Fun t-shirts are a staple of my life. I have to wear business casual to work every damned day of the week. So on the weekends, not only do I want to fly my freak-flag, but I want the right t-shirt to do it in. Fishynuts.com can help me with that. I met these guys at the Motor City con and they were one of the few vendors I saw having a good time. I didn’t get to pick up one of their shirts, some “has-been” porn star mugged me, but I’m looking to the future (i.e next pay check). For anyone into funny/geeky t-shirts, give Fishynuts a look. And tell them you read about it at HeroesTV.com
Here is an artist that I have seen at Cons for a few years and always enjoy her work. Connie Persampieri works with the fantasy/gothic genre, but also is doing freelance work for various sketch card projects. She is a very talented artist who’s work I find to be amazing and original (which can be hard to do in the fantasy genre). According to her website, Connie is available for hire, for either private custom artwork or commercial projects. Looking at her blog calendar, she’s planning of attending Wizard World: Chicago. If she’s willing, I’m going to try and get an interview with her. Until then dear readers, you’ll have to settle for her website
When a person starts to attend Comic Conventions on a regular basis, you learn one truth very early. Lou Ferrigno is notorious for being one of the biggest ass holes at the Con, just ahead of Rob Leifeld, but I’ll save that for another time.
When we arrived at the Con, our press liaison, Valerie, told us that there were many people willing to do interviews for HeroesTV. She assured, in fact, that many of the Con guests were happy to do it. When we asked with whom we could talk, the first person she mentioned was Lou Ferrigno. We knew she was mistaken. Lou doesn’t talk to anyone, well not unless they pay him $20 of an oversized Mr. Universe poster from 1974.
I met a Novi cop last weekend (don’t ask how) and he told his Lou Ferrigno story from the 2006 Motorcity Con. The cop was working the Con detail, making sure, everything was on the up-and-up, and he tried talking to Lou. Keep in mind this the guy was in full uniform so there was no mistaking that he’s a public servant. Lou asked the cop for $20, the cop said, “My wallet’s in the squad”, so Lou brushed him off to talk to the 1970’s ex-porn star at the table next to him. What a dick!
I digress: So Eric, ever the optimist, says he wants to ask Lou for an interview. So, we walk over to Lou’s table, where he is starring off into space wondering why he’s alone in the world, and Eric says, “Hi, I’m Eric with HeroesTV.com“
“Okay“ Lou mumbled
“We were told by Valerie, the press liaison, that you’d be willing to do a quick interview for our fans“ said Eric.
“If you pay $20 for a picture I can sign it, but I’m not going on camera” Lou responded
I jumped in with, “Would you be willing to just answer a few questions that we could post, no camera involved?”
Lou had to make the hamster’s wheel he calls a brain start to turn so he could understand this concept and responded: “If you buy some of my stuff I can answer a question“
A question? Like one question?!? Not a couple, or a few questions!?!? I felt like asking him how to synthesize a mentholated alkaloid just to watch him have a fracking brain aneurysm!
So we walk away getting exactly what I expected, Lou Ferrigno still being a knob. The kicker is the CW station that was at the Con (the only other press I saw) must have paid their $20 because they got to talk to him. We snapped a picture of this and Lou shot our camera operator a mean look. Well, it was more like look devoid of any higher brain functioning. By the way, we’ve seen Lou try to rip a camera out of a guy’s hands for taking his picture without his permission.
Then (yes, there is more) later that that night at the pub, Lou decided to try and be a nice guy by getting up to the karaoke mic to gather the attention of the room so a guy could propose to his girlfriend. Now I’m happy for the couple, but Lou’s way of getting everyone’s attention was to yell, “EVERYONE SHUT UP! I HAVE A VERY HEART WARMING THING TO SHOW YOU!” and when the billiards table didn’t immediately respond he said, “YOU IN THE CORNNER, SHUT UP AND LISTEN!” That went over well….
Now, I was going to let this go and do the Christian thing, but a source called “The Dude” paid his twenty-bucks or was a part of the CW crew and reported this on Superherohype.com:
“I was at the Motor City Con in Detroit today, and Lou Ferrigno was there. We got to talking, and he revealed something he shouldn’t have. Basically I asked him about if he knew anything about the new HULK film, he did confirm he will be in the movie, but he will play a “big important” part in the film. I looked at him, then he said something about playing a villain, I couldn’t really hear over the loud noise. I asked him again, and he said he didn’t want to get into trouble, whatever that means.”
I call B.S.! Lou has no acting ability at all! That’s why all his rolls were either B-Movies, dubbed over, or walk-on cameos. No one would make him the major villain in anything. If he is in the new Hulk movie, then I hope we see the Abomination eat his steroid infused heart.
These people are crazy awesome! They are a group of Star Wars fan who have the extra time and money to make/buy authentic Star Wars costumes, and then go out and do charity work. Here is a quote from their website “…The Legion is a volunteer club formed for the express purpose of bringing together costume enthusiasts and giving them a collective identity within which to operate. The Legion’s aims are to celebrate the Star Wars movies through the wearing of costumes, to promote the quality and improvement of costumes and props, and most importantly to contribute to the local community through charity and volunteer work…”
These guys were a ton of fun at the Con and the Hotel Pub. If there is a 501st Legion in your area, check them out.
Here are the pics of the fun we, and I hope they, had.
Need a lift?
Eric made a friend at the pub!
The Empire has hot women with personal guards (who may also have been women)
Eric was under arrest.
I, of course, thought Eric was being treated unfairly. I stuck my nose in and got tussled.
Eric and a Tuskan Raider are looking at something strange in the distance.
Eric helping a lost Stromtrooper find his way home
I’ve never had so much fun being arrested
The hard work and detail that goes into these costumes is amazing.
Never tell Darth Vader a “Yo Mama” joke
Eric met a slave girl!
A troop of Troopers
Me asking how I can be a Jedi too
These guys went to the pub like this and they were a blast!
I would call this my favorite picture of the weekend
As you can see, these guys love what they do and they do it well. The 501st group that was there was from the Midwest Garrison: Michigan Squad. They were loads of fun. We will have our video interview up soon. To tide you over go to the Michigan Squad’s webpage and show them some love. Oh, and tell them Greg (Jotham_Knight) from HeroesTV.com sent you
Oh and one more thing! If you or someone special would like a Leia Slave Metal Bikini go here! It should fit all your metal bikini needs!
Wow what a weekend! I went to the Motorcity Comic Con with a few friends of mine on my very first assignment as a net journalist. The plan was to update my blog at the end of each day, but the free wi-fi connection at the hotel was less than okay. It was like being back on a 56k line! Loading pics from the weekend would have taken forever, so I ‘m dong it now. So what follows here are my event of day one.
The weekend started by meeting Dick Ayers Silver Age comic legend who’s artistic style helped define the Marvel Universe. He worked on such titles as Sgt. Fury, Avengers, Captain America and just about every Marvel title. He and his wife were very kind until my cohort Eric (pictured) slammed Dick’s hand in the door of the hotel shuttle van. Dick’s hand unusable for about half a day, but he got better. Now we have the quote for the weekend, “Dude! You broke Dick Ayers!”
Eric and I had the pleasure of meeting Billy Tucci, creator of Shi and publisher of Crusade Entertainment. He is currently working on Hero For Hire for Marvel, and he was great. Billy first made it big in the mid 90’s when Todd McFarland and Rob “The Knob” Lifeield who the bad-boys of comics. Publishers tried to tap that same feel with Billy and it didn’t work, and I can see why. He was an amazingly nice man who was kind enough to sign a whole lotta stuff that will be sold to support children’s cancer research. There are not enough good things to say about him, great guy.
Here’s Eric and I with Bruce Jones. He’s a comic writer on Nightwing, Warlord, Batman/Scarecrow and Vigilanti along many other DC and Marvel titles. Good guy, good writer. He was kinda quiet at first, but when two large men with Scandinavian root descend upon you, people kinda take a moment before they realize we’re not going to shake them down for their Little Debbie snack cakes, but we got him talking. The Hulk is one of my favorite characters and he’s written lots of Hulk stories. Good guy to talk with.
Not a great pic (sorry), but here is Dave Finch, artist on Moon Knight and cover artist on The Avengers, Fallen Son #4, Aphrodite and many other projects. His stuff is awesome! Even if you’re not a comic book fan, you would look at his stuff and go “wow”. He was there with his lovely wife and they were kind enough to sign an entire box of comics for our charity drive (THANK YOU SO MUCH). I first saw Dave’s work on a book call Ascension. It was a mid-90’s comic about the angelic wars in heaven. Fun stuff and his warrior angles cemented my mind’s eye of what Archangels should look like. Fun guy who loves his fans.
Here we have David Peterson, remember that name because he’s going to be big…and I mean Brad Bird, Peter Jackson, George Lucas big. He has an amazing book called Mouse Guard that will knock you on your ass. Not kidding, read Eric’s comic review of Mouse Guard here! He was very kind and let us do a video interview that will be up as soon as we figure that out (we’re new at this). I would not be surprised if you see a Mouse Guard movie in the next 5 years. David Peterson is one of those creative minds that you meet once, maybe twice, in your life. If I wasn’t just a high school teacher and had a few million to invest, I’d invest in this guy. I would triple my money in 10 years, maybe more. Run, don’t walk, to your local book/comic store and get the Mouse Guard hard cover. You’ll thank me.
Here’s he Video inerview!!
This is Jason Howard. He’s co-creator and artist on The Astounding Wolf-Man from Image Comics, artist on The Pact #4, a writer for Sketch Magazine, and a cool guy. His new book, The Astounding Wolf-Man, was one of the book you could have picked up on Free Comic Day. If you didn’t, ask your local comic shop is they still have some issues to hand out. If they don’t, buy one. It’s very worth the cover price. He was great to talk with and was kind enough to do a sketch for my local comic shop as a gift to us.
Children and geeks who watch cartoons of teh mid-90’s, remember the show Reboot? It was a toon based inside a computer and hit just as the internet was becoming a household tool. Well This guy is Jim Su and he is one of the people responsible for Reboot, and has a very cool book coming out called Corzonia. His new project is based on two warring undersea cities of Atlantas and Corzonia, and the art is great! I also have a video interview with Jim that will be up soon. Check out Jim’s blog here or Beach Studios here
The very fun Matt Delight (right) is a guy you want to hang out with. I can’t find this card right now (I know I have it!) but he was very fun, and so was his friend who’s name escapes me right now. I do remember that Matt’s friend runs a dance party in Detroit every month that looked like a blast. As for Matt, Goggle “Matt Delight” and you’ll come up with his stuff. I’ll post his link as soon as I find the card.
The only press I saw at the Motorcity Con was us and the local CW station. They covered Con celebs (no CW love for the comic guys, especially the inde people) and pimped their station by giving promo posters for Smallville and Supernatural. Funny this is, they screwed up. We came into the Con on Sunday and signs were posted all over saying “Adam West, TV’s Batman, is not at the Con. CW News made a mistake”. Obviously the CW news reported that Adam West was at the con and people started coming in looking for him. Oops! You would see those kinds of mistakes with HeroesTV.com coverage!
This is Gema, art teacher by day and comic writer/publisher by night. She has a great looking book called Clayshaper about a living clay rat. It looked like it would be great for middle school aged reader. She also had some great “Make your own comic” workbooks that I might be getting for my class. I know Eric has all her contact info that I will link to when I get if from him. Gema was a great gal to hang out with. She tore-up the karaoke bar on Saturday night, pics posted soon
Blurry pic, don’t know why. These are the two ladies who ran the HUGE Dukes of Hazard display. They’re two Canadian woman who have loved the Dukes for years and collected tons and tons of stuff. At some point they looked around the house and went “Aw crap, I got a lotta Duke stuff. What do I do with it?” Well I’ll tell ya what they did. They make a website and became the largest purveyors of Duke lore in existence. They now travel to Cons and share the love. You can check out their site here.
In part two I will cover more of what happened the second day of the Con. I do have a couple to DVD’s to review (that might take a bit), I’m working on getting my video interview up a running, and then of course the night life coverage. Also check out Eric’s (Stongbad’s) con converge. He was able to get things up quicker then I was.
