Pictures from the 2014 Comic-Con International, part 10 (Nathan Fillion & Alan Tudyk @ NerdHQ, the Taco Truck and more!)

Ah, Comic-Con.  Where has the time gone?  We're closer to the 2015 show than we are the 2014 version, and yet here I am, still showing pictures from last year.  What can you do?  All of these pictures are from Sunday, the final day of the event, which was, all things considered, fairly low-key but still included a lot of great moments.  Here are a few.

Parodying the Comic-Con protestors never goes out of style, and sometimes includes horse masks.  The handles are, I guess, Instagram accounts, because they don't show up on Twitter.  A shame.

A big part of Sunday, for me, was spent back at Nerd HQ for their "Conversations for a Cause" series, which, as I've stated before, is pretty incredible.  I got tickets (thanks to Larry) for the Nathan Fillion panel.  The 2013 version was so much fun that I had to make it back this year for an encore.  It was more laid back as I already had a year under my belt.  Still, it was fun to see Fillion and Firefly companion Alan Tudyk again in this intimate setting.

As always, the very generous Zach Levi introduced the panel guests.

Fillion was gracious and funny as always.  He mentioned that he sometimes walked the convention floor, dressed in a costume that also covered his face, from time to time.  I wonder how many celebrities do something similar.  It's not a bad plan for blending in.

Firefly will never die, even if Wash did.

There were a lot of great items auctioned off this year.  I'm amazed at how much people are willing to spend.  It's great that all the money goes to Operation Smile, Levi's charity of choice.  I'd like to win something one day (one day...).

The NerdHQ team handled the photo booth better than they did last year, which included a mad rush after the panel had ended.  This year, if you had a ticket to the panel and $20, you could get your picture taken with both Fillion and Tudyk.  My wife and I are fans of Fillion's well documented photobombs, and so we asked to be included in that storied history.  I'd say we got a good one.  So we didn't lose our nerd cred, we were also wearing Futurama brain slugs at the time.

One of the walls at NerdHQ was dedicated to the people who donated to help fund the event.  I had to chip in a little as I take advantage of this offsite event at different points during Comic-Con.  My name made it on the wall right about...

...here.  The entire monstrosity is up online here (search for yourself!  Or search for me!): http://www.thenerdmachine.com/wall-of-honor-updated/

After the panel and picture session ended, it was time to head back.  Do these Pokemon outfits count as onesies?

And it was time for another trip across the bridge, which called for yet another picture of the convention center and the city...but this time...it was a panoramic view.  How nice.

One thing brought about by more events taking place on the back lawn is a longer line to the vaunted Taco Truck.  It was a bit distressing...but there was still a fairly short wait to the front of the line, and the Taco Truck is worth every minute spent waiting.

Here's the man in charge.  I love him.  And his burritos.

Here's a fairly prescient costume, given the ending of the Guardians of the Galaxy movie.  Good on this kid, though I'm surprised that anyone under 30 knows who Howard the Duck is.

Let's call this "battle damage Iron Man".  A nice job.

Another nice job by Aquawoman, unintentionally standing by a Ghostbuster.

It's strange to look behind you and see someone dressed like this following you.  Kudos to him for taking the picture in stride.

Here's a picture that illustrates how everyone feels at the end of a long convention.

This gentleman probably had the best costume at Comic-Con.  Apocalypse here is affiliated with the Cinema Makeup School, and questions as to if this "counts" as a legitimate fan costume are brought up.  I think it counts.  Either way, it's a heck of a costume.

Catwoman was standing next to Apocalypse.  She did a nice job, but that's a tough act to follow.

Battle Damage Dr. Mrs. The Monarch.

Love the original Trek uniforms.

To the side of the Cartoon Books booth stood this life size RASL statue.  Really cool.

How many times did this guy get described as "outrageous"?  Heck, what's one more time?

This is not the end.  There are still more pictures to show.  And show them we will.  Soon.

2013 Comic-Con swag (Futurama, Venture Bros., Firefly, the Tick and more!)

You didn't seriously think that I had run out of posts about Comic-Con, did you?  Of course not!  What trip would be complete without a showing off of all the neat things I was able to pick up while I was away?  And at Comic-Con, there are always cool things to be had.  I took pictures of what I got and I'll share 'em while I still remember where everything is!

This first item is also the first item I bought at the show.  On Wednesday evening, as soon as I had checked in and picked up my Comic-Con swag bag, I went over to the Toynami line to pick up this deluxe Futurama set with Destructor and Gender Bender (from a specific episode of the show).  The Destructor figure is proportionately giant and it looks great.

While in line waiting to buy the set, there was a placard announcing plans to raise funds for a new Morbo figure though the bakesale website Kickstarter.  The fundraiser was supposed to start in Auguest, according to the information on hand, but as of yet I haven't seen or heard anything new in this regard.  This is a shame, because I really do want more Futurama figures.  Toynami shouldn't have to peddle on Kickstarter to fun their products, either, but that's another argument entirely.

I have a number of the Venture Bros. Mego-style action figures, but I kind of wish I had held out for the more standard, 3 3/4-inch figures, which look awesome and take up much less room.  At any rate, I picked up the "naked" Brock Samson figure from the Entertainment Earth booth and was lucky enough to get it signed by Patrick Warburton!  I need to find a hard case for this thing, but so far I haven't had any luck.

There were a number of limited Venture Bros. items at Comic-Con, and I picked up more than a few, including this limited lunch box/tin tote gift set.  It has figures of the Monarch, Dr. Mrs. the Monarch and the Pupa Twins inside!

The Adult Swim Fun House was a big hit at the convention, and I picked up a Venture Bros. shirt while waiting in line - for free!  Love the design.

There was other free stuff to be had at the Fun House, and I came home with a few things, including this Mooninite hat and Fun House poster!

This Firefly keychain is a small item, but it went fast at the QMX booth.  I was lucky to get the very last one that was sold on Wednesday.  I was told that there were a few more to be had, but that they still had to be shipped from the store house in Los Angeles.  This is just the same keychain that was previously offered in silver, but this time it's refinished!  Totally different products, I'm sure you'll agree.

One of the coolest items I brought home from the show was a couple of autographs on a book that I took with me.  I mentioned a little while ago that I won a Serenity graphic novel in a silent auction for the Can't Stop the Serenity Pittsburgh event, and that the book had been signed by Summer Glau and Jewel Staite.  Due to some incredible luck, I was able to get it signed by Nathan Fillion and Alan Tudyk on the very last day of the show!  Who knows if I'll ever be able to get the rest of the cast to sign the book, but this was a very nice way to cap off the show.

I also brought to the show the base of my Sideshow Tick statue.  I was able to chat a little with Ben Edlund when he stopped at the New England Comics booth, and he was kind enough to sign the bottom of the base.

Rounding off my autographs is this awesome poster signed by Felicia Day!  I mentioned this earlier, but Day had a Q&A and signing at her Geek & Sundry site.  She was incredibly nice and handed these out for free.  It's a pleasing design and to have it signed was an unexpected treat.

The last item to show off is also the most adorable.  Petco, the mega pet store ("mega" describing the store, not the pets...but I guess that describes some of the pets) was promoting their new Star Wars-themed pet merchandise, and as such, these giveaway Yoda cat ears were a bit hit at the show, so much so that you had to stand in line at the beginning of the day if you wanted to have any chance of getting a pair.  As you can see, the results were...HEART-MELTINGLY SWEET.  Captain Applesauce has always been photogenic, but this image...oh my goodness.  How precious.

And that wraps it up for this time!  Will I have more Comic-Con-centric posts?  Only time will tell.  Also, yes.

They love me on YouTube

If you see a headline like the one at the top of this page, you probably think that I'm going to go on (and on) about Franks and Beans.  But that is not the case!  I mean, people do love me on Franks and Beans.  They do, right?  I think so.  Anyway, what I'm referring to is yet another great moment from Comic-Con, specifically the two Nerd HQ panels that I was able to attend.  Fortunately for those not in San Diego at the time, all Nerd HQ panels were broadcast live on YouTube and have been archived for posterity.  Due to the intimate settings of the panels (there were 250 tickets sold for each), chances are that if you were in the audience, the on-set cameras captured your image at one point or another.

In my case, I was able to attend the Joss Whedon panel and one of the two Nathan Fillion Panels.  Fillion actually hosted the Whedon panel as well, and Alan Tudyk played host at the Fillion panel, so I got to see twice the facetime with Firefly alums than I had expected.

The panels were, at their core, question and answer sessions.  This was exciting because, among other reasons, you actually had a chance of asking a question here, as opposed to a Hall H panel at Comic-Con's convention hall, when spots to ask questions are snatched up two nights before anyone even shows up.  Several staff members were available with microphones, and we were told early on that, if we had questions to ask, we should let someone with a microphone know.  I didn't act soon enough and was left waiting at the Whedon panel, but I did still get on camera a few times.



Embedded here is the official stream from the event.  Because it was a live feed, the title screen lingers for, well, quite a while.  If you take a look at the comments on YouTube, people freaked out about this.  Whatever.  The panel begins in proper form at the 26 minute mark, so feel free to scroll to that point to see.  Here's a picture from my seat at the event:

Pretty cool!  As you can see in the video, Whedon was cool and cordial throughout, and Fillion was his normal jovial self.  I wore my Jayne hat because, I don't know, it's a Firefly panel at Comic-Con, so I'm pretty noticeable in the crowd.  Because of this, I'd often see myself in the crowd shots on the big monitors in front of the stage area, and like a person who apparently has nothing better to do than take his attention away from a very exciting event to mug for the camera, I did...well, just that.

Naturally, the whole panel is worth watching, as Whedon facilitates a nice discussion about a number of his projects, and I hope that you (YOU, faithful reader) take the hour and watch it if you haven't already.  But as this is my blog, let me just point out that there are some really nice Jeff moments at the following time codes: 1:09:52, 1:16:20 and 1:17:03, which looks a little something like this:

A few people watching from home saw some of my antics, and a number of them commented on it.  Since I am (apparently) a narcissist, I figured that I might as well take some screen shots and paste them all up here to prove to no one in particular that it actually happened:

So that was pretty fun.  And thanks to all the random people who...uh...noticed me?  I certainly appreciate it.

Next up on the circuit was the Nathan Fillion panel with special guest Alan Tudyk, the second such panel of the day.  There was no video bombing in this panel (at least by me), but I did get to ask a question!  And also I looked very dashing in my brand new Pirate hat.  I'll admit that my question wasn't the most inspired, because I tried to rearrange the question that I was hoping to ask Joss Whedon the day before.  But dammit, I knew that I had to ask a question, and if I was going to ask a question, it was going to be about Firefly come hell or high water.

This panel (which is also very much worth watching in its entirety) begins at the 17:15 mark.  My big ol' question comes at 40:51:



Great.  This was my view of the stage:

And, um, here's a picture of me with microphone in hand.  Check out that guy at the very bottom of the picture, who seems to be inflicted with some Jack Nicholson-inspired madness:

Obviously, YouTube or not, this was a great time.  I can't wait to try to go back again next year.  Maybe I'll be able to pop up in front of the White Queen again.