We're back from Space City Comic Con!

"Back" as in back to our home, as SCCC was held in the same city as us. I'm doing this today, two days after the convention, because while I'm still wiped out from this weekend's event, tomorrow I have to get back to work making plush for Comicpalooza in two weeks.

There's been a lot of controversy and talk about Space City Comic Con. Earlier this year, it was the Houston Convention Bureau's suit against the convention organizer, George Comits, for infringing on the HCB's trademark of "Space City" for trade shows and conventions. This past weekend, it was rumoured that several of the headlining guests from the FX show "Sons of Anarchy" had their appearance fee checks bounce. Since I don't have any firsthand knowledge of either of these two events, I'm not really going to talk about them. All I know is that I had a pretty miserable experience at this show and that TIM+BEN Dolls won't be showing up to it again, as vendors or attendees, next year (although it already looks as if there won't be a next year).

The weeks leading up to the event, Space City Comic Con released an app to help guide attendees. Filled with icons that promised to give you info on what panels were going on, what celebrities would be signing and when, and what vendors would be where, you could tap on any to reveal ... nothing. My biggest concern for the app was the fact that they did not update the vendors past the letter 'A'. Pre-con advertising is pretty important to build hype and excitement for fans of artists attending the con. I'd think that my booth fee kind of entitled me to being at least on a list on a website/app, but it turns out that the money I'd spent would be worth much less than that.

The day of, we arrived to set up. We don't often have the luxury of setting up the day before the convention, as Aaron works during the week and I am still faithfully holding out for the self-driving car, so that our future car-robot overlords will take my loyalty into account when they start treating humans as crash test dummies for androids. I was worried, most of the other convention's we've been to required us to bring proof of purchase for our booth to receive our passes, but I hadn't gotten any info on such a requirement for SCCC. It turns out you could pretty much just walk onto the loading dock and say you were with TIM+BEN's table and have passes handed to you. Well, if you were willing to wait 45 minutes on the noisy, hot, outdoor loading dock. Oh, and they might have run out of actual vendors' passes when you get to the one man checking vendors in, so you'll get handed a pair of weird silver 3 Day Passes instead. Mine was actually broken, so I had Aaron go exchange it. He came back with a Convention Guest's pass, which afforded me many opportunities to sneak into places I wasn't supposed to be.

We walked over to the booth to find that it was a) nothing like the vendor packet said it would be; no dividers, table length was incorrect, trash can not included, colors were incorrect and b) right next to another stuffed toy vendor. I think that handmade stuffed toys are an uncommon enough commodity to space them out, but since I sell basically only original designs and most other plushie artists sell primarily fan art, there's little overlap in our customer base. Unprofessional details overlooked by the con, but not something I can't deal with.

Con was slow on Friday, lots of rain and people still being at work contributed to that. Our friend, author Ian Everett came to hang out with us at our booth! He's in the middle of writing his new novel, so we greatly appreciated him taking the time to hang out with us for the day. We did very well on Saturday; I was jazzed because this is our first booth where we brought only dolls and it's made me confident about the new doll designs I had available. Our friend Jude Vivona of the Caalo Xan audio drama stopped by to say hello, his booth was only a few aisles over. A man with an Ogler from the Caalo Xan booth stopped by for some repairs to his plush. If you're not aware, last year I made a series of large Ogler dolls for them. Sunday was slow-ish. A lot of children and families came for this last day. Not so many sales and we left an hour early because I started feeling ill. My cousin stopped by to see me -I haven't seen her in about 10 years, but she's been a big supporter of TIM+BEN since I started around 6 years ago and I was very pleased to see her and meet her new family. We got recognized from several people who have bought from us before! Fans! What a world.

The con was ok on a vendor's level. Not well-run, but sales were pretty good. I was so annoyed with so many aspects that we won't be coming back. I really like clear communication and feeling like the event I'm vending at actually knows how to run itself, so Space City Comic Con isn't for me.

On a personal note, Aaron got our home an autograph from Doug Jones, a very talented actor and professional sweetheart that we both admire. So, at least one good thing came out of Space City Comic Con for us.

Stay Fanatic,
Megh

Come visit us at Comicpalooza!

Houston's Comicpalooza is happening in 9 days and you should totally come and see us and visit us.

Silent Hill Revelation 3D: A Review

Last Friday, Megh, my friend Ian, and I were hanging out at an All Hallowe's Eve party, (Halloween for the uninformed) when got it into our heads to see the premier of Silent Hill Revelation. The trailer had been playing on loop the entire evening where we were and I guess the subliminal advertising finally got to us.

After playing around in traffic for a while, you know, doing wheelies and stuff since we took two cars and ended up driving next to each other, we made it to the theater. The three of us were still dressed in our party costumes; Ian was a Hobbit and Megh and I were both dressed as escaped asylum patients, which is funny because Ian is a foot taller than either of us, and with our masks off Megh and I looked more like butchers or very sloppy house painters.

I'm not sure who would be worse to meet in a dark alley.

Upon approaching the ticket stand, if you still call them that because this isn't the 50's, Ian immediately asked the ticket-stander for one ticket for The Hobbit in 3D, his face falling when the ticket-ticketer-guy informed him the movie would not be out for several months. We all had a good laugh and told them we would settle for the midnight premiere of Silent Hill, then went in and stalled for time by looking at the popcorn we were all too poor to purchase. With thirty minutes before the movie started, I figured I would kill four or five minutes by emptying out my contents in the nearest bathroom. As a natural-born World of Warcraft-player, my bladder can hold nearly six quarts of urine before I even begin to get that  tingling have-to-go sensation.

The restrooms were deserted, the premier having garnered the attention of exactly three people. Now, here is where I have to stop for a bit. You see, Silent Hill was really terrible. Really, really terrible. But the movie was so bad that I have already forgotten it. So instead

Rave Motion Pictures Yorktown 15 Cinema Bathrooms: A Review

The restrooms belonged to one Rave Motion Pictures, a theater known for being "edgy" and "fresh" and "hip", with bathrooms to match. I was there at off-peak hours, but with closing time so close it was likely that they hadn't been cleaned for a few hours. Most cinemas choose to wait until the moviegoers leave before they have the final wipe-down of the day, a trait I share with them. I feel like I really got the full restroom experience with this one, so let's begin with:

Atmosphere 3/10

 Upon entering, the first thing I noticed were the lime green walls and navy blue stalls. The floor was covered in an offwhite tile with flecks of brown and blue in it. The color scheme was very abrupt and a little disconcerting, I had a bowel movement to make and I wasn't certain if I would be comfortable in a place so visually assaulting.. They were trying to put a bright neon veneer on old-world charm, and failing. The classy blue stalls and the stainless steel sinks went poorly with the bright fluorescent lighting and brighter green walls. It was chaotic, and that was the biggest problem. It's hard to be classy and edgy at the same time. They really need to pick one and go with it; offend one group of people instead of everyone with eyes. I would also like to note that it was dead silent in the stalls. Out in the lobby area the air was full of sounds from the arcade, even when it was empty, but in the restrooms they really needed some sort of ambiance. I was expecting a chain-wielding rapist to pop out of a trash can and go to town. But then I guess I usually am.

Cleanliness 9/10 

After shaking off the initial decorative terror, the next thing I noticed was how clean everything was. The air smelled of bleach, that oh so familiar and comforting smell. Bleach has always smelled like victory to me. Victory over microbes that would stop at nothing to do us harm.
There were no puddles on the floor, no water around the sink, no paper litter, and most importantly no offal to be seen. Hooray!
The stall that I used was well supplied with toilet paper and even seat covers, although they were not needed as the seat was clean.

Ease of Use 8/10 

Being the bathroom critic that I am, I took it as my right to use the handicap stall so that I could live the full restroom experience. It was very spacious and the walls nearest the toilet were festooned with several handrails. The toilet was equipped with a motion sensor that accurately flushed when I was done. The faucets were a trouble though, they were motion-activated too, but only while your hands were directly underneath the faucet head and not moving too much. I had a hard time washing my hands. Oddly enough, they had no air dryers to speak of, Jet Towel or otherwise, and the paper towel dispenser was NOT motion activated, which threw the whole thing out of whack.

Total Score: 6.6/10, Not the Ritz, but would go again.

Stay Fanatic, you folks.

Insomnia Halloween Party!

Hello Fanatics!

 Aaron and I went to our first Halloween party last night at the fantastic shop, Insomnia Video Game Culture. Before I tell y'all what happened at the party, I'd like to take a minute and tell you about Insomnia.

It's a little shop in North Houston that deals primarily in vinyl dolls, figures, Japanese toys and snacks, trinkets, and artwork inspired by video games. They also hold video game tournaments about every other week, and Munny and Dunny decorating contests every other month or so. I'd been wanting to visit the shop for a while, for reasons that I can no longer remember, and I am very glad we did. The atmosphere was friendly, the owners were familiar but still professional, and it seemed like a nice, laid back place to hang out.

The party started at 7:00 pm, and we got there a little past 8:30. Aaron and I were wearing matching asylum themed costumes, and we met up with our friend Ian, who was dressed as a hobbit.

Ian and Aaron, respectively.

The store was already pretty full of people (about 20) and there was no available place to sit immediately, which was totally fine, considering they had shelves and shelves of stuff for us to check out. We paid our entry fee, $3.00 for each of us since we were wearing costumes instead of the standard $5, which covered entry into the three tournaments they had going on through the evening, pizza, entry into the costume contest, and a raffle. Since Silent Hill: Revelations premiered yesterday, they also gave out movie passes, posters, and Silent Hill t-shirts via raffle. Aaron won a t-shirt!

Silent Hill nurses!

 

They also gave out DVDs to the first 28 people to the party. The people who run Insomnia are pretty cool.

I got Killer Swarm, while Aaron was stuck with Hostel: Part II

After playing a little Super Smash Bros, chatting with people, and checking the store out for a while, Ian suggested that we go see Silent Hill. Probably because they had promos playing on one of the big screens throughout the night. Aaron got me this cute little pug button before we left!

awwwwww.

Overall, I would say that last night was pretty great. Even though we left a little early, we had a blast, met some neat people, and had some really greasy pizza. I mean, seriously, it was dripping orange pizza oil. How do they do that?

Keep it fanatic,

Megh

Ian is also the frontman for the progressive rock band Witherwing. Check them out.