SDCC | Geekscape

SDCC 2018: To Comic Con Or Not? – Invisible Illness And Geeking

by Courtney DossettJuly 19, 2018

– I was nervous to do comic con this year. Even more nervous than last year when I got thrown in the mix last minute (more last minute than most things at SDCC). Last year, I had zero idea what I was getting into; I had never gone to any sort of convention, never done a real interview, or met with any industry people. I think I did a pretty good job of navigating not only my first convention, which is one of the largest in the world, but also a new city where I technically didn’t know anyone. I had never met anyone from Geekscape in real life (apart from Shane) until I got to the convention center the first day, which in itself was really nerve wracking.

Meeting new people ended up being the easy part. Derek, Natalie, Josh, Jon, Heidi, Gui and Zack ended up being just as kind and amazing as they were online – they made me feel like I was really a part of the family almost instantly. The hardest part for me was all the walking, standing, and getting stepped on, which are difficult for most healthy people. But I’m not considered “healthy”.

If you’ve listened to the Geekscape Games Podcast, you may have heard me talk how I sometimes struggle with gaming because of my Rheumatoid Arthritis or RA. RA is an autoimmune disease, which means that my body’s immune system can’t quite distinguish between foreign cells, like bacteria, and cells in certain parts of my body, and so it ends up attacking itself. This mostly affects my joints, but can also affect any connective tissues in the body as well as some of the major organs. When my immune system attacks a joint, it’s called a “flare” which basically means the joint swells up, becomes warm to the touch, and causes a lot of pain. I have to take a pharmacy’s worth of medications to try and keep my condition in check, and things like stress, diet, illness,weather etc. can cause my condition to flare up. This also means that I’m also almost always tired. Imagine having the flu and that all over tired achy feeling, but that’s your normal everyday life. Some days are better than others, and I can move through my day more or less normally. But I’ve found those days to be more and more rare over the past 9 years since my diagnosis. Simple things most people don’t think of doing, like shaking hands, can ruin my day if someone gets overzealous and grips my hand like it’s gonna run away, and mean that I can’t really use it the rest of the day for anything.

So imagine that being your baseline – kinda tired, kinda sore, and you haven’t even started your day at the con yet. Now try and navigate through a new place, pretty much alone, getting exposed to all sorts of germs (cons are super dirty people), and walking everywhere all the time. And if you’re not walkling, you’re standing, because you’re in a line, or waiting to walk, or there just isn’t anywhere to sit. I think I ended up averaging about 5 miles of walking each day of the convention. I completely wore out the brand new pair of shoes I had been advised to buy (thanks Shane!) and most of a bottle over OTC pain killers. I was completely wiped out for the next week when I got home, and picked up some sort of con crud that caused a lot of discomfort and stuck around almost until it was time for PAX West in September.

With all that in mind, I almost didn’t come to San Diego this year. I love seeing my Geekscapists and getting to meet cool people in video games and spend time with everyone, but I was afraid that my health wouldn’t be able to hold up or I would be short changing myself for the rest of my summer, sacrificing the next month or so for one week. I ultimately, obviously, decided to go, because I want to make sure that I use my good health times for times like this when I can make good memories, and share stories with others.

So this is that story. A girl at a con, who looks healthy and normal, but isn’t, trying to do as much as she can to do what she loves, with some of the people she cares about most. I’ll try and share some tips and tricks for others of you out there who also fight the good fight against invisible illnesses or other disabilities. Hopefully my story will help inspire you to go to a convention, or a concert, or a party when you’re unsure of whether or not you should because of your condition. There is no reason why we shouldn’t be out doing what we love because of something our bodies are doing.

We got this.

SDCC 2018: The DC Universe Offsite Event Turns The Upcoming App Into A Physical Wonder!

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 19, 2018

I’ve been waiting for DC Universe for years.

I absolutely fell in love with Marvel Unlimited when it launched all those years ago. The app quickly a one-stop shop for essentially every Marvel book that’s more than six months old, and for someone who is almost always behind on comics, the service itself was also an unbeatable value.

Because of my Marvel-focussed childhood and my early acceptance of Marvel Unlimited, I’m way more familiar with Marvel properties than I am of DC. I dabbled in New 52 for a year or so after it started, but as with most things, I fell behind.

That’s why I was so excited when DC revealed their upcoming DC Universe service, which sounds like it will quickly leapfrog Marvel Unlimited in terms of content, as it will include not only comics, but movies, tv series, and even a myriad of original content – like the upcoming live action series Titans, which had costumes on display, and even has a trailer out now.

I had an opportunity to check out the DC Universe offsite activation last night before it opened to the public, and it’s an absolutely spectacular event. The staff (and Jim Lee) noted that the event is meant to be a physical representation of what the service will offer, and I think that this is a brilliant way to kick off this service.

The event had a variety of different experiences available, including the “Harley Quinn Chaos Room” which had you suited up in protective gear and smashing stuff in an Arkham Asylum cell (so much fun), a small and creepy “Swamp Thing” walkthrough (I heard a lot of screams from the end of this one), a Doom Patrol lab that gave you “test tube cocktails” and neat, smoking popcorn, along with superhero photo ops and more.

Here’s the Arkham Asylum guard yelling before we went into the Chaos Room:

And another attendee in the Chaos Room:

And a very very dark run through the Swamp thing walkabout:

And some shots of Chief’s Lab:

Some of the coolest things around though, were the amazing props and concept art that DC had on display – this included the Batmissile, Mr. Freeze’ Freeze Ray, the Penguin’s Rubber Duck, and way way more.

Naturally, the app itself was also available in beta form. It felt smooth as hell, the comics were high res, and it was as snappy as you’d expect the finished product to be. The app is expected to launch in beta form in just a few weeks, with a wide release to come this fall. Sadly, no representative could tell me when the service might hit Canada, and I expect that it could be some time with TV and movie rights in play.

I had an amazing time at the event, and it’s another one of those offsite that should be more than worth your wait in line. Take a look at a few more of my photos from the event below, and let us know what you think! The DC Universe event is open through Sunday at the Hilton Gaslamp!

SDCC 2018: The LAIKA Live Offsite Event Is Literally Heaven

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 19, 2018

While I touched on it during my Preview Night recap, LAIKA Live was way, waaaaaay too cool of an event not to dedicate its own post to.

Seriously, this is one of the best offsite events that I’ve been to in years, if not ever, so if you find yourself in the Gaslamp area of San Diego this week, the event is more than worth the likely multi-hour wait time.

LAIKA Live is at 350 5th Ave, with hours as follows:

Friday, 7/13: 2-10pm
Saturday, 7/14: 2-10pm
Sunday, 7/15: 11am-5pm
Monday, 7/16: 12-5pm
Tuesday, 7/17: 12-5pm
Wednesday, 7/18: 12-5pm
Thursday, 7/19: 10am-10pm
Friday, 7/20: 10am-11pm
Saturday, 7/21: LAIKA store opens at 10am; exhibit: 2:00pm-11pm
Sunday, 7/22: 10am-6pm

Natalie wrote about her experience at the event last year, and this year the offsite is over three times the size – this means that even if you went last year, there’s a bunch of new stuff to see, including a giant, huggable Mr. Link from Laika’s upcoming, adorable feature Missing Link.

LAIKA also has a ton of awesome new merchandise available, and will even have a merchandise-only line in case you just want to pick up some sweet wares.

Shane, Courtney, and I were all lucky enough to attend a private showcase of the exhibit which included some nice drinks and tasty treats (many of which were themed after LAIKA properties, and there were even cupcakes that had the silhouettes of LAIKA character hair on top, which amazed me for some reason).

LAIKA employees were present to chat about the almost lost art of stop motion animation, and to show off just how some of the character animations work. One of the employees sounded super excited about the advancements that things like 3D printing bring to the art of stop-motion, and noted that they’ve made some huge developments with the character models of Missing Link. There’s some new technology that allows the characters to actually breathe, which I cannot wait to see in action.

The event featured sets from films like Coraline and The Boxtrolls, had a life-sized Other Mother’s living room that made for a wonderful photo-op, a “puppet-hospital”, amazing concept art, and so freaking much more. Teri Hatcher, the Other Mother herself, even showed up to kick-off the event, and to help celebrate the upcoming 10th anniversary of Coraline (has it been that long already?).

I love LAIKA films, and I was in absolute heaven at this event. Both Courtney and Shane commented on the look of child-like wonder that was on my face the entire time we were there, and it was so hard not to buy up every amazing item in the store. After seeing just how incredible Mr. Link looked in person, I don’t know that there’s a film that I’m looking forward to more than Missing Link at this point.

Take a look at a few of the (unedited, SDCC is busy, okay) photos that I took at the event, and if you’re in San Diego, I implore you to head over to LAIKA Live.

A huge thanks to LAIKA for hosting us!

SDCC 2018: Derek’s Long-Winded SDCC Recap – Pre Convention And Preview Night

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 19, 2018

…And we’re back.

How has it been a year already since SDCC 2017? It’s absolutely flown by – and speaking of flying, I’m currently sitting at gate E90 at the Vancouver International Airport awaiting my slightly delayed 6AM flight to Los Angeles.

I’m super excited.

Last year I had only been at my current vocation for half a year or so, and as such I hadn’t actually earned enough vacation time to take as long a trip to California as I typically do. If you read last year’s recaps (check them out here if you haven’t and if you want to read a lot of words) you may remember that I arrived at the San Diego airport just before midnight on the Tuesday night, and had to leave the convention on the Sunday morning, long before it was over. Everything happened at what felt like the speed of light, and before I knew it I was taking a Lyft back to the airport.

I had a great time last year, but I’m super happy to be getting a couple of convention-less days with some of my Geekscape family this time around.

Last year I wrote a lot. Before finally turning in each night I published a huge recap of everything that I did, saw, ate, drank, thought, and avoided every day of my visit. I wasn’t sure if I’d do something similar this year, as those pieces were a lot of work, and I didn’t know how interesting they actually were.

In retrospect, I think that people were actually into them. I received a bunch of feedback from friends, family, and people I didn’t know telling me just how much they enjoyed reading each piece, and the interesting perspective that the journals gave to a non-attendee (or even the different perspective that they gave to a standard attendee). I’ve actually had more people come up and talk to me about these pieces than any interview, video, or review that I’ve posted over my near seven years with Geekscape.

A few days ago, in preparation for this trip and to help to try to figure out just what the hell I wanted to put together this year, I read through all of last year’s journals. I really enjoyed reading back on last year’s experiences (and imagine I will be especially grateful that I wrote them when I try to look back even a few years from now), and reading back on the convention made me realize a few important things:

A). Grammar disappears and writing becomes nonsensical when you’re trying to finish a piece at 1AM.
B). Even just a year later, an event like SDCC is such a sensory overload that you pretty much forget everything. I’m super happy that I wrote out my experience – in reading back I had more than a few “oh, right” moments that made me smile and reminisce. I appreciated seeing everything put together in a sort of timeline, rather than just a mass jumble of photos.
C). Remembering the way that I felt last year, I feel like I’m mentally in a better place today than I was then. That’s not to say that I’m in a great (or even good) place today, but I feel at least slightly better than I did then. Phew.
D). I am stagnant. I mean, I was stagnant this time last year, but at this point if I were water, I think I’d be water that has been standing so long that it basically kills you if you go near it. Last year, I wrote of goals and ways that I thought I could better myself, or things that I’d wanted to try based on my experience in San Diego, and… I’ve done none of it. I didn’t start meditating, I didn’t lose weight, I didn’t get a cool new job. Nothing. Reading back made me feel full of shit and, and it really opened my eyes (they really should have been open already) – I need to stop talking about being better, and simply start being better.

In saying that, I want to set a public goal (making it public will make it happen, that’s how this works, right?). I’m going to lose 70 pounds by next SDCC.

But first I’m going to land in California, eat In N’ Out, Panda Express, alternate varieties of Doritos Locos Tacos (we only have the standard in Canada), and simply burn the candle at both ends for ten days or so (a candle burned at both ends burns twice as bright, right?).

Matt and I have been waiting for Panda Express for some time now.

So, here we go again. Based on feedback, reflection, and… a lack of creativity (?), just like last year I’ll be posting a daily recap/journal of my experience at San Diego Comic-Con. The piece you’re reading now will be a recap of my time in California before heading to San Diego, but after this you can expect a daily write up full of convention goodness. I’m hoping to keep the pieces a little shorter and a lot more concise than they were last year, but based on the current word count of this very first recap, I’m not promising anything.

I really don’t get the hot towel benefit that first class gets on flights. It’s not even 7AM and it’s like 25 degrees (Celcius) outside. It’s warm in this cabin, so please put a hot towel on my face that’ll definitely help. I have no idea why this happens. But then again I’ve never been a first-class citizen, so maybe I just don’t have the brain capacity to understand.

Continuing the trend (second year in a row now) of heading down to California with some sort of ailment, I was an absolute idiot and didn’t apply an appropriate amount of sunscreen (or remember to re-apply it) when two days ago I spent several hours in the sun watching the Vans Park Series (skateboarding competition) preliminaries at Hastings Skatepark in Vancouver (man, do I want to start skating again each time I see events like this). My forehead is red (and hurts), my knees hurt (and hurt really badly when I towelled them off this morning), and my arms are pretty red as well. That said, I would take this any day (or every day) over last year’s infected tooth debacle. I’m getting chills just thinking about that one. I even felt a tiny bit of pain in my mouth as I woke up this morning, which reminds me that I’m due for another cleaning and checkup when I get back to Vancouver.

Flight wise, I lucked out (aside from that slight delay) and had nobody beside me on my YVR to LAX journey. Security was painless to get through (you pretty much just tell the TSA agent that you’re going to a comic book convention, they look at you in disgust (fuckin’ nerd), and let you through without another question. Instead of napping, I used my time in the air to start writing this recap, read a few comics (x, x, and x) , watched a little Netflix (x), and before I knew it the plane was landing. After stuffing my carry-on to the verge of explosion last year (even after leaving a few unneeded items with others in San Diego), I decided it best to check a larger bag this year, so I waited around for that before reuniting with Jonathan.

What was the first thing we did? Chiller Club reunion, obviously.

Following Chiller Club, we dropped our things off at Jonathan’s, caught up a bit, and drove to a nearby AC-equipped bougie as shit Starbucks to drink more coffee and get a little bit of work done.

Then it was ‘wrasslin time. WWE’s Extreme Rules PPV started at 4PM, so Matt Kelly found his way back to Jonathan’s place and we sat in the heat for hours to watch the whole thing. Old friend Zack Haddad joined, and aside from a few shitty, why-did-this-happen matches, and the whole thing not being that extreme aside from its title, the PPV overall was an enjoyable one (also I hope Kevin Owens is okay). Also, I think that time moves more slowly in heat like this as, while it wasn’t that long, Extreme Rules felt like it took absolutely forever.

Before turning in for the night, it was time for some food. At this point in my journey, I hadn’t had any In-N-Out yet, so we drove to a nearby location and quickly realized that it just wasn’t going to happen. The drive-thru line was nearly a block long, and the small parking lot was completely full.

Instead, we ended up at some “world famous” place that I’d never heard of until this trip: Tommy’s World Famous Hamburgers. It was a burger place (naturally) that has a love for chilli, which it puts on almost everything, I had a burger with chilli on it (for the first time ever) and some chilli cheese fries (also for the first time ever), and it was fucking delicious. Why have I never thought to put chilli on shit before? Seriously.

That was it for the night! We turned in pretty quickly so we could get an early start on Monday morning.

Monday

I don’t know if its the sunburn or what, but while the temperature in Los Angeles right now is similar to that of Vancouver, it feels fucking hot, and as such the cold shower that I had this morning felt like it might just be the best part of this entire trip (not really).

Matt and I went for breakfast at Cafe 101, which is apparently super famous and has been in a ton of movies. The locale definitely looked familiar, but I couldn’t figure out just where I’d seen it before. The conversation was good, the bacon was super tasty, and the coffee woke me the hell up. Thank goodness.

A ton of exclusives news has been dropping this morning. I always get really excited for what Mondo has to show off at their booth because each and every piece that they do is incredibly beautiful, and being able to pick pieces up at the convention saves me a ton of money on shipping and duty. Prior to my flight to Los Angeles, the only revealed piece that I was really hankering for was the Daniel Danger piece for The Shape Of Water. I loved the film, and have the convention exclusive Daniel Danger Crimson Peak piece from a couple of years back, and I think they would look gorgeous beside each other.

Today, the company revealed some incredible art for Drive, Jurassic Park, and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom. I’m going to lose any self control I thought that I had…

Yep. I’m screwed.

After breakfast we went back to Jon’s for a bit before Matt took off to meet up with some old friends. I had some emails to respond to, and Jon was still working on the Geekscape / Dweeb Darlings press release to announce our upcoming SDCC ConQuest Scavenger hunt. We did some running around (I even met a new canine friend at Lodger) before finally sending out the release (after learning that our standard Geekscape email accounts could not be used to send mass emails, of course).

Things were pretty relaxed here for the rest of the day. We went to a giant theatre to see the BIGGEST BLOCKBUSTER OF THE SUMMER, Dwayne Johnson’s Skyscraper. The first thing that I noticed is that the actual auditorium for this screening was tiny compared to what I’m used to in Vancouver – maybe 60 or so seats. Also, Movie Pass is fucking insane, and people who complain about it are just freaking wrong. Give me that shit at whatever price you want and I will pay it happily.

The movie itself was fucking awesome. It was dumb as hell, with some fantastic action, some terrible villains, tons of quotable one-liners, and an amputee The Rock who is somehow still more bad-ass than anyone with all of their limbs. It was a fabulous time, and I’m super glad that we’d decided to see something like that instead of something more serious. It was really a perfect way to kick-off what’s about to be an insane and exhausting week.

Following the movie, we walked over to a nearby In-N-Out burger so that I could finally fill myself with that sweet, fattening, never-frozen never-microwaved burger goodness. Before we ordered, Matt said “Ah man, you better go first. I don’t know what I want,” and I replied by noting “What the hell are you talking about, they have like three options!?” Matt went first, and it wasn’t that hard.

We returned to Jonathan’s, and spent the rest of the night recording a pre-SDCC episode of Geekscape that largely turned into a roast of Matt Kelly and a chat about just how awesome Skyscraper was. You can listen to the episode below, but be warned that there are some spoilers on the ROCK-solid plot of the film.

Following the recording, we crashed hard and turned in just before midnight…

Tuesday

Matt and I left Jon’s apartment at 8am as Matt had to return his rental car before we hopped on an AMTRAK to San Diego. The drop-off was right at the station, which was nice (although it ended up being confusing as hell and we had to drive around the station several times before we found an employee that could actually give us directions to a completely un-signed area underground where the car could actually be returned), and Matt handed his keys to some dude without a uniform who just said “Yo you can give those keys to me.” I was pretty sure that this guy just stole the car, but Matt received a “Thank you for returning your rental” email a half-hour or so later.

We grabbed a quick Starbucks coffee and breakfast sandwich (thank Xenu for cheap food) before jumping on the train. Matt immediately started talking up everyone around us, and I was again envious of his crazy ability to find common ground with everyone. Within three minutes of sitting down he was telling people about the SDCC booth, the Geekscape Podcast Network, and had a business card from some local stand up comedian.

The ride itself was pretty chill and was my first time on a several-hour train ride that wasn’t bursting-at-the-seams crowded (which was just taking me to work, as well). It featured seats, wifi (which actually works pretty well, unlike the wifi on BC Ferries), air conditioning, and a table that I could put my iPad on so I could keep working. 10/10 would train again.

It wasn’t the prettiest view, but it was still a cool time.

From the San Diego station, we walked over to our hotel at the Hilton Bayfront (right beside the convention centre, aw yiss), checked in (where Matt Kelly got some weird story from a girl named Kelli that used to be Kelly), turned the air conditioning to the lowest that it could possibly go to, and then went to meet Jonathan and Heidi at ROCKIN’ FUCKING BAHA.

I had mango salsa, it was phenomenal. I also ordered a beer and didn’t realize that it would be massive (25oz), and instead of eating the tacos that I normally get a spent like $4 more and had a weird bucket that included lobster, steak, shrimp, chicken, and corn on the cob. Fucking delicious.

I can’t wait for more mango salsa.

We all made our way back to the hotel, and Jonathan quickly passed out for a super loud nap. By this time, Courtney had arrived at the airport, dropped her stuff off at her home for the week, and was waiting in the lobby of the Hilton Bayfront. I went down to the lobby instead of subjecting her to Jonathan’s snoring, and we caught up for a bit before deciding to grab a drink.

Courtney had a Maple Old Fashioned, and I grabbed some sort of Amber Ale that I can’t remember the name of (the waitress even upgraded me to a larger size for free because she couldn’t remember what I ordered). Of course, the very second that Courtney’s tiny drink and my Dwayne-Johnson-in-SKYSCRAPER sized beer arrived, Jonathan texted me to let me know that it was time to set up the booth.

We went into the Convention Centre (it’s pretty freaking cool getting early access to the show floor in order to see everything being built) and put the booth together before shooting a small El Chucho short to kick off the Seed and Spark Crowdfunding Campaign for the Stalking LeVar short film that is about to launch.

Following the booth build, we took things pretty easy for the rest of the night. Jonathan, Heidi, Courtney, Gui, Matt, and I went to Lolita’s Mexican Restaurant near PetCo Park for some food (I was still pretty full, so I just had a couple of small Taquitos and a bunch of water), and following that Matt, Courtney and I decided to go to a grocery store to grab some hotel room supplies before turning in for the night. I grabbed a case of 24 bottles of water (for like $2, instead of the $3.50 the hotel wanted for a single one), some coconut water for when I wake up each morning (to keep me hydrated, obviously), and a few granola bars to throw in my bag so that I eat those instead of spending like $40US on a pretzel.

The day felt so relaxed. The Gaslamp district was empty, we didn’t have to wait for what felt like hours to get food, and nearly all of the incredible-looking offsite events were still being built. Wednesday brings preview night, and press previews for a bunch of events that I’m beyond excited for (like LAIKA Live, which remains one of my most anticipated events of the entire week).

Wednesday

After fighting to fall asleep for what felt like hours (until I finally hopped out of bed to grab some earplugs), I eventually passed out and slept in until about 8am. When I woke up everyone else had already left the room aside from Matt, who had already showered and was watching this week’s RAW beside me.

I showered, had a quick chat with Mikaela, and Matt and I made our way to breakfast. We both had some eggs, bacon, and pancakes before walking over to the FYE Pop-Up at the Horton Plaza (look for photos from the shop right here). I found a rad GLOW shirt that I had every intention of buying, but there was only an L (which was too short) and an XXL (which was far too wide). I asked an employee if they had more in the back, and the guy said that everything they had was on the shelf. I said “So it’s only Wednesday and you have like four Glow shirts left?” and the guy kind of just shrugged and walked away. This was definitely a little disappointing, but the place was filled with cool stuff, and was packed with people to the point where it was hard to take photos of some of the offerings.

Side note – sorry about the IMGUR banners from here on out. Geekscape is having major issues uploading images at this time.

Before heading back to the hotel, we decided to walk a few more blocks to the Castle Rock installation that was still being set up at the Children’s Museum park. The area was pretty fenced off and was still mostly being built, but what we saw at this point was freaking awesome – they build a fucking house first of all, there was a car in the fountain, a creepy figure (Georgie?) and a memorial to Georgie (that was too fenced off to get a good photo of at this point). Amazing. We also saw a Stranger Things train station, but we couldn’t get too close at this point as a local news station had taken over the area.

Somehow I convinced Matt to get on one of these rental motorized scooters that are everywhere in San Diego at this point. I don’t think that these existed at last year’s convention, but it was pretty hard to walk 30 feet without seeing one. We used Lime, and it was so convenient and inexpensive. The scooters are $1 to unlock, and then $.15 per minute after that. You push off to start, and then the handlebars show have a ‘Go’ and ‘Stop’ switch to accelerate or brake. The scooters travel way faster than I expected them to, and they were a fun and fast way to get back to our hotel. I even managed a selfie while riding, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen Matt look so excited in my life.

After arriving back at the hotel, I wrote up my FYE piece before meeting up with Courtney. We chatted for awhile before heading back to the convention centre to pick up my badge (which took a total of like four seconds somehow), and then decided that it was time for lunch at… Rockin’ Baha of course! At this point, I wondered just how many times we would hit up the same restaurant before the week was over.

Next up was the first official event of the week, FutureTechLive! This event is open through Sunday, and is located on the second floor of the Omni Hotel. Here, there were a bunch of VR experiences to try, a neat Overwatch photo op (I definitely lost my balance on this one, as the platform we stood on spun around) that netted you an exclusive Overwatch pin once you completed it, and some Bitcoin and other coin vendors. We played a game called Star Wars Jedi Challenge which was a stand-alone headset, lightsaber, and tracking ball thing, where you fight different Star Wars villains with your lightsaber. It was kind of fun, but felt pretty janky, and the field of view on the headset (which was powered by your phone) was quite poor – you would turn your head naturally in order to see where Darth Maul (or whatever villain you were fighting) was, and all of a sudden everything would go blank. It’s also $200 which feels like a lot for what it is. It felt a little bit like Wii launch title Red Steel, but that game is like ten years old and the Wii did way more for your money. We also played a pretty cool four-player cooperative title that was demonstrating a technology called HoloGate. The game we played was a simple first-person shooter that has the four players shooting easy drones and robots, followed by some larger robots and dragons and stuff. The round lasted about five minutes, and while it was simple I probably had a smile on my face the whole time. The setup was pretty neat, and it was really cool having a system to hold the VR wiring (and to keep it safe) while you moved around in the virtual space. We checked out a couple of other things before it was time for me to head to the Hilton Gaslamp for a preview of the DC Universe offsite event.

There is a lot of incredible stuff at San Diego Comic-Con. The offsite events get more and more elaborate every year, and up to today the coolest activation ever remained the Godzilla Encounter from 2013 (read my coverage of that event right here). It’s freaking Preview Night 2018, and tonight I attended not one, but two events that may have surpassed it.

The first was the aforementioned DC Universe offsite. It’s here to represent the aptly titled DC Universe app and subscription service, which should launch in beta in the next few weeks, and in full this Fall. The service is kind of like Marvel’s long running Marvel Unlimited service for digital comics, except that DC Universe includes not only comics, but DC films, television series, animated features, and even some original content like the upcoming live-action Titans series (the costumes from which were on display at the exhibit) and way way more. DC Legend Jim Lee said that the event itself was meant to act as a sort of physical representation of the DC Universe app, and the location was filled with concept art, real props from the Batman movies (like a giant rubber duck, Mr. Freeze’ freeze ray, and the freakin Batmissile), stations where you could try the app out, food, and way more. Inside the building you could find things like “Harley Quinn’s Chaos Room”, in which you suited up in protective gear, donned a baseball bat, and smashed things for 45 seconds, and there was even a small Swamp Thing activation in which an actor took you through the “swamp” while things jumped out at you. You’ll tap into each experience using an RFID bracelet, and a link will be texted to you so you can see photos, videos, and more of you in each piece of the experience. Pretty cool, and pretty seamless.

The DC Universe offsite is open through Sunday, and is an amazing time. You can look for my full write-up on the event on the site sometime tomorrow, but for now you’ll have to settle for just a few photos that are posted above.

The last stop of the evening was an invitational preview to the LAIKA Live offsite that I first wrote about a few days ago. This event was literally heaven. Life-sized versions of Coraline, the Other Mother, Kubo, Sparky, and Norman wandered around the event taking photos with patrons as they chatted and consumed the wonderful food and drink provided. The food really amazed the hell out of me, as it was all themed after different LAIKA properties, and the cupcakes were even decorated with artwork of the distinct hair of numerous LAIKA characters. This, by the way, was only the entrance of the experience. Once inside, you could stare in absolute amazement at actual sets from Coraline and The Boxtrolls, sit in a life-sized version of the Other Mother’s living room, chat with actual LAIKA animators (where I learned that the now rarely used art of stop motion is still evolving, and in the upcoming LAIKA feature Missing Link, they’ve actually added the ability for the puppets to breathe. The whole thing sounds incredible.

Teri Hatcher, the Other Mother herself even showed up in order to help kick off the event and to help celebrate Coraline‘s tenth anniversary. She even saw a little girl out on the street selling giant suckers for a charity called Child Hunger Sucks, brought the girl inside, and let her tell everyone about what the organization does. Pretty freaking amazing. LAIKA Live is in the old Dick’s Last Resort locale, and is also open through Sunday at 6PM. The offsite even has a ton of amazing merchandise for sale (I need more money), and will even have the store open separately so that you don’t have to wait in line for hours and hours if you just want to buy things. That said, LAIKA Live is worth waiting hours and hours for.

Just like with DC Universe, you can look for more from LAIKA Live right here on Geekscape tomorrow!

Now, however, it’s midnight and I need to crash! Tomorrow kicks off with the Mattel / WWE Panel to mark the first full day of SDCC 2018!

Thanks for reading!

SDCC 2018: Go Broke At The Horton Plaza FYE Pop-Up Shop!

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 18, 2018

Last year I had an incredible time at Horton Plaza during San Diego Comic-Con.

First up, I had my first taste of Panda Express there. The orange chicken made my life complete, and I can’t wait to head back for another round this year.

FYE had not one, but TWO pop-up shops last year. One had a variety of FYE offerings, including soundtracks, shirts, exclusive Funko Pop figures, and so much more, while the other was a WWE exclusive store, featuring toys, title belts, cereal, Money In The Bank briefcases, and pretty much every WWE product under the sun.

FYE has returned to Horton Plaza for another pop-up shop this year. This one isn’t WWE specific (though it still has WWE items), but the convention hasn’t even started yet and I’m already about to go broke by shopping at this store.

Seriously, this place is amazing.

It’s also packed. Matt and I visited after breakfast this morning at 11am or so, and the store had a massive line. The Freddy Krueger Funko Pop cereal was flying off the shelves, and apparently they only had four Glow shirts left because the guy working there couldn’t find my size (though I don’t think he really looked, either).

The pop-up even has some artist signings during SDCC:

Thursday, July 19:
Jason Freeny: 6pm – 7pm
Ron English: 7pm – 8pm

Friday, July 20:
Allison Cimino (Rock Love Jewelry): All Day
Jason Freeny: 6pm – 7pm
LIGHTS: 8pm – TBD

Dave Porter From Breaking Bad: 12:00 – 1:00pm

Saturday, July 21:
Andrew Bell: 5pm – 6pm
Jason Freeny: 6pm – 7pm

Sunday, July 22:
Jason Freeny: 6pm – 7pm

Take a look at some of what’s up for sale via my photos below, and be sure to let us know if you plan to attend! The pop-up is open until 9PM on July 22nd!

Man, that Glow shirt (and maybe lipstick for Mikaela), and those Transformers / Ready Player One records really spoke to me.

PS – Sorry for the Imgur links. Geekscape is having major issues uploading images currently!

SDCC 2018! Compete in the First Annual ConQuest Scavenger Hunt!

by JonathanJuly 16, 2018

Exciting news, Geekscapists! To celebrate our 10th Year exhibiting at San Diego Comic Con and our upcoming Stalking LeVar short film campaign, we’ve teamed up with Dweeb Darlings (our partners on the film too) to give you an SDCC experience you won’t forget!

It’s called ConQuest and it’s an SDCC-wide Scavenger Hunt! The RULES are easy!

Look over the below list of Missions!
The Scavenger Hunt runs from Wednesday of SDCC until Sunday at noon!
Use the hashtag #BecomeAFriend on your Instagram to post each Mission for points!
At Noon on Sunday, we’ll count up all the points and declare winners!

Prizes include toys and treats from sponsors like Wowwee Toys, Funimation! and more!

Make a team! Make some friends! But only use ONE INSTAGRAM account per entry! You wouldn’t want to divide up your points, would you?

Now here are the ConQuest Missions! So get ready!

SDCC 2018: LAIKA Live Returns To San Diego With (Possibly) Derek’s Most Anticipated Event!

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 10, 2018

Briefly: I cannot freaking wait.

Last year, Natalie was completely enthralled by what LAIKA had to show off at their Comic-Con offsite. Seeing her photos and hearing her talk of the event made me super excited to catch it myself… unfortunately, I never made it through the doors.

But that’s okay! LAIKA is back in the Gaslamp this year (in fact, even before SDCC begins) with another offsite installation, this time in a new location that’s THREE TIMES the size of last years phenomenal offering.

The exhibit will show off props, puppets, and sets from award winning LAIKA films like Coraline, The Boxtrolls, Paranorman, and (my favorite) Kubo and the Two Strings.

Naturally, there’ll also be giveaways, a LAIKA store (including some limited edition merch), and Coraline and the Other Mother will also be wandering around the Gaslamp Quarter, posing for photos in celebration of Coraline‘s tenth anniversary (it’s hard to believe that it’s already been that long).

If you’re headed to San Diego early, you’ll watch to check out this sure-to-be-a-highlight event before the crowds arrive. LAIKA Live is at 350 5th Ave, with hours as follows:

You can bet that I’ll be at LAIKA Live as soon as I possibly can be, camera in hand. Look for photos and impressions next week, and read of for some of the event’s upcoming highlights, straight from LAIKA!

Saturday, July 21st:
11am: LAIKA President & CEO Travis Knight (director of Kubo and the Two Strings) will take Facebook Live guests on a tour of the exhibit. (Details tba)

12:30 to 2:00pm: Autograph signing session with Travis Knight. Autographs of merchandise (available at the store at LAIKA LIVE) will be available on a first-come, first-served basis, time permitting.

WHAT TO SEE at LAIKA LIVE:

– Sets, puppets, props and technology demonstrations from all four LAIKA films as well as our hero puppet and a set from the studio’s upcoming Missing Link.
– LAIKA merchandise available for purchase.
– Daily drawing for one pair of collectible Coraline Dunks from Nike.
– Photo ops with LAIKA costume characters, including, Coraline and Other Mother from Coraline, Norman and Zombie Judge from ParaNorman, Boxtrolls Fish and Sparky from The Boxtrolls, Kubo, Monkey and Beetle from Kubo and the Two Strings, and Mister Link from Missing Link

SDCC 2017: Basking In The Soft, Fluffy Company Of Beefy And Co.

by Natalie KipperAugust 6, 2017

Surrounded by plushes of his own design, Menh Voong of Beefy and Co. was living the dream (well, mine at least) at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. The tables at the fore-front of his booth were lined with stuffed critters while apparel bearing his art hung against the back.

The exclusive item for SDCC was Shiny Charipoo, a reimagining of Pokémon‘s Shiny Charizard, limited to 100 pieces. The plush is part of Menh’s Pokepoos line, which includes Charipoo, a traditional Charizard, and Pikapoo, a Pikachu.

One of the more unique features in Beefy and Co. plushes is that they all have extra features, like posable or light-up parts. Take Dragonpoo, for example. Not only are his little purple whiskers bendable but you can pose his serpentine body any way you wish, thanks to a inner skeleton (he is still super-huggable, though).

And a great example of light-up accents can be found in the eyes of the newly-released Catbuspoo (based on My Neighbor Totoro‘s Catbus). Not only do its eyes light up but its head swivels. Catbuspoo is part of the Pop Plush line, joined by Totopoo and Bmaxpoo (think Baymax of Big Hero 6).

Beyond items for purchase, prototypes of future plushes were also on display. One I am particularly excited about is NoNopoo, based on Nohface from Spirited Away. His tongue can be stuffed in his stomach, if you desire, and his expression can be altered by switching around his mouth.

Phoebepoo here is based on a phoenix. It is also a prototype. The photo doesn’t do its bold colors justice.

There were are also two plushes based on Sesame Street‘s Elmo and Cookie Monster (this one can be seen in the header image).

The final prototype was Bulbapoo, based on – you guessed it – Bulbasaur. Not only does the bulb on its back open, which by itself is impressive, but it also has posable vines hidden inside! I can’t get over how ingenious this plush is.

You can find more Beefy and Co. goodness at the official website. And many amazing plushes (some of which from past cons!) can be purchased at the online store.

SDCC 2017: Martin Hsu’s Booth Overflows With Cuteness

by Natalie KipperAugust 3, 2017

Martin Hsu‘s booth at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con was a veritable wonderland of one of a kind paintings, drawings, and custom figures. His works exude a sort of warmth that just make you feel all light and happy inside.

A corner of the booth was dedicated to Martin’s Kindreds figures, the ones on the above picture’s left were customized by other artists: Jeremiah Ketner, Mark Nagata, Emma SanCartier, nimasprout, and Kozyndan. Kozyndan’s entry, the figure encased in the golden globe, had glow-in-the-dark accents! The smaller Kindreds were part of a 10-piece series called “Poppies,” with each figure in the set was hand-painted by Martin. As you can see by the pink “sold” tags, all of these figures were big hits.

Perhaps the biggest news coming from Martin’s booth was the debut of his upcoming figure, Dragon Boy Super. Attendees couldn’t purchase him at the show but you can pre-order the little guy here. He will be part of a 2-piece set with his beloved Dragon Dog, Blacky, whose figure was sadly not available for viewing at this time. I loved how distinct Dragon Boy’s features were. Dragon Boy is one of Martin’s original characters, often portrayed in paintings and sketches, and I am happy to see him in a three-dimensional medium (this will be the second figure of the character made).

I have always loved Martin’s art and his style shines through in these watercolor paintings celebrating powerful women. There were some in the “Little San” set, depicting the heroine of Princess Mononoke in a more child-like, whimsical reimagining. To match San’s were those of a younger Wonder Woman in “Little Diana.”

Mermaids are a theme that Martin had touched upon before but I was glad he chose to revisit it for his “Fairy Tails” set, which mermaid-ifies beloved Disney princesses, like Rapunzel, Merida, and even Elena of Avalor.

I bet you didn’t know that Martin had a pop-up art show in Hawai’i earlier this year. These pins match the some of the art that was created for that event.

My personal favorite art piece from the booth was the one seen above, in which Dragon Boy’s faithful companion, Blacky the Dragon Dog, takes on the role of Snoopy. The playful concept just brought a big smile to my face. I am also a huge Blacky fan (I purchased the pin also seen in the photo) and a proud owner of his plush.

You can find updates from Martin on his blog. More of his goods along with the pre-order for Dragon Boy Super can be found here.

SDCC 2017: Playing Games With Catnip Bravo At Symbiote Studios

by Natalie KipperAugust 1, 2017

Being a plush lover, visiting Symbiote Studios‘ booth was high on my list of priorities for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. The company had four con-exclusive plushes (amongst other goodies) and I wanted to make sure to snag some of them.

Symbiote Studios’ mascot, Catnip Bravo, got a makeover this year and dang, does he look adorable! As part of their “Catnip Cuties” line, they introduced two exclusive plushes: a Smile version and a Frown version. These 12-inch tall plushes are super-duper soft, with embroidered paw prints and removeable masks (that reveal his teeny-little eyes). Each plush version was limited to 400 pieces.

There were other Catnip Bravo goodies to be had at the booth, like the mousepad that has the feline mascot drawn in the style of the characters from Move or Die. Another notable addition were Catnip Bravo keychains that actually weren’t for sale but could be won from a game of Rock-Paper-Scissors against a Catnip Bravo costumed character, which appeared at a certain time each day.

Catnip Bravo fans could also find apparel that featured the kitty, one in white and another in black. The shirts were limited to 100 pieces of each size in each variation.

One thing you might not know about Symbiote Studios is that the partner up with other companies to make merchandise for their characters. They had previously made two open edition, 15-inch plushes from Rivals of Aether: Orcane (seen on the right in the picture above) and Etalus. For SDCC, they created a special Golden Etalus (seen on the left in the picture above), limited to 100 pieces. Like the other Rivals of Aether plushes, Golden Etalus came with a themed DLC for the game (you still need to purchase the game, which is available for Steam and Xbox One).

The last of the plushes was 12-inch Peely from the Steam game, Move or Die. Unlike the Rivals of Aether ones whose included code were for skin DLC, Peely’s granted you the full Move or Die game. This plush was limited to 400 pieces.

Also on display at their booth was limited edition Rhino Collector’s Statue from Warhammer. This item is actually for sale through Warframe’s online store. It comes with three in-game items, which you can read about here.

You can snag some of the remaining con-exclusives (while supplies last, of course) over at Symbiote Studios’ online store.

SDCC 2017: Quantum Mechanix’s Figures Are Cinematic Perfection

by Natalie KipperJuly 31, 2017

Quantum Mechanix is known for their intricate figures and detailed prop replicas. Their booth at San Diego Comic-Con was a glorious gallery of new and upcoming products. They also had a store in the back, where attendees could get their hands on merchandise (some of which, for the very first time).

This year’s con marked the debut of their Wonder Woman Q-Fig Max. The figure is super-detailed with a bunch of different pieces (don’t worry – it comes pre-assembled). I loved that both Wonder Woman and her mount share the same determination in their eyes.

Q-Fig’s tendency to have a whimsical side. The Batman and Superman Friendship Q-Fig is a perfect example of that. The contrast in expressions between the two heroes is hilarious and I could not help but smile when I saw it.

There were also prototype Q-Fig’s from the world of Harry Potter on display. The Harry and Hagrid: Race for Hogwarts Q-Fig Max will be the most complex in the series to date.

The Harry Potter on the Broom Q-Fig was also impressive. Harry’s entire body as well as his broom balance on that translucent blue swirl of “wind.”

Here was a figure I never thought I would see: a Good Feathers Q-Fig. This was also a prototype.

Quantum Mechanix is also known from their plush Q-Pals line. The majority of the ones on display were prototypes, with the exception of Supernatural‘s Sam Winchester, Castiel, and Dean Winchester.

And I absolutely adore this plush Niffler from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. Funny story about this little guy: Quantum Mechanix hadn’t planned on selling it at SDCC but they received a small shipment early. Initially, they were just going to have a prototype on display. Needless to say, this adorable beast sold out before Day Three (which is when I got there). The good news is fans like myself can sign up on their site to be notified when the plush comes in-stock.

There was plenty of Firefly merchandise to be found. I could not get over how much thought and detail was in every figure. Everyone’s clothes are made of real fabric. That trait is standard for the 1:6 articulated figures but it was especially impressive in this set because of the intricacy of their outfits.

While the majority of the 1:6 scale articulated figures were based to Firefly or Star Trek but there were a few outliers. One that excited me in particular was Westley from The Princess Bride. He comes with both his masked face when he is the Dread Pirates Roberts as well as his traditional Westley face (“As you wish!”).

Star Trek saw plenty of representation at Quantum Mechanix’s booth, from prop weapons and badges to Tribble plushes to the already-mentioned 1:6 articulated figures. What I was most impressed from this series was the Captain’s Chair. It was to scale with the articulated figures and – here is the coolest part – the buttons work! They make sounds and light-up when pressed.

The booth was also home to a 1:72 scale miniature of Star Lord’s ship, the Milano, from Guardians of the Galaxy. Once again, detail was king. For example, you could look inside the cockpit and see the seats and the control panel.

I had a blast looking at all the goods that we can expect in the future from Quantum Mechanix. You can check out more of the products on their site.

Geekscape Movie Reviews: ‘Atomic Blonde’

by pandazackJuly 30, 2017

Let me just start out by saying that this movie is cool. Cool in every aspect. From shot selection, fight choreography to a brilliant 80’s soundtrack sprinkled on top. Hell, even all the iced vodka in this Berlin Wall-era film look super cool and inviting. This film oozes with personality.

I have to admit something to you. I really love action films. So read on if you want to see how much I loved this particular action film.

Even though this movie doesn’t subscribe to one kind of fighting style, it’s very reminiscent of John Wick. You may already know this, but one half of the John Wick directing team was responsible for Atomic Blonde. David Leitch did a fantastic job at capturing some brilliant fights.

A great moment from one of the many great fights in this film.

That said, there were many talking head moments that looked so beautiful. So many of the non-action shots were well composed too. I found myself interested in all the exposition of the film, and have been reliving some of these scenes in my head for days on end. However, I must also mention that while there are some great moments of dialogue, the plot can come off thin.

Quick plot run down for the two of you that don’t already know it. Lorraine (Charlize Theron) is an MI6 agent who is sent on a mission to Berlin 10 days or so before the fall of the Berlin Wall. She is to retrieve a micro film with all of the active agents on it while also uncovering a spy in her ranks. Typical action movie set up, yet I can’t help but feel like the approach is so well done that it keeps the standard plot interesting. Sure there are some great twists, but ultimately many of you just wanna see Charlize kick everyone’s ass and drink vodka, am I right?

Charlize Theron shines in this one. Let’s be real, she is great in like every movie post Aeon Flux. I like to think that she stopped giving a shit after Monster. By that I mean she has sought out projects that interest her. She seems to not care about what the media/industry thinks of her and goes after passion projects. Atomic Blonde has been in the works for many years now. You should check out the graphic novel it is based on. “The Coldest City” was written by Antony Johnston and drawn by Sam Hart. The film diverges from the comic in various ways. It doesn’t matter since the film retains key elements while building on an already interesting concept.

Knowing that adds a whole extra level of greatness to her character in this film. The passion and want to make this movie. It translates into a really compelling character. In the role, Charlize brings little nuances to a character that balances between being a brawler, espionage expert and a top notch lover.

She does all of this way better than Bond, Bourne, Hunt. Or any of those other spy-bitches now that I’m thinking about it.

Charlize is surrounded by an amazing supporting cast. John Goodman, Toby Jones and James McAvoy all kill it in their respective parts. Young Professor X here is basically playing his crooked cop character from Filth. But it doesn’t matter, he seems to be having so much fun in this role.

Percival (McAvoy) wears this expression for most of his screen time. And it’s great.

Sofia Boutella rounds out the cast as the only other female character. Yes she does have a pretty hot sex scene with Charlize. She’s a great actress. However, her character doesn’t do too much at advancing the story besides one moment in a bar. I have to give props to the location management team. There were so many great locations in this film. Berlin felt like the city equivalent of McAvoy’s grimy character. I haven’t seen much art dedicated to the fall of the Wall. This film really drew me in to the event in a very respectful way.

Just walkin around Berlin, looking cool.

In a Summer of great female representation, it’s a shame that more actresses aren’t in this film. That said, this movie is set in the 80’s spy world. I don’t know much about that profession aside from what we see in movies and on TV, yet I have to imagine operatives back then were more male than female.

Easily the most bad ass scene in the film is a fight on and around a stair case in a dilapidated apartment building. It’s a really well stitched together one shot that has so many moments where you see Charlize actually punching and kicking. Try and find the scene stitches. It’s not easy, that is how well this scene is composed. It’s such an intimate and surprising brawl that I like to think people will be talking about it for years to come. Several of the trailers show portions of this scene. However you really need to see this on a big screen so you can appreciate this moment in all it’s glory.

If you like action movies and are ok with a relatively thin plot…you’re going to love this movie. I want to hear what you guys think in the comments below. Let me know what you think of the film or maybe chime in with other great bad ass females in cinema.

Full disclosure, Universal Pictures and Focus Features hosted a pre party at Horton Plaza before the movie. I was given the Atomic Blonde Soundtrack on Cassette, food, drinks and a blonde wig with glasses.

These girls were great. There were a bunch of them.

I decided to cosplay as Lorraine. I pull it off right?

Despite all of the pomp and circumstance of that event, I still would have loved that movie. I have since seen it a second time and enjoyed it all the same. See it in the theaters though. You really need to hear the bad ass sound design and soundtrack.

SDCC 2017: Partying The Night Away At The VRCON Celebration!

by Natalie KipperJuly 30, 2017

During this year’s San Diego Comic-Con, I was invited to a special invite-only shindig at The Omni Hotel. The party showcased what is new and shiny in the world of gaming technology, particularly in the field of virtual reality.

Being a SEGA nerd, I made a beeline to the Sonic-dedicated area. The activity available was “Sonic’s Ring Jump,” in which you jump and perform a series of actions against a green screen, ending in an attempted jump on the trampoline beneath the stage to catch the gold ring dangling from the ceiling. Catching the ring nets you a prize of one thousand dollars.

After your likely failure to catch the prize, your butt-first landing (or whatever graceful pose you achieved) was captured along with the rest of your pantomiming and added to a short video, making it appear as if you were running through a level in either Sonic Mania or Sonic Forces. You could send yourself the little film afterwards.

This section was open to the public during the day but I definitely dug that the line to participate was pretty much non-existent at the party.

This sign was also left up from the daytime activities. The artwork gave me a chuckle.

One booth that was noticeably popular was that belonging to MX4D. The setup made me think of a stripped-down Star Tours. In the back of the exhibit were these mechanical two-seater chair things. The seats can swing back and forth, turn at different angles, and rumble. With the VR goggles on, it was a very convincing roller coaster experience!

What were people looking at through those goggles? Well, for those waiting in line (check out the “30 minute wait from this point” signage), there was a large TV screen playing what the “riders” were seeing. The ride was’t just about the sensations of the tracks. There was a freaking dragon chasing you! How awesome is that? It is no wonder there was always a line.

Chilling by the Sonic displays was a standee of Neil deGrasse Tyson, decked out in a fancy space get-up. What was that doing there?

I soon found out that the famous astrophysicist had teamed up with a group of game developers to create Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Space Odyssey. The title’s Kickstarter campaign just ended (they were successfully funded) but you can still get a seat on this rocket before it takes off. Their Indiegogo page remains open and I highly recommend you check it out!

The concept is, put in simpler terms, a space-exploration game but with worlds created by the likes of Bill Nye, George R.R. Martin, Neil Gaiman, Peter Beagle, and Tyson himself. The title promises Metroidvania-style gameplay, with exploration dictated by the tools, skills, or resources necessary to access certain areas, as well as VR missions.

I was very impressed by the technology showcased that night. Gamers and tech buffs have a lot to look forward too.

SDCC 2017: Updates Abound At the World Of Capcom Panel

by Natalie KipperJuly 29, 2017

At San Diego Comic-Con’s World of Capcom panel, con attendees were regaled with news from the gaming realms of Monster Hunter, Marvel Vs. Capcom, Street Fighter, Mega Man, and Resident Evil. The panel was basically a “here’s what’s next” showcase and there was a lot of applause when each new title was brought up.

The first on the docket was Monster Hunter: World, launching globally in early 2018. This portion started off with a trailer for the game after which one of the panelists, Tristan Corbett, briefly explained what makes this title stand out. Of course, there will be brand-new monsters to hunt along with old favorites. The game’s ecosystem, with its vegetation and where monsters graze or hunt, is now crucial to survival and hunting strategy. The different environments will affect how the player chooses to hunt. This new title will also feature global online servers as well as drop-in online multiplayer. For more information on Monster Hunter: World, attendees were encouraged to stick around for its dedicated panel coming up after the World of Capcom one (you can read all about it here).

Next up was Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. They opened this section by revealing several new additions to the game’s roster. Joining the already diverse group of fighters are Spiderman, Haggar (Final Fight), Frank West (Dead Rising), Nemesis (Resident Evil), Gamora, and Thanos. They noted that pre-ordering the game will net you exclusive costumes.

The story revolves around the Infinity Stones from the Marvel universe. The developers felt that it was a good time to return to that plot line because, thanks to current films like Guardians of the Galaxy, more people were aware of their existence. The two villains of the series, Marvel’s Ultron and Capcom’s Sigma, have merged to create the title’s big bad guy, Ultron- Sigma.

Ultron and Sigma aren’t the only things that have combined. Fighting stages are now mash-ups from Marvel and Capcom worlds. One example given was the Xgard stage (seen above), a mix of Thor‘s Asgard and Mega Man‘s Abel City.

Companion comics will also be released, with variant covers. The pairs featured in the comics share personality or background traits. For example, Ryu and Hulk both have anger management issues.

After that, the panel moved on to reveal some updates coming to the already-released Street Fighter V. They unveiled a surprise fighter joining the game, Abigail from Final Fight (yes, that burly dude in the screenshot above is named “Abigail”). This hulking colossus is the largest character in the game to date.

New stages were also announced. The first one shown, the Metro City Bay Area, pairs with Abigail and like the character, originated from Final Fight. The other stage was an oldie-but-goodie, Suzaku Castle.

The panel also announced the release of Mega Man Legacy Collection 2, which will contain games 7 through 10. The collection will include extras, like challenges and online leaderboards. It will launch on August 8 for the Playstation 4, Xbox One, and PC.

For those who don’t remember much about these titles, the panel gave a brief refresher. Mega Man 7 is 16-bit. Mega Man 8 was the first 32-bit game in the series as well as the first to have voice acting (extremely awkward voice-acting but I digress). Mega Man 10 returns to its 8-bit roots and introduces the character, Bass. Protoman will be playable in both 9 and 10. Mega Man 10 will also feature stages themed to the Killers (Enker, Punk, and Ballad).

The final game discussed was Resident Evil: Revelations. I say “discussed” rather than “shown” because there wasn’t footage of the game. Instead, attendees were treated to a message from the game’s director, Kōshi Nakanishi (seen above).

We were also given a brief synopsis of the game along with a description of some gameplay features. The game takes place between Resident Evil 4 and 5 with players assuming the role of Jill Valentine, who is searching for Chris Redfield. He was taken captive inside an abandoned cruise ship, the Queen Zenobia, by a bioterrorist organization. There will be a traditional story mode as well as a Raid Mode, which features co-op gameplay.

The panel wrapped up with a trivia contest. And there was much rejoicing.

SDCC 2017: We Tried The ‘Final Fantasy’ Trading Card Game! Did Square-Enix Summon A Hit?

by Josh JacksonJuly 28, 2017

With as many properties that have developed card games over the years, it was only a matter of time before Final Fantasy got in on the action. With decades worth of characters, creatures and lore to pull from, it seems natural that players would want to gather their favorite heroes and do battle with fancy, glossy decks. At the Square-Enix booth at San Diego Comic Con, the company offered demos to new players who wanted to see how well the game translated to the TCG format. Not being one to shy away from a new card game, I took the time to see what kind of spells I could conjure the heroes from Final Fantasy IX.

Each player starts with a deck of exactly 50 cards made up primarily of Forward and Backup characters. Forward characters are your main line of defense, taking the front of the field as they use their abilities and strength to fight off the opposing deck. Except for the first turn, players can summon as many characters as they want as long as they have the CP for it. This number, which is at the top-left of every card, shows you how much you need to pay, as well as which element it needs to belong to. The exception to this rule are Light and Dark cards, which can use any element. CP is gained by either dulling, (the FF equivalent to tapping), or discarding cards from your hand to gain 1 or 2 CP respectively. From there, your line of defense is set.

Fortunately, unless the character has the Haste ability, each new summon suffers from summoning sickness, which is TCG speak for not being able to act on the turn they’re summoned. When they can act, you have the option to either defend, which subtracts from their HP for that turn only, or take the damage, which results in you taking one damage point. The first player to deal seven points of damage wins, but each time a player takes damage, they get to draw one of seven damage cards that they set aside at the beginning of the match. If that card has an EX Burst ability however, they can trigger that move immediately without cost, potentially turning the tide of a game. Even when you see an opening, you might want to be careful about attacking with your whole party. Each Forward that attacks becomes dulled, meaning they can’t act until their next turn. So if you attack with everyone you have, that means you won’t have any way to defend yourself if the opponent mounts a comeback.

Aside from the main characters, Summons are one time use characters that disappear after being brought on the field to use their powerful abilities. Most Backup characters feature the DS remake versions of the Onion Knights from Final Fantasy III filling the roles of generic jobs like Monks, Thieves and Mages, with their own abilities to trigger if not being tapped for CP. This helped make every card feel special, even the ones that might serve as fodder for your Forwards. Speaking of special, although the cards that I’ve seen break away from conventional TCG thinking by having no holographic versions, each one uses thick, glossy paper with some of the most iconic art from the series taken from the games.

In my brief time with the game, the only major concern I have is the flexibility allowed to customize your decks. In the game that I played, many of the Final Fantasy IX characters relied on each other to get stronger. For example, Stiener’s strength increased depending on how many IX characters fought alongside him, while Zidane had a similar skill. In other words, they would be far less effective if paired with a mixed deck. I hope that the booster packs allow for more flexibility than I’m seeing here, but either way, the game was a blast to play.

I’m looking forward to seeing the game’s growth in North America and seeing what the cards can do once we have all of the expansions. For now, I’ll just wait patiently for a Final Fantasy VI deck and dream of the day I can clean house with Celes. Do you have room in your binder for the Square Enix’s card game? Share your thoughts with us below!

SDCC 2017: ‘I Am Setsuna’ Is Alive And Well With ‘Lost Sphere’

by Josh JacksonJuly 28, 2017

I Am Setsuna promised to scratch the itch of the classic JRPG fan who longed for the days of turn based battles, Active Time Battle meters, (known more commonly as ATB), and a more methodical game play style. After delivering on a multitude of platforms, Tokyo RPG Factory is back at it with Lost Sphere, a spiritual successor that continues the style introduced by Setsuna. With a new world and new cast, much of the early moments of the game manage to hold onto some familiarity with the first game while showing off a few new tricks in the Comic Con demo on display at Square Enix’s booth.

Using an identical graphic style to Setsuna, Lost Sphere recreates the classic feel of a 32-bit era RPG while using chibi style 3D models for the characters to match the dimensions of the world around them. Much like Chrono Trigger, enemies are spotted on the field, and any enemies around them will join the battle once its time to draw swords. From there, you’ll manage your party by deciding to attack, use special abilities, rely on items to get you out of a pinch, or defend to help reduce unavoidable damage. Positioning plays an important role, since most attacks have a certain radius that can lead to dealing damage to more than just your target, but this is where the biggest change in Lost Sphere surfaced.

With some of the abilities offered, they allowed the characters to line up their attacks to get the most out of them. For example, a shot from one of our allies could potentially pierce through their enemy, draining the HP of any foe unfortunate enough to be lined up directly behind them. While Setsuna did have attacks like these, Lost Sphere made it more noticeable, which in turn made it easier to plan out how we wanted to do the damage. As an extra layer of strategy, it helps the game feel like you’re doing more than just picking options in a menu. That kind of engagement is what separated the great RPGs from the rest back in the day, and it’s no different now.

After exploring this sample of the game, I’m looking forward to seeing what other ways Lost Sphere separates itself from I Am Setsuna. With this classic style of engagement taking a backseat in recent years for more flashy, real time combat, it’ll be interesting to see how far we can ride the nostalgia wave. If the developer’s previous efforts are any indication, then I can’t wait to play more of the game when its released in 2018. With PS4, PC and Switch support, we’ll be able to keep on adventuring whether we’re at home or on the go!

SDCC 2017: LAIKA Works Its Movie Magic In San Diego

by Natalie KipperJuly 27, 2017

LAIKA, the cinema wizards behind film favorites Coraline, ParaNorman, The Boxtrolls, and Kubo and the Two Strings, set up a gallery in San Diego’s Gaslamp District for this year’s San Diego Comic-Con. I had the pleasure of touring the facility this morning and the experience was downright enchanting.

Even before I entered the door, I was welcomed by Norman and Kubo! These characters could be found roaming the Gaslamp near the gallery and were available for pictures. I was soon ushered into the gallery and was given a guided tour through the exhibit’s structures.

The first area was dedicated to the haunting film, Coraline. One of the most impressive pieces in this portion was the set seen above. I was able to get up close and view it from the angle seen in the film as well. Check it out:

It turns out parts of sets can be made from everyday household objects like popcorn or even dog chew toys, whatever works best to get the needed texture and effect. LAIKA was the first studio to utilize 3D printing.

Here we can see some of the skeletal structure of the puppets used in LAIKA’s stop-motion animation films. While the facial expressions may be 3D printed, the innards are made of metal, allowing for easier manipulation from frame to frame.

The next section of the gallery was all about ParaNorman, a movie very near and dear to my heart. The exhibit set-up had many of the models used in the film. There were several figures of Norman in the displays, which makes sense because each one of Norman’s outfit has its own doll. It is less time-consuming than painstaking changing the clothes on a single doll after different scenes.

Like the Coraline section, sets from ParaNorman were also available for viewing. This time, we got a peek at Norman’s family home as well as a hallway in his school. The hallway scene was particularly fun, with so much detail to pick out. It felt like you were sneaking into the movie’s world.

The second to last area was all about The Boxtrolls. The film was a huge production, involving 79 sets, over 20,000 handmade props, and the largest stop-motion puppet built up until that time.

And here that puppet is: the Mecha-Drill. Weighing in at 75 pounds and measuring an impressive five feet tall, this masterpiece of imagination consists of 600 metal, plastic, and steel pieces.

The final displays in the exhibit were dedicated to the LAIKA’s latest film, Kubo and the Two Strings. There were several big set-ups in this area but what caught my eye the most was the diorama that housed Kubo and his friends in a Japanese backdrop.

Kubo and the Two Strings‘ Moon Beast puppet is special for several reasons. One being that it is the first of LAIKA’s puppets to consist entirely of 3D-printed parts (881 of them, to be exact). Another is that unlike the majority of their puppets, which utilize a metal armature skeleton (like the one we saw in the puppet from the Coraline section earlier), the Moon Beast’s innards are made up to the a long posable tube, like the kind found on microphone stands and desk lamps.

Okay, so you know how I mentioned earlier how The Boxtroll‘s Mecha-Drill puppet was, at one point, the largest puppet built? Well, the Hall of Bones Skeleton stole that title once Kubo and the Two Strings was released. The puppet showcased at the gallery was actually a 1/6th-scale version of a much, much larger one. How large? Try 16 feet tall! It’s size was necessary for scenes with both the Skeleton and Kubo (or other puppets or that smaller scale). If Kubo were any smaller, his puppet would not be able to be manipulated at the same level of detail.

If you want to see the giant version of the Skeleton, it will be for viewing, along with other LAIKA displays, at the Portland Art Museum. From October 5, 2017 through May 18, 2018, the museum will host a special LAIKA exhibition. Be sure to check it out if you are in the area!

SDCC 2017: We Discuss “Knights of the Frozen Throne” Hearthstone Expansion At Blizzard’s Ice Cream Citadel with Jason Chayse

by Courtney DossettJuly 26, 2017

Josh and I were fortunate enough to get a chance to sit down with Hearthstone’s Production Director Jason Chayse at Blizzard’s Ice Cream Citadel during San Diego Comic Con last week. Josh is a newcomer to the popular digital card game, while Courtney is an avid Hearthstone fan and former World of Warcraft addict.

Death Knights distributing delicious cool treats in their air conditioned paradise. We may have loitered to take advantage of the A/C.

Courtney: I was confused about the new update when I first saw it, because it seemed like you could only get the expansion if you paid for it. But you can actually get the packs by playing like in the past?

Jason: Yeah so we’re actually changing the single player content. We’ve taken the best aspects of adventures and expansions and fused them into this sort of uber Hearthstone release.

So you’ll have a pack you can open, and on top of that there are going to be eight free missions, and there will be an introductory prologue, and once you defeat the introductory prologue everyone will be given a free Death Knight hero card, which will be a new card type we’ll be releasing.

There will be two more wings of missions after that, which will be free, and you’ll earn card packs by defeating those. At the very end you’ll fight the Lich King. This is also something new , he’ll play slightly differently depending on what class you play against him with. “Ok, so this is Rexxar, the hunter, so we’ll play this way against you, or Jaina the mage, so we’ll play this against you, and that’s the first time we’ve tried that too.

Courtney: That’s been the way I’ve defeated previous heroes in the past, realising that the would be weaker against a certain class.

Jason: Yeah! It should give you a run for your money.

Courtney: With Hearthstone, it’s obviously based on World of Warcraft, are you going to be introducing any of the other Blizzard franchises like Blizzard like Overwatch or Diablo?

Jason: You know, we feel like we have a lot of room still within the Warcraft universe to keep expanding with Hearthstone. There are no shortage of amazing characters or locations or stories we have left to tell. Every once in awhile you’ll see one of the other franchises bleed in, like there’s the Overwatch cardback, there are some Starcraft flavored card backs, but we want to do in it a way that will still feel like they can be part of the Warcraft universe.

Courtney: And there are going to be new boards? My favourite part is to click on the different little things while I’m waiting.

Jason: Our art team does an amazing job with those each time. They come up with amazing things you can trigger and discover. There will be a brand new Ice Rend flavored board that would be appropriate for the next release.

Josh: I literally just downloaded the game, so I don’t have as much time to play yet. Learning a new card game is overwhelming at the start, but everything seems so accessible, so easy to get into so, it’s easy to see why it’s resonated with so many people. You can either spend a lot of time with it and build huge card libraries or just play with friends for fun. And having that tie to Warcraft is great as well, because if you’re not ready to jump into a totally new card game but you have that familiarity with Warcraft, it helps ease the transition.

Jason: If there are particular characters you remember from your Warcraft days, you can go “Oh here’s Ragnaros doing his stuff, or here is a classic character, the heroes you know, like Thrall Uther. But what you said about making it accessible to new players to get in, that was a big priority for us when we were first designing Hearthstone. We were always huge believers in collectable card games, and we play a ton of them going way back when, and we felt the fun was buried too deep for people who had never played them before, so that was our main goal. How do we take the fun parts that people love about collectable card games and make them a little easier to access so people could get in and start having fun in the first five minutes.

Josh: Now that you mention other card games, what other sources did you draw inspiration from?

Jason: From all of them. We had people who played Magic the Gathering and the other classic games but we had people who played some digital ones that have been around , so we drew a lot of inspiration from all of them. So we thought about what we loved from the genre as a whole, and how we could hold onto that, and what we could improve on.

Josh: With the new inclusion of the Lich King, if you could chose any character from Warcraft that isn’t in the game yet, which would be the big addition you would want to make to Hearthstone?

Jason: That’s a good question. I think we’re always looking for ways to stay current with the new expansions that the World of Warcraft team is coming out with, and how that could be introduced in a meaningful way. We’ve added a lot of them, a good example is with the Whispers of the Old Gods expansion, there were some classic old gods, these beings from outer space, and we were really inspired by that, and had to figure out who these gods were and did a lot of design with the original World of Warcraft team to realise what these gods look like because they hadn’t been fully sketched out before. So who’s to say in the months to come who might show up.

Courtney: You just released the new Quest cards, are you looking to add new cards like that to help revamp old decks and make the game feel fun and new to those of us who have been playing for a while?

Jason: That’s always our goal. With each new set we want to introduce new cards, new mechanics that mix up the meta, and leads to new types of decks that you may not have seen before. One example with the new Knights of the Frozen Throne set, is a card called Prince Keleseth, it’s a 2 mana card for 2/2. But it has an interesting battlecry: if you have no cards in your deck that cost 2 mana, then all your minion cards are buffed by +1/+1. SO it’s an example of a build around card type.

Courtney: THAT SOUNDS GREAT! I WANT THAT CARD!

The card that Courtney needs to get before her brother.

Jason: Yeah we’ve excited for it. So you look at it like, “Huh can I make a deck that doesn’t require any 2 mana cost cards? What if I try this? Or I try this combinations of cards?” The benefit can be pretty powerful to get +1 for everybody. The design team is always thinking of different build around ideas like that that push the meta and deck creation in new ways that haven’t been done before.

Courtney: You guys also came up with the potion creation cards, and I love those.

Jason: There’s another example that we’re going to be introducing into the new set, the first time we’re introducing a new type of card called the Hero Card. You’ve been playing for a while so you know about Ragnaros, and Jaraxxus, which can replace your hero –

Courtney : A great death saving card!

Jason: Exactly. So this time, we;re going to introduce them for all classes. SO you can play Deathstalker Rexxar, and as soon as you play him from your hand he’ll fly up onto the board and corrupt and replace the base Rexxar, and he’s an unholy , death knight version of rexxar. He’ll give you 5 additional armor, he’ll do 2 damage to all your opponents minions when he comes into play, but his real power to play with him, which is like the potion thing you were talking about, his hero power replaces the bow which does 2 damage to the enemy hero, and instead becomes something called “build a beast”. So what it will do, is you choose it, and it will present it with 3 different beasts from the game, you select one, and it brings up the next set of cards (another 3 beasts) and it will stitch those two beasts into an uber beast, sort of Frankenstein style, sort of like with the potions only now you’re making a beast that can go on the board and fight on your behalf.

Courtney: Which is so cool because that’s something I remember seeing when I played the Lich King expansion in World of Warcraft when it came out, all the corrupted constructs wandering around.

Jason: So you’ll get that with playing the heroes in the new set. There will be a ton of references, so in addition to the cards we have the missions we talked about. So the bosses will be Professor Putricide that people fought in IceCrown Citadel in the raid, Blood Queen Lana’thel which is a well known boss, they’ll all make their appearances in Hearthstone with similar types of mechanics and ideas translated into Hearthstone as well.

Courtney: I’m way excited for this now as well.

Jason: We’re really excited for it as well.

Courtney: One last thing I wanted to confirm. You said all the side adventures are free, so we don’t even have to pay in game gold this time?

Jason: Not even gold. You will have all the missions unlocked. But sort of like in the past on launch day you’ll have access to the prologue and then you have access to the first wing with a pack prize. Then the next week you’ll have access to another wing, then the final wing with the Lich King waiting at the end.

Courtney: I’m really excited for this new set now. I think I’m going to really start getting into the game again, since I took a break from it.

Jason: I think you’re going to love it. We’re also making some changes with Fireside Gatherings that we’re really excited about. We have this idea that the best way to experience Hearthstone is to play in person with other people who also love Hearthstone and play around a kitchen table or cafe bar, and play collectively as a group. We launched the program about 3 years about when Hearthstone itself came out, and it’s been growing dramatically since then have had about 10 thousand Fireside Gatherings across the world. But we’re about to do something within the game itself where it can detect if you’re playing within a Fireside Gathering,you’ll basically register that you’re playing in a real location, and it will recognise that you’re playing with your friends and you can customise your own tavern and name it, and it unlocks a new game mode called a fireside brawl that you can only access if you’re at a Fireside Gathering.

What do you guys think about the changes coming in the newest expansion? What are you most excited for? Let us know in the comments below!

SDCC 2017: Tentacle Kitty Goes Hunting!

by Natalie KipperJuly 26, 2017

I had the good fortune of spotting artist John Merritt as he was traversing San Diego Comic-Con’s Exhibit Hall. He wasn’t hard to spot; the man was balancing one of his Tentacle Kitty plushes on his head (and doing an expert job, I might add). It turned out he was returning to his booth for a signing and I could not resist tagging along.

For those who don’t know, Tentacle Kitty is a friendly cat from another dimension that just happens to have tentacles. She and many of her friends have been transformed into plushes as well as featured in her own webcomic. While there was already a traditional Tentacle Kitty plush, a Huntress version was released just in time for SDCC. With purple paint for camouflage and her face full of concentration, she definitely looks like she is on the prowl (most likely for cotton candy mice, her favorite food).

Tentacle Kitty the Huntress wasn’t the only new addition at the booth. The next wave of Little Ones, smaller relatives of Tentacle Kitty, were also available. These particular Little Ones were labeled “Earth Color” because each one resembles a different variety of cat found here on Earth, like Siamese or Calico. Both Tentacle Kitty the Huntress and the Earth Color Little Ones are now available to purchase at their online store.

In celebration of those plushes’ release, John has cooked up a very special giveaway. Five lucky fans will walk away with a Legendary Golden Tentacle Kitty. Traditionally, this cutie is only given to winners of cosplay contests at conventions. The contest is live on Facebook right now! Go! Go! Go!

SDCC 2017: Some Of The Best Cosplay We Saw At This Year’s Convention!

by GeekscapeStaffJuly 25, 2017

We had a blast at this year’s SDCC. Aside from the shoulder to shoulder crowds, it was an incredible opportunity to reconnect with each other, to meet with ‘Scapists new and old, to spend way, way too much money, and to see some incredible cosplay!

Many of us were on the prowl for some great cosplay across the convention weekend. Here are some of the coolest getups that we were able to lay our eyes on!

Were you at the convention? Did you see any amazing cosplayers not pictured below? What were your favourites?

SDCC 2017: The WWE And Mattel Fan Panel Offered Some Inspiring Q&A!

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 24, 2017

After several hours of waiting in room 5AB (and seeing Josh get up close with some of the featured superstars outside of the room) the panel that I’d been waiting for (and the one panel that I’d decided that I had to attend was finally here).

The Sherlock Manga panel cleared out pretty quickly and swarms of people in WWE shirts (probably more Nikki Bella and Alexa Bliss than anything else) began swarming to the front of the panel room. I managed to move up numerous rows over the course of the previous two panels and obtained a pretty nice seat. A graphic for the panel appeared on the projector screen, and the excitement in the room began to grow.

The panel was moderated by the fantastic Renee Young (#SaveTalkingSmack), and Charlotte, Nikki Bella, Brie Bella, Sasha Banks, Bayley, and Becky Lynch were all in attendance. All of the talent seemed excited and energized to be at the panel, which also featured Mattel SVP Lori Pantel.

The crowd freaked out as each superstar was introduced, and it was surprisingly pretty tough to not feel starstruck seeing so many of my favourite superstars in the same place at the same time.

The announcements came fast, and there were a lot of them (Lori noted that she wanted to get through them quickly to give fans more time with the superstars, who naturally they were really here to see). Mattel revealed everything from a line of fashion dolls featuring a myriad of the female superstars, new action figure lines, and some incredible San Diego Comic-Con exclusive figures from Wrestlemania 32 that were extremely (extremely) hard not to purchase, even though I told myself that I’d never buy another toy after the Amiibo debacle from a couple of years back.

The Eva Marie WWE Superstars doll on the floor later on.

Renee opened up a Q&A session, asking what it felt like to be able to be a part of this new line of fashion dolls. Nikki noted that it was an honour, while Bayley added that this is all because of the fans, stating that the myriad of attendees in Fearless hats, Sasha Banks glasses, Hugger shirts, and the like were the reason that all of this was happening in the first place.

Next up, Renee asked if the ladies ever have an opportunity to reflect on everything that they’ve accomplished thus far in their careers. Becky told us that just before the WM32 Triple Threat, she was sitting in a Whole Foods and started simply crying, stating that “When I started wrestling at 15, this just didn’t seem possible. To have our heads on the side of AT&T stadium just didn’t seem possible,” continuing “We just keep going, and keep progressing, and us making history is now just the norm.”

With all of the history that had been made so far, Renee asked what the ladies would still like to accomplish as their careers continue. “Main event Wrestlemania,” Charlotte said without hesitation, while Brie Bella called for an all-women’s Royal Rumble, adding that “Being a mom and now sitting and watching these girls do amazing things every week, watching as a fan. Seeing these dolls come out, and seeing these ladies be role models.” She sees these dolls and thinks that birdie can be independent – she doesn’t need a Ken doll in this day and age. Brie notes that she’s looking forward to one day explaining why she has an action figure, and tellling Birdie about everything that her and her friends did to make all of this happen. “It’s insane that I’ll one day get to see my daughter grow up and be proud of all of these women in WWE.”

Renee brought up one of the few elephants in the room, asking Nikki if her and John had set a date yet, and what she’d been up to since the mixed-tag match and proposal back at Wrestlemania. “We finally set a date,” Nikki said. “But I’m not going to say when. But it was insane getting engaged if front of all of you guys. My favourite part is watching it back and seeing John’s voice getting all shaky.” She says that she’s been busy “doing the reality thing” with season 7 of Total Divas, while waiting for her neck to continue to heal. She added that “We found out that it’s not fully fused. I have a herniation, but I think that with time it will heal.”

Renee adds, “So it’s fair to say we’ll see you in the ring at some point? To which Nikki answers “I think so.” Brie jumps in, yelling “Brie’s coming back, you’ll see!”

Brie then got some time to talk about being pregnant and giving birth, noting that Birdie’s head had a 14-inch circumference and that it was a very long labour, adding that “I feel like I was pregnant for years, it was insane. I ended up in an emergency c-section which was unfortunate.” She reveals that she’s also preparing to come back to the ring, stating that Daniel is finally letting them get their own ring, that he’ll be acting as her coach, and that she hopes to make it back sometime in 2018.

Renee asks Charlotte about her experience in switching brands, to which she says the difference has been huge, “I remember being on RAW, and thinking that I want to be better than Smackdown. No offense, but now I want Smackdown to be better than RAW. I think that just new competition, and a new group of women and men, and wanting to be the better brand – it automatically creates competition and I think that’s healthy.” She continues, talking about her goals to win the Smackdown women’s champion and becoming the first female triple crown winner.

Some really interesting questions then begin to flow as Renee asks about the very best moments in their careers. Charlotte starts, saying “I remember being in guerrilla and looking at Becky and Sasha and knowing that they’ve wanted this for their entire lives. Thinking that I was here, continuing my dad’s legacy. He spent 40 years creating this legacy and now I was continuing it.” She continues, stating that she remembers watching him retire in 2007 and never thinking she’d be a women’s wrestler, and then all these years later he’s walking her down the aisle and into the ring.

Renee asks if anyone would like to see Becky beat up Ellsworth, and the crowd responds with huge Yes! chants. “He’s in the women’s division pretty much, so I don’t see why not. Summerslam is right around the corner,” Becky adds. Brie responds “But you couldn’t do any chin locks, are you going to be okay with that?”

Bayley is the most recent NXT call up in the room, and Renee asks how much different the roster and fan base feel from when she was in NXT. Bayley says that “The roster is kind of similar; like you said I was the last one down there. So when I got to WWE everyone was there already so it was kind of just another bigger version of NXT. I kind of knew the girls and knew everybody by the time I got there.” She continues, “The fanbase is different. It’s kind of good and kind of bad. NXT fans are kind of like a family, and they watched us grow and watched us make it to WWE so they kind of know us. They’re smaller crowds, and it’s only like once a month. Now we’re live every Monday at RAW.” She adds that “AT FYE, I’ve got Bayley gummy bears. They’re incredible! Go to FYE and buy some Gummy Bears and Booty-O’s and T-Shirts and give them to your friends!’

The fan questions begin, and a little girl starts by asking what the craziest thing that they’ve witnessed backstage is. Nikki says “where do we start,” and Brie adds “This one time – yeah.” They begin to talk about a time when a Daniel Bryan match was cut short due to a potential concussion. Nikki notes that “He was screaming at everyone and cussing and Brie was trying to stop him and I was like where’s the popcorn, this is great!” Brie says “Note to self. Don’t cut Daniel Bryan matches.”

Charlotte talks about a time at TLC when her dad was acting as her manager. “He thought I really got hurt, but was a really important piece in what was supposed to happen in the end of the match. Instead of taking off the turnbuckle he was beside me like “Honey are you okay?” She began yelling at him that she was fine and that “You’re supposed to be taking off the turnbuckle!”

She continues in what may be the funniest quote of the panel. “Sometimes he would just Woo! randomly during the matches when it wasn’t about him at the time. Like, why are you wooing? This is supposed to be about me right now. The amount of stress and grey hair he caused me that first year, you have no idea. The struggle is so real.”

Charlotte points to Becky – “She had to kiss him, so I’m sure that’s up there for her.”

The next question goes to an adult male instead of a little girl. He asks about the best veteran advice they received, who gave it to them, and if any of them are related to Kurt Angle.

Brie starts, noting that when she was starting out she told Rey Mysterio that she was so nervous and that she wanted to vomit, and he said “Honestly the day you don’t feel that way is the day that you shouldn’t be in the business. Every day when you’re performing you should feel like this.” She continues, talking about just how right he was.

Nikki talks about being nervous at her first match at a WWE Live event. She says that Scotty Armstrong gave her some simple advice that she still thinks about to this day: “Just breath baby girl.”

Sasha keeps it simple with some advice from Dusty. “Just be you baby, just be you.” She says “I’ll always take that with me.”

Bayley says that Jason Styles gave her some advice from May Young, that “The day you’re not nervous is the day that you should leave.” She says that “Before going out I’m all like “Why do I do this to myself? why am I doing this?” and when she comes back from a match she just thinks, “Oh yeah. That’s why.”

Becky says that William Regal told her the the business is like riding a wave. “It’s like surfing. You have to be on the wave and just go with it. Sometimes you’re down and sometimes you’re up, but another wave is coming and you just need to go with it.”

Nikki talks about Cena asking “Why are you fighting?” She adds, “That’s always been the best question.” Noting that it even popped up in the just-released Netflix series GLOW. “Why are we fighting? It’s so true. It makes everything better, that question. Why are we fighting?”

A fan asks what match they had to prepare and train for the most. For Bayley, it was the Iron Woman match, as “It was a long 30 minutes.” For Brie, it was her feud with Stephanie McMahon, “It was like, just don’t hurt the boss.” Nikki’s match with Charlotte at Hell In A Cell was hard, because she knew that there was something wrong with her neck.

Charlotte states that “I think NXT match where I won the title vs Natalya is where I probably had to prepare the most. One, I wasn’t sure that I was ready. Two, I hadn’t really been wrestling that long. I wanted to show the world that I wasn’t just my last name.

Becky had an interesting thought that hadn’t crossed my mind before. “Maybe, I’m just thinking in terms of – the ladder match for example. It’s a matter of handling these ladders. We have smaller hands than the guys and they weigh a lot. It’s a matter of manuevering them. Same with tables. These kind of matches I need to go in and figure out the apparatuses.”

A fan notes that he’s surprised at lack of products for the rightful next Women’s Champion Carmella, and the history making champion Alexa Bliss, along with the coming winner this Sunday, the lovely Lana. “Where are they!?” he yells as the crowd boos. Josh (who was also in attendance) later tells me that this guy is at every wrestling show in the area. Lori from Mattel jokes that “The secret to really smart marketing is to keep people waiting.”

The best moment of the panel comes up next. The most adorable little girl ever is at the microphone. She can’t be more than five years old, and she has a voice that’s so high pitched that I’d bet it was inaudible to the older folks in the audience. She says “Sasha Banks……… I love you.” She begins to make her way back to her seat as Renee invites the little girl up to the stage. Sasha comes down, gives her a massive hug, and speaks to her off microphone for a moment. The crowd goes absolutely wild as the little girl heads back to her seat with tears of joy in her eyes, and Sasha gets back to her microphone and simply says “That is why we do it.”

Brian from Vancouver, who is about to begin training under Lance Storm asks for any advice they may have for people who want to be wrestlers. Becky says to “Just believe in yourself. It’s about hard work, dedication, and passion. Those are the three ingredients that will take you to the moon and back, and if you have those than nothing can stop you. Heck, I failed PE and I’m sitting up here.” Brie says that “There will be so many times you’ll want to give up. It’s about wading through those moments and thinking that there’s a reason you’re here. Believing that you can do it can go a long way. Just never give up. Nikki yells out “What’s that Brie? NEVER GIVE UP!?” As the crowd laughs.

A little boy in a John Cena getup asks what the best moment in their careers has been.

Nikki says “When the guy who’s shirt your wearing got down on one knee and proposed.” Brie states that she learned so much over her feud with Stephanie, while Bayley and Sasha both bring up NXT Brooklyn. Becky notes “Being able to be in the ring with Charlotte and Sasha at Wrestlemania 32, and seeing the new women’s title. And also becoming the first Smackdown Women’s Champion.”

For the last question, another little kid asks “What does it feel like fighting your friends?”

Charlotte jokes that “You hit your friends harder,” while Sasha adds that “I think it makes it more fun.”

Things wrapped up pretty quickly following this. Everyone thanked the crowd again for being such passionate fans, for being in attendance, and for all of the great questions. People began to clear the room, and I attempted to approach the stage as a means to get a few closer photos for this write-up. The crowd made getting anywhere near the superstars pretty tough, but Renee Young, who I may (possibly) favour over much of the in-ring talent (male or female), was kind enough to stop for a photo. I was so excited for this. I don’t often become star struck these days after years of doing this kind of stuff, but in this moment, I did. It’s sure to be a convention highlight for me for years to come. Also, #SaveTalkingSmack.

Overall, I think that I had more fun at this panel that at any other I’ve been to in years prior. Just listening to these people answer fan questions, most of which I’m sure they’ve been asked a thousand times, with excitement and sincerity was extremely refreshing, and it definitely made me more of a fan of each and every one of them.

My Overwritten Journey To SDCC 2017: Day 5 – It’s Not Goodbye, It’s See You Later (Awe)

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 24, 2017

Read day 0 here.
Read day one-ish here.
Read day two here.
Read day three here.
Read day four here.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. It feels as though I’ve only just arrived, and I’m already beginning my journey home.

I begin writing today’s piece during the first leg of my trip back – a short 26 minute flight from San Diego to Los Angeles (where I have another three hour wait before my final journey to Vancouver).

Somehow, I slept in today. Matt, Josh, and Megan were nowhere to be seen when I finally woke up, so I made my way to the shower (no line!) and afterwards began packing my things. I had no idea how much stuff I’d accumulated during my time in San Diego. I left Vancouver with a standard sized carry-on (meaning I didn’t pay for a checked bag or have to wait at the baggage claim, yay) that still felt as though it had plenty of room left in it during my initial packing. This wouldn’t be the case on my way home – I’d accumulated a myriad of, well, crap that I don’t need over my five days in San Diego, from a series of WWE t-shirts and other items that Jonathan didn’t want out of various LootCrate products (which I actually will use and am stoked for), to water bottles, candies, books, lanyards, an entire bag of The Tick promotional material (read all about it right here), several books, a Sami Zayn autographed picture (read all about that one right here), and numerous other items that I can’t remember at this moment (but sadly, no Stranger Things hat, sorry Mikaela).

It was to the point where when packing this morning, I had to decide which non-important items were the most non-important, and other members of the group seemed to claim them pretty quickly. Still, there were numerous items that I wanted to bring home and never look at again, so it took nearly twenty minutes of intense struggling to actually get the bag zipped up, and I swear that I still have imprints on my fingerprints from pulling on the tiny zippers.

I lived in fear that it would burst open for the rest of the trip.

Zack and I left the room together and stopped at 7-Eleven for a quick Chiller Club (and a donut for breakfast, as at this point I have less than $20 left to my name). He told me all about the insanely cool Atomic Blonde screening he’d been at the night earlier, how much of a potty mouth Charleze Theron has, and how much he’s looking forward to seeing the film again. This also explained why he’d been wearing a blonde wig ever since I woke up this morning. It was a good look on him for sure.

We continued our trek to the convention centre (in what would be my last walk there of 2017, as I had my carry-on with me at this point) and we decided that Zack would be starting a new podcast for the Geekscape Network, entitled “Speaking Spuds With Zack Haddad.” The dude is a vegetable broker or something (I forgot the correct term) and knows a lot about potatoes. Who wouldn’t want to listen to that? I said that he could theme it like that little kid who eats peppers and reviews them on YouTube, except he could just cook different types of potatoes and review those. It for sure wouldn’t be as cute, but… actually maybe it’s just an all around bad idea.

Once inside of the convention centre, I did one last tour of the nearby booths (and once again failed to get any Stranger Things swag that I could now not fit in my bag even if I didn’t fail at obtaining it), and simply spent the next 90 minutes sitting at the Geekscape booth. We removed the mouse traps and broke down the Box of Mystery and Danger as at this point it was empty aside from some posters that nobody would even take for free. People kept swinging by for badge flares, to sign up for the giveaways still in progress, and to talk about Horror Movie Night once Matt lured them in with his “Podcasts you won’t listen to on a website you won’t visit” spiel. The booth felt less busy this morning, and it marked a great time to again connect with the people inside of it. This was a chill, relaxing way to end the convention, and I’d definitely do this again over a morning of being hung over or another day of appointments.

Then the goodbyes began. Courtney came by as she’d be in an appointment by the time I left. She actually lives just a couple of hours south of me, so I invited her to Canada, she invited me back to America, and meeting up again in real life (outside of the insanity of SDCC, which also marked Courtney’s first convention ever) is something that I’d really, really like to do in the near future.

The rest of the farewells came in quick succession as noon passed (I needed to be at the airport for one), hugs came from all around (including a very tight Matt/Jonathan group hug that lasted so long that I almost thought I’d be late for my flight. Matt let me know once again that he’s always around if I need to talk, or simply need anything at all. He’s reached out to me numerous times over the past ten months, just to check in or to see how I was doing. In most cases, he’d never receive a response, but I truly hope that he knows just how much I appreciate him doing that at all (and continuing to do it after being ignored).

It felt like a long, long walk from the convention centre to the ride share pick up point, because at this point and time, I simply wasn’t ready to say goodbye. This week ended up being so refreshing, so relieving, and exactly what I think I needed – I just didn’t think that I’d had enough of it yet, and I’d have loved the opportunity to be around these same people in a different, less busy context.

Guido the Lyft driver picked me up (when I travel I tend to ride share as much as possible as it still doesn’t exist in British Columbia, and after all of weird Uber shit that’s been going on lately, Lyft seems substantially less sleazy). It’s a pretty short trip from the Convention Centre to the airport, but we chatted about how cold it is in Vancouver (not very), the San Diego airport, and how Guido would be headed to Ecuador in September as his 88 year-old father is sick. He helped me pull my bag out of the trunk, I wished him and his father the best, and we parted ways.

Being the day that San Diego Comic-Con ended, I expected a packed airport. Delta noted that as I was taking an international flight I should arrive at the airport no later than 3 hours before my flight, and as I arrived with just less than that, I thought that I’d be cutting it close, and that I’d be in for a stressful time (as was my trip down to San Diego just a few days before). Five minutes later, I was through security and at my gate, in what may be the fastest airport experience that I’ve ever been through. I grabbed some quick Jack in the Box as it was the cheapest thing in the airport (and we down have them in Canada, and the curly fries are delicious).

After eating, I decided to spend the several hours I had remaining in the San Diego International Airport to simply relax. I made my way back to the gate, popped in some headphones, and watched some more SDCC reveals and trailers (during this time, thinking about how everyone shits all over every DCU film every time one releases, and then again goes ga-ga over each and every new trailer for the next one), scrolled Facebook, and essentially waited in boredom until the plane was finally read to board.

My first stop was Los Angeles, and the Journey there was just about the shortest flight that I’ve ever been on at about 25 minutes (if I remember correctly), the only shorter one being the ~12 seat, 20 minute seaplane flight from downtown Nanaimo to downtown Vancouver. This was a fairly uneventful journey, aside from two things: the lady who was very angry that the cast of Riverdale was seated before her and her child (like, several minutes before… the nerve), and my tooth, which again gave me several painful pops at random times during the flight.

Now that I was in Los Angeles, I had the amazing opportunity to wait another few hours for my final flight to Vancouver. At this point I was feeling pretty hungry yet again, and I grabbed some grub from the crappy Chinese food place inside of the LAX terminal. At the same time, I purchased a Gatorade, which I promptly forgot to bring with me and felt too awkward to go back for. Not my finest moment, but I hope that whoever picked it up got to enjoy it.

During the wait for this flight, I worked on this piece, and potentially had a bit of a nap, before the gate attendants finally began pre-boarding for the last leg of my journey. At this point I could tell that I was getting exhausted, as it annoyed the hell out of me when what seemed like every single passenger got up and attempted to get on the plane during the pre-boarding stage, again at zone one, and again at zone two, despite numerous messages from the crew that you would not be seated until it was your turn. Annoying AF (again, non-ironic usage). As I sit, relax, and finish this paragraph why warnings continue as the airport staff notes that “There seems to be some confusion at the gate, as we are not ready to seat the majority of you yet.”

I hop on the plane, and before I actually watch one of the Netflix items that I’d downloaded (before the plane would land, I’d get through most of The Wave), I took some time to reflect (more on that towards the end of the piece).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6TvhT-okSU

As the plane hit the tarmac, I began to realize just how exhausted I was. I slumped my way off of the plane, through customs (again, just say you’re going to / coming from a comic book convention and security won’t give a shit about you), grabbed my bag (which was checked for free as the plane was so full), and finally made my way outside of the airport. Mikaela waited for me in the lobby, and for the duration of the drive home I perked up and told SDCC stories that I’d forgotten about or that didn’t make it into these journal pieces. Before crashing, I opted to unpack, telling Mikaela that I needed to find my toothbrush, while secretly wanting to give her the WWE Championship fanny pack that was secretly in my bag. This came from the Box of Mystery and Danger, and I knew that she’d find it hilarious due to her love for fanny packs (which I really don’t understand). Also in unpacking, I’d realized that somehow I’d left my Canadian SIM Card in California, meaning that I had at least one important task on my plate the following day.

This Comic-Con felt pretty different, and to this point I’m not really sure why (but it felt mostly positive). Obviously, Shane wasn’t in attendance, and I missed him a lot (this was probably the only negative change vs. previous years), though the toilet did look a lot better after five days than after a few hours with our resident Brony around (say the word, Shane, and I’ll remove that last sentence).

One thing that was pretty different for me personally was the fact that I was carrying around substantially less gear than I typically do. In past years I’ve used GoPros and mirrorless cameras to shoot Shane running the Assassin’s Creed obstacle courses, or numerous other events. I’ve taken hundreds of photos that wouldn’t see the light of day until months later. I’ve brought notebook computers and carried them around all day for the off chance that I’d find some working wifi and could get some work done before returning to the hotel. This year I stripped down. I got rid of my computer, picked up an iPad Pro, took photos on my phone, and ended up writing substantially more words, producing more content, and feeling substantially less weighed down than in years gone by. I can’t say that these pieces would have been as in depth or as accurate without these devices and the WordPress app, which meant that while standing in line, grabbing a bite to eat, or waiting to meet up with others, I could continue where I left off, on any device, with just a few taps.

It also felt easier to describe Geekscape this year. Over the past few conventions, with the death of things like our long lost forums (which haven’t felt viable in some years), and the rise (and rise and rise) of what feels like 30,000 other geek culture blogs, we sort of lost our identity somewhere along the way. For the past few years, we’ve been scraping and clawing and trying to hold onto some semblance of what we were, instead of looking towards the future and thinking about what we could be. We’re a little (tiny) player in a world of Inverse’s and Nerdist’s, and it’s simply not viable anymore to focus on things like news when a myriad of other publications have offices with people sitting in desks waiting for the next piece of news to break. Many of us have (multiple) jobs, are going to school, or live in the middle of nowhere. As much as many of us would like to turn this sort of work into a career (and plenty of former Geekscapists have), there are plenty of us that simply love this brand, and want to try to see it grow into the best that it can be.

This year, we started describing ourselves as a podcast network. We’ve grown from one long running show into a handful, all with their own topics, hosts, personalities, and listener bases. There are more, secret shows in the pipeline, and the feedback for all of the podcasts (aside from Geekscape Games’ consistency) has been overwhelmingly positive.

We’re still in the work in progress phases of this transition, but we think it’s definitely the right move for us going forward (and I hope it’s alright that I’m spilling the beans right now). Deciding not to compete in areas where we simply can’t will give our people more time to focus on the things that they’re actually passionate about, podcasts or otherwise. The plan for the written content is not to stop it, but for it to evolve. The growing number of podcasts become the daily content that keeps us looking lively (and that has our listeners becoming connected with the people associated with the brand), which means that people will become more interested in the personal pieces that our writers bring to the table. Natalie sounds super passionate about toys, I’d love to see more personal articles like this from her in the future. Adam’s incredibly passionate about Puyo! Puyo! and I’d love to know why. Is Shane still a card carrying member of the Brony club? Why does Zack want to talk about potatoes so badly? These are all things that I’d love to learn more about because I feel connected with these people, and I think that with time our regular readers will be too. Becoming more personal with what we’re writing is the goal, which is something that I don’t think we see enough of in this industry today. Within these journals, I tried to give some insight into the way that SDCC ebbs and flows for those of you who may not have had an opportunity to experience it, and I also wanted to give everyone a little insight into myself and the way I operate. I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading about this journal as much as I’ve enjoyed bringing it to you.

This was a great Comic-Con. Jonathan brought some new energy to the brand that I haven’t seen from him in years, and it makes me excited about our potential future in a way that I haven’t been for some time. It was incredible to see fans of Matt’s podcast come up to him just to shake his hand and to let him know how much he enjoyed the show. It was cool to meet and get to know Courtney, and to make a plan to hang out in real life since we live so close together. I had a blast chatting wrestling and being introduced to New Japan by Josh and Magan. It was awesome to reconnect with Zack after not seeing him since Shane nearly killed his cat. Eating dinners as a group at Lolita’s (mmm, burritos) or Horton Plaza and simply trying to catch up (as I feel like I barely saw Adam or Natalie all weekend). These were the best moments, and as fun as being at Comic-Con, checking out the show floor, hitting up parties, panels, and offsites are, these are the things that I’ll remember way down the line. Jonathan said that he started Geekscape in order to make new friends, and I truly appreciate the lifelong friendships that I’ve made, and the people that I’ve gotten to know because of this brand.

#GeekscapeForever

My Overwritten Journey To SDCC 2017: Day 4 – Breakfast Burgers, Con Flu, And Recording Our Thoughts

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 23, 2017

Read day 0 here.
Read day one-ish here.
Read day two here.
Read day three here.

I have no idea what time I passed out at last night (or this morning, more likely), but I got up today feeling substantially more awake and energized than I did yesterday. It must have been the litres (gallons? US gallons? Why can’t America be the same as anyone else) of water that I’d consumed as an attempt to feel better.

I did wake up today with a bit of a sunburn on my neck, and at this moment I realized that I haven’t even thought about putting on sunscreen once so far this week. My fiancé packed it for me and everything, it just slipped my mind until it was too late. Now, typically I avoid sunscreen anyways because it feels gross and I don’t like doing things that feel gross, but I swear this isn’t one of those times. I told my fiancé that I had forgotten all about it, and she called bullshit no matter how I tried to save it.

I began to wander around the Gaslamp district in order to find some breakfast. I planned to hit up the Hall of Justice Subway that Jonathan and I ate at a couple of days back, but he texted me to let me know that they were closed on weekends. As I walked by dark restaurant after dark restaurant, I realized that apparently so was everywhere else (or they didn’t open for several more hours). I even went back to the Horton Plaza outdoor mall, as I assumed (incorrectly) that something in the food court would be open at this time. Heading here did, however, help me make up my mind about the Nikki Bella signing, which had a substantially longer line than the Sami Zayn event from days prior, even though you had to buy a specific package to take part in this one.

Somehow, a burger place called All American Burger was the first open locale that I came across, and thankfully the restaurant was nearly empty, meaning that I could walk in without waiting in any lines. Amazing. Do people not want burgers for breakfast? Or is everyone just in the Hall H line so they can see the Marvel reveals later today?

The burger was pretty tasty, though also pretty expensive (especially factoring in Canada’s worthless dollar), and the coffee was much appreciated.

The show floor was open following breakfast, and I waded through what felt like the most crowded show floor ever (or at least of this week) to make my way back to the booth. Jon was here, and we took the time to record a segment for the post-SDCC episode of the flagship Geekscape podcast. We chatted about Puyo Puyo, our experiences thus far, Sonic Mania, and more, and as we mentioned video games this once again makes Geekscape the number one video game podcast on the network.

We finished this up, and I watched Matt Kelly tell a ~10 year old girl in a princess dress about how the Horror Movie Night shirt he’d been slinging features a ghost with a boner. He also performed some sort of rap shortly afterwards.

Not the ghost boner moment, but not far from it.

I took this as an opportunity to leave the booth and to walk a bit more of the show floor. I headed towards Artist’s Alley in search of a print for my dad. In previous years he’s sent with with some cash, and I’ve added some cash of my own (as a birthday present) to get him a commission from a neat artist. This year I’m so broke that this just can’t happen, so I need to find something cool as a consolation prize.

I’m also in search of a cool looking Deadpool cosplay to take a photo of. One of my friend’s kids is a huge Deadpool fan (doesn’t he know that Deadpool isn’t for kids?) and asked me to snap a photo of one for him. Naturally, prior to this request I saw a myriad of them, but following the request I’ve yet to see a single one (even while legimately searching for one). Lame.

After some walking around, I decide to head across the road to the Petco Interactive Zone. Here, there are installations for things like IT, some sort of game called Recoil, photo ops for Game of Thrones, Luke Cage and more, some sort of World of Warcraft ice cream, and more. The lines for everything here were pretty long, and I was beginning to feel a bit off (could the con flu be coming on?) so I decided to head out without experiencing any of the content.

I took a walk around the outside of Petco Park to witness just how far the line for the upcoming Impractical Jokers Block Party stretched around the park, and it was nearly all the way. I’m talking thousands of people waiting to get in to experience the White Castle food truck, Sumo Wrestling, and other odd activities.

It’s hard to tell from this photo, but it was one of the longest lines I’d seen this year.

I wandered back up to the convention centre, went upstairs to see if Ballroom 20 had a lineup at this time as there was a The Simpsons panel here that sounded pretty interesting (it did, a very, very long one), and just sat down in the hall to get some writing done. At this point in the day I’m feeling pretty ill (I should have consumed more Emergen-C in the past few days), and instead of wanting to do anything else at the convention centre at this time, I kind of just want to have a nap.

I decided to sit down for a little while, and found an area outside of a panel room that wasn’t too packed. I continued to feel more and more nauseous, and as I knew nearly nothing that had been announced at Comic-Con thus far, I decided to scroll some news feeds. I watched a bad-ass first trailer for Ready Player One (I need to read the book again before the film comes out), the fantastic first full trailer for Stranger Things 2, and learned that Todd McFarlane was directing a new Spawn movie for Blumhouse.

At this point I was fading fast, and decided that I needed to grab some food and head back to the hotel to chill for awhile. I made my way back up to the Horton Plaza which at this point seemed like the only affordable food in the area, and ended up getting another round of Panda Express in before my long trip back to Canada the next day. I figured that I should buy something to augment the free things that I’d obtained thus far, so I made my daily round through the WWE FYE Pop-Up Shop (read all about it right here) and settled on some Bayley Gummy Bears and a The New Day Water Bottle. It was a cool $16 total, which seemed fine until I realized that I’d just spent more than $10 Canadian on Gummy Bears.

I arrived back at the Westin, gave my fiancé a quick call, and then napped for an hour or so. This was probably the best decision I’d made all day, as I woke up feeling pretty damned refreshed, and substantially less nauseous than I did previously. When I awoke, there was a notification from Expedia on my phone letting me know that I could now check in for my flight back to Vancouver. This reminded me that this year’s journey would soon be coming to an end.

At this point it was about 5:45PM, and I was under the impression that we’d be recording Geekscape Games in the morning, so I didn’t think that I’d have an opportunity to hit the show floor again after today. I opted to take a quick Lyft back to the convention centre so that I could have as much time as possible (the driver, Marcia, was very interested in what I’d experienced at the convention thus far). Here, I walked through Artist’s Alley once more, adoring all of the art that I couldn’t afford, walked by the weird hentai grab brags and missed Shane once again, and once again tried for a Stranger Things hat for Mikaela (no go, sorry sweetie). The convention floor closed, and we all booked it to Rockin’ Baha for one last dinner together (making 2017 the first year that I was able to experience the mango/pineapple salsa twice).

Matt, Courtney, and I made our way back to the hotel and decided to hit up the whirlpool as a means to relieve our aching feet. On our way back, Matt spotted a Deadpool without a mask. I noted that “Without a mask he’s useless to me,” to which Matt yelled “Yo Deadpool put your mask on for a second.” It worked, and I got the shot for my friend. I never would have asked him myself, so I guess thanks are in order.

At this point we had decided that we’d actually record a Geekscape Games podcast tonight, as some events ended up being booked for Sunday morning. Josh was unable to join due to an impromptu Michelle Branch (and not Sarah McLaughlin) concert, Adam was at a Sonic Mania, and Shane didn’t come to Comic-Con, so we invited Matt to be our third (especially as we’d mostly be talking about Comic-Con rather than video game news).

In the whirlpool, we met a guy who was in charge of designing Hot Wheels for Mattel. He noted that he’d worked in the auto industry for over a decade before getting a random call from Mattel, and that he took the job as it sounded like a fun departure. He told us a story about designing cars for Star Wars: The Force Awakens, noting that he’d designed a car based on a really cool character who ended up barely present in the final cut, and how weird it ended up being for a toy like this to come out when nobody would care (or even be familiar with) the character. Matt took the lead on the conversation (it kind of sounded like he was trying to take this guy home too), and he certainly had some incredibly interesting stories to tell.

Upon returning to the hotel room, we found Gui asleep meaning that this nice, quiet location was no longer an option. We ended up going downstairs and using the outdoor patio, which was quiet for the most part (aside from the occasional ambulance, musical pedicab, or train). Matt, Courtney, and I chatted about our favourite moments of the convention (this was Courtney’s first convention ever), things we were looking forward to tomorrow, the future of Geekscape, and much more. This was a really neat episode for me to be a part of, as it felt a little more in depth and personal than what we typically record. I’ll update this piece with the link to the episode as soon as Shane posts it (and works his audio magic as we did not use a monitor this time around).

Echoing what I said yesterday, I feel like I only just arrived, and it’s crazy to me that tomorrow afternoon all of this is coming to an end. I’ve shared a lot of great stories and laughs, and have had some deeper serious moments at this convention, not to mention all of the neat actually convention related things that I’ve been able to do. I’m not done with my family here just yet, and at this point I don’t want to go.

As I finish this piece, I’m the last one awake in the room. This is the last night that I’ll hear Jonathan’s insomnia-inducing snores until next year’s Comic-Con, and soon the wonderful face to face conversations that I’ve been having with everyone will again be relegated to text (or podcast, if I’m lucky). This is pretty sad, as I’m just not ready to say goodbye to these people. I wish I had a few more non Comic-Con days to spend with these folks once the insanity settles down, and on previous years, I would have.

In any case, I’m truly grateful that I got to spend some time with these people at all. I once again feel a closeness to them that was substantially weaker when I arrived, and it reminded me of how important these relationships are to me, and also of just how much these people care about me. I hope that I can take these thoughts and feelings home with me, and continue what we once again started here from afar (also Courtney lives pretty close to me, so I could totally see her for real).

It’s still hard to believe that there can be this many people in one place.

My Overwritten Journey To SDCC 2017: Day 3 – Sidewalk Burritos, VR Mechs, and Mango Freakin’ Salsa

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 22, 2017

Read day 0 here.
Read day one-ish here.
Read day two here.

I feel like garbage today.

I figured that it must have been after eight AM, when I woke up, but when I groaned to my bed buddy, Matt Kelly “What time is it?” I learned that it was only nearly seven. This is a pretty typical wake up time for me, but for some reason I felt groggy as hell as I finally made my way over to the shower.

I realized that this feeling was likely due to the absolute zero quantity of water I’d consumed since I arrived in San Diego (it’s been Chillers, soda, and small amounts of alcohol thus far). Zack and I headed out towards the convention centre together, and I attempted to quell this feeling by grabbing a bottle of water another Chiller at the nearest 7-Eleven.

On our way back to the action we chatted about our experiences working in the film industry (which I don’t do a lot of these days and miss dearly), what sort of film experiences that we’d had, our addictive personalities (he’s at the point where he could almost build a house out of Funko POP! figures, while I keep asking my fiancé if we can spend money that we don’t have on a WWE Replica title), cool restaurant experiences from San Diego, how effective Fox’s marketing for The Gifted has been thus far, and subsequently about just how many people will watch a TV show based on a giant image of said show being plastered on the side of a hotel. I see giant Once Upon a Time images on the side of Petco Park every single year, have worked on several episodes of it, and I still haven’t had an inclination to watch an episode. That The Gifted though, that hotel marketing really, really got to me.

As we still had a ton of time before the show floor would open (today I realized that I haven’t actually walked the exhibition halls yet, which I’m hoping to make time for later today), so we decided to check out the embarcadero in the rear of the convention centre. The area featured things like the Adult Swim on the Green, FXHibition, and The Gifted testing facilities. I thought that we may be able to walk around these areas before the convention centre opened, but everything was completely blocked off and there were gigantic lineups outside of each venue. We continued to walk the embarcadaro, admiring things like the #Wrecked setup over the water, the IMdBoat, and mostly the incredibly long lineup for Hall H, which extended into a parking lot that reminded me of the tent city that Vancouver’s homeless population often sets up (though I think that there were significantly less needles here).

I was getting pretty hungry now (and still feeling pretty gross, the Chiller didn’t help for some reason), and I thought that I’d have to go against the approaching thousands back into the Gaslamp district to grab a bite (which would be a terrible, terrible experience). Then we saw it – somehow, away from most of the crowd, tucked away next to an elevator, there was a single food truck. It was called Tacos Mexico, and there I consumed a glorious, dry as hell steak, egg and cheese burrito that was just what I needed. I also took this opportunity to grab a coconut water, and shortly after I downed it I began to feel significantly more energized.
Zack needed to leave in order to get to the booth on time (and grab some sort of LEGO exclusive along the way), and I took the opportunity to stay seated and give my fiancé a quick call (I ended up waking her up, oops).

I didn’t have anything on my slate until 11AM, so I went up to the SDCC Press Room to grab some (real) water, and to utilize the wifi to work on a couple of articles. As far as I know, last year was the first time that the convention actually offered this room, and I really appreciate the fact that the powers at be decided to continue the room this year. Space is a hot commodity around the convention centre (and the entire Gaslamp District), so to have a room away from the crowds, with wifi and water is a freaking lifesaver. In previous years I remember walking the (sometimes miles) for some peace and quiet and wifi (the three go hand in hand), and for the opportunity to actually be able to get some work done. These days, it’s a five minute walk from the booth (and an even shorter walk from the other panel rooms).

11AM fast approached, and I made my way down to Mary Jane’s at the Hard Rock Hotel to meet with some representatives from Skydance Interactive, a division of Skydance that’s less than a year and a half old, who have released two games (that I had a lot of fun with) in the past seven days. It’s clear that the company wanted to make a big impression, as the entirety of the restaurant was adorned in decorations for the two games, Archangel, a giant-mech VR shooter, and PWND, a multiplayer area FPS with some super original mechanics.

I met with one of the Skydance representatives, Matt. While I waited to check out Archangel, which is available now for PlayStation VR and coming early August for Oculus and HTC Vive, we chatted about Vancouver (where I live), and he noted that he recently visited the city for the first time to check out the sets for Skydance / Netflix sci-fi series Altered Carbon. The series itself sounds bad-ass, and I was a little sad in this moment as I once had an opportunity to work on the series, but after the year that I’ve had I rarely find myself doing film work anymore.

Only at SDCC is it okay to play VR without a shirt in a restaurant.

I spent about 15 minutes enjoying the hell out of the PSVR version of Archangel, which Skydance notes as its first original title, stating that it’s “an action-packed, story-driven shooter that was created exclusively for virtual reality.” In the game, “you are dropped into the cockpit of a six-story-high war machine, a one-of-a-kind weapon that must stop a tyrannical corporation from taking over a post-apocalyptic America. Archangel delivers detailed graphics, engaging storytelling techniques, memorable characters and explosive action like no other.”
The game is an on-rails shooter that (as noted above) puts you in the cockpit of a giant mech. The level that I played had the mech making its way through an all but destroyed, desolate city, where I fought waves of varied enemies (including a variety of tiny aircraft that took a lot of ammo to destroy due to their small size and quick movement). The level featured a ton of plot points, and had me getting to know the team of ships assisting me in getting to my destination, as well as the corporate enemy that was all but destroying America. The game was a blast, the story was intriguing, and I’m certainly looking forward to checking out more of Archangel.

The other game being shown off was entitled PWND, which is marketed as a “throwback to the golden age of the high-speed, multiplayer arena shooter” The game, which was conceptualized by Skydance Interactive long before they were Skydance Interactive (CEO Peter Akemann and much of the staff were previously of The Workshop, and Treyarch preceding that. The company notes that “Modernized Rocket jumping controls create a ridiculously fast-paced and highly three dimensional battle experience for PC. In PWND, you don’t score by simply killing your opponents, but by performing a “victory dance” over them before they respawn. ”

I was freaking awful at this game, but I thought that the mechanics were super smooth, and the idea revolving around the “victory dance” was freaking hilarious. You don’t actually receive any points for killing a member of the opposite team – you essentially need to get to them and take the opportunity to teabag them before you’ll score. If you die while in this process, you’ll actually create a “stack”, and the player who is able to perform a “victory dance” on the stack will receive a far more substantial amount of points.

I played two rounds of the game in my time at the Skydance Lounge, and got my ass kicked both times. I think that I was playing with other folks online rather than just the other convention goers present at the lounge, and it was clear that at least a few of the folks that I was playing with had spent a bunch of time on the title in the 24 hours since release. That, or I’m just really, really bad at first person shooters.

You can look for my full write up on Skydance Interactive’s titles, including an interview with CEO Peter Akemann in the coming days.

Next up, I made my way to the FXHibition for an appointment at Sessions: The ‘Legion’ Mixed Reality Experience. I won’t spend too much time on that here, but Sessions marked my first Hololens experience, my first real augmented reality experience, and it was an unreal mix of live actors and insane technology. I had so much fun here, and I really, really hope that Hololens and AR catch on. If this is one of the first really impressive experiences that’s been offered on the platform, I really can’t imagine what companies will be doing with the technology over the coming years.

No cameras or recording devices were allowed inside of the experiences, but I’ve written up a recap of sessions right here. They also let you take a selfie at the end, and I look like a freaking dummy.

I hadn’t scheduled much else for the rest of the day, so I shot Zack a quick message asking if we could go to Rockin’ Baha. We did. Finally, I could put it inside me; the glorious mango/pineapple salsa that had been eluding me all week. I ordered some tacos that I didn’t really care about, and I loaded the hell up on Baha’s homemade (I assume) tortilla chips and incredible, to die for salsa. It was heaven, and along with running into Renee Young (and re-bonding with much of the Geekscape family), it was a definitely highlight of the convention.

I’m feeling pretty exhausted at this point in the day (I’ve done significantly less walking around than yesterday, and have now downed a butt-ton of water so I’m not exactly sure why) so I decided to do a quick walk of the convention floor before checking in with the folks at the booth. If you’ve not been to SDCC before, calling the show floor shoulder to shoulder, in many cases is an understatement. It’s shoulder to shoulder in the less crowded areas, and in the busier areas (Marvel, Netflix, DC, Entertainement Earth, Funko, etc), it basically feels like everyone is inside of each other (and not in a good way). Also, as is the stereotype, for everyone in this culture that bathes and puts on deodorant, there are four or five that should do it more often. Your nose is going to experience some odd things at this convention, and it can strike you pretty heavily if you’re not prepared for it.

I stopped at the Mondo booth to gawk at all of the prints that I can’t afford this year (while also remembering that I still have several at home that I’m still waiting to frame), went to Netflix to check out the neat video wall (and to try to score my fiancé a Stranger Things hat… I failed), and then took a look at all of the new WWE figures at the Mattel booth (where I was also curious to see an Eva Marie doll in the new WWE Superstars fashion doll line). I checked in with the folks at the booth and figured out some plans for after the convention before realizing that another panel that I really wanted to see was just minutes away.

This was the “Life Is Strange: Before The Storm Developer Showcase’ panel (which I was lucky enough to walk right into), in which Tech 9 games talked about their experiences developing the game, answered fan questions, and also gave the first live gameplay demo of a new section of the first episode, which brought us to an area of Arcadia Bay that we’d never seen before. The demo took us SPOILERS AHEAD to an abandoned mill where an illegal concert by the band Fire Walk was taking place. Chloe, who naturally had no business being there, snuck in and proceeded to get into worlds of trouble. We saw a few familiar faces, including Frank and Pompidou, and even Rachel Amber herself, who helped Chloe escape from a pretty sticky situation. The whole demo was a pretty neat reveal, as the developers on stage allowed the crowd to decide which choices Chloe would make throughout the demo. Fans were super vocal about these choices, and the entire room would yell out in unison for certain options, which was pretty cool to be a part of.

In answering a fan’s question, the developers noted that the game would again feature a series of licensed tracks along with an original score, noting that naturally the soundtrack of the game would be important to the story as well as being important to the fans, and that the soundtrack decisions were being made at the same time as high level story points were. They also noted that as you’re playing a different character this time around (Chloe instead of Max), Chloe is going to listen to different music, and so fans should expect a vastly different soundtrack that still feels very Life Is Strange.

One fan noted that one of the things that he had done a lot of while playing the game was crying, and he was wondering if he could expect the same with Before the Storm. The developers gave a pretty simple answer here, stating that “On August 31st you can cry again,” and “Buy your tissues now.”

I was super glad to have made it into this panel. Life Is Strange was my favourite game of 2015, and I’m beyond excited to learn more of Chloe’s backstory, and to simply get back into the world of Arcadia Bay.

https://youtu.be/0lQketFfKZ8

The panel ended about half an hour after the show floor closed, and after much confusion (my group texts were apparently not functioning correctly), I ended up back at the WWE Shop at the Horton Plaza (read all about it here) by myself… and then found everyone else outside just a few moments later. We went to eat at some sandwich shop called Panera (which I kept calling Pandora) which had decent sandwiches (everyone had talked it up and it was nothing special) at a decent price. Their macaroni and cheese was pretty damn good though. While there, we chatted about Puyo Puyo, I ransacked Josh and Megan’s bag from the WWE Shop (it’s going to be hard not to go back tomorrow to grab a New Day water bottle and some Bayley gummy bears), and got pretty in depth about the new Yu-Gi-Oh mechanics (it sounds like a much more complicated game than it was when I played it in elementary school and retired undefeated).

There were plans to go to a couple of events in the evening, but as soon as I sat down at Panera I knew that as soon as I got back to the hotel I would definitely not be going anywhere else. Matt missed out on Panera, so before we settled down Zack and I walked him to Subway (24 hours, woo). Matt went upstairs to eat (when we got back to the hotel), and Zack and I stayed behind and chatted about the differences between Canadian and American playgrounds, Jake The Snake Roberts, small town living, and numerous other random topics.

I head back up to the hotel to finish tonight’s piece, and I realize that tomorrow is my last full day at this year’s convention. I’m flying out mid-afternoon Sunday and recording a Geekscape Games episode earlier that morning, so tomorrow may even be my last day on the floor and around the Gaslamp.

What will I do tomorrow? With time running out, I’m beginning to stress out about it. I’d love to record a piece for this year’s post-SDCC show, there’s that Nikki Bella signing at the FYE WWE Pop-Up Shop, I just read that there’s a Slusho truck somewhere in the area, and I still haven’t spent too much time walking the show floor (or even checked out the Nintendo lounge, IT experience, Petco Interactive Zone, or one million other things).

I’m not ready for this to end.

SDCC 2017: FX’s ‘Sessions: The ‘Legion’ Mixed Reality Experience Was My First Awesome Taste Of AR

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 21, 2017

Anyone who’s familiar with me (or has listened to Geekscape Games) knows that I’m a big proponent of VR. I’ve spent the duration of the last few San Diego Comic-Con’s seeking all sorts of different virtual reality experiences, from the American Horror Story, Resident Evil VII, or Paranormal Activity: The Lost Soul’ experiences last year (the last link includes a video basically featuring Shane peeing his pants), to The Walking Dead, The Strain, VR Adult Films (for science), and more in years prior.

I was certainly excited to check out more virtual reality at this year’s SDCC, including Archangel, the first release from Skydance Interactive (look out for a piece about this experience later).

FX kept the ‘Mixed Reality’ experience pretty mysterious up until the point that you enter it. The press release gave essentially no info, noting only “Are you prepared to discover the deep power that exists within you? Experience the world of Legion in mixed reality, and see the universe in a whole new light.” Even the employees outside of the experience, when asked, wouldn’t tell you anything about what was in store for you.

No cameras or recording equipment were allowed inside the event, so if you’re interested to see what happened, you’ll have to read on.

Spoilers follow. You’ve been warned.

The outside of the building simply features a classy Legion logo overlaid on top of some vines, while the Mutant Gene Testing for Fox’s next upcoming X-universe series, The Gifted, continually has alarms going off just metres away. A staff member will measure your Pupillary Distance before you approach the event, which I found pretty interesting as I’ve never actually seen this happen outside of a glasses store. Once you get through the lineup, a staff member in a lab coat will bring you into a white hallway with a series of old-looking televisions and a bunch of other convention goers who are currently going through the same ‘testing’ as you are. The actress that was taking me through the experience was very serious, and said things like “Do you remember being here?”, “Do you know who you are?” and “I’m here to help you.” I wasn’t sure if I was supposed to give short answers or freak out like the real David might, so I stuck with the former.

The actress sat me down while another lab coat-donning employee brought me a headset to “help with the testing”. I didn’t realize it until later, but this would be my first experience with Microsoft’s Hololens, which was surprisingly lightweight and comfortable, and produced deep sound that felt as though I was wearing earbuds, without actually putting anything in (or all that near) my ears.

The device took me through a sort of calibration process, which had me looking at a series of triangles to start (which I imagine had something to do with calibrating my field of view), and then lifting my hand, making an “L” gesture, pinching a piece of a floating brain, and dragging it to another location. When I first saw the floating, spinning brain, I couldn’t help but laugh out loud, as it simply felt like magic. The Hololens that you wear is almost like wearing some lightly shaded sunglasses (everything has just a little bit of a darker tint to it), and beyond that, this brain was just floating in front of me before I pinched in with my fingers and, again like magic, moved it somewhere else. This, naturally, felt completely different than my previous VR experiences, in which the idea is typically to put you into the place of another person, in another world. Here, I was seeing all of the same things that I was seeing before donning the headset, and all of a sudden there were things that I could interact with floating in front of me. I couldn’t help but mutter “holy shit” under my breath, and this was just the beginning.

Another actor came out of a room in front of me in order to collect me for a sort of “interview”. I sat down, and in the room the Hololens was adding things like a Newton’ cradle, a stapler, and three face-down cards in front of me, a lamp on a bookcase behind me, a clock on one of the side walls, and a few more things that I can no longer recall. As I moved my head and shifted my body, my perspective on these items changed just as they would in real life. I really don’t know much about the Hololens or how it tracks positions, but I was really impressed here.

I sat down, and all of a sudden could hear voices all around me. I then hear Lenny from the series, who told me to focus on her voice, and told me how I could turn the other voices down (this involved making the motion of twisting an invisible volume knob in front of you. The actor in front of me then began asking me to perform tasks as a mean to learn more about my powers. I started with levitating an item on the table, before stopping the Newton’s cradle by holding my hand out in front of me, and eventually teleporting a lamp from the back wall onto the desk in front of me. These tasks all looked cool, but could be a little confusing as the gestures needed to perform each seemed to vary without explanation. At times I wasn’t sure if I was doing the wrong thing, or if I was doing the right thing and ‘using that power’ was actually just taking awhile.

The interviewer then asked me to tell him what was on the three cards on the desk. I levitated the cards, when Lenny’s voice was again in my ear, stating that she had taken over the body of the interviewer, and letting me know that these people were not trying to help me, and to go along with what was happening while she figured out how to get me out of there. I “used my powers” to see through the cards and see the symbol on the other side (pieces of the event were also voice activated, so you’d move onto the next card once you said the shape), and read them out loud.

Lenny (as the interviewer) then asks me to describe what I see in the frames on the wall. The wall art is a series of Rorschach blots, which begin to change and morph when I describe them.

I’m then told to follow her lead (again, this is all in my head, as to not alert the other person in the room), as on the count of three she’s going to get up to guide me out of the office. The interviewer stands up, comes around the table towards me, and it seems like I’m supposed to get up and follow them when all of a sudden I hear something along the lines of “They know!” or “They’re onto us!” and I’m pulled into the corner opposite the door. The other person in the room (the actress that initially took me through the calibration process was now wearing a giant, creepy paper-mâché looking mask and was headed towards me with her arms outstretched. Just as she’s about to reach me, we push through the wall (a secret door) and I’m found in another white room with more lab coat-wearing individuals to help me wrap up.

This is the experience. They help me take off the Hololens and ask me if I had fun (I did). You also have the ability to take a selfie while still wearing the headset to memorialize your (likely) first mixed-reality experience.

Aside from the sometimes clunky interactions with the objects in front of me, I was so freaking impressed by this experience. It reminded me of the first few times I tried (and was blown away by) Virtual Reality, and obviously AR opens up another world of different events, experiences, games, and things that you can do. I can’t wait to see the technology expand (and I imagine that next SDCC there’ll be a myriad of different AR experiences)

Sessions: The Legion Mixed Reality Experience will be open at the FXHibition at the Hilton Bayfront Park through Sunday. The standby line is long, but the experience itself is cool as hell.

My Overwritten Journey To SDCC 2017: Day Two – Meditation, Renee Young, And Still No Mango Salsa

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 21, 2017

Read day 0 here.
Read day one-ish here.

I slept so freaking well last night.

It was a pretty relaxed evening as you may have read in yesterday’s piece. I turned in at about 12:30 AM after putting on the finishing touches to that article, and between the T3, melatonin, earplugs, and exhaustion, I passed out nearly right away.

Because of those glorious, orange ear phalluses, I barely recall hearing any snoring whatsoever. It was Bobby Roode level glorious, and I woke up far more energized this morning than I did yesterday. I did’t set an alarm, as I figured I’d simply wake up when the sun rose (it was pretty gloomy in the morning so it wasn’t actually that bright). I started stirring around 8AM when Matt was preparing to leave the hotel, and (I think) when someone started singing some sort of improvised Puyo Puyo theme song, which is bound to become this Con’s DANGANRONPA or SPRING BREAK chant.

Matt and Zack left the room while Jonathan and I got ready for our day. I showered, cleaned up, and took my sweet, sweet antibiotics. We were about to leave to grab breakfast when Jonathan realized that he hadn’t completed his daily meditation session (which is something that’s become pretty important to him since I saw him last Comic-Con. He invited me to partake – meditation is not something that I’ve ever tried or really thought about before, and today’s session was far along in a chapter with a specific goal, but I joined in. It was an interesting, relaxing experience that I enjoyed more than I though I would, and as Jonathan explained the purpose around the process, along with what it means and what it’s doing for him, it became something that I would love to explore and experience more of when I return home (which I’m sure is something that my fiancé will love).

Jonathan and I went to 7-Eleven to have a quick Chiller Club reunion (my first Chiller in more than a year, and I definitely had forgotten how tasty, sugary, and addicting they are). We then hit up a secret Subway that was super dead and right across the street from our hotel (the steak, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich is to die for). I took a quick look at Facebook, and naturally my Facebook memory for the day was a picture of mango salsa from a couple of years back. Why must you torture me like this?

The floor was about to open just as we finished eating, so we began the walk back to the convention centre, and into the BELLY OF THE BEAST (the San Diego crowds, not the Steven Seagal classic). Here, we learned that a year after everyone was expecting Pokemon Go‘s first legendary creature to drop, Niantic revealed that at the ongoing Pokemon Go celebration in Chicago, attendees will have the very first opportunity to claim a legendary bird. Pretty freaking cool. We chatted about the game and how it’s changed, and the conversation alone made me want to jump back into the game after a substantial period of not even opening the app.

We did a quick tour of the crowded show floor before making our way back to the booth, where the BOX OF MYSTERY AND DANGER (where attendees could earn their way to free stuff, or potential death) had found itself refilled with even more Loot Crate swag care of Natalie. I grabbed a couple of pairs of themed socks (Optimus Prime for myself, Superman for my dad, who’s a big fan and even has a Batman/Superman logo tattooed on his arm).

I split up from Matt and Jonathan and headed upstairs. It was approaching 11AM and I wanted to be sure that I could attend the WWE and Mattel panel at 1PM. I thought that I should grab a coffee to keep my energy up, so I ordered a Cold Brew from one of the local Starbucks kiosks. I walked away before taking a sip and then realizing it was a Raspberry Iced Tea instead. I planned to go back so that I could get my sweet, sweet caffeine fix, but I couldn’t find the damned kiosk again.

I jumped in the back of the line for Room 5AB, where the WWE Panel would be taking place in just a couple of hours.

Naturally, there were still a couple of panels to go before then, starting with a panel called ‘Wonderstruck: From Page to Screen with Brian Selznick’. Going in, I knew nothing of Wonderstruck or Selznick. Pretty quickly, however, I realized that Selznick wrote the book that the Martin Scorseze film Hugo was based on (a film that I freaking loved, and haven’t seen in way too many years). Selznick moderated the panel, which took us through his stories writing the book, the experience of it being made into a film, and giving us a behind the scenes look at the Amazon Studios adaptation of another one of his bestsellers, Wonderstruck, which was directed by Academy Award Nominee Todd Haynes, and looks like a very, very beautiful film. Selznick noted that Amazon was even able to finish up the film’s first trailer preceding the panel, and he debuted it for those in attendance. The trailer solidified my interest in the film, and I can’t wait to watch it when it debuts later this year.

The final panel before the WWE / Mattel presentation was called ‘Sherlock Comics With Stephen Moffat’, during which showrunner and writer Stephen Moffat chatted with the audience about the Sherlock manga and mostly just reminded me that I need to freaking watch Sherlock. I spent some of this panel working on some other pieces (like my expanded thoughts on The Tick Takeover event here), but the amount of passionate Sherlock manga fans was pretty incredible. Also a lot of that artwork is pretty bad-ass, and it’s amazing just how much some of it looks like Benedict Cumberbatch. The Q&A question that received the most fanfare was definitely when a fan asked if we’d ever see any crossover manga with Doctor Who, to which Moffat replied that he’s only in charge of one property, and he begged and pleaded to the Doctor Who show runner, who simply said no.

The panel ended, the room cleared, I got a seat as close as I could, and then it was finally time for the WWE panel that I’d been waiting all morning for. This was more interesting to me than the Hall H panels that I’d visited last year, and almost any of the offsite events that I’ve had an opportunity to visit over the past five years. This is something that I’ve become super passionate about over the past 18 or so months, and to see these athletes that I spend so many hours watching each month in a setting such as this was worth the trip alone.

I’ll have a whole write-up on the panel in the coming day or so, but it was truly incredible to see just how passionate all of the fans were. For some of the superstars, it was their first visit to SDCC, and they all looked honoured to be a part of this presentation.

The hour flew right by (probably aided by me typing as fast as I could as a means to be able to write as much about the event as possible) and at its closure, before the superstars exited, they thanked the fans for helping them get to where they are today. The superstars spoke of their favourite career moments so far and what they still hope to accomplish, about the most meaningful advice given to them as they rose through the ranks, Brie talked about being a new mom and wanting to return to the ring, while Nikki revealed that her neck issues aren’t completely gone, and why we haven’t seen her in the ring since Wrestlemania.

People began to clear the room, and I attempted to approach the stage as a means to get a few closer photos for my write-up. The crowd made getting anywhere near the superstars pretty tough, but Renee Young, who is incredibly charismatic, and who I may (possibly) favour over much of the in-ring talent (male or female), was kind enough to stop for a photo. I was so excited for this. I don’t often become star struck these days after years of doing this kind of stuff, but in this moment, I did. It’s sure to be a convention highlight for me for years to come. Also, #SaveTalkingSmack.

Once the panel finished up and I could make my way out of the room (on the way I ran into Noelle Foley who was not a part of the panel, but was apparently there watching). Turns out that there was a signing with much (if not all) of the talent from the panel at the Mattel booth immediately following, but by the time I got in line there were substantially more people around than the alloted time would have allowed.

I left the lineup and quickly checked in with the Geekscape booth before headed to the Wired Cafe for a couple of beverages and some snacks. While in the tiny lineup to check-in, a DirecTV (who is sponsoring the cafe this year) employee took the opportunity to ask if I was familiar with the service. “I’m from Canada,” I answered. “Sorry,” he responded.

So no, I am not overly familiar with DirecTV.

Many of the booths at this year’s cafe were themed after upcoming AT&T (they make TV now?) series Mr. Mercedes. The bar had some themed cocktails, there was a neat wall made up of smartphones and tablets that were all playing in-sync footage, there was a stand offering themed, frozen treats, and there was a booth that was printing Mr. Mercedes themed t-shirts (which I definitely snagged one of). Also, while last year’s one-day Wired Cafe had a lineup around what seemed to be the entire hotel, this time around it’s again expanded to three days, and I was able to walk in with less than two minutes of waiting. Thanks again to Wired for hosting us, as it’s a great opportunity to get in some conversation, some food, and some beverages off of the show floor and away from the incredibly long lineups.

I stayed at the Wired Cafe briefly before heading to the Hotel Palomar for a special reveal of J!NX and Hot Topic’s upcoming Fall Collection, and to have a couple of drinks and some fucking delicious tacos. I’m not sure what was on it, but it was salty as hell and the meat tasted amazing (and went really, really well with a Dos Equis. I took a look at the Fall lineup, which had some neat, subtle t-shirt and long sleeve designs, a cool bomber jacket, and a lot of really, really soft cotton. It was a neat, small event, and it certainly made me excited to check out the lineup when it hits Hot Topic this Fall.

There wasn’t a lot going on at this point. Courtney and I decided to meet up at the Wired Cafe for a drink. On the way here, I saw an amazing Syfy sponsored drum line that was playing theme songs from a myriad of old cartoons (and even some Star Wars tracks). Courtney became associated with the brand when I was in a bit of a hiatus, and at this point we hadn’t really talked one on one. I was curious to know what she was into, how she became a part of Geekscape, and more about who she is as a person. It was great to have a one on one conversation with her, and to get to know a little more about her life outside of Geekscape Games. She lives just a couple of hours South of me too, and I think it’d be cool to meet up again in person outside of the hustle and bustle of SDCC.

We hung out at the Wired Cafe until it shut down, and then made our way back to the booth to reconnect with Jonathan and Zack. The Box of Mystery and Danger was almost empty at this point, and we met up with some cool con-goers that came by the booth (like Skip, the 60+ year old Scuba Instructing Dr. Evil cosplayer). It was great to finally have a seat, to charge my phone, and to make plans to have some dinner with the Geekscape family. Would I finally get my Rockin’ Baha? Read on to find out!

No. No I would not get my Rockin’ Baha.

There were apparently plans to grab some grab some quick food, and then to potentially go swimming at the hotel pool as most of us are planning for a bit of an earlier night, as were all fairly exhausted from walking around, talking, shilling podcasts at the booth, and the San Diego heat to do much more this evening.

Naturally, Matt Kelly tried to hit on more girls and invite them to the hotel pool. He struck out again, unfortunately (though he did get a hug out of the deal). But man do I admire his effort.

As we left the convention centre and began walking in the general direction of the hotel, we passed a Hooter’s restaurant. Someone made a joke about going there to eat, and I noted that I’d never been before so I didn’t know anything about the experience. Matt noted that the experience was “feeling like a creep and eating half-assed food,” to which I replied “So a day in the life of Shane O’Hare?”

I miss you, Shane.

We ended up back at Horton Plaza, and I intended to go for another round of Panda Express. It turns out that they were pretty close to closing for the night, they had a bunch of old looking food in the warmers, and they were completely out of Orange Chicken. I quickly exited and went to Steak Escape instead, where I grabbed some sort of Philly Cheese Steak sandwich that also had bacon on it, and Matt was pretty quick to tell me that the sandwich was totally inauthentic. He also said something about how where he’s from, people just order ‘Wit’ and the restaurant knows exactly what they’re talking about. Weird shit.

The hotel pool closed at 10PM, and we made it back to the hotel just before 9:30. The rest of the group opted to head up to the pool for 30 minutes, while I instead opted to finish up a couple of articles (like my thoughts on The Tick Takeover and the WWE Pop-Up Shop, along with the one you’re reading now), and give my fiancé a call now that she’d be finished work for the evening.

Josh and Megan put on some New Japan wrestling (which I’ve never watched before and was actually really cool) and Zack passed the hell out pretty much immediately. It’s 11:30 now, possibly the earliest that I’ve ever turned in on a San Diego Comic-Con evening, and I’m beyond ready to turn in for the evening to do it all again tomorrow.

Yeah, the floor was substantially busier today.

SDCC 2017: ‘Monkey King’ VR Defies Expectations

by Courtney DossettJuly 20, 2017

When VR first came out, I thought it was just a cheesy gimmick to suck more money from gamers. My first experience with VR, a roller coaster ride and ocean diving experience, while fun, didn’t justify the cost of getting a VR accessory.

Then I tried the Monkey King at SDCC.

Monkey King is a virtual reality experience (not interactive, but so beautiful and well thought out that it makes up for it). Created by Digital Domain, Monkey King is an immersive story experience that puts you in the Chinese folktale of Wukong the Monkey King. Each of the three, 8 minute long episodes gives you a 360° look into this version of the tale, and is so detailed, sometimes it’s hard to stay focused on following the main characters. You feel like you’re actually part of the story through the whole experience.

I was really drawn into the story of Wukong, which is a very popular legend in China. I had never heard of the tale before hearing from Digital Domain, and their VR experience is an amazingly beautiful way to be introduced tp the story.

This is Digital Domain’s first foray into a direct consumer experience, and as far as I’m concerned it’s a very successful one – like I’m considering getting PlayStation VR so I can watch the whole story, and any more that Digital Domain comes out with. The three part story will be available July 26th for PlayStation VR, and will be available in Mandrin and English.

What do you think of the Monkey King? Let us know in the comments below!

SDCC 2017: Amazon’s ‘The Tick Takeover’ Offsite Event Was A Fantastic Way To Open The Week!

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 20, 2017

I’ve already touched on the experience during yesterday’s long form journal piece, but the event was a serious convention highlight and deserves some recognition of its own.

The offsite event will draw you in with the gigantic, moving Tick antennae, gorgeous artwork, the whirring of fans, and the temporary market, but there’s so much more to see and do here that I could definitely see attendees spending a ton of time at the offsite.

The first part of the installation was an awesome Amazon Prime Member Lounge. Here, you could grab yourself some wireless headphones and experience The Tick pilot almost a month before the show hits the streaming service. There were comfy couches to chill out on, cold water was available for those in attendance, and the tables featured all of the most popular phone charges so that you could juice up your phone while you relaxed. The outside of the lounge featured giant (like 20 foot tall) Tick antennae, where those inside the lounge could control the expression that the antennae were making. There were also giant blue fans all around the area, as an attempt to keep you cool in the hot, dry San Diego heat. It was much appreciated, and certainly had me far more comfortable and willing to watch the pilot than I would have been with the sun bearing down on me. Throughout the lounge there were stations where you could scan your RFID bracelet and do The Tick trivia, and when you exited the lounge you were treated to a cool swag bag that included a Tick hat, iPhone case, bottle of water, antennae, and more.

During the experience in the Member Lounge, Matt and I made a poor attempt to livestream everything that was going on. Check it out below (I really sold it to you, didn’t I?).

https://www.facebook.com/GeekscapeDotNet/videos/10155604323786908/

Next (after waiting for everyone else to catch up and potentially watching Matt hit on yet another girl) our group went through a The Tick / AEGIS themed competitive experience. Here Arthur said the he needed our help finding clues through several environments that are important to the show, including Goat’s Deli, Arthur’s Apartment, The Warehouse, and The City Police Station. We had four minutes in the first few rooms room, and in each there we a series of RFID scanners that you were supposed to activate as slyly as possible, as the experience has you competing with the rest of the attendees in the room. Once you’re done competing, you scan your bracelet once more to find out what kind of hero you are, and in the final room you have the opportunity to choose from several customizable Tick themed items (I went for a baseball tee), and even create a short gif of yourself in a heroic pose. Here’s another Facebook Live of Matt and I going through this part of the experience.

https://www.facebook.com/GeekscapeDotNet/videos/10155604366781908/

Amazon also notes that “During their adventures at SDCC, Citizens will be able to call upon the #TeamTick street team for help when they are in a bind. Need help with that selfie? Have a painful blister? Have no fear… Team Tick is here! In true Tick form, Team Tick will be taking to the streets of San Diego helping the helpless and defending the defenseless. Citizens seeking assistance from the street team need only flag down a member of Team Tick, adorned with blue antenna, to get help for their distress.”

The experience itself was just as well done as the Thunderbirds / The Man In The High Castle event from last year’s convention, but it felt a lot more interactive, and that made it more fun as well.

I anticipate that due to the quality of the experience, lines will be pretty long (though it’s San Diego Comic-Con… there are long lines for the bathroom). Amazon is betting big on The Tick, and from what I saw of the pilot yesterday, for good reason.

If you can make it happen, I’d implore you to make some time for The Tick Takeover. The event is open to the public Thursday, July 20th through Saturday, July 22nd from 9:00 am until 6:00 pm, and Sunday, July 23rd from 9:00 am until 5:00 pm at the MLK Promenade (corner of 1st and J street).

Take a look at a few more photos from the event below, and let us know if you plan to attend!

SDCC 2017: FYE’s WWE Pop-Up Shop Is A Fan’s Wet Dream!

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 20, 2017

As I mentioned in yesterday’s SDCC 2017 journal, for the past year and a half or so I’ve been in love with professional wrestling. At this point I’ve spent way, way too much on merchandise (and I only don’t have a replica title or Money in the Bank briefcase because my fiancé won’t let me… and also I can’t afford it, but mostly the first one), been to every live show that’s been near me at this point (and have made plans to head to a reasonably distanced PPV whenever the next one comes around), and have forced my fiancé to re-watch way too many matches or match finishes after she’s fallen asleep through them.

It’s just really compelling television, with larger than life characters, and some incredible athleticism. It’s like sports with story, and that’s why I’m into it.

WWE merchandise is expensive as hell in Canada. Even with items on sale, the official WWE Shop usually has a pretty high cost to ship to the great white north, and you’ll also be charged some pretty hefty duty on top of it. To this point, I haven’t acually ordered anything from the online store, as once you add all of your wanted items to the basked, you’ll be pretty shocked at that total cost.

Naturally, all of this means that I was excited as hell to learn that FYE would be opening up a WWE Pop-Up Shop in Horton Plaza throughout the week of SDCC.

FYE has another, general merchandise store in the same plaza just across the way, but this store is adorned in WWE superstars on the outside, and only sells WWE merchandise on the inside.

After two attempts yesterday (they weren’t open yet on the first go ’round, and I ran out of time before another event on the second attempt), I finally made it in when the store hosted a Sami Zayn signing and photo opportunity.

As I said in the title of the post, this place is a freaking wet dream for WWE fans. It features a ton of neat shirts, replica titles, and a myriad of other merch that I wasn’t even aware existed.

It’s amazing. If you’re in San Diego, the store will be hosting a Nikki Bella signing on Saturday (purchase required for this one), and is open from 9AM-10PM each day of the convention so that you have lots of time to go and spend your sweet, sweet cash.

Here are some photos of the inside of the store (and mostly the merch it sells). Let us know if you plan to check it out!

My Overwritten Journey To SDCC 2017: Day One-Ish, Ticks, Triple Potatoes

by Derek KraneveldtJuly 20, 2017

We finally turned in last night (this morning) at about 1AM. I was exhausted from a long day and ready to crash, and it wasn’t more than a few moments before I… realized that sleeping wasn’t going to happen because Jonathan snores so. fucking. loudly.

Like I’ve been around some loud sleepers before (Nathan Miller, I’m looking at you), but whatever is erupting from Jonathan’s mouth, throat, lungs, or wherever the hell snoring comes from sounded freaking angry, and it wanted the rest of the world to know it.

This isn’t a new realization by any means, but it’s been a year, and sleep noises aren’t something that I generally think of on a daily basis (though at this point I wish that they were). The hours crawl by, the melatonin isn’t working, and my mouth is beginning to throb (tooth pain, if you remember yesterday’s piece), and it’s only at this moment that I remember that my lovely fiancé (who pretty much packed everything for me and by pretty much I mean absolutely) also put earplugs in my carry-on.

They look like carrots or DOTS, but they are so much more useful.

I am so thankful for those earplugs. I can’t express that enough.

6AM rolls around, and I sadly decline attending the San Diego November Project workout because my mouth is feeling pretty rough this morning… and because I’m embarrassed at how out of shape I let myself become since my last visit to San Diego (mostly this). Instead, I opt to get up, shower, and take some more painkillers. Woo.

Speaking of Woo. Wrestling. It’s been about a year and a half since I (who hadn’t watched professional wrestling since I was a small boy) thought “Let’s check out this WWE Network thing,” and I’ve been more than hooked ever since. In the past ten months, I’ve been to two NXT Live and two WWE Live shows, and I’m just itching for the next TV taping to hit somewhere near me. Hell, we had a John Cena blanket pinned up on our wall for way too long after Wrestlemania (it was purchased as a Wrestlemania decoration), and I got more creative with Wrestlemania themed snacks than I’ve been for basically anything else in my entire life… which is pretty sad.

Today marks one year since the WWE Draft, in which the Raw and Smackdown rosters were split up, and it’s crazy to think of just how many things have changed over that year (and how much things continue to evolve). Smackdown went live (and became the better show), Kurt Angle has an illegitimate son, the Hardy Boyz came back (and are still teasing becoming obsolete and broken), Bayley made the main roster and has been all but buried, Goldberg came back (and had a really good feud with Brock and some amazing promos), the Wrestlemania stage got fucking HUGE, Breezango became a thing, Talking Smack became a thing (and is sadly no longer a thing – sign the petition), the next WWE video game is coming to Nintendo consoles, Enzo and Cass broke up, DIY broke up, The Usos are cool now, people consistently boo Roman but love his feuds and matches, and a ton of other shit that I can’t remember right now. But it’s been great, and is consistently (most of the time) really, really enjoyable television. You should give it a shot (free trial)!

Matt Kelly just finished a level of some ‘Toy Blast’ shit that he’s been stuck on for four days. He seems pretty stoked. Way to go, Matt.

Matt and I eventually grabbed breakfast at a small cafe near our hotel after we failed to find the Horton Plaza which we were actually looking for (the bacon was a little too crispy for my liking, but the cold brew was tasty). He asked the server about Comic-Con, and at this point I wasn’t sure if he was really bad at hitting on girls, or really good at pushing our booth.

As soon as we left the cafe, we realized that we were both terrible at navigating, and the Horton Plaza was directly across the street from where we just ate. Our ulterior motive for heading here was to check out the WWE / FYE Pop-Up shop that’s been set up for the weekend. Matt went into the store yesterday and said that it was incredible (and incredibly dangerous as I’m already on a very limited budget and am a level seven susceptible when it comes to merchandise). Sadly, the store hadn’t quite opened for the day, so I could only look at the cool graphics on the outside. There’s a Sami Zayn signing there later today however, so I’ll definitely be back.

Before headed to the convention centre to set up the booth, we all watched a lower than low budget horror called Serial. It’s up there among the worst movies that I’ve ever seen, but it was hilarious watching it with the gang in the hotel room, who all spent more time making fun of the movie than actually watching it. I especially loved the ‘This film would have been rated R” warning at the beginning.

We all made our way to the convention centre to set up the booth (#3919, as usual), and so that I could collect my badge. In previous years, badge pick up was on the main floor, and that seemed to go pretty smoothly most of the time (at least for the brief periods each year when I was waiting). This year things moved up to the Sails Pavillion (which is upstairs and (possibly) only accessible through the convention centre. It seemed as though there was a lot of confusion here, as an employee pointed me towards Entrance D, where the employee told me to go to Entrance C, where the employee told me to go to Entrance A, where the employee told me to go to Entrance C, where they finally let me in and upstairs. In any case, I got my badge, my bag (Arrow this year, though one of the shoulder straps ripped almost immediately), yearly The Walking Dead lanyard, and this year certain passes even get a neat commemorative box to keep this and previous badges in.
Next, I walked a little bit of the show floor as a lot of the major booths were still being set up. Once I got to the booth we finished setting things up, I perused the freebie box (thanks Lootcrate) and took all of the coolest stuff (well, coolest to me), and then Matt and I catalogued the t-shirt inventory, where I got my first glimpse of the newest Geekscape t-shirt design (which may be the coolest one yet). I can’t wait to wear it.

Matt and I grabbed some Panda Express (which I’d never had before and was freaking delicious) with the intention of actually entering the WWE pop up show afterwards. We took our time eating, talking podcasts and other things that I’ve already forgotten before realizing that we needed to rush to our first appointment of the weekend – a press preview of Amazon’s activation for the upcoming The Tick series.

The first part of the installation was a neat Amazon Prime lounge. Here, you could grab yourself some wireless headphones and experience The Tick pilot almost a month before the show hits the streaming service. There were comfy couches to chill out on, water was available, and the tables featured all of the popular phone charges so that you could juice up your phone while you relaxed. The outside of the lounge featured giant Tick antennae, where those inside the lounge could control the expression that the antennae were making. There were also giant blue fans all around the area, as an attempt to keep you semi cool in the hot, dry San Diego heat. It was much appreciated. Throughout the lounge there were stations where you could scan your RFID bracelet and do The Tick trivia, and when you exited the lounge you were treated to a cool swag bag that included a Tick hat, iPhone case, bottle of water, antennae, and more.

https://www.facebook.com/GeekscapeDotNet/videos/10155604323786908/

Next (after waiting for everyone else to catch up and potentially watching Matt hit on another girl) our group went through a The Tick / AEGIS themed experience. Here Arthur said the he needed our help finding clues through two environments. We had four minutes in each room, the first being a sort of office, and the second resembling a warehouse. There we a series of RFID scanners that you were supposed to activate as slyly as possible, as you’re competing with the rest of the attendees in the room. Once you’re done this, you scan your bracelet once more to find out what kind of hero you are. In the final room you can also choose a customizable Tick themed item (I went for a baseball tee), and even create a short gif of yourself in a heroic pose. We Facebook Live’d a lot of this experience, which you can take a look at below!

https://www.facebook.com/GeekscapeDotNet/videos/10155604366781908/

The activation was a great way to kick off Comic-Con. It was as well done, and probably more fun than Amazon’s Thunderbirds / The Man in the High Castle installation from last year, and the amount of stuff that we received at the end of the experience was pretty insane. I anticipate these goodies to go fast, and the lines for this activation to be incredibly long. What we saw of the pilot is looking pretty cool, and it’s pretty clear that Amazon is betting hard on The Tick. I really can’t wait to see more.

Once the installation finished, Matt and I split up. He went to help finish up with the booth and open it up, and I went to stand in line at the WWE pop-up shop for a Sami Zayn signing. The line was pretty huge at this point (the lineup had already started when Matt and I were eating here a couple of hours earlier), and there was a cool little kid beside me who was super into Sami Zayn and was freaking out for the whole 90+ minutes that I waited in line.

Of course, before we could even get into this signing, the staff at FYE were tempting us for the next one. Nikki Bella is signing here on Saturday morning, and the store is selling a cool VIP package guaranteeing entry, which also included a Nikki Bella POP!, shirt, and hat. It’s going to be tough not to go for that.

The line actually moved pretty quickly, and the staff (especially Jim) were super friendly and helpful. Sami was super nice, signed and personalized a photo, and one of the FYE staff members took a photo of you with Sami at the table. It was a cool experience, and I’ll probably (definitely) be back on Saturday for the Nikki Bella signing, which I’m sure will have an even bigger crowd (Sami’s line got pretty freaking long).

As cool as it was getting the photo, I do wish that the folks in charge of photo ops at any event would be slightly aware that composition is pretty important when taking a photo. I also wish that I was a bit more photogenic, but of course there isn’t a lot that the photographer could have done about that.

Once I finished up at the WWE Pop Up Shop (more on that later), I made my way back to the convention centre just after the floor opened, meaning that I didn’t have to stand in the heat, and I was able to walk right in. The floor was open from 6-9PM for preview night, and I spent much of that time at the booth (#3919 all weekend if you’re around), chatting with attendees, reuniting with Zack Haddad, and having a blast overall. I jumped out of the booth a couple of times in order to check out a certain booth or see what sort of exclusives were up for grabs, but, with this being my fifth year in a row at SDCC, I almost feel done with the shoulder to shoulder crowds.

Throughout the opening hours, we saw some pretty cool cosplay, sold some shirts (I got my hands on one of the new designs as well), made some new fans, and gave away a ton of shit (with way, way more to come). I got a ‘Too Sweet’ from a dude that liked my Wrestlemania t-shirt (which I nearly didn’t buy last year for like $1 at Hot Topic), and we almost closed down the booth, packed it all up, and went home following the best cosplay in the world. This adorable little girl was dressed as Eleven from Stranger Things, and when we asked if we could take her photo, she threw her hand in the air long before we could ask her to do a pose. It was freaking amazing.

Soon, the floor closed and it was time to go and eat. I was itching for some Rockin’ Baha as I haven’t had a chance to experience their incredible mango salsa yet this year (it’s tradition), but instead we ended up pushing a couple of tables together at Lolita’s Mexican restaurant, and ate some great food, had some great conversation, and were probably way too damned loud.

Courtney couldn’t handle a Geekscape dinner.

We finished up, and began to make our way back to our hotel (as it’s nearly midnight at this point). Zack talked about all of the neatest spots and best food around the Gaslamp Quarter (including an Alice In Wonderland themed bar), and somehow Matt Kelly ended up telling me all about how much he loves potatoes, and how at a certain restaurant that he would often go to as a child, he’d usually order mashed potatoes, a baked potato, and cream of potato soup. That’s a lot of freaking potato.

My feet hurt like hell, my mouth is starting to throb again, and I’m freaking exhausted (at least I’ll remember earplugs right away tonight), but today was a fantastic time. At this point, more than anything on the floor, anything that I’ve seen, or anything that I’ve had the chance to do thus far, it’s just been amazing hanging out with these people and beginning to feel like myself again. It’s been some time since I’ve had this much fun, and I can’t wait to see what tomorrow brings.