Sep 30 2009
News Blurbs: Patrick Stewart Drops his Prices, Plus Reports from Kumoricon, NYAF, and More
I have some great convention news articles to share with you all this week. One of the big ones concerns Patrick Stewart, who is apparently hitting the convention circuit pretty hard between plays these days. In addition to a rant about Stewart, there are convention reports for New York Anime Festival, Kumoricon, and Pittsburgh Comic Con. I also have a link to a strange story about the collapse of GameuniCON, which involves a con man and a robbery. As always, if you have any convention news you’d like to share, feel free to send us an e-mail (dreadpiraterose[at]gmail[dot]com).
1. NYAF2009: Yoshiyuki Tomino Q&A Panel Report
New York Anime Festival (or NYAF for short), happened recently, and so the internet is starting to see a lot of convention reports cropping up. This link is all about the Q&A with Yoshiyuki Tomino, the “legendary father of the Mobile Suit Gundam anime series.” There is actually a complete transcript posted there, so it’s definitely worth bookmarking and taking some time out of your lunch break to read the whole thing.
2. Convention Autograph Fees Reach New Low By Reaching New High
The folks over at Icons of Fright are giving Patrick Stewart a (justifiably) hard time over his photo op fee at the upcoming Chiller Theatre Expo in New Jersey (we attended their spring con this year). Of course, those of us who attended Dragon*con last month know that he was changing $200 for photos then! I wonder what has caused the price drop? Perhaps too many people bitching about the fee? Or perhaps Stewart doesn’t think the New Jersey crowd will cough up that much. Considering he’s still charging $200 at Creation’s Star Trek convention in San Francisco, I’m guessing he just thinks Jersey fans are cheapskates.
3. Convention Report: Kumoricon 2009
Kumoricon is a Portland convention that happened recently, and Tom Good has posted his convention report over at The Journal of the Lincoln Heights Literary Society. The report has some really beautiful photos posted with it, which are worth looking at even if you’ve never heard of Kumoricon before.
4. DualShockers Invades the New York Anime Festival
More reports from NYAF: this one comes from DualShockers, a team composed of Yaris Gutierrez and Joel Taveras. Their site aims to “shock the video game journalism industry”. However, this particular article is all about clearing up the misconceptions of anime fans.
5. Pittsburgh Comic Con Review / Photos
Fellow convention blogger “The History Follower” has a convention report about Pittsburgh Comic Con, which was held Sept. 11-13, 2009. He has a wonderfully comprehensive written review, and a ton of photos posted, so definitely go check it out, especially if you have been considering attending this con.
6. The story behind GameuniCON 2009 and John Keough NEWS: Convicted BANK ROBBER???!!!
This was so well summed up by the original LiveJournal poster, that I just have to quote it: “Business partner is found out to be con-man, and then tries to rob a woman’s home to make up the money to host the con, and [is] intercepted by police after high speed chase and taken to prison. As a result the game store which the con was named will be forced to either sell to another owner or closed down.” How insane is all that?
