Fan Expo

Last weekend, we worked the Canadian nerd prom: Fan Expo.

Fan Expo is the biggest pop culture, gaming, comic book, and independent pop art event in Canada. When we first started the studio, Fan Expo was still struggling with whether to call itself Toronto Comic Con or Toronto Fan Expo.

(There was another smaller convention in the city at the time that was battling with Fan Expo for the name of "Toronto Comic Con", but through some morally shifty practices, Fan Expo eventually won, that other con is now defunct, and after all that trouble, Fan Expo abandoned the "Toronto Comic Con" name a couple of years later because it was too restrictive against what they wanted to expand into, which was pop culture beyond comics. Wow, what a sentence!)

Fan Expo built itself into the Canadian version of the San Diego Comic-Con (which, incidentally, didn't let the word "Comic" in its name hold it back from its grander aspirations), drawing over 80,000 fans last year. This year, the show took up the entire South Building of the Metro Toronto Convention Center, and still they had to stop people at the door on Friday and Saturday because the building was at capacity. So, I guess it's fair to say that this year's show topped last year's; I wouldn't be surprised if they announced a final tally of over 100,000 attendees this year.

Allison and I were excited to go this year because Fan Expo had broken through to the next tier of celebrity guests. The last time we went, they featured stars who were essentially now off significant TV: Summer Glau from "Firefly", James Marsters from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer", William Shatner who played Captain Kirk. They had Stan Lee the last time we went, but I wouldn't include Stan because he was the biggest name there and definitely not a lower tier celebrity.

This year, they had Darrell and Shane from "The Walking Dead" and J.J., Reid, and Garcia from "Criminal Minds", which are two shows that Allison and I follow so we were excited to see them in person. (They also had Julie Benz who played Rita in "Dexter", which we watch, but I wasn't as pumped for her because I couldn't stand Rita's character, and plus she's a season removed from being on the show anyway; and Gillian Anderson who played Agent Scully in "The X Files", which I used to watch, but she's now MANY years removed from the A- or even the B-list, sadly.)

But at the con, I discovered something that was even more exciting to me than seeing the stars of my favorite TV shows:

"I'm gonna wreck it!"

So there's this animated feature coming out in November from Disney called "Wreck-It Ralph". It's about a long-time bad guy named Wreck-It Ralph from a videogame called "Fix-It Felix" (a Donkey Kong-esque game), who longs to be the good guy. So he busts out of his game and sneaks into another, newer game to become the hero. This photo is of an old style arcade console of "Fix-It Felix". (You can see the standing posters for the movie on either side, leaning against the cabinet.)

Did I mention that "Fix-It Felix" is not a real game? So Disney had this game created as part of its marketing campaign AND IT WORKS! It takes quarters and everything!

When I saw this machine, I had a Jamie Johnson moment: "ASDLKFJ THAT'S SO COOL!"

All of us in the studio are very excited about this movie. It seems like Disney's acquisition of Pixar has paid off: the creativity at Pixar has started leaching over to Disney already.

The sad thing about this film is that we'd worked on a similar movie for Dreamworks last year, which, last I checked, was still in pre-production. With "Ralph" coming out, it's extremely unlikely that anything will come of our movie now. Oh well.

For three and a half days, Allison and I worked our tables, selling prints, handing out business cards (if anyone wants any, just email or Facebook me or Allison with your mailing address and we'll send you some, they're really cute and have our artwork on them :). Standing up all that time was more physically taxing than you'd think.

Luckily, we recently got one of these:

The Queen sitting in her massage throne.

 

 ASDLKFJ SO COOL. :)

Update Gumbo

Why "gumbo"? Why not "stew" or "soup" or even "random update salad"? Simple answer: I like the sound of the word "gumbo"; just saying the word gives me an idea of what  gumbo is, even without ever having experienced it firsthand, which I think is a rare and magical aspect of language. Gumbo sounds yummy, another word that I think actually sounds like it means what it means, know what I mean? :)

So, a lot has happened since our last update. And that's partly the problem, isn't it? One big thing happens and you don't write about it. Then something else big happens and you realize that in order to write about the second thing, you should write about the first thing, and that seems like a big task so you put it off. Then a third thing happens and everything just piles up and nothing gets written down. Hence, the gumbo: just throw everything into a pot together and stir, and hopefully it tastes all right.

So, in semi-chronological order:

In May, Allison got her Permanent Resident status. We had to hop across the border into New York, and then immediately turn around and re-enter Canada so that Canadian Immigration could record her official "entry" into Canada and rubber-stamp her new immigrant status. While we were at the border, we witnessed a couple in a jam-packed minivan get searched by customs officials. Six weeks later, Allison received her official Permanent Resident card in the mail (like an green card in the US), which was followed by registering for a new driver's license (so she can get car insurance), social insurance card (so she can work), and a health card (so that she can take advantage of our vaunted "free" health care).

At the end of June, we drove Allison's car down to Virginia to visit Aunt Linda and Uncle Chip. It was the first time I met any of Allison's cousins, namely Brent, who is an independent used car dealer. Allison's family is quite good-looking, it made me jealous, haha. I hope those beauty genes get passed on to our future kids. Brent bought Allison's car off her and we flew back home on American Airlines.

July was a stifling, hot blur of days, much like what the entire east coast got. For a few weeks, we had temperatures averaging over 100F with humidity, and little rain. The grass all withered and turned to straw, and the windows remained sealed tight with the air conditioning on full blast. Ugh.

End of July and early August, we watched the Olympics and kept track of the medal count for Team USA and Team Canada. This year, Team Canada had an "Own the Podium" campaign, which involved... I don't know, a lot of wishing on stars, I guess. I hadn't heard anything about extra funding for our Olympic athletes for the last four years and now suddenly, we wanted to "own the podium"? At the expense of whom? Anyway, it became clear later on that "owning the podium" meant a target of finishing in the top 12 in medal count. Top 12? How is that "owning" anything? Top 12 (i.e. shooting for #10 or 11) is more like "subletting the podium" or "product placement on the podium", which by the way, we didn't even accomplish. Canada finished 13th in medal count, with most of our medals being bronze. Canada: #1 at finishing #3. But hey, at least we have a high dollar and free health care, I guess. :P

Today, we picked up Allison's new car, which we leased with the money that she got for her old car. It's a black 2012 Honda Civic coupe, kitted with the same features as her old Civic. Allison didn't drive my car, but she likes driving this car.

Barefoot.

"If you were from the south, you'd understand," she said.

Yeah, if. As of now though, I don't really get it, haha.

Our lives revolve around what feels like a small number of things:

1) Work: Allison is in charge of production and distribution. She's been making prints almost non-stop for art shows since March. It all peaks in July and August (for San Diego Comic-Con and Fan Expo in Toronto). In addition to that, we picked up a new movie project with Sony last week, which will keep us busy into October.

2) Guinea pigs: News flash -- the guinea pigs are still cute. Allison has taken to calling Peanut, "Bawse Pig" for no real reason other than it sounds cute and funny at the same time.

3) Videogames: This is the most convenient downtime escape that we have. Allison is still playing World of Warcraft, while I've jumped around from game to game. First I was on Tera, then Diablo 3, then Batman: Arkham City, then Civilization V, and now I'm replaying Skyrim. And unless you actually play one of these games, this paragraph is probably of little interest to you, haha.

4) TV: This is exclusive to Allison. She has been watching a lot of "Legend of Korra", "Adventure Time", and more recently, "My Little Pony". Strangely enough, she was introduced to "My Little Pony" by our summer intern, who is a 22 year old "brony" (male "My Little Pony" fan, of which there are apparently many). Allison likes the show but remains skeptical about why it would attract male viewers in their 20's.

For me, I've been trying to maximize my time by listening to certain audiobooks while I'm unwinding with a computer game or whatever. I've recently finished listening to "Extraordinary Leadership" by Robin Sharma and "How to Win Friends and Influence People" by Dale Carnegie. It sounds completely cheesy, but I personally feel like the advice from these books helped change my perception of people and how the world works.

So that's the last four months in a nutshell. Not the most graceful of dismounts, but hey, this blog is Canadian so excellence is hoped for but not expected. At best, this update gumbo can contend for a bronze medal with its disconnected, mixed metaphors. :)