning! This time I was prepared though, my alarm was set for 7 so being woken at 6:30 was no bigs!

As I got ready I listened to Stan Lee’s A Trick of Light, both in preparation for the activation I was about to attend, and because I started it Wednesday and am already so into it! While standing in line I was definitely wishing I had made room in my tiny little fanny pack for some air pods so I could be listening while I wait!

Walking into the experience is like walking into one of those mirror mazes you find at a carnival, where you just hope that you don’t accidentally smash your face into a mirror. Quickly the dark room lit up with a storm scene taking over all of the surfaces and surrounding you with incredible audiovisuals. While simultaneously listening to narration directly from the book that sets the scene for you.

From there I walked into a dark room full of bright red light strings that created barriers and walkways that you had to navigate. There were a few areas where you’d stand under a cone type thing and different portions of the book would play, accompanied by various lighting effects.

After this room you are ushered down a hallway, with Stan Lee’s voice accompanying you out as he describes the concept of the book and asks the question: ‘What is more real? The world we are born into, or one we create for ourselves?’.

All in all it was a pretty neat experience and I am stoked to get through the book so I can hear how the story progresses! And while in line waiting for it to open I chatted with one of the other people in line and was so proud of myself for basically networking!

When I had planned out Thursday it felt very full and had me rushing from place to place to place, with my next scheduled stop to be at the mondo booth so I could nab a spot in line for the It poster to drop at noon, with a signing by the artist Daniel Danger (who’s art is hanging on many of our walls at home). However as plans generally do, this one fell apart. As we were walking, towards the Audible experience for me and the convention centre for Derek, first thing in the morning Mondo dropped the bomb that they’ve decided to change their line process. Where as I thought I could line up around 11 for the 12 print drop, it turned out that you actually had to get there first thing in the am and line up to get a ticket which gives you a time slot to come pick up your print. Luckily Derek was on his way to the WWE/Mattel panel, so instead of heading straight to that room he detoured to Mondo and picked up the ticket right off the bat (and still managed to have sweet wwe seats!).

In addition to planning on hitting Mondo I had budgeted my time for coming out of the Stan Lee/Audible event at 11am. So when I didn’t have to go to Mondo and I got out of Audible at 930, I didn’t really know what to do with myself. I hadn’t planned on having free time until after my 2pm interview, so I felt a little floundery!

I ended up deciding to avoid the convention centre and instead just wander around the outside activations and see what was up now that they were all up and running. Everything has huge lines and lots of people (though as I learned later in the day it was still actually pretty chill, and I didn’t know what ‘lots of people’ really meant!).

I walked over to the Petco Interactive Zone, mostly because I knew there was a bad ass giant unicorn there!! As I walked over I was handed a few things and quickly regretted my plan to not bring a backpack, though I would have been such a sweaty Betty with a bag on my back cause it was hot AF… which left me feeling awkward because I knew I didn’t have enough danged sunscreen on!

Regardless the Petco Interactive Zone was pretty danged neat. Ripley Beleive It or Not had a crazy car show set up, featuring a vehicle shaped like a stiletto, a motorbike mad of bone, a wooden Ferrari, a fire truck shaped coffin and many more. There were a few other set ups in the area: Giant Unicorn by Pepsi, Giant shark by Shark week, Range Rovers people could sing in for Carpool Kareoke, amongst a few others.

I headed over to check out the HBO Watchmen activation, but decided to come back the next day for press preview. At this point I was hot and tired and didn’t have any appointments, but desperately needed to pee. So I headed over to the opening of the Panda Express Pop-Up, celebrating their new Sichuan Hot Chiken and Pep-Pep the Sichuan Wonderpepper. It was actually totally fun, everyone in there was so excited and yelling and dancing, great atmosphere! And the chicken was suuuuper yummy. Apparently this chicken is only around for a limited time so head out to your local Panda Express to grab some! (We don’t have Panda Express in Canada. So don’t listen to me if you’re up there in the great white north… well listen to me, but not about Panda Express!)

After that I met up with Derek at the Prime Video Experience again, see the thing is there was a secret way to get comic books, and we didn’t figure that out the first time around. So we went back in hopes of finding this. Through Twitter we knew there was something about a phone number, which we found. Upon calling the phone number we were instructed to find a comic in a box on the grounds, which we found. The comic told us to find a code on a license plate, which we found. And then when we gave that code to the right people we were given a card to come back for comics at 3:30pm. This filled me with regret cause had we found it the day before we probably woulda been able to go right in, but as it stood I had places to be around that time, so unfortunately we were unable to grab The Boys comic book… but I’m still super into it so if I really want more than the tv show I can just buy the book!

After amazon I dropped Derek at the hotel, had a snack, and ventured over to the convention centre to do an interview with the Impact Theory people about the Neon Future comic book. Which you will be able to read about more in the future.

After amazon and interviews Derek and I met up and wandered The floor a bit, then over to the Detective Pikachu Acrivation, where you walk into what looks like a train car and is a representation of Ryme City. It was pretty neat with many things built out of bright yellow fun fur, and lots of Detective Pikachu paraphernalia. My favourite room though was the last one, which had bright yellow fun fur lining all the walls and a giant Pikachu there for you to pose with! I am very grateful to the people who let us come in to take a look as it was a very last minute decision and a super neat experience.

After this we wandered around the Gaslamp district and I realized my early morning shenanigans had mislead me completely, as now it was actually busy, where as before although there was plenty of people around, it was not ‘busy’ at all.

After a little wandering we stopped and had another round of Pep-Pep chicken from Panda Express. Then paused for a little while to have a desperately needed beverage and catch up on writing a bit. Then it was time to head to the Pennyworth party.

This was my first specific press invite ‘party’ with drinks and hours d’oeuvres and famous people. Although to be fair I’m not really that great at knowing who famous people are, I did actually know who one of these actors is. Her name is Paloma Faith, she is a British singer, and I saw her ten years ago at a burlesque show in East London. It was the final performance of this particular burlesque troupe so they had a bunch of invited performance guests and there were a few hundred patrons spread out over a couple floors and I was so proud of myself for going out to something I was interested in by myself while living in a different city and not knowing anyone. And although I remember the whole show as fantastic, Paloma Faith was the one person from it whom I followed their career and listen to her music on the regular.

So imagine my excitement when I was actually invited to a party that she would be attending. Whoweee. I’m not usually a fan girl about much, but I was excited to be in the same place at the same time.

The party was held in the same place as the activation, and I imagine it was much of the same stuff, except we were served drink and food. There was a singer, and photo ops, and different rooms set up to resemble settings from the show. There was even a room set up as a torture room, where police sat you in an electrical chair and pretended to beat you while the photo booth took pictures. It was super neat. And after a couple drinks I steeled my nerves and approached Paloma. At the time she was petting a dog so naturally I got distracted by that and focused on the dog until she had actually walked away. But a few minutes later I found her again, and informed her of our ten year history, by which she was non too impressed. But oh well, she was polite and kind and I guess we will just have to become best friends some other way, some other day.

After the party I was thoroughly wiped. And so instead of heading to dinner with the rest of the boys, I sent Derek on his way to have fun with his friends and headed over to the hotel room to focus on writing and hopefully Crash suuuuper early. As I am finishing this up we are heading toward 9:00 pm and I am very hopefully that I will actually get a decent nights sleep!

Derek’s SDCC 2019 Recap: Thursday

by Derek Kraneveldt

If you missed recap of pre-convention or preview night, head here, and you can also check out my Prime Video Experience recap right here!

It’s the first full day of San Diego Comic-Con, and unfortunately it started with a bit of a frustration. I rolled out of bed to see a tweet from Mondo that their line policy (which based on my recap last night, they seem to have outgrown) was changing. Their previous system was essentially ‘we’re full, check back later,’ but as they announced this morning, but as of today, they’d instead be handing out timed tickets letting you know what time you could return to shop.

Mikaela had an event to cover first thing, so I ran over to the convention centre (which was not yet open) to try to get my hands on a ticket for the booth. At 12PM, Daniel Danger was set to be there to sign his new IT artwork, and as I currently have three Daniel Danger Mondo prints on my wall at home (and loved IT), I was hankering to get my hands on this too.

Convention staff guided us through the E doors, up the stairs, and essentially around half of the building to stand in a massive crowd. We were told that this would be the fastest way in, and that other doors wouldn’t open until this crowd was in. Once 9AM hit, (which is when the expo hall itself opened up) this crowd started being let in in chunks, and by about 9:15 I was headed down the escalator back towards the expo hall. As it turns out, they had also opened all of the other doors, much of the crowd was already inside, and door E turned out to be pretty much the slowest way into the building.

I went over to Mondo (on the other side of the expo hall) as fast as I could, and I was able to get a ticket… for 6:00 (the last block of the day). I assumed that IT would be long gone by then (only 225 available), and I was also set to be away from the convention centre for an event starting at 6. Thankfully Matt said that he’d take a look for me at that time. He’s basically my hero.

I then ran to room 6A, as my favourite panel at SDCC, the WWE/Mattel panel was set for 11:15. There was one panel before it, the Funko Funkast Live, which was actually a really fun time. I don’t collect Pop! figures because once I start I would never be able to stop, but the group had me laughing and showed off a ton of cool reveals. There’s even a cool looking mobile puzzle came called Funko Pop Blitz in the works, which I’ll definitely be checking out whenever it ends up releasing. Also, now I need to convince Mikaela that we can collect Pop! figures.

A lot of the front area of the panel room cleared out pretty quickly once Funko ended. I was able to move up pretty much in the center, just three rows back, and ended up with the best seat I’ve ever had for this panel, which I’ve been going to for years at this point.

The WWE/Mattel Panel always features a handful of WWE superstars, and some executives from Mattel. The presentation always starts with a bunch of new toy reveals, and then ends with a Q&A with the WWE superstars. I’m not really much of a toy guy, but it’s always fun to see the announcements, and it’s need to get to see the performers in an environment like this. This year, some of the most well received announcements included a new Chyna figure, which would mark her first in 19 years, and a brand new line of WWE / Masters of the Universe toys. These looked awesome (and super cheesy), and were introduced with a special video by Triple H. They showed off a few of the designs on screen, and then revealed a special, physical prototype figure for Kofi Kingston, who is apparently a huge MotU fan, and it seriously looked like he was going to cry for a long time after this announcement. The Q&A felt fairly standard to start, with cute kids talking about being inspired, and asking performers what inspired them. Then, a guy dressed as ‘Macho Manana’ grabbed the mic, and… well, it ended up being WWE Superstar Drake Maverick, who is in San Diego on a mission to track down R-Truth and the 24/7 Championship, and to win it back so he can finally consummate his marriage. It sounds silly, but it’s the absolute most entertaining thing in WWE right now.

Following the panel, I was lucky enough to snap a quick photo with Drake, who did not break character until he disappeared into another room (even yelling “I will consummate my marriage,” before disappearing entirely). It was a fantastic moment, and a great end to the very best WWE / Mattel panel that I’ve had to opportunity to attend.

He just never broke character and looked so sad the entire time.

Next up, I tracked down Mikaela, we grabbed a quick snack, and stopped at the hotel to drop some things off. She left almost right away to conduct an interview, and I stayed behind to catch up on some writing.

Shortly afterwards, I figured that it was probably a good time to peruse the show floor, as my next appointment wasn’t until 6 (and I needed to see how those IT prints were coming along), so I eventually wandered back to the convention centre to check out some of the show floor that I hadn’t visited yet. Mondo said that IT was probably still going to be in stock (phew), so I started making my way back to the Geekscape booth (#3919 if you’re in San Diego), and promote got distracted again trying to see what the Entertainment Earth and Mattel booths were like. As it turns out, they were capped. They’re always capped, and both the Slim Jim Macho Man doll and Mario Kart figures were sold out for the day anyways. Dang.

Things were (are always) pretty hectic on the show floor, so Mikaela and I decided to head out into the Gaslamp to see what we could see. As always, protesters were out in full force, and the conventiongoers were spilled out into the area by the hundreds, filling the streets still blocks away from the convention center. We caught the tail end of a Syfy drum line (I love that they do these things), and then wandered over behind the Omni hotel to take a look at the Detective Pikachu activation. The movie releases on digital in just a few days, so Warner Bros Home Entertainment is in San Diego showing off a few pieces of Ryme City. The activation starts in a Pikachu-ed our train car, before moving into other rooms, including Howard Clifford’s office, a small piece of the Ryme City market, and a room with a Pikachu photo-op. Take a look at some photos from the activation below!

Next up, we went over to the Panda Express pop-up, which I thought was absolutely hilarious. Now, I love me some Panda Express, but everyone here was just so energetic, the staff was freaking screaming out in excitement, there was a dancing Panda (and the playlist was all fire or heat related songs which I thought was so funny), and again, this store won’t exist in a week. It was all in celebration of a new limited time dish, the Sichuan Hot Chicken. They even created a character named Pep-Pep the Sichuan Wonderpepper, who is a a little fireball looking dude who is pretty cute. The place was fun, the line was less than 5 minutes long, and the place offered up free samples of this new and delicious chicken, as well as beverages. Thank you Panda Express!

We were both pretty exhausted at this point (long before this point, actually), but there was still more to do. Next up we were headed to the Oxford Social Club for an event revolving around upcoming EPIX series Pennyworth, which is set in “1960s London, where Bruce Wayne’s legendary butler, Alfred Pennyworth, forms a security company and goes to work with Thomas Wayne, Bruce’s billionaire father.”

The event was held at the Oxford Social Club over at 435 Fifth St. The offsite is open to the public for Friday and Saturday from 10AM-7PM, and potential attendees will need to give a secret password to “access to the Velvet Rope, a high-society London lounge filled with gambling, drag, and cabaret performances, plus live music from the era. You’ll also find yourself inside a library that leads to an eerie poetry reading in the posh hidden headquarters of the Raven Society, as well as a dank dungeon where the membership’s darker deeds become clear.”

We went down some interestingly lit stairs which were guarded by some creepy looking… well, guards. I was actually wearing a Finn Balor shirt, and one of them even gave me a too sweet on my way in. Once inside, everything was styled like the 1960’s, even the cocktails that the servers were offering us (an Old Fashioned, renamed ‘The Alfred’, and another drink, called ‘The Esme’). Inside we were treated to musical performances, secret poetry readings (a guy was even hand-writing these poems for the event, and according to him his wrist was very tired). There was a library where ‘Raven Society’ members were giving attendees postcards, which they could fill out and address to their friends, and drop in a box to actually be mailed out, and also a torture chamber which made for a pretty neat photo op. Overall, the event was a fun way to be introduced to some of the themes of the show (and get a couple of cool photo-ops), and it definitely made me hopeful that the show will be picked up in Canada, as EPIX simply doesn’t exist there.

Following the Pennyworth event, a sleepy Mikaela headed back to the hotel (and even saw a DeLorean on the way), and I headed over to Seaport Village to meet up with Jonathan, Matt, and Gui for some food. Everyone else had pretty much already eaten when I arrived, and so everyone just sat around telling old convention stories and we laughed our asses off for something like an hour.

At this point, I was beat, and decided to call it a pretty early night. For Friday we were set to be up early (and probably out late), so it was important that I get a decent sleep as I’ve been simply exhausted so far. Matt and I returned to the hotel room, while Gui and Jonathan went elsewhere, and after a bit of chatting we all turned in pretty damned early.

Until tomorrow, this has been Thursday at SDCC!

SDCC 2019: ‘Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3’ Is Adding Cyclops And Colossus For Free In August

by Josh Jackson

Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 may be launching tomorrow with a whopping 36 characters in its base roster with three DLC packs on the way, but that doesn’t mean there were no other surprises waiting in the wings. At the Marvel Games panel at San Diego Comic Con, it was revealed that Colossus and Cyclops, two X-Men mainstays that were considered guarantees for the upcoming X-Men DLC pack, would be made available for free on August 30.

Free content aside, this news is especially exciting because this opens up the possibilities of what the X-Men pack will contain. If the four character roster that makes up the Marvel Knights pack is any indication, it’s safe to say that we can expect the same amount. Considering this series started as an X-Men franchise with Legends, it’s easy to see why this section of the Marvel universe is getting so much attention. But now with the no-brainer characters off of the table and other popular members like Wolverine, Storm and Magneto being part of the main roster, the question is who will make the cut? Iceman? Gambit? Rogue? Phoenix? Or a dark horse that we’re all overlooking?

Who would you like to see make the X-Men pack? How about the Fantastic Four set? I’ll give you a guess as to who will be in that one. Until then, keep an eye out for a full review of the game after its July 19 release. If you enjoy the game as much as we did at E3, then look forward to even more content, as extra costumes for every character will be released in the first quarter of 2020.

SDCC 2019: The Amazon Prime Video Experience Is This Year’s Must-Visit Offsite!

by Derek Kraneveldt

If you haven’t been able to tell from my coverage over the past seven years, I’m a huge fan of all of the insane offsite events that companies host during SDCC week. I was hooked from my very first offsite activation for 2014’s Godzilla, and just generally try to experience as many of these events during the week as I possibly can.

A couple of weeks back I posted about the Prime Video Experience, a massive 60,000 square-foot event that would host activations for upcoming series The Boys, Carnival Row, and the fourth season of The Expanse. Mikaela and I had an opportunity to check out the event during a media preview on Wednesday, and I wholeheartedly believe that it’s the most insane offsite that you’ll be able to experience this year.

The Prime Video Experience is located at MLK and 1st in San Diego (obviously), and is open from 9AM-5PM each day of the convention. As of this morning the line looked pretty long, but I assure you that the event is an absolute blast, and is well worth any wait.

From the press release, “Once inside, attendees will receive collectible gold and silver coins which they can use to further explore the activation. Fans can begin their day covering up the crime scene of a superhero kidnapping at the Audio Visual shop where Hughie works on The Boys. On the opposite end of the space, a Rocinante spaceship is positioned that will take adventure-seekers on a United Nations peacekeeping mission to a newly colonized planet seen in The Expanse. Guests can also discover the Carnival Row universe in which humans and exotic creatures coexist before entering The Forbidden Lounge, a neo-Victorian decorated hideaway venue, to enjoy a special performance. Amazon Prime Video collaborated with LG within the series activations to provide a premiere viewing experience for attendees.”

There’s also a Carl’s Jr. food truck inside, which was super cool because we don’t have a lot of those in Canada.

I took a video of each activation from start to finish (with a couple of odd cuts during The Boys activation because I had to do stuff and accidentally hit the stop button), so if you’re into spoilers or aren’t going to make the event, you can check them out below, and keep scrolling for some photos of the massive offsite (but not from inside the activations because I was taking video).

Again, spoilers ahead, and if you’re here in San Diego, don’t look at any of it and just go get in line!

I never actually figured out what the coins were for, but they apparently unlocked extra goodies within the offsite itself (and the gold ones are rare)!
There’s a nice covered ‘market’ area with snacks, and some nice seating so that you can eat your Carl’s Jr.
Some more nice covered seating, and a huge screen for screenings later this week
Outside of ‘The Boys’ activation
Some simple, but awesome swag after ‘The Boys’ activation.
Outside of ‘Carnival Row’
Attendees are assigned either a ‘Creature’ or ‘Human’ role, which determines how characters treat you

Will you be checking out the Amazon Prime Video experience? Be sure to let us know what you think!

Derek’s SDCC 2019 Recap: Pre-Con / Preview Night!

by Derek Kraneveldt

Tuesday

I can’t believe it’s already SDCC week.

At times, it feels like it was just yesterday that I was Lime-ing around San Diego with Matt Kelly, eating Rockin’ Baha with the Geekscape crew (that sweet, sweet mango salsa), being insanely impressed with offsides like Purge City or Mr. Mercedes, or running into the likes of Xavier Woods and Becky Lynch during Rocket League’s fantastic third birthday party.

Other times, it’s crazy to think just how long it’s been, and how much Geekscape has changed over the past year. The Geekscape Games podcast was a huge part of my life, and it ended very suddenly last Fall, leaving me in a spot where I just didn’t know what to do next. After a bit of a break and some time to recuperate (and figure out how to both live without my longtime co-hosts apply what I’d learned over Geekscape Games’ four year run to something else), in May I finally launched a brand new show called Xbox Game Passengers, which has myself and a guest discussing a single randomly-selected game on Microsoft’s Xbox Game Pass service. As of this writing we’re six episodes in (with a couple of E3 specials for good measure), and we’ve played some absolute gems like What Remains Of Edith Finch (which certified non-gamer Matt Kelly actually joined me for), along with a few titles that left something to be desired, like MotoGP17. Xbox Game Passengers has been a challenging and incredibly rewarding experience so far, and I can’t wait to see where it brings me a year from now.

Today, Geekscape also launched a brand new, redesigned website. Our last redesign was about four years ago, and we (and the web itself) has changed a lot since then. We’ve shifted our focus from things like news, to original content like podcasts, and this new design puts a much bigger emphasis on the shows that we’re doing, and its far simpler layout helps browsers see what’s new on the site much, much more easily. It brings with it some changes that I’d been hoping for for some time (higher resolution featured images, yes!), and I think that there’s absolutely no better time for a Geekscape reboot, than when some of the team is together in San Diego. Please, take a look around the site (and forgive some of the odd looking featured images for now, I’ll fix them when I can), and let us know what you think!

When the alarm rang this morning at 1:45AM, I was incredibly sleepy, rather grumpy, but also so excited. Mikaela, who you may have heard on Geekscape Games or Xbox Game Passengers, who handles our @GeekscapeForever Instagram page (where you’ll find all sorts of sick cosplay photos from the different events and conventions that we’ve visited), who has a casual column where she, as a semi-novice gamer, tackles game reviews from her own perspective, and who is my long time fiancé, headed to San Diego with me for the very first time. She’s super excited, nervous, and overwhelmed all at the same time, and I can’t wait for her to see and understand just what keeps me coming back to relive this insanely exhausting experience each and every year. I’m really excited to see what kind of experiences she has while here with me.

So we made our way to the airport parking (some weird valet style thing that didn’t seem to have any employees around so I really hope we still have a car when we get back), took a shuttle to the terminal itself, and prepared ourselves for the long 25 minute flight to Seattle where we would have a couple of hours of layover before our final flight to San Diego. Thankfully, our bags were checked so we didn’t have to worry about them at all, and so during our layover time we grabbed some snacks and took some time to check out the new Geekscape.

Some beautiful views even before we left the ground.
I think that Desmond forgot to push the button.

While waiting for our connecting flight, Jonathan published a yearly pre-SDCC podcast, this year a one-on-one with Matt Kelly. These episodes are always a favourite of mine to listen to, as everyone on them is typically super comfortable with each other, and it ends up just being an hour or so of ridiculous jokes. This year is no exception — the episode is hilarious, and… it feels like the pair barely talked about the actual convention. Mikaela and I listened to the show on the plane, and absolutely got a few looks as we burst out laughing multiple times over the course of the episode.

We landed, barely waited for luggage, and grabbed a Lyft from Oscar, whose car was filled with candy and bubble gum. Like every cup holder, every nook and cranny of every door was filled with candy. We didn’t eat any, but I appreciated it.

Insane wraps everywhere.

Finally, it was time to reunite. Somehow, Mikaela, John, Matt, and I all arrived at the Grand Hyatt within about 10 minutes of each other. We exchanged some quick hellos, and before long it was time to head to the convention centre to grab our badges for the week, and to get ready to build the booth.

The first step in getting ready… was to get some delicious food in us. My favourite restaurant (of the few that I’ve actually been to) in San Diego is called Rockin’ Baha. It’s a seafood / Mexican joint that has a phenomenal salsa bar with a ton of different varieties, but their mango salsa is simply amazing. I could eat the stuff forever. Today, I also had queso for apparently the first time in my life, and it might be a new favourite.

Once we ate, we finally made it inside the expo hall in order to assemble our booth. This is my seventh time to SDCC, and it never gets old walking around the floor early and seeing all of the intricate booths being set up. It’s amazing to see that work that is put in both inside of the convention centre, and the whole Gaslamp District around it, just for this five day period. It’s essentially unfathomable to imagine just how much money these studios and production companies are spending to put on these insane events just for a few days. It’s amazing, and I appreciate it so much, but I definitely don’t understand it.

Building the booth constitutes of bringing a ton of items for actually building the booth, and crap that Jonathan doesn’t want anymore (giveaways woo!) to our designated are (booth #3919), building our backdrop and table, organizing t-shirts, and then walking around and looking at all of the cool stuff that nobody else will see until late the next day. It’s warm as hell in there, as it doesn’t seem like the air conditioning is actually turned on until the next day, but it’s definitely worth it. Also, I typically get first pick of the crap that Jonathan doesn’t want, and I’ve definitely scored some sweet merch over the years by sorting through these boxes and boxes or refuse.

It was getting slightly late, and I was getting pretty tired (as I was up at 1AM the night before), but I still wanted to hit up the FYE Pop-Up shop over at Horton Plaza. Matt, myself, and the hosts of the Fright School podcast (who we met up with slightly before) walked over to check out the store. You can check out some photos of what the store has on offer right here, but in short, the place is just chock-full of mostly inexpensive collectibles that are just so freaking cool. The shop is open through X, but a lot of the stuff goes really quickly, so if you’re in the area, I’d recommend heading their ASAP. I asked about sizes on a couple of shirts, and was basically told that whatever was out was what they had, so there were a couple of things that I could didn’t get, but I definitely bought an amazing Stranger Things shirt, as well as the soundtrack to season three… on cassette. I will never be able to play this, but it’s going to look super cool next to my New Coke.

Before heading back to the hotel, we stopped at a neat barcade called Coin-Op GameRoom that I’d somehow missed for the past seven years. They had a good soundtrack, neat games, decent food, and were playing Willow, old WCW wrestling, Bob Ross, and The Karate Kid, all at the same time. It was a nice, chill way to end the night.

We stopped at Ralph’s on the way back to the hotel to grab some water and snacks for the week ahead (mostly coconut water, which I discovered last year, and which saved me from feeling terrible and dehydrated most days), and then stumbled our way back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

Next up is Preview Night (and day, as Mikaela and I will be checking out Amazon Prime’s incredible sounding offsite activation in the early afternoon), and while as I’m prepared as I can be, it’s hard to ever feel ready for an event like this!

Wednesday

I was really happy to have had a good night’s sleep.

Much to Mikaela’s dismay, people in the hotel room began to stir as early as 5AM. I was up and showered shortly after 7, and as nothing has really started yet, had a bit of a chill morning. Mikaela slept in a bit, and I worked on some articles in the chill, air conditioned room.

After relaxing in the hotel room for awhile, Matt, Mikaela, and I decided to walk around the Gaslamp to check out some of the in-progress activations. NBC has a fantastic presence with Superstore (a show that I’d not actually heard of before) taking over the lobby of the Hard Rock Hotel, The Good Place taking over Mary Jane’s restaurant (and turning it into the Interdimensional Hole Of Pancakes), among with a neat little Seinfeld activation that has you doing trivia in exchange for a coin that you can use in a themed vending machine filled with Seinfeld merch (including Junior Mints), along with a fresh build of the precinct from Brooklyn 99.

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment also had some neat in-progress activations, including a piece of Rhyme City (and a huge Pikachu) for Detective Pikachu, and a miniature version of Chilladelphia for Shazam.

We also took out some Bird scooters briefly so that we could get around more quickly. It’s definitely for the best, but the scooters are much more limited this year in just where they can go, and if you head into an area that you shouldn’t be in, the scooter loses all power and is manual only. I also accidentally added $20USD to my Bird account… so it ended up being a pretty expensive ride. Mikaela did ride as well, however, and was totally terrified, so maybe it’s still worth it.

At noon, Mikaela and I checked out the Amazon Prime Experience, which hosts activations for upcoming Amazon Prime series The Boys, Carnival Row, and season four of The Expanse. I’ve posted some photos taken at the offsite below, and look for a full article with video of the three activations on Geekscape shortly!

The tower was cool, and the performances on it were even cooler.

The Amazon Prime Experience is located at MLK and 1st, and is one of the coolest offsite activations that I’ve been to. There are always a number of incredible offsite events, but these three activations feel like neat, mature, interactive theatre, and it’d be impossible not to have a huge smile on your face the entire time you’re taking part. The area itself is huge (60,000 square feet, actually), and the ‘Tower’ area in the centre shows some cool clips from the upcoming series, and also features a number of different performances throughout the day. While we were eating some lunch (some Carl’s Jr. provided by Amazon, which we were very thankful for), someone came by and asked if we’d ever been wronged by a Supe. A few minutes later, essentially an anti-supe support group started, with a number of group members describing how they’d been wronged, from things as simple as refusing an autograph to a child, to giving their mother herpes. It was super interesting. In any case, the offsite is open from 9-5 Thursday through Sunday, and the content inside is well worth the wait.

We were very thankful for the Carl’s Jr.

Following the Prime Video experience, we took some time to head back to FYE (as Mikaela hadn’t seen it yet), and, naturally, ended up grabbing two additional Stranger Things shirts, and shortly afterwards it was actually time to split up. Mikaela was headed inside of the convention centre (she had some Mondos to score, and was also going to try to hit up Entertainment Earth for that sweet Macho Man / Slim Jim exclusive figure), while I was set to preview the Nintendo lounge at the Marriot.

Mikaela’s covered (and super limited) Mondo Batman screenprint

Oddly enough, this was actually my first time at the Nintendo lounge. It’s almost always present in the Marriot, but I’ve always figured that it’s not really worth standing in line for, as I was already going to buy all of the games that they were showing off. This year, with the first full Pokémon game for Switch, and Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 on offer, it would have been tough to skip out on this.

Once I went inside, I immediately regretted not taking the time in year’s past. Within minutes I was playing a demo for freaking Pokémon Sword and Shield, and though it’s been years since I’ve really played Pokémon, I immediately felt at home with the game, and I immediately fell in love with it. This Switch reimagining felt absolutely fresh, and I simply cannot wait to get my hands on more of this game. As far as I know, this was the same demo shown off at E3, and had your character working their way through a water gym, and showed off both the new Dynamax functionality, as well as a myriad of new Pokémon.

I also played a (again, E3) demo of Luigi’s Mansion 3, and it mostly made me wonder how the hell I missed out on Luigi’s Mansion 2. The puzzle-y levels were a ton of fun, the vacuum mechanics felt far better than I remember them being, and the game just felt completely different from anything else that I’ve played as of late. This is another game that wasn’t really on my radar at all, but will now be a purchase on day one. It’s just so much freaking fun.

The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening demo really showed off the game’s unique new art style, which often has a sort of tilt-shift look. Around the demo stations, there were also some super-cute miniatures that it was just impossible not to take pictures of. Link’s Awakening looks like an impressive remake, and as I was just three years old when Link’s Awakening came out (though I did play it later), I really don’t remember it that well.

The lounge also featured a few cool photo-ops (including Luigi’s Mansion and Pokemon), and was also showing off some sick looking Target Exclusive Mario Kart Hot Wheels, and also a sweet (literally) Nintendo X Sugarfina booth, which featured a bunch of different Nintendo themed, high end and totally freaking delicious candies. I had seen Sugarfina stores in some local malls before, but hadn’t tasted the stuff… and I’m pretty much hooked already and I can’t wait to have more and it’s Nintendo themed so it’s even better.

Once I’d played everything that the Nintendo booth had to offer, I sauntered over to the convention centre. Preview night runs from 6-9 PM, and it was sometime after 7 at this point, so I knew that I didn’t have all that much time to walk around. I walked over to Mondo at 435, where she had been hovering around the ‘capped’ line that seemingly capped before the show even opened (damn exhibitors). She was told over and over that the line wouldn’t re-open, but after standing around the line (because she wasn’t allowed in it) for well over two hours, the line opened back up, and somehow the Batman screenprint that Mikaela was stoked for, and the Jaws tiki mug that Matt wanted were still in stock.

She had made a not-line friend, and there were a couple of other things that I wanted to check out on the floor, so I left her with intentions of returning soon (I didn’t).

I wandered over to Entertainment Earth, as I thought that they were set to carry both the WWE Macho Man Randy Savage / Slim Jim exclusive, along with the Silver/Gold Mario Kart 8 statues. It turns out they had neither (and the line was capped anyways), so I then went over to Mattel which actually had both, not that it did me any good, as their line was capped as well and Macho Man was already sold out for the day.

You will be mine.

I made a quick stop at the TNT Snowpiercer booth to receive one of the coolest pieces of swag announced so far this year, which is a protein bar made with cricket protein which totally makes sense based on the source material. I ended up with a couple of the bars, and absolutely plan to eat one, and plan to keep one forever.

Matt then sent me a message that WWE superstar Drake Maverick just walked by the booth, and so instead of going back to Mikaela, I just kind of searched around for WWE superstar Drake Maverick. He and superstar R-Truth have the absolute most entertaining storylines in WWE right now, and I just wanted to find him to thank him for the laughs. I never did, but you bet I looked.

The show floor closed, and Matt, Mikaela, Jon, and I made our annual trip to Lolita’s Mexican Restaurant. The line was long, the restaurant was too warm, and Matt’s entire order was wrong, but it was still a good time.

Naturally, we took Bird scooters back to the hotel. This was partially because we didn’t want to walk anymore, but also because they’re super fun!

That’s it for Preview Night! Tomorrow will mark the first full day of the convention. I’m most excited to see the WWE / Mattel panel in the morning (and fully believe that the 24/7 championship will change hands during this event), and also the offsite event for upcoming series Pennyworth.

Thanks for reading this far, and I hope you’ll check out all our other coverage, follow us on Instagram, and come back tomorrow to read my Thursday recap!

SDCC 2019: Horton Plaza Is All But Dead, But The FYE Pop Up Is Well Worth The Walk!

by Derek Kraneveldt

FYE is so freaking cool.

As a Canadian, the only real experience that I’ve ever really had with the brand is when visiting their pop-up shops at SDCC over the past few years. FYE does ship internationally, but doesn’t seem to have much of a presence in Canada itself — we also obviously have collectibles in the Great White North, but they’re typically relegated to toy stores or chunks of comic book and board game stores.

Over the past couple of years, FYE has hosted a couple of wonderful pop-up shops just steps from the convention, over at Horton Plaza. With Horton Plaza (and my favourite and probably only Panda Express location) all but shut down, I was absolutely worried that the FYE store simply wouldn’t exist this year.

Thankfully, I was wrong. The store actually opened up a few days before I even got here, and is open from 9:00-8:00 each day (aside from Sunday, when it will close forever at 6:00PM).

I always have a ton of fun perusing the store and falling in love with all of the custom cereal boxes, the expansive collection of (sometimes exclusive) Pop! figures, the custom candy, and more, and once Mikaela and I touched down in San Diego yesterday, the FYE Pop-Up was absolutely one of our first stops. Today I walked away with a super-cool Stranger Things 3 soundtrack on cassette, as well as a neat ‘Welcome To Hawkins’ t-shirt. I also definitely saw more things that I wanted, so it certainly won’t be long until I end up back at the store — some of that IT stuff was definitely speaking to me, and I absolutely love the emphasis on Garbage Pail Kids that the store has this year. Also, I somehow still do not have a box of Booty-O’s at home.

Take a look below at some photos of the cool offerings that I took at the store, and keep scrolling for some info on some of the signings and events that you’ll see at the shop this week!

How do I get these GIANT cereal boxes for my own house?
I’m so happy that GPK is back.
I’m not a big Spongebob guy, but this jacket was unreal.
This ‘Build Your Own Forky’ was perhaps my favourite product in the entire store.
Huge selection of amazing backpacks.
The best backpack.
Lots of cool Game of Thrones merch
Some great looking GoT tiki mugs.
Super creepy, and I need it.
The most important corner of the store, and yes that is a Camp Know Where shirt.
Naturally, a huge Marvel presence.
Including the cutest shirt in the whole joint.
Some super interesting pieces.
Somehow Agretsuko has eluded me thus far.

Also, it was hard to get a good picture of, but this Sonic the Hedgehog skate deck made me want to start skateboarding again.

Naturally, SDCC hasn’t event started yet, and you could easily go broke just at the FYE Pop-Up. I’d probably head there sooner than later, however, as some of the shirts are getting pretty low on sizes, and from what I was told, what is there is what they have.

FYE also has some signings at the store over the next few days. Here’s what’s taking place at the store:

Tyler Bates signing – Friday 4PM
David Kirschner and Don Mancini – Child’s Play signing – Friday 6PM
Ron English – Cereal Killers – Saturday 5PM
Joe Simko – Garbage Pail Kids – Saturday 6PM

Again, you can catch FYE over at the Horton Plaza from now through Sunday!

Geekscape 515: The SDCC 2019 Preview With Matt Kelly!

by Jonathan

San Diego Comic Con 2019 is upon us once again! What is in store for all of us as we venture into “Nerd Spring Break”!?! Geekscape’s Matt Kelly joins us on the show to break down everything that’s happening at the Geekscape booth and what we’re looking forward to! Along the way we share our love for ‘Stranger Things’ Season 3, Matt dives into the gator horror film ‘Crawl’, I do my best to fix pro wrestling and we sing all the way to San Diego (well… kinda). This is a PACKED episode so enjoy! And see you at SDCC 2019!

Subscribe to Geekscape on iTunes!

Follow Jonathan on Twitter and Instagram!

Join the Geekscape Forever Facebook Group!

Visit Geekscape.net for more Geekscape goodness!

SDCC 2019: Amazon Prime Video Plans Massive 60,000 Square-Foot Activation!

by Derek Kraneveldt

It’s still crazy to me that San Diego Comic-Con 2019 is just three weeks away.

For the seventh year in a row, I’ll descend into San Diego with 130,000+ others, including my longtime family at Geekscape, and for the first time, my fiancé Mikaela.

As cool as the show floor, the exclusives (I can’t wait to see what Mondo reveals this year), the panels (the WWE/Mattel panel is a highlight every year), and the general experience are, one of my favourite parts of each convention is the incredible offsite activations that studios, video game publishers, and production companies put together.

Amazon’s Fire TV to the Future offsite last year had a number of cool photo ops and demonstrations (Mikaela, we still need that Alexa-enabled Dolby Atmos soundbar), and The Tick Takeover from the year before was an absolute blast as well.

This year, the company is focussing exclusively on three properties, and it sounds like it’s set to be their best offering yet.

It’s all about The Boys (which premieres on July 26th), Carnival Row (coming on August 30th), and season four of The Expanse (which doesn’t yet have a release date, but is set to drop later this year.

The Amazon Prime Video Experience will be open Thursday, July 18th, to Sunday, July 21st, and here’s what attendees can expect:

Located on the corner of MLK and 1st, fanboys and fangirls will be drawn in to the Amazon Prime Video Experience by the sight of a 40-foot tower adorned with giant LED screens that will be playing scenes from The Boys, Carnival Row and The Expanse. Comic-Con attendees will also be treated to live, show-specific performances taking place atop the multi-level tower.

Once inside, attendees will receive collectible gold and silver coins which they can use to further explore the activation. Fans can begin their day covering up the crime scene of a superhero kidnapping at the Audio Visual shop where Hughie works on The Boys. On the opposite end of the space, a Rocinante spaceship is positioned that will take adventure-seekers on a United Nations peacekeeping mission to a newly colonized planet seen in The Expanse. Guests can also discover the Carnival Row universe in which humans and exotic creatures coexist before entering The Forbidden Lounge, a neo-Victorian decorated hideaway venue, to enjoy a special performance. Amazon Prime Video collaborated with LG within the series activations to provide a premiere viewing experience for attendees.

After exploring the shows, guests can escape the summer heat and relax under a tented awning with refreshing beverages and a selection of mouthwatering bites, including Carl’s Jr., which will provide burgers on-site for press and fans as part of The Boys campaign. Cosplayers can even find a Cosplay Photography Corner within the walls of the Amazon Prime Video Experience, where a lifestyle photographer will be onsite to take professional portraits as digital takeaways.

Amazon Prime Video will also host numerous panels for series like Undone, The Boys, Carnival Row, The Expanse, and The Man in the High Castle. There are also a couple of incredible-sounding parties and premieres planned, including The Boys on Friday, and Carnival Row on Saturday.

Colour us excited. Take a look at a few renderings of the upcoming activation below. Look for our coverage of the Amazon Prime Video Experience the week of July 16th, and if you’ll be in San Diego for SDCC, you better be planning to go yourself!

The Expanse render.
The Expanse render.
The Boys render.
The Boys render.
Carnival Row render.
Carnival Row render.