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Toy Fair New York is here!! DAY ONE!!

North American International Toy Fair aka Toy Fair New York is a trade-only event. The exhibit is a four day event,held from February 22-February 25th at the Jacob Javitz Center in New York City.This is the 117th annual Toy Fair in New York.

With popular brands like Bandai America Incorporated,BANDAI NAMCO,Mattel Inc,Hasbro,Bears for Humanity,Entertainment Earth,FIGPIN,FUNKO LLC.,LEGO Systems,McFarlane Toys and MEZCO TOYS.

FUNKO LLC

FUNKO will be making pins,which I guess is to take on FIGPIN.

But I found the pins a bit too big,and I remember they had those circular Pop Pins a few years back,that seemed to have just vanished and they wasn’t out for that long,I have two of them,Black Panther and Deadpool.

A double dose of Hannibal served at the Split Screen Festival

The Split Screen Festival concluded its inaugural  first year with NBC’s Hannibal, two separate panels dedicated to the final two episodes of season three. The first panel scheduled an Underground panel, but they cancelled it last week.

A second Hannibal panel popped up on the schedule this week, which was for season three, episode twelve, ”The Number of the Beast is 666″.Raul Esparza (Dr. Frederick Chilton) was the special guest.

Raul Esparza revealed that the make-up he wore (to appear as a burn victim)took seven hours to apply. I also learned that Chilton’s lips were hamburger meat, that did not make me fell any better about watching Dolarhyde bite them off, the scene was filmed in order. Esparza and Richard Armitage did not hang out or speak to one another until they had completed the scene. Bryan Fuller ended up giving Raul the nickname Kenny from South Park animated television show.

The second the panel consisted of fans that channeled their love of the series into other art forms. Leila Taylor discussed her interest in the trope of serial killer scrapbooking, she also works as the creative director at the Brooklyn Public Library.

Janice Poon talked about her reaction to the fan response to the show, Poon is an illustrator, author of Feeding Hannibal and food stylist for Hannibal. She said it has been rewarding, she can pull out all of the stops and does not have to second guess what she wants to do.

Dr. Lori Morimoto is an independent scholar of fan studies and tries to understand the fandom and discussed the fangirl stigma. Hannibal is fan fiction and it spoke to the fan through the writing as a three season metaphor.

Actor Raul Esparza was apart from the second panel, he told us that working on Hannibal helped him learn how to act in front of the camera. He also stated that he stays away from social media, I also learned that Raul wanted Chilton to have a scar, Bryan Fuller who was present via Skype said that he told him that it was okay, but he would have to earn it. While actress Caroline Dhavernas came up with the idea for the cane, musician Matt Marks is a part of a musical group called “Alarm Will Sound”, they are the creative minds behind the Hannibal music.

I am glad that I was able to attend this panel, and truly hope that the campaign to bring Hannibal back for a fourth season is successful. The cliffhanger at the end of season three left fans with questions and possibilities. Bryan Fuller did reveal that season four was going to be art Inception and part Angel Heart.

The Hannibal fandom is full of hope after hearing the news and reading it on social media, the fannibals as a whole will “keep hope alive” as the online campaign for a fourth season for the series will continue.

Ever wonder how this all originated?

So did we, so we did a little digging and this what we came up with.This expression goes back to 1979 as The Empire Strikes Back chronicler Alan Arnold recalls,”Margaret Thatcher had won the election and became Britain’s first woman Prime Minister. To celebrate their victory,her party took out a half page of advertising space in London’s Evening News.This message, referring to the day of victory, was ‘May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie! Congratulations,’ further proof of the extent to which Star Wars has influenced us all.”

....and now you know.

Empire released this new image of Peter Parker jumping over his high school fence in Spider-Man: Homecoming,now we ask, where is he going?

Spider-Man: Homecoming in theaters July 7,2017

Women in Comics Conventions kicked off today from 11:00-7:00pm up here in The Bronx,held at the Bronx Library Center on Kingsbridge Road.

The first panel of the morning was on reconstructing femininity and how comic books as well as movies played a role,in their definition of what womanliness or feminine qualities were all about. One of the panelist spoke on getting over the fear of not speaking up on topics that affected her and that maybe people did want to hear a woman’s opinion on different and difficult subjects and having to get over suppressing those thoughts and being more outspoken.

A chuckle came over the older people in the crowd, when another one of the panelist brought up James Cameron’s Aliens movie and the massive crush she had on the two female characters,Ripley and Vasquez. Two of the baddest women in science fiction cinema and have yet to be replaced by any other female characters in film,but that's my opinion and superheroes don’t count. This panel was followed by The Comic Book Spectrum: Comics and Longevity, there were workshops to participate in, if you are not one to sit around and listen to people talk all day.

Women in Comics Collective, is an artistic and informative initiative that started back in May of 2012.Their goal is to educate communities about the role of women working in the comic book industry. They were first welcomed in by The Bronx Heroes which is one of the main sponsors,along with Lockett Down Productions which made today’s event possible.

Ray Felix is the Executive Director and Founder of Bronx Heroes, a community based organization which promotes literacy and education through the practice of reading and creating comics. The Bronx Heroes Comic Con started from an art exhibit back in 2006,”Dream Sequence” which was curated by Ray Felix himself. Their goal is to have local Bronx residents to meet and shake hands with comic book professionals who they might not have the opportunity to meet at larger comic book conventions.

Bronx Heroes of Comic Con is a free event.

Fans of Comic Conventions (Funko Pop/Toy Tokyo),any type of fandom, Apple smartphones,Microsoft Xbox, Sony PlayStation,Nintendo,etc.

Lines should be nothing new for you,we have been standing on lines to be the first ones to get that item when it first drops.

The only difference when you pay to get into a convention (movies/fandom/comics) and spend an outrageous amount of money for the tickets, not including travel expenses, food,and merchandise you will want to purchase at the event,that can be a pretty expensive pill to swallow,especially if you have to stand on a three to five hour line or have to sleep on the cold hard concrete at the convention center 12 hours before the event even begins.

So with the recent Star Wars Celebration this past weekend,after looking at so many photos of lines,I had to ask myself,would I be willing to do that? Is there a fandom that would have me going to these extremes? That answer would be no,actually hell no.

And I’ve done lines,I think the longest I’ve stood outside for an event is maybe 3 hours and I didn’t pay that kind of money like these fans did for Star Wars Celebration to enjoy the event.

Now,we could say with the new movies that Star Wars has been churning out you should expect this, maybe and maybe not.

Star Wars has always had a large following even when I first saw it,when I was in 7th grade, I don’ t remember any long lines but I think my parents took us a week after it premiered. Back than,they wasn’t standing on any lines to see a movie,that wasn’t going to happen.Push came to shove,someone would just buy the $10.00 bootleg VHS tape and you watch it at home,but we had to see it in the theaters.

Is it time for conventions to stop overselling some of those tickets at some point?

Or will they find another way to gouge the consumers,I’ve seen rumblings from fans on social media that they need to charge for preferred seating for panels.

Do you really want to give that event more money,by adding on a “ticket” for reserved seating in a panel on top of the money you spent for the badge,so the badge just gets you inside,is that what you really want?

Because you still might not make it for your panel inside,if you are still stuck outside and still haven’t made it inside to line up for the queue line.That means you would have to buy the V.I.P Badges and that can run you several hundred  dollars.

If you have that kind of money that won’t be an issue, but I’ve already noticed how the middle class and low income fans are slowly being pushed aside.

Everyone should have a fair shake of experiencing these conventions, even if it might be your only one, the memories you leave with will stay with you forever.

Here’s a quick run down from our guest writer Jeremy out there in Dallas,Texas.He’s still in shock and disbelief on how things went down at the Fan Expo on Saturday.

“I don’t know if you want me to write anything about this con or anyone else to write anything about it.It was horrendous, they had people in huge clusters for over two hours, waiting for Norman Reedus and Jeffery Dean Morgan, and cancelled it after “two lines”(if that’s what you want to call it) of people went in.”

“Then told everyone they (NR and JDM) had to leave, but then one of the organizer’s people started posting pics (on their personal page) of them back stage signing convention materials for organizers to sell.”

“They yanked down the post, but not before some users screenshotted it and started sharing it like crazy.”

“This place will be lucky if they have anyone in attendance next year...every year it’s a cluster muck but this year it was an utter disaster.”