Hey guys. I had a crazy long ass weekend. It started on Saturday at 6 pm and only ended a couple hours ago. From 8 am till 8 pm my oldest friend and I spent the entire day running around at Fan Expo 2010 as well as an event called Buskerfest. Today it was all you can eat day at the Toronto Blue Jays. Hot dogs, popcorn, nachos, peanuts and chips were consumed in large quantities. We lucked out and got 2 of the last free bobble heads as well. I can't recommend the all you can eat thing. They didn't offer up any good condiments, the popcorn had no butter and the nachos were lacking something with no peppers. They also screwed up our tickets and gave my buddy regular seats. (He is in a wheelchair.) It's not the first time the Blue Jays have done this. Back in 08, they gave us an entire seasons worth of regular seats instead of handicapped ones. Keep in mind he has to phone the Jays, talk to someone, who he talks to every year, who then pulls up his file and then after several phone calls and decisions makes a final purchase. They says something for the intellect of the people that work for the Jays.
Anyway, back to Saturday, we had gone to many of the Fan Expos since 2004. We skipped going last year, but when we went in 08 we noticed it was getting a lot busier. This year even with arriving at 8 am, we still had to lie up way around the block. In the past, the most we ever had to do was line up inside the building for 30-40 mins tops. It took us awhile to get in, but once in the building the lines moved fast.
Fan Expo is a big comic con like event held in Toronto at the end of summer every year. It features a comic, anime, horror, game and artist ally section. You can meet some celebrities and get autographs. Of note this year was Stan Lee and the artist of the Final Fantasy and Vampire Hunter series. I didn't see either cause you had to pay a lot extra to see them. $35 admission was enough with my job on the line as it is. I met Elvyra a few years ago, that satisfied my celebrity meeting for life. ^_^
Celebrities and Celebrity items too. The original Batmobile was on display. Why doesn't Batman dance anymore?
R2, what did you do to 3PO? We got to meet the Star Wars artist Tom Hodges. He gave us some post cards.
Star Wars Dream; The Hoth Playset, I took these with Patrick in mind:
Let's get out of here Princess!
Typical Boss that Darth Vader. He sends his troops to freeze, while he takes in the rays of the double suns...
I found a really cool Star Wars wild life Field Guide book I wanted to get here as well. I got some Ewok post cards from an artist that just did an article on them.
So much boobage..I just had to buy one for a friend who is turning 30 this year. Even I wanted one of these. I think they're cute.
An African Luffy D. Monkey? WICKED! I really wish I had got this guy from the front. He was really well built. He was thin with a perfect chest, flat stomach and no abs. His actually hair was braided I think. I will be scouring the net for other images of him for sure. A Luffy like this sounds like a job for Ink-B! :PFor lunch we headed over to Buskerfest. We had fried Plantains and African Donuts. The grease leaked through the Styrofoam holder and all over my fingers..it was some damn greasy shit, but so good. We ate sweet corn, spaghetti and meat balls from the Spaghetti Factory and honey BBQ pork from a young brother and sister in a little cart.
Yep Donkey Cone is back and creepier then ever! What will you do with those Children DK? Speaking of Donkey Kong, they had a huge figure of him at a few booths that I was dying to buy, but it was $40.
Shadow Link! This guy was really nice. He had a sexy voice. ^o^ We meet him outside the skywalk after trying to get back into the convention from that entrance.
The convention got oversold and they wouldn't let people back into the building. People were lined up down the street. I was not about to willingly jump to the end of that line. I turned into instant Scrooge McDuck..I payed $35 for myself and my friend, every second we missed was money lost! LOL. We casually walked to the front of the line and pretty much just snuck back in after waiting 20 mins. My friend questioned what we would do if someone said something. I looked at him and said, 'These are the Ontarios biggest geeks...what are they gonna do?' Besides we were not half as bad as some of the others. We melded in. No one noticed us and we even made friends with the people in front and right behind us. There was a woman dressed as Bayonetta who used her sexy appeal to get to the very front of the line. He tech was letting desperate boys take her picture with her tits pressed against them to stand in front of them. We didn't leave again.
All the people stuck outside almost started a riot. Even the vendors were not allowed in. I told 2 guys where the VIP entrance was...no they did not take us with them as thanks. We heard a lot of people saying there was no way they were coming back next year after this. When we did get back in, it was not crowded like it was in the morning. In fact if anything it felt like there was a lot less people in the place from 4 pm onwards for whatever reason.
Marina from Reboot was my personal favorite. Here she stands at the very end of the line in a tunnel. :(
Cute Leon. I took this image just for Ink-B. :)
It's Doctor Jones!!! This was my friends favorite. I have to admit it is hard to choose between him and Marina for my personal fav the more I look at this.
My friend took this one, he loves Full Metal Alchemist. :P
Hee hee, this guy was totally straight. I think he got dared into wearing this get up. He helped me with my one Manga purchase of the day. I caught him as we were leaving and he kindly posed for this picture. My buddy took it and not wanting to take the image of a cross dresser his hands must have been shaking! XD
AH, the girl of my dreams, Ms. Pac-Man. The whole cast was running around the show.
This wonderful Mazinger Z and way too cool Goku models sets were two of the purchases I didn't make. I had to take this shot for FallenAngel. He actually owns the Mazinger! I know the store that sells them so if they still have them in stock I will go and pick them up when I get paid next. :P 
The Model turns into a giant Fist! (Get your minds out of the gutter, I DO NOT want it for that.)
My friend playing Sin and Punishment. It's a game very similar to Space Harrier for Wii. I had to drag him away from this game. I played it and really liked it too. I would buy it for sure. They had a lot of games to play like the Tron Video game and some sort of Alien (movie) game, or simulator. I forgot all about going back to try it after we spent so much time figuring out how to get back in.
Zero! We actually saw a lot of People from Udon Crew. They said the Japanese Artist that did the new Mega Man Manga would be there to sign copies. When we got there at the time he was supposed to arrive at, he was not there. They told us to come back tomorrow. Oh well...
At the Udon Crew Table my friend made one very good point. When we first went to these things Udon had a ton of cheap prints, banner posters and life size pin ups of the characters for 30 and below. Now even for a small print they want $20. Some were not even printed on good quality paper. One of the things that attracted a lot of people to this event was the great deals you got on a lot of prints. It seemed like no one was selling much for under $20. Even small prints people wanted $10 for and I didn't see people diving in and purchasing like they used to.
Just some of the Swag:
Opitimas Prime print I got for my buddies 30th. Yep that is a BRAND NEW Darkwing Duck Comic and even a new Ducktales. (Reprinting stuff that only got ran in Europe.)
Chun Li and Ken PS2 Controllers I got for $12 each. I already own Ryu.
Darkstalkers Vol 2 for Leon signed by the artist. And a Gurren Lagaan Mousepad for my Buddy. (I wanted to keep it. cries.) XD
The greatest treasure I snagged. The entire John Carter of Mars collection by Marvel that ran from 1977-1979. The guy was really nice and gave it to me for $25. I have already been into them glancing at the glorious old school art. I found this just as we were making a final walk around. By pure luck it caught the corner of my eye as I was walking by. I smell future commissions....
Mooning Bart for my Buddy and a Zelda Manga for my Nephew.
Cool Ryu Poster. I remember the first time I figured out how to do the hadouken! They had Chun Li and Ken too. I kept thinking of how much Devilman would appreciate this kind of poser. :P
Batman group shot I got as a bonus for my Ryu poster. Love this. I had no idea there were that many Batgirls. Speaking of which there was a guy in a Cat Woman costume. It was the Tim Burton one, with a sexy..or not so sexy bulge... XD HE was not disturbing really. Since he modified the outfit to be for a dude. It was fairly sexy. The guy dressed as Plastic Man with his face in a permanent smile and his penis head clearly pushing against his tights was the scariest cos player I saw.
Free Assassins Creed poster from the Ubisoft booth. There was no Prince of Persia stuff that I could see. They had the Scott Pilgram game playing at least.
Some free posters. I got a Green Lantern one as well. The Dante image in the middle was done by an artist that had a really sexy Leon and Vampire Hunter D as well. He had a really nice blue pencil sketch of Andy, Joe and Terry from Fatal Fury. I wanted to buy this huge poster, but it was way too expensive and not colored in. It looked very much like the anime art. To be honest with you guys, I found the artist Ally a little lacking this year. There just wasn't that much that caught my eye.
Print my friend got. He also picked up a Final Fantasy 3 (6) one of a chick riding a knight, or something. XD
He got this huge ass Fate Stay Night Wall Scroll and bought me a Final Fantasy 7 one with the entire cast on it when my back was turned.
