Grindhouse Poster

As I mentioned from my Comic-con postings, I thought Grindhouse looked hilarious. Here's the first of 2 new posters for Rodriguez'a part, Planet Terror with Rose MacGowan and her machine gun prosthesis! Second one below.

Robot Rumble at Comic-con 2006

This year at San Diego's Comic-con, several of my friend participated in the Robot Rumble, a speculative panel discussing imagined battles between verious robots in the genres of TV and film.
This year's heated battle included Gort, MechaGodzilla, the Yul Brynner robotic gunslinger, Box from Logan's Run, the Buffy-bot, Cherry 2000, Hector from Saturn 3, Tan-Ru/Nomad from Star Trek, and Giant Robot.
The final battle this year was between Tom Servo and Crow from MST3K vs. V.I.K.I, the Small Wonder with the bots from the Satellite of Love winning.

More Celebrities Drinking Water at Comic-con

Joan of Arcadia's Amber Tamblyn sitting with director Takashi Shimizu and co-star Arielle Kibbel for The Grudge 2 panel.
It looks like Sarah Michelle Gellar dies in the sequel and then Amber Tamblyn gets infected... Ooooo.


Here is Nick Frost (Shaun of the Dead) with director Edgar Wright promoting their new film with Simon Pegg called Hot Fuzz.
It looks pretty funny, making fun of the buddy cop action film.

I didn't get any pics of the panel drinking, but I also saw 2 of the Reno 911 guys promoting their film Balls of Fury, a comedy about a guy who enters a to the death ping pong tournament. It has Christopher Walken, Patton Oswalt, George Lopez and the hot Maggie Q.

Comic-con Costumes Part Trois (last batch)

Comic-con Costumes Part Deux

Celebrities Drinking Water at Comic-con

Here is Gerard Butler sitting with Frank Miller, David Wenham and director Zak Snyder on the panel for 300, the film adaptation of Miller's graphic novel about the famous battle with the Spartans. It looked really cool.

This is writer and artist for the great comic Optic Nerve, Adrian Tomine. I met him last night. He's a really nice and great to talk to.

The Ghost Whisperer herself Jennifer Love Hewitt sitting next to Lost's Jorge Garcia on the TV Guide panel.

Kristen Bell was supercute on the Veronica Mars panel. She's tiny. I'm looking forward to season 3 of her show on the new CW network.
She also plugged her role in the upcoming Fanboys and the delayed Pulse.

No drinking water on this panel- I only got a pic of Marley Shelton pouring water, but man Grindhouse! It's the new double feature film by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez- the clip that showed looked hilarious: Rose Macgowan missing a leg and having a machine gun placed on the stump to help blow away zombies ("infected people," as Lenzi would say), Danny Trejo with a trenchcoat of machetes and then making out with 2 topless women in a lake, and the announcement of Kurt Russell working as the bad guy in the Tarantino film. I can't wait for this film.

Shilling for My Peeps at Comic-con

Several friends had booths at this year's San Diego Comic-con, so
I thought I would give their things a plug or two.
This was the booth for the Pu-pu Bros., a group of cool artists from Portland including Bwana Spoons, Martin Ontiveros, and APAK.
You should check out the new issue of their comics 'zine, Pencil Fight #3!

This is a picture of my friend Taro with manga artist, Yoshihiro Tatsumi. Well know comic book guy, Adrian Tomine (Optic Nerve) was involved in helping get Tatsumi's comics published in English recently in a collection called The Push Man and Other Stories.
A second volume, Abandon the Old in Tokyo comes out later this year.

Here is a picture of Deric Hughes, co-creator of the comic series Living in Infamy. It's about a town of super villains in the witness protection program. They are hoping to develop it into a film down the line.
Ludivico Technique, the publisher, has a new title The Red Line coming out later this year as well.

Here is the booth for CFQ/Femme Fatales magazine. CFQ was known as Cinemafantastique and has been around covering all things genre in Hollywood for a long time. It's sister publication is Femme Fatales, and that magazine features up and coming movie starlets in states of near undress.
In the fall, these guys are planning on releasing Geek Monthly, kind of nerdy "Maxim".

Hot Eastern European Pedicab Girls of the Gaslamp

Here in San Diego, you can get a pedicab to ride around the downtown Gaslamp quarter next to the convention center. For some reason, many of the drivers are super-hot Eastern European women. It's any wonder their male counterparts are more often seen waiting for fares and these women are the ones making the big bucks.
"Um, yes, one more time around the block please, miss"

Comic-con Costumes

Something about Comic-con prompts people to weather 80 degree humid temperatures and wear costumes of their favorite comics or movie characters. The most brave go up for the Masquerade contest where they are subject to the jeers of their fellow nerds. Horrible nerd on nerd crime!
Also, down below are a few pictures of, yes, female Comic-con attendees. (not paid to be here)

Muse at Soma in San Diego

To escape from the nerd tide, my friend Steve and I went to catch the soldout Muse show at Soma in San Diego. It was about a 20 minute cab ride to an area of strip malls near the sports complex. I could have got framing done and dropped the kids at karate class and caught a show.
The club was basically a box, and in this case a sweat box. Wall to wall people! We managed to find a nice position on one of the entry stairwells stage left so we had an elevated view.

This was my first time seeing Muse, and they were pretty impressive. Do the British rock bands come from the same finishing school of music? Their stage presence reminded me of Radiohead and Coldplay shows I've seen the past - very tight, high energy, and stripped down stage show with no fancy tricks- just the performance that mattered.
A highlight was that I was on the edge of a fight. I helped the group pull one guy apart from another guy. That was fun!

The Perils of Comic-con

No, it's not any real physical danger because the lightsabers are all toys. For females, it's not getting stuck in a long line at the ladies' room. The true peril of Comic-con is the temptations on any nerd with money.Comic-con centers on an enormous exhibition hall that must be at least 3 or 4 football fields long, mainly with people with something to sell from the next French animated feature Renaissance which looks really cool to limited edition of whatever.
Here are some of the more interesting items that are available to part a nerd and his money.
The most expensive item is probably the one up top - the Mach 5. For $25 thousand, you can drive away in an actual Mach 5. I'm not sure if Chim Chim and Spridel are in the trunk though.
Several of my friends already have pre-ordered their Master Replicas version of the Starship Enterprise. It looks really cool- with glowing nacelles that have spinning colors to lights along the ship's hull, it will set you back about $1300.
Many of my friends were debating about the Master Replicas Millenium Falcon which is probably going to be priced about $2000.
Another company, Sideshow Collectibles, makes very realistic and detailed action figures that you probably don't want your kid (chronological age that is) to play with. Hmmm, where to put my 3 foot Jabba the Hutt? I liked their Predator and Aliens series - you can have a whole tribe of predators fighting all the colonial marines. They also had Tony Montana, KISS, an ED-209, Buffy and Angel figures, and Universal Monsters.
My recent favorite stuff has been the more weird artist driven figure market that exists now. Many of the guys come from Graffiti or lowbrow art scenes, and several companies that started with Medicom and Bearbricks enlist these artists to create cool art toys.
My friend, Brooklen, left me a message yesterday that a friend of his, Abe Lincoln, Jr. had a figure available (see bottom).
via Kid Robot.
It's part of a series called Dunny. The hook is you buy a box not knowing what figure you might get, so if you want one in particular, you might have to buy several to find one you want. Curses!

Who are these Guys?

I'm still not positive who these guys are supposed to be. At first I thought they were Brotherhood of the Wolf or Eyes Wide Shut or The Brothers Grimm. I think they're Brothers Grimm.
I forgot to mention that at preview night, there was nearly a fight in a line for people waiting to pick up limited edition collectible busts of a cylon. I love it. . nerd on nerd crime.

Preview Night at Comic-Con 2006

After arriving in San Diego and lunch, I checked out the exciting preview night at the San Diego Comic-Con.
The biggest hype might be for the upcoming Snakes on a Plane. Star Samuel L. Jackson is going to be here Friday afternoon. Here is the big New Line cinema display for it.
They are also pushing Guillermo Del Toro's Pan's Labyrinth, which looks pretty creepy. Also, thank god, the sequel to the Butterfly Effect is out this fall.
Another big film seems to be Michael Bay's Transformers. I don't have high hopes for this film.
Spiderman 3 will also get a big sell at this con this weekend.
Oh, check out The Descent, a horror film about a group of girlfriends who go caving in the Appalachian mountains. It's directed by the guy who did Dog Soldiers. It comes out domestically next month, but I watched the DVD on the plane- it's really good and scary and gory!
Here is a picture of girls they hired to try to get nerds to audition for the Revenge of the Nerds remake. Normally, if not paid, they probably wouldn't give any of us the time of day.









Lastly, (this is for my buddy Claus) - look who I met (below): Kevin Grevioux, one of the writers and the badass Lycan from Underworld!

Vetiver and Beach House at Talking Head

Saturday night, I went to the Talking Head to see Vetiver.
Opening was Baltimore locals Beach House. They had an interesting sound: slide guitar, keyboards and drum machine with a pretty female voice, a little ambient, shoegaze-y quality. I was impressed. I heard they just signed with Carpark Records - I would look forward to their release.
Vetiver was pretty awesome. They are grouped with band like Espers and Brightback Morning Light, but they have this 70's country rock sound that really grounds them. The singer had a Gram Parsons quality as well. Incidentally, Otto Hauser of Espers was their drummer - I've seen him 3 times in the last year (it would have been 4 if Devendra Banhart hadn't cancelled his Baltimore show).