Guess what I did this weekend.

Guess what I did this weekend.

That’s right. Took in the sights and spent all my moneys. I complained about how the summer wasn’t the best but on a day that looked like this

30 degrees, blue skies and sunshine, I spent it indoors nerding out and buying stuff. Totally worth it. I didn’t take as many pics as last year but here is what I got.

There was this dude

Just a lot going on there. Darth Vader-Samurai-Deadmaus. Sure, just go with it.

Ended up by a booth that does masks. Why was there no Michelangelo? And there is something worrisome about that one guy.

This was the view as I went from one building to the next. Yeah, there was a lot of people in there missing the beautiful day.

Went by the Lego Booth.

This is a poster made of, you guessed it, Legos.

Lord Business

Groot and Rocket

a Droid from the new Star Wars Rebels show.

The Shredder

Batcycle

Batman hanging out beside the Batcycle.

Smaug

This was the League of Legends Booth. They had this wall where people could write/draw whatever they wanted on it.

This was drawn by their head character designer. Pretty sweet.

This was the booth for the upcoming Hunger Games movie. These dudes just kind of changed positions between standing beside the throne and crouching beside the thrown while people were allowed to sit is said throne and pretend to oppress the people.

Here is “Batgirl” doing so.

Bumped into Lady DeadPool. She told me to tag the pic of her so she could find it, but I don’t remember what it was. My bad.

There was also Star Lord and a pretty good Groot.

So this is a whole lot of people, including a big seated area, watching two dudes battle in StarCraft. It was intense as everyone was really into it. This shot was taken just before the final big attack was going to happen. They even had a commentator yelling game stats and moves; giving a play by play. That crowd got LOUD. Cheering and hooting and all the things.

This is me failing to take a picture of Nathan Fillion. I also tried to take a picture of Patrick Stewart but all I got was the back of some dude’s head. After that I stopped trying to take pics without getting in line.

R2D2

Daleks in the massive Dr Who booth. They were actually fundraising for Sick Kids Hospital. It was all very cool. As I walked by some lady scanned me with a Sonic Screwdriver. She varified I was human and it was ok for me to proceed.

These ladies aren’t really steam punk so I am going to call them Victorian Harley Quinn and Catwoman. The little girl was with them and wanted to be in the pic; she is kinda Poison Ivy-ish.

A Na’vi female.

Vintage Batmobile with a random dude in it. You could pay to sit in it and get your pic taken. It is easier to just get pics with randoms in it.

Another angle.

So onto the haul. I went way over budget.

Some pretty sweet stuff, right?

First off are these great pieces by artist Rich Lauzon. This visualization of the Cornetto Trilogy is just fantastic and I couldn’t resist. With the purchase I got one of his art books just filled with his art from over the years. He is really talented.

Next we have my last purchase and the one that put me waaaaaaaaaaay over budget but I could not say no. These are production cells from season 1 of “Spongebob Squarepants”. I almost bought the ones of Mr Crabs and Squidward as well but I managed to not go too far overboard. They were relatively inexpensive as the backgrounds aren’t originals but that would have cost me 5-times more. One day I will be able to get one of those.

I got a great Batmobile model that came with a mag with the a bunch of info about the model; the DC issue that it came from, the weaponry on the vehicle, and other attributes of the vehicle. The display case has a cool hologram background that doesn’t really come through in pics.

Here is a model of Klingon Attack Cruiser. It is from the same company that did the Batmobile. The mag tells the episodes the ship was in and all kinds of stats about it.

It is super detailed.

And speaking of Klingons, I got a Bat’Leth. No, sadly, not a full size one. I wish! It is letter opener size but don’t let that fool you, there is a warning, “This is NOT a toy. This product contains Functional sharp edges.” That’s right, “Functional sharp edges.” I can cut people with it. Boo YA!

I also got this Mighty Muggs Han Solo Fig to go along with the Lando and Princess Leia ones that I have. I have been looking for this one for a while.

I also grabbed a few comic books to fill in a couple of gaps.

I am actually enjoying this series. It isn’t the greatest but I get why people like it and it is good enough to keep me reading. I hope it only gets better.

Last but definitely not least is X-Files Season 10 comics. Yes I am still a fan. Like, a really, really big fan. Lately one of my day’s highlights is chatting with my co-worker about the series as he started rewatching it. So much fun.

Well that was my adventure at FanExpo. I have to say that every year that I go I am a little less impressed by the overall experience. I find that before the people were nicer and there was more stuff that you couldn’t get anywhere else. Now it is just a giant money grab and most of the stuff is the same as what you can get in store minus the tax. I will admit that I am not a person that goes to all the talks, gets autographs, and goes to the parties. That is not because I don’t want to, I would really like to actually, but because I can’t afford it. I mean the cheapest person just to get an autograph from was a cosplayer and that was $30. Anyone on TV or in movies started at $80 and went up from there. Going to the talks and parties started at about $30 and anything I was interested in started at $50 and there were events that went up to, wait for it, $699! That would have been on top of admission of $30 – $50 depending on the day you went or full weekend packages that went up to $499. It adds up really quickly. Then you want to buy stuff. OH MY! It really is crazy.

I don’t know how much longer I will keep going. I do like seeing the cosplayers. Its really cool to see what they come up with. And the artist alley is the best thing at the Expo these days. There are some really talented folks who do some excellent work that sell for reasonable prices. Biggest problem with that is where am I going to hang all that stuff?

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