Category: merchandising things!

Kiyosumi Garden, Tokyo

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Almost exactly 2 years ago today, October 23 2012, I was on the first full day of my third trip to Japan, a month-long excursion I called “Nerdtour 2012” (I blogged it on this site).  One of the best places I went was this little slice of old Tokyo park design, called Kiyosumi Garden.  It was just about 1 or 1.25 miles up the road from the apartment I stayed at, and my buddy John had been there before, so on a somewhat rainy day we set off to see this.  It’s a nicely laid-out park, with a large pond or small lake in the middle, beautiful landscaping, and more turtles in one place than I had seen in a long time!  I took this picture of a couple having their picture taken, I don’t know if they were models, or of they were a genuine couple preparing to get married.  Either way, it was a stroke of luck getting this shot from across the lake, given it had been raining off and on with breaks in the clouds allowing the sun to shine.  I plan to go back sometime in the next year, if all goes well, if not, then the year after.  There is so much more of Japan to see!

BTW, I wrote a small photo book that you can buy on Blurb.com!

Coming soon: Katuscon 2014 pictures

katsu2014-02I’ve been remiss in updating that often, but last weekend I had an excuse: I was at Katsucon over in National Harbor, Maryland. The con this year was disrupted by the snowy weather, which lead to some guests delayed or unable to attend, and some of the panels were cancelled or re-scheduled as a result. Also, most people who had pre-registered, who would have gone Thursday night before the con to pick up their badges, most of them showed up late on Friday, and thus there was a line that lasted at least 3 hours in order to pick up con badges. I know because I was one of the thousands in that line, and that’s how long I stood there! That caused me to miss a couple of panels that I really wanted to see, but at least I got some pictures of cosplayers in the line!

As if to make up for the disruption from the weather, there were a lot of very imaginative (and timely!) cosplayers this year, and I have pictures of many of them. Of course, since there was a tremendous amount of snow on the ground, there was a plethora of cosplayers playing characters from the movie “Frozen.” So many Elsas and Anas, and even other winter-themed characters like “Jack Frost” from “Rise of the Guardians”. The largest number of cosplayers this year though had to be the “Attack on Titan” characters. This year there had to be more “AoT” characters percentage-wise than any other anime in other years, even counting “Bleach” and “Gurren Lagann”! (Sorry, “Homestuck” kids, you were FAR outnumbered this con!)

At any rate, I will be posting pictures here and on my photo site, at much higher quality than the ones I already posted on my Facebook page.

As an example, here’s a cosplayer who was taking photos herself (Click for a larger version):

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New official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room!

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The official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room is now on the main ComfyCon.net website! Go there for all the good ComfyCon merch!

ComfyCon 2013! It’s here!

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It’s that time, boys and girls! Time for the easiest, most stress-free, relaxing, COMFIEST convention you’ll ever attend! ComfyCon 2013 is here! Three days of geeking out your own way, you can watch the panels, host your own panel, do whatever you like, because you never have to leave your computer, or even put on clothes, although if you want to cosplay, that’s fine too, we won’t judge! The convention happens entirely online! No need to pack a suitcase, no need to book a flight, because there’s no place to go!

The brainchild of Randal (“Something Positive”) Mulholland and Danielle (“Girls with Slingshots”) Corsetto, aided and abetted by a bunch of other webcomic artists, the first ComfyCon last year was created for people who couldn’t get to go (or didn’t want to hassle with going) to San Diego Comic-Con. Danielle and the others used YouTube to host the panels live and streaming, with much craziness and pantslessness, at least from what I could see. At any rate, the ComfyCon program is here, at ComfyCon.net, check out all the panels, I can guarantee they’ll be the easiest to attend, and you don’t have to worry about filling up the room or dealing with those horrible uncomfortable chairs (unless you have some yourself, for some reason)! Best of all, no con funk! Unless, again, you have it yourself, in which case…

Update!  Now that the official ComfyCon Vendor’s Room is open, beat feet there and scarf the sweet sweet merch from the artists!  THEY HAVE DEALS!

Some good people need some help…

I’m a big fan of web comics, and one of the best I’ve read is “Errant Story” by Michael Poe. He and his wife have been doing this for ten years, he does the art and she handles the business, but they’ve been having a pretty terrible time this past 3 years. Medical emergencies, surgeries, deaths in the family, all piling on each other sometimes simultaneously. Poe’s wife (her nickname is “Impy”) posted a timeline of what they’ve been dealing with.

Amazingly, they’ve been able to keep a sense of humor in the face of their troubles, but they could use some financial help with Poe’s latest hospitalization (acute renal failure from an infection). Instead of asking for donations, which would hurt his chances of getting insurance, his wife asks that people buy things from their online store. A lot of what he created goes beyond “risque” and heads into the “scatalogical” area, but if you don’t mind that, they’re selling his comics in book form, as well as t-shirts and other goods.

I bought a copy of this print, which is a character from “Errant Story.” He’s also selling the original artwork pages (on paper with ink! of all things!) from his comic, but I can’t afford to go $80+ per page, much as I’d like to. If anyone reading this (all two of you!) can help, they could sure use it, and buying their stuff is the best way to help.

New things for sale! (well, only one new thing for now)

Well, I’ve started back into making more things to sell here, trying to raise some money while making the world just a bit better-looking! Or at least, by making things people might like to have around, anyway!
Continue reading “New things for sale! (well, only one new thing for now)”

Site news: temporarily shut down CD store

wordsWell, since I’m getting ready to go out of the country for a little while, I figured I’d better disable my used CD store for now, since I won’t be able to ship any CDs that I might happen to sell while I’m gone.  Once I get back I’ll turn it back on, and who knows, I may have other things for sale then, too!  The other stuff I’m selling, through Zazzle and Cafe Press, as well as the book through Blurb will still be available, since I don’t have to ship those!

Comfy-Con 2012 Dealer’s room!

2013 update!  Wait till you see this year’s Dealer’s Room! Go there, it’s much better than here!

What con-going experience would be complete without a trip to the convention’s Dealer’s Room (AKA “Merch Madness”!) Continue reading “Comfy-Con 2012 Dealer’s room!”