Thursday, March 25, 2010

MegaCon Report 4.

OK, so this is the last report on MegaCon 2010. There was some pics of the universal costume contest but they all came out too dark and fuzzy. I did sit in on the DC Comics panel with Dan DiDio. It was a relaxed panel with DiDio asking questions to get a feel for what the fans want to see in DC Comics, how to make it better, how to sell more comics. The questions ranged from what got you back in to comics if you had been out for some time to does death really mean dead in comics. I'm waiting to see if the new policy on death is going to stick. The first character to suffer under the new rule on dead meaning dead was Kid Devil. Granted he isn't a big name character at all and when he did die he had already lost his powers and was nothing more than a normal human. So a side character dieing and staying dead is nothing new. The only proper test for the new policy is a big name character, someone like a leader of the JSA or JLA. I know they'll never kill him off for good, but I would love it if Superman was dead and gone and never spoken of again.

Besides that, my timing was a bit off this year and I missed most of the panels I wanted to see. I did try to see the main Marvel panel, was sitting down and waiting for it to start even. But it ended up being canceled. It still went on, but not as planned. The only guys that made it were Nelson Decastro, Paul Pelletier and Greg Land, so it just ended up being laid back. Still a good and interesting panel in the end.

Now comes the time when I show off the goods I picked up while at MegaCon. First the goods from Friday the 12th.

Intron Depot 4 - I already have 1, now I just need to get my hands on 2 and 3. I'm not sure if I want 5 and 6. Would love to get my hands on Galgrease.

This is the stack of manga I bought for $5 a piece. It seems the dealer that goes to MegaCon with this deal is having less and less of the titles I am looking for and want. Still got a few good books.

Black Jack hardcover volumes 2 & 3
Black Magic
Appleseed volumes 1, 2, & 4 (already have 1, oops)
Vagabond volumes 30 & 31 - Now I need to get 29.
Gacha Gacha Next Revolution volume 10 - OK, so I only have the 1st volume, but I like the series and at $5 you don't pass up volumes just because you don't have the ones before it.

This is the stack of OOP Anime I snagged up on Friday.

Please Teacher Box Set - Sure I already have the series, but I've always wanted that damn box. It happened to be a bonus I got the soundtrack in this purchase as well. So win/win.

Virgin Fleet
They Were Eleven
My My Mai
Knights of Ramune
Iczer Reborn
Domain of Murder

Most of those as you can see are U.S. Manga Corps releases, in other words, Central Park Media stuff that isn't likely to ever get re-licensed. I've seen the previews for most of them on other CPM DVDs I have and have always been curious about them. Of course I'm also always looking for OOP titles on the cheap where ever I can find them.

On marches the plastic... I mean the figures and toys.

Niece figure from Record of Lodoss War
Skuld, Belldandy and Urd figures from Ah! My Goddess
Skeleton Knight from Berserk
Mizuho Kazami from Please Teacher - Like I don't have enough figures of her already.
The three nine train from Galaxy Express 999 - Super awesome, even has a ramp track to display it on.
1/1 scale Gravity Saber - Most of you have no idea how cool this is. Just know that the coolest space pirate to ever grace animation wields one.
Yomako Littner aka Yoko Littner from Gurren Lagann - I've always found the older, adult Yoko much prettier and sexier than the young Yoko.

This doesn't get much cooler, The life and Times of Scrooge McDuck and the Companion both signed by the writer/artist Don Rosa. He's a an interesting man and was very fun to talk to. He was also selling prints of the Ducks. I grabbed a few each day, the first 4 are the following.

Now if you look closely under Huey, Dewy and Louie's names and then in the box for their father's name you'll see somthing wrote in. Neat little thing Mr. Rosa does for guys that buy this print.

I just like this one because Scrooge has a mountain of comics he's selling. Huey, Dewy and Louie are having a blast while Donald seems to be on edge. He must be reading a great thriller or cliffhanger comic.


I love stuff like this. The detail and thinking and planning that goes into something like this always intrigues me. Mr. Rosa said he doesn't sell many of these, and that I must be pretty anal retentive like himself.

OK, so that was Friday, here's Saturday the 13th.

Saw some of the Wolverine tribute to great painters covers at $5 a piece so I grabbed four of them.

I like to get a few shirts each time I go to MegaCon. Stylinonline has been there each year now for the last few years I've been going. They have tons of pop-culture Ts. I planned to get some more with Bettie on them but I didn't see any. Instead I went with the S.H.I.E.L.D., Deadpool, Joker & Harley and Captain America shirts. The last shirt was from another T-shirt seller at the con. I forget the name of the company, but all of the shirts were a spoof of some sort. The one I grabbed on Saturday was Iron Man.
A manga and some more anime.

One Pound Gospel volume 1 (have 2-4)
Slayers Revolution collection - Got a couple of neat coins for buying this and spending enough at the Funi booth.
SGT. Frog Season 1 Part 1 & 2 and Season 2 Part 1 collections
Human Crossing volumes 1-4

And here's the coins I mentioned. One is a Slayers coin the other is a Spice & Wolf coin. On one side of each is the lead character of the series on on the other is a title logo. Pretty nifty swag I think.

Next there's the half-off trades I picked up and some figures and a lunch box.

The trades are as follows:

Please Teacher Fan Book
Battle Pope volumes 3 & 4
Tarot volume 5
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck 2nd printing

The lunch box is a Coop item if you couldn't already tell. I havea bad habit of just grabbing Coop stuff when I see it. It was only $10, so I don't feel too bad about it, even if I over paid on it. I plan to put it with my Olivia lunch box. Who knows, this may be the start of me collecting lunch boxes (I hope not).

The figures are a GitS statue if Major Motoko Kusanagi and a great Masamune girl from the Wild Wet West poster book. Both have amazing detail. I was surprised to find both at the con.


Finally there's another Don Rosa print I picked up. It's Scrooge with Goldie in the Klondike where he made his riches. I also wanted a sketch from Mr. Rosa but didn't have any paper for the man. So I suggest he just dram it on the back of the print. He thought I was a bit nutty saying it seems like a waste since you can only hang one side at the time. But my thinking was that Flintheart Glomgold is the other half of why Scrooge is the way he is. So why not have him on the back side of the Klondike print? That and I like Glomgold, he's basically Scrooge's evil twin, even has the gottee. Either way, I think I have a really neat piece.

Last but not least there's the last day of the con, Sunday the 14th.

I decided on Saturday I should go back and pick up some more half-off trades on Sunday. So I did and here's the haul for Sunday.

The Goon Volume 9 - I only have 0-3, but I know I'm going to pick up the others, Goon is very fun reading.
Tarot volume 4 - Only have 4 and 5 from the day before, but the sexy art is worth it alone.
Emily the Strange volume 2 - Picked up volume 1 last year.
Hellboy volumes 3-8 - Have 1 & 2 at home, can't believe how lucky I was to find 3-8 in the guys stash. More on that in a second or 30 or however long it takes you to read past this to get to the... yeah.
Promethea volumes 1-5 - It's Alan Moore and I've heard some things about the book. So at half-off, why not.

OK, so the dealer I got the half-off trades from had them in long boxes. He had 3 rows, of about 10 or so long boxes 2 deep, to shelves worthe each row. The problem with this was, 1. the was no order at all to the trades so I had to look through all the boxes to see what he had and, 2. the bottom shelf was the floor, so that was killing my knees. Like I said, I was lucky to find 3-8 of Hellboy, 4 & 5 of Tarot too.

If you can count (if you can't, get away from me) you should be able to see I'm missing volume 10 out of the stack of Video Girl Ai volumes 1-15. I thought I'd be able to find it either else where at the con but no luck. Next I have tried looking around Orlando in B&N and even Books a Million, nadda. So I'm going to wait untill I get back home to order it from an online anime/manga retailer. I bought Video Girl Ai at the con because it's getting hard to find, even though these 2nd editions aren't even that old, and I don't want to have to worry about having to look for them later down the road.

Looking for Group volumes 1 & 2. Sure I could just read it on the internet for free, but I like to have something to hold, something to flip through. I asked if they had volume 2 in a softcover, the guy asked why I would want such a thing. "Because it's cheaper." I told him. "Only by $5." He responded. "$5 is $5. I responded back. So in the end he cut me a deal and knocked $5 off the hardcover. The reason there's no hardcover for one is because, or at least this is what he told me, is that it's was a mix up on the publishers end.

I eyed these Bettier Page books since last year at MegaCon '09. The same dealer had them this year too. I don't know if they're the only ones he had or if he had a stock pile of each of them, I don't care, I finally got my hands on them.

OK, so this was a VERY bad impulse buy. The figure is great, it's authentic, a Bome BottleCap figure of Lum but I over paid by twice the retail. I'm an idiot. I have got to stop doing that (buying on impulse) with Lum figures. I had been lucky up to this point. So this time it's the last time. There's a 2nd Lum figure that goes along with this one that I ordered off of ebay for the proper price last Friday. Better not forget to place my pre-order for the 2nd pair of these coming out soon.

Days of Future Past diorama statue

I waited until the last second to grab this in hopes of getting an even better deal than the one he offered when I asked if he could do better than what he had it marked as. Which as you can see is $140. He told me $120 earlier in the day. I came back to him with $110 (maybe I should have pushed for $100 flat?) as they were pulling the carpet up. So $110 isn't bad for a statue that went for $300 retail.

So, yeah, I grabbed four more of the Wolverine covers. I wanted the Ukiyo-e style painting but they didn't have it. Oh well, maybe I'll find it the next time I'm looking.

Up next is a bunch of art I grabbed from artist alley. I wanted to get a bit more, but funds were running low and time was running out.

Deadpool Vs. Afro Samurai

Deadpool's recent popularity is awesome. And because of it someone thought to do something this uber awesome. I don't know what inspired the guy to do this piece, but damn, talk about striaght up cool. Two guys that are both crazy with voices in their heads having a sword fight, yeah, it's going to be both bloody and hilarious.

Phoenix Spanking Wonder Woman & Supergirl

There was another version of this with Phoenix bent over getting a spanking by Wonder Woman and Supergirl with a DC paddle. But I'm a Marvel guy, and I do love to see DC characters getting their ass whooped (or in this lovely case, spanked).

Boba Fett Vs/ Master Chief

Come on, you know this is the start of a fanboy throw down. So, who do you think would win, Master Chief or Boba Fett? I have no idea, but holy gaming face-off Batman!

Harley Quinn in Lingerie

Harley Quinn in what looks to be her idea of lingerie. Or at least the artist's idea of what Harley would wear as lingerie.

It's Kei and Yuri of Dirty Pair. I need no other reason.

Jessica Skywalker in Coruscant

Jessica Rabbit, er.... I mean Jessica Skywalker. This guy had some pretty neat pieces and it was his first time at the con on the other side of the table of artist's alley. I need to get around to checking his dA page.

Yeah, Catwoman licking up some milk, not much else to say why I bought this.

Harley Quinn Papercraft

This is but a print of the papercraft a beautiful young woman does. She layers paper to create the image. The actual piece is about a 1/4 inch thick and has a very 3D look to it. If I had the cahs I would most definitely have bought an original from her, I may ask her to do a commission next time. Or maybe I need to check to see if I have a card with her name or something on it. Search the web for her see if she has a site.

OK, so this was a mistake on my part. I already have a print of this print. Eh, I'm not really complaining about having two of these. Holli Would "searching" Jessica Rabbit, doesn't get too much sexier.

More Deadpool goodness. Thank you Marvel so slapping him in everything.

And here's the last bit of Don Rosa prints I picked up. My favorite of these 3 is the young and old Scrooge side-by-side.

And to end this post, the 2nd printing of The Life & Times of Scrooge McDuck I picked up on Saturday signed by Mr. Rosa.

That wraps up my MegaCon of 2010. I hope to have as much fun and enjoy myself at MegaCon next year.

2 comments:

  1. Mr Rosa, was either amazed and loved you, or afraid you might stalk him.

    lol you are now an official McDuck!!! I love the Glomgold. Somehow you kind of remind me of him younger.
    I did not know of the DC Dead for good deal.

    Lum has red hair?

    Love the Wolverine print Warmachine. he looks so bond.
    Intron is only good to #4
    Gread Deal on Video Girl Ai.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi,

    I would be interested to see a high quality scan/picture of that version of Don Rosa's Duck family tree. Is it anyway possible for you to represent it in your blog or send a copy to my email?

    ReplyDelete