Sydney Comic Con 2014 - Guests, Art, and Loot

Hello and welcome to my new, geekier blog! This is where I'll be putting a lot of my thoughts about straight up geeky things, that have nothing to do with anything covered over on Reluctant Femme.

What better way to kick off a new venture with a con round up! Admittedly, this is extraordinarily late, but better late than never right?

The organisation behind US super-convention New York Comic Con made their first foray into the Australian market this year, and as a con starved Australian geek I'd just like to say they're welcome back ANY time. As much as I love Supanova, I'm also incredibly and continually jealous of the US convention circuit. We just...we don't have that here. Supanova tours the country, every now and then a contender like Armageddon will try and squeeze in, and that's about it. Naturally, when Comic-Con was announced, I was already on board just because it was an extra con! I didn't have to wait a whole year for the next one! Then they announced Jason Momoa (of Stargate:Atlantis and Game of Thrones fame) would be there, and I knew that come hell or high water I would be there too.

Overall, I'm really glad I made it. I was a bit light on cash, which is never the best circumstance at a con, but the guests were great (not just Momoa), and the organisation was relatively good from a visitor perspective. The space chosen was kind of odd though - the convention was held at the Convention Centre, which makes sense until you realise the Convention Centre is actually on an island that's only accessible by ferry. No, I have no idea who thought it was a good idea to put a Convention Centre on an island. But on the upside, it did lead to the amusing experience of being on a boat full of cosplayers.

Me and my boy, giggling to ourselves while making up sea shanties about Pokemon

The standout guest of the weekend was, for me, Jason Momoa. Not only is he DEVASTATINGLY handsome, it turns out he's also quite an engaging speaker, and I was really interested to hear about an upcoming film he wants to make about colonialist history in his native Hawaii.

I paid a hilarious amount of money to find out what Jason Momoa smells like, and I regret nothing.

Unfortunately he didn't take those glasses off the whole time. He also chugged four coffees in 15 minutes.

Seriously though, the man is built like a golden brown, glistening ton of bricks.

The local guests I was most excited to see were the boys behind Danger 5, a comedy that will hopefully be starting it's second season on SBS very soon. If  you like bizarre, over the top parody, I can't recommend it enough, and the director and writer are just as entertaining as their show. Unfortunately I didn't get any photos of them this time, so here's a poster they signed for me last time I saw them speak. David Ashby's signature is so big because he signed it with a pen held in the mouth of a puppet dog. It..it kind of makes sense if you've seen the show.
Sort of.

The boy and I picked up some excellent swag, despite limited finances. The boy was very excited to be able to add to his collection of Batman Black and White figures after picking up a Darwyn Cooke designed sculpt.

Personally, I much prefer Darwyn Cooke's design, in the front.
The one in the back is by Tim Sale and I think it's ludicrous, but the Boy loves it.

I spotted some Game of Thrones blind boxes, which is pretty much a perfect storm of interest for me. They were also limited editions from NYCC, so obviously I had to pay far too much money at two separate stalls in order to get the greatest chance of awesomeness from the boxes. Somehow, I instead ended up with two matching figures.

On the upside, it is at least an awesome figure.

The boy picked up some great local art as well, which is something we both love doing at conventions.  This Batman print is from a local artist called Louie Joyce, and is actually the third print of his in our collection.

Another artist both the Boy and I are fans of is Douglas Holgate - The Boy has long been obsessed with a Batgirl/TinTin print Douglas did.

In order to save ourselves the expense of buying literally every print he had we decided instead to go for a custom sketch.

So incredibly adorable!

I have to admit though, the highlight of comic conventions for me is ALWAYS the cosplayers, and Comic Con did not disappoint. Stay tuned tomorrow for the beautiful people of Comic-Con!