Instead of having each artist in whom gem was interested autograph a piece of his or her work, she had them all autograph a single vinyl toy. I think it was a fantastic idea, and I hope she continues to do this in the future.
You can see it from the front in the picture above. First, it was turned into Jake of Adventure Time by an artist at the Adventure Time booth with drawings on the face, belly button, and fingers (and butt and tail, but that’s shown later). The ears and forehead were customized by Simone Legno of Tokidoki. The Aquabats symbol in the center was drawn by band member Crash McLarson. Amusingly, he had to look at the shirt of the member sitting next to him to remember what it looked like – an ‘A’ with a circle! He must have just wanted to ensure it was perfect. Author John Scalzi autographed the right hand. It looks like bloody knuckles!
This is the autograph of the person who turned it into Jake.
Here’s a close-up shot of Simone Legno’s drawings and autograph. He’s the creator and artist of Tokidoki.
On the side of the head are the autographs of Aquabats members Ricky Fitness and Eagle “Bones” Falconhawk. On the arm is a doodle and autograph by Behemoth’s Dan Paladin. On the back is Aquabats member Crash McLarson’s autograph.
Here’s the back. In the center is a picture of Domo-kun and autograph by Domo-kun’s creator, Tsuneo Gōda. You can also see the tail and butt of Jake.
The back of the ear features a great self-portrait by the M.C. Bat Commander, leader of the Aquabats!
Lastly, here’s a doodle and autograph by Tom Fulp of Behemoth.
Do you see that photo up there? That’s me with the Aquabats, the most fun and awesome band ever (obviously)! They were at Comic-Con, and gem snapped this photo of me with them while they were autographing.
This is the poster they signed for me. Sadly, it mentions a show that I didn’t attend; I was tempted, but it seemed better to spend my Comic-Con time actually at Comic-Con. I usually catch there Christmas show in LA anyways because they include past band members.
The MC Bat Commander, lead singer, asked if I wanted it addressed to me as he autographed it, and I told him I’d like it signed to “Peter and gem.” Not only did he do that, but he also started singing a little song. “Peter and gem, together again!”
gem got something signed as well, but I’ll talk about that in a later post.
Besides the poster, we also bought a pack that came with Aquabats boxer-briefs and a sweet, light-blue t-shirt featuring the Aquabats “A” symbol in the center. Later we were walking in downtown at night, and I saw some clothing on the ground. I wouldn’t normally pick up something like that, but something made me wonder if it was Aquabats merchandise. I kicked it with my t-shirt, and it was! We had found a t-shirt for The Aquabats! Super Show!
For those who don’t know, the Aquabats have a mythos that they’re superheroes from Aquabania. Over the course of their albums (and now TV show), they’ve accumulated enemies. One of them, from the album called The Aquabats vs. the Floating Eye of Death, is (as expected) the Floating Eye of Death! This was some pretty sweet cosplay.
I attended their panel on their TV show, The Aquabats! Super Show! Unfortunately, I wasn’t sitting near the front, so the video isn’t great. On top of that, they showed a lot of clips that I wasn’t allowed to record, so I had to edit them out. Even so, I’m glad I recorded it.
One of the things they showed was a Mega 64 video that was given to them to put in the show as a fake commercial. Unfortunately, the Hub, their TV channel, didn’t allow it. It was a commercial for a kit to turn a garage into an adventure play set for kids, built around the idea of a child pressing the garage door button and then rushing to get under it before it closed like Indiana Jones. It was pretty funny, but we couldn’t record it.
I think the most interesting part of the panel was finding out that one of the adults in attendance wrote a letter to the Aquabats years ago as a child suggesting a particular hand motion to do during one of the songs, Martian Girl. After reading the letter, the Aquabats have used that hand motion every time they played the song.
The Broken Yoke, a restaurant in downtown San Diego specializing in eggs, was redone to be a restaurant based on The Hub. Our table featured the Aquabats!
There was a section on the menu called “The MC Bat Commander Breakfast.” Of course, I had to order from it; I had Betty’s Southern Biscuits and Gravy.
As part of Mega 64’s collaboration with the Aquabats, they created commercials for fake “Gloopy” products. Here’s some ketchup rebranded to look like Gloopy Catsup.
Here’s one last thing to share – Gloopy Eyewash. “Pour directly into eyes.”
Last weekend was Comic-Con, and I went with gem and Antonio. I had a ton of fun, and I wanted to share a few things over a series of four posts. Above, you’ll see the chalkboard that was in our hotel room. I don’t know why they’d put one in a hotel room, but it was fun. gem customized it for us!
While waiting in line for an Archer panel that filled before we could enter, we saw these two Atlantians yelling at us land–dwellers. They were pretty entertaining; if it wasn’t for them, being in that line would have been wasted time.
I bought a tokidoki x Marvel hat from the tokidoki booth featuring Captain America, one of my favorite heroes. Simone Legno, tokidoki creator and artist, was there, and he autographed the hat. He also drew Adios and the tokidoki symbol of a heart and crossbones. Adios is my favorite tokidoki character. In fact, Simone has also drawn him on my 360.
I wasn’t expecting Little Shop of Horrors cosplay at Comic-Con, but it’s one of my favorites so I was happy! Here’s Seymoure and the Audrey II. It was a puppet, so he could control the plant.
Behemoth was there again with a great, arcade-like booth. Although they did have Castle Crashers, they were heavily featuring their new game, Battleblock Theater. It’s a very fun platformer to which I’m looking forward very much.
I’ll have posts about gem’s toy, the Aquabats, and John Scalzi soon!
Oh, the glamorous and very adult life of Peter!
So I finished the first season of Batman Beyond! I haven’t really read much DC, but as a casual fan, I really enjoyed it. The new Batman seems to be fantastic at martial arts with the only explanation that he was once in a street gang. Overlooking that, having Batman be young and new to the job is an interesting take on the Dark Knight. I enjoyed seeing villains that I knew, but I think meeting the new ones was even better, especially the Blight reveal at the end of the season!
I mentioned a while ago that I read Daredevil Visionaries – Frank Miller Vol. 2, but I’ve now read Vol. 3 and Daredevil: Born Again as well. Daredevil is amazingly badass, and I owe Kyle for teaching this to me. Born Again was especially great despite the fact that for most of the comic, Murdock didn’t don the Daredevil persona.
I also borrowed The Ultimates 1 and 2 from a friend and read through those recently. The Ultimates are the Marvel Ultimate versions of the Avengers, and the graphic novels were excellent. The only other Avengers comics I’d read were Avengers Disassembled, which kind of assumed you knew the characters. It was great learning about the different characters in the Ultimates. Captain America is still one of my favorite heroes, and it was interesting to see Thor such a hippie. I’ll definitely need to read more of the Ultimates (and go see the Thor movie sometime soon)!
Hello world!
Today felt like a good day for the most part! That’s always a plus. The store was super busy for a while, and I spent a while in music. Things went fairly well though, which is always a confidence boost.
I played Agricola a few days ago with some friends. It’s a board game focused on farming with the goal of having a balanced farm. I scored 25 while my friends scored in the 40s. Oh well! Next time I might actually know how to play, because I didn’t grok it until a couple hours into it.
I finished Daredevil Visionaries – Frank Miller Vol. 2, collecting issues #168-182, which was really good. I never realized how totally awesome Daredevil was, and I can thank Kyle at work for getting me interested.
Lately I’ve felt in the mood to watch some movies or television but wasn’t sure what to watch. I prefer funny over serious usually, and the only thing funny I still had was Sex and the City. I watched two episodes and thought it was pretty bad. I think it’s supposed to be empowering towards women, but the show trivializes sex. Then last night I started asking for suggestions for movies and watching more Sex and the City. Three more episodes into the series, and I think I’m liking it, although I dislike how it portrays sex. I know, that’s kind of weird considering that’s what the show is about.
Anyways, recommended movies were But I’m a Cheerleader, Little Miss Sunshine, My Best Friend’s Girl, Couples Retreat, and Private Benjamin. I had seen the first two but not the last three, so I’m going to try to watch those soon. (Side note: After getting the recommendations, I claimed that I thought Little Miss Sunshine was okay. And just now I checked my movie log, and I gave it a 10/10. It doesn’t seem to hold up in my memory, but I must have enjoyed it a lot when I watched it. Odd.) Today when Andy found out that I had watched more Sex and the City, he gave me a stack of DVDs – Social Network, Archer Season One, Community Season One, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia Season One, and Inception. I’ve already seen Inception, but the rest I want to see. I wasn’t too interested in the Social Network, but everyone keeps raving about it, so I’ll give it a go.
So what did I watch? Well, tonight I actually watched But I’m a Cheerleader. Every other time I’ve watched it, it was on television and I was interrupted, so I wanted to watch it straight through. Evening though I knew where the story was going, I still felt kind of sick about some of the shit in the beginning. But then love blossoms and it’s okay. I like that movie a lot, and it’s also important to me because of the circumstances surrounding it when I first saw it in high school.
And last night I hit level 85 in World of Warcraft. Now to grind dungeons so I can start grinding heroics so I can raid!
Edit: Been using Tumblr even more. Damn it. Also logged into Deviant Art for the first time in years. Over 9000 (*giggle) notifications.
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