Stan Lee's Comikaze 2014

This Saturday I attended Stan Lee's Comikaze for the fourth year in a row. Unfortunately, this year started out on a negative note - the line to get in was insanely long. I feel like a lot of cons have problems with this, and they don't seem to be learning from each other's mistakes. In this case, once we got to the front where we got our badges, there was absolutely no reason for it have taken as long as it did - there were 20 windows open, and the majority were just sitting there waiting for people to come up. It took less than 10 seconds to get our badges. Why, then, was the line so long?? Why weren't they ushering people through the line faster? There's no explanation for this, and kind of no excuse after having had problems with this in the past. 




Well, anyway, on with the show! Once we finally got in, we wove around the aisles of booths. There was a lot of great stuff for sale - large fluffy Alpacassos, more Buffy action figures than I've seen in a while, millions upon millions of Funkos, and of course much, much more. 

As always, I managed to find several cute things to buy. I saw this wooden nerd bunny necklace from Unpossible Cuts, and immediately demanded that they take my money. They had a ton of other super cute necklaces, earrings and coasters intricately cut from wood. I also got a couple She-Hulk trade paperbacks - Sensational She-Hulk and Savage She-Hulk. I've been getting more into comics as of late, and I had a ton of fun at this show flipping through the comic boxes searching for the books I've had my eye on. I got this great shirt from a 5 dollar bin that says, 'I didn't get my acceptance letter from Hogwarts, so I'm leaving the Shire and becoming a Jedi'! So perfect, three of my favorite fandoms in one shirt! As you may know, I love a good mystery/grab bag, so when I saw one at an Alpacasso booth, I had to get it! My favorite item in the bag was the wolf spirit hood with scarf mittens; that alone was worth the price. There were also 2 anime related items, and a Star Trek shirt. I think I can make my money back from selling those on eBay.

Sorry for the terrible quality of this pic!

Comikaze has a 'Main Stage', which is basically a stage off to the side of the convention floor, where they hold most of their bigger panels. It's a cool idea in theory, it helps make the exhibit hall even more lively, but the thing is... who wants to stand around watching a panel for an hour?? My feet already hurt from walking around, I don't want to just stand in one place for an hour. We watched about 15 minutes of the Game of Thrones panel, with Alfie Allen (Theon, and that guy that kills John Wick's dog), Esme Biano (who played Ros, the prositute who's name you probably didn't know), and Gwendoline Christie (what a great name) (oh yeah, she's Brienne), plus Adrienne Curry of ANTM fame (also some other stuff, but that's the only thing that matters to me) was the moderator. Once they started taking audience questions, we bailed.

The next panel on the Main Stage was the True Blood panel. Stephen Moyer (Vampire Bill), Kristin Bauer Von Straten (the awesome Pam), and Tara Buck (Ginger, the girl worked at Fangtasia and screamed a lot). They used some new app that was sponsoring the show, Waav, to have fans at home ask questions. It was not great. They displayed their selfie-esque image on the big screen, and let's face it, nobody's face looks good that big that's not a movie star. Again, we bailed once they started the audience questions.


We also attended a panel in one of the regular rooms, for the documentary 'The Death of 'Superman Lives': What Happened?' It was a Kickstarter project by a guy who was fascinated by the movie that never was, The Death of Superman, which would have been written by Kevin Smith, directed by Tim Burton, and starring Nicholas Cage. You may have seen that one picture floating around the internet of Nic Cage in the Superman suit, following by a mocking joke about it, because yeah, that seems like a hilarious choice for Superman. But during the panel, they mentioned that, at the time, Cage had just won an Oscar, and had starred in some action movies, so it really wasn't as weird a casting as it seems today. They showed a lengthy clip from the doc, which I found riveting. They're going to start screening it in March of next year at several cons (all of which we'll be at, actually), and I can't wait to see it!

Each year Comikaze usually boasts several unique events and reunions. This year, they had a reunion of the cast of MadTV. I didn't attend that one, but I heard it was great. This year's con also hosted an attempt at setting the world record for most people dressed like Tetris pieces or something. I hope they succeeded, if only to make the $30 price tag on those costumes worth it. If I was going to be a Tetris piece, I'd be one of those ones that looks like an L.