Welcome, foolish mortals
Yes that reference was
necessary, very necessary and should tell you all you need to know I think, but
in case it didn't – congratulations you’re going to enjoy me telling you all
you need to know: last year (2014) I became convinced that I had produced
nothing of worth and would, if I carried on the way I was, leave nothing behind
for people to remember me except maybe a lingering smell no amount of Febreeze
could ever hope to destroy, and then was depressed for a while. I felt very
unimportant, so I decided to do what everyone who feels unimportant does –
start a blog! Hooray for me and the internet.
I am under no illusions, no
one will read this fucking thing but I am going to pretend people ARE reading
this and try and always post about something worth reading about, no one wants
to read about my pets or trips to supermarkets – especially as all my pets are
dead. But I need some kind of
introductory post and LFCC will have to do – I figure me talking about old toys
is marginally more interesting than me talking about my dead pets.
So the London Film and
Comic Con is an annual all-purpose nerd convention, much like SDCC or NYCC its
name is a complete lie, in fact the comic book section of the convention was pathetic
this time around (it did have Gary Frank though), it’s held in July in London
and organised by a company called Showmasters. Showmasters have difficulties,
they could hold a piss up in a brewery and it would be a very big, very
impressive piss-up with lots of popular and well regarded beers… but you just
wouldn’t be able to get in the brewery, get out the brewery, get around the
brewery or get near half the beers on show without sufficient difficulty and
frustration and getting drunk would take a long time. We went on the Sunday,
having learnt from sun-burnt first-hand experience that Saturdays are a waste of
fucking time and it was still heaving, it is nice to say be able to say “ha,
look, our London cons are huge and packed and not just four dealers and Colin
Baker in a community centre, suck it American” but it’s hard to say that when
you’ve heat stroke. Adding to matters of the frustrating kind, this was the con’s
first year in Olympia, a new venue because their old one – Earl’s Court – is being
knocked down by a bunch of bureaucratic bellends,
now Showmasters hadn’t yet
figured out how to successfully layout the convention in a place they’d been in
for around a decade, a venue that consists of two 1-story buildings and a
faulty air conditioning unit, so there was no hope of them pulling off a convention
in a new four floor venue while offering Sigourney Weaver (£95 per autograph,
she’s truly a woman of the people) and Christopher Lloyd. So it was a layout
disaster - the first floor (second floor for American fictional readers) was
easily the worst with only Sylvester McCoy seemingly being able to move across its
mix of (excellent) dealers, randomly located signing tables, photo opportunity
areas and that 360˚ picture of yourself in cosplay thing in less than half an
hour. Showmasters have never really gotten to grips with the whole ‘sign’ thing
either, and now they have four floors, several lifts and about 10 stairwells to
badly signpost so that went…terribly.
All of that kind of makes
it sound like I had a rotten time – I didn’t (I just needed to get that out of
my system), I had a great time. I went with a large bunch of friends (I do have
friends, some of them even like me) who all got to queue up for people they want to sex a bunch of signatures, one
of them got stuck in a lift with Victor Frankenstein from Penny Dreadful and
another got to bump into Sigourney Weaver and her pope-level security force, everything
was pretty dandy (except Dale got pretty hot, poor Dale). Personally I use
conventions as a one-day shopping spree – though I did meet Kevin Eastman,
co-creator of official best thing ever the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and he
drew a Turtle in my old Tales of the TMNT trade paperback (I’m still squeezing –
shush) – and thus I came home with three big bags full of wondrous crap:
Which is what this post is supposed
to be about. I figure if you want to get a good idea of what your author (me)
is like, looking at the crap he bought at a convention and hearing him enthuse
about it is a pretty good way to learn about him, and learn to judge him –
harshly.
I continue to congratulate
myself on not having a whole room full of Funko’s POP! Toys, just their new
Doctor Who wave alone could fill up a shelf in my pathetically small bedroom –
they’ve made an Adipose! They cutest little ball of fat that an ex-Coronation
Street cast member ever made! but I continue to self-flagellate and only buy
one per wave (except for Buffy and the Universal Monsters, but I think I’m
justified there) and so I chose everyone’s favourite raving lunatic now made in
cute plastic form – Tom Baker. It’s not an incredibly original thing to say
Baker was the best Doctor but he clearly was – he fought Frankenstein, Dr
Jekyll, The Mummy and John Cleese.
My friend bought Ten btw,
which I only bring up because it looks terrifyingly like David Tennant.
Rock Lords!
It’s always a good day when
you get a Rock Lord, so it’s a very good day when you get three and when one of
those three is Nuggit then it’s a day like few others. Every time some twat
posts about how ‘dumb’ Rock Lords are I write another name in my list of people
to stone to death, they are big rock men (and women) who turn into boulders,
some of them are see-thru, some of them are shiny, there is no bad. Granite
(the one on the right) seems to be the most common Rock Lord period, with eBay
lots often including multiples of him, but I was short a Granite – I like him,
he looks like a stone gorilla. The blue fellow on the left may seem boring, but
he’s actually my first Series 3 Rock Lord so he’s now very special, I can’t remember
his name, hang on *checks internet* it’s Spearhead, which makes him sound like
a slang term for penis, oh well, he’s blue, he’s cool. Nuggit’s the star
though, Nuggit’s appeal is very basic – he’s cute, he’s shiny – but he’s cute
an he’s shiny, he’s my new best friend and will be travelling with me wherever I
wander.
Gizmo!
Look at his little face! I’ve
had an LJN Stripe since I was very small (my Uncle gave him to me) but my life
has been devoid an LJN Gizmo up until Sunday. I almost missed him too because he
was in front of a Cloud Car from Care Bears that I had to have (told you this would
tell you a lot about me) and y’know,
there’s a camouflage element going on there too. My friends look at me a bit
strange when I get excited over shiny little rock robots but no one questioned
my glee over Gizmo. He’s made friends with the Wampa I also purchased:
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| "What ARE you?" |
Overpriced Pokemon Cards!
Well technically these are
Black Star Promo cards – you know, the ones you got free with magazines and
then lost making my quest to acquire a complete set of them even more difficult
and expensive (thanks for that – dick) – so they weren’t too overpriced, but
they did each cost more than any two of the Power Rangers I bought and I certainly
won’t be telling any family members how much I paid for them. Bulbapedia tells
me that Marril (who’s so much cuter than Pikachu – deal with it) was given away
as part of the Pokemon League tournament in 2000 and Electabuzz was for the
same tournament but in 2002, I will admit that I really bought these two just because
they were the only promos the seller had that I didn't and them Electabuzz (confirmed
awesome) and Marril (so much cuter than Pikachu – deal with it) is accidental
but I really couldn’t have picked two more satisfying choices, for an added bonus,
the Electabuzz is one of the few cards from my favourite set (yes I have a
favourite set of Pokémon cards, I know, I know) the Vending Machine series, to
be translated into English.
A Big Pile of Power Rangers!
You go to these things
enough years you start to recognise (and anticipate) the same dealers and if
you’re someone like me, who has a favourite set of Pokémon cards, you even give
them pet names because finding out the sellers real names is just weird. This
pile is from The Power Rangers Stall, a bloke who just sells Power Rangers. This
Sunday he’d marked down all of his 4, 5.5. and 8” figures to between £2 and £3
so I got a little bit excited and just bought any figures from my list (yes I have
a list of Power Rangers figures I need, I told you you’d learn a lot, and judge
me) I was missing, I ended up with I think 13 for £30. Meaning I paid £2.30ish
per figure which is better than some bootsales. Con dealers are often criticised
as using nothing but ridiculously inflated prices even by eBay standards and they
are, you should see how much I dropped on that Cloud Car, but here is proof
that you can actually get bargains at these shows – so long you want a pile of
random monsters from Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers anyway (and yes I know there’s
a figure from Power Rangers Turbo and Power Rangers Wild Force in that picture).
It’s hard to pick a favourite when your
pile includes plant men, blue moles, Aisha and toxic horrors who shoot smiley
faces but I’m going to give the Best Random MMPR Villain I Bought Today Award
to Pete and Repeat (also known as the Two-Headed Parrot) who’s a mostly bald
raw chicken with another chicken head in its belly that shoots a missile, it’s
so strange and yet so frightening - and he also comes with an axe with eyeballs
in it because Bandai clearly didn’t think that he was way-out enough without it
I suppose.
Operation: The Nightmare Before
Christmas Collector’s Edition!
A few years ago I got a bit
sick of Nightmare Before Christmas – I have no idea why because in case you
missed a memo NIGHTMARE BEFORE CHRISTMAS IS FUCKING AWESOME, but I just got fed
up with it and stopped watching it unless in a Christmas gathering type
scenarios where I had no choice. But I’ve been warming up to it again lately and
part of this warming up, it seems, was spending £55 on merchandise this convention
(I also bought a Minnie Mouse as Sally soft toy, which marks the first time
ever I’ve found Minnie Mouse remotely attractive), I think it might be a guilt thing
though, making up for my past transgressions. Anyway this is Operation but with
Oogie Boogie instead of some rummy in his boxers and seriously, just look at
this thing, is it not magnificent?!:
The regular pun-tastic
ailments have been replaced with new, creepy, but equally bad pun-filled problems
to yank out the Boogie Man, and the motherfucker lights up green and talks with
Oogie Boogie’s voice. I am forcing my friends to play this every Halloween and
Christmas party we ever have from now on.
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