sunpech.blog

Thursday, July 31, 2014

San Diego Comic Con 2014

Last week I as in San Diego for Comic Con (SDCC). This visit marks my fourth visit to San Diego's Comic Con, with next year (2015) marking twenty years since I attended my first comic con in Chicago. I cannot believe it's been that long since I first ventured into a convention

This year I didn't take as many pictures as I did in previous years. I think it's mostly because I'm more interested in attending panels and enjoying myself. Just a few weeks ago I was at Anime Expo 2014 (AX) and took a lot of photos of cosplayers. AX honestly has the best cosplay I've ever seen. Although SDCC has a greater number of attendees and ultimately cosplayers, the quality of craftsmanship of AX cosplayers is unmatched except maybe for DragonCon.

Tested has a nice set of cosplay pictures here, 750+ photos.

Comic Con: The Good

I like how there's a variety of celebrities, panels, and activities across so many genres such as Sci-Fi, Fantasy, Comics, Writers, Artists, Movies, TV shows, Anime fans, Video games, Toy collectors, etc. It truly is the ultimate geek playground for such a wide range of interests. Comic Con gets better and better at this every year.

Celebrities

Toys, toys, toys

Events and booths

Gotham Zip Line

Picking up tickets is really easy if you pick it up on Wednesday or Thursday-- especially if you have Preview Night. There's virtually no wait in line, just walk the 2-3 minutes up the escalator straight to one of the many service desks.

The industry has a strong influence to give out freebies, put together sneak peaks of upcoming movies and TV shows, as well as have the big name directors/actors show up and do panels. There's no other convention that comes close to what is now pop-culture and media is at Comic Con.

Comic Con: The Bad

As fun as Comic Con is, there are many problems that occur given the size, popularity, and nature of a convention. For one, Comic Con is too big now. Big as in, it's not comfortable to do a lot of things. The big panels for Hall H and Ballroom 20 require dedication like no other just to get in now. Before maybe getting in line at 4-5am would have been enough, but with this year's wristband system, many were camping out the evening before!

Also see: Can we talk about the awful side of Comic-Con and Hall H for a second?

Not to mention the confusion, safety issues, and just plain bad management of the huge lines.

Here's a story where someone outright lied to my face. On Friday near the Batman zip line, I asked some people sitting down eating in what appeared to be a line, what they were in line for. I was curious because I read that there's not supposed to be any official line for Saturday's Hall H panels during the day. Well, these guys told me they weren't in line, just sitting there for a picnic. I later found out in an article that some people took it upon themselves to line up in a secret unofficial line, basically cheating the announcement and system that was in place.

Check out the Comic Con Attendance 1970-2014 (graph shown below).

The numbers of attendees grew from roughly 150 people in 1970 to 150,000 people this year! That's nearly a 1000% growth!

The shopping experience is also a mess. Everyday from preview night to the last day of the con, there's people lined up to buy exclusives and other merchandise nearly the entire time. Rest assured that merchandising is not dead-- there are people spending in the thousands of dollars, just not as much on comics until the last day.

There's also been a lot of reports of sexual harassment of female cosplayers. See: Adrianne Curry Defends Cosplayer from Sexual Assault at Comic Con. Although I've never seen anything like that at SDCC, I did see something inappropriate at AX involving a photographer and a cosplayer tying her shoe. What happened was wrong and I feel ashamed for not calling it out when I saw right when I did.

The streets are filled with tens of thousands of pedestrians walking to and from the San Diego Convention Center. Although there are many officers and marked signs to help to manage the traffic, there's not nearly enough police to keep people safe.

See: Zombie Walk 2014 Hit and Run Accident

Panel Playbacks

I found the playbook rooms being set up in the Omni Hotel this year to be both very good, and somewhat bad. What was awesome is that the room is actually big enough to fit most everyone who wants to see playbacks of the big panels from Hall H and Ballroom 20-- the ones that don't want to wait in the super long lines. The playbacks were available just a little bit after the actual playbacks occurred too.

However, there's still the problem with playbacks not able to show any on screen footage, only the actual panel. As usual, the room crowd would boo when the screen went black instead of showing exclusive footage. Also, since it took place in the Omni hotel, unlike in the convention room like previous years, they were not open late. Instead of being open until midnight, they closed at 10pm-- so it's unlikely that you will get to finish or even see the panels you wanted altogether!

Cosplay and Pictures

Here are the collection of picture albums from all five days (including Preview Night):

Cosplay

Please check out Cinema Makeup School. They had a booth there where they showed how they assembled and applied all the makeup on many great cosplayers.

Apocalypse being put together.

I am on Instagram at: http://instagram.com/sunpechphoto. I tend to post quick edits up there first, so follow me there if you want an almost daily-instant photos I take.

Final Thoughts

Let's face it. Comic con is not so much about comics anymore. It's mostly for Hollywood and industries to promote their new movies, shows, games, and other over-priced gimmicky exclusives. The panels that are actually about comics are the ones that area easy to get into and mostly don't even fill up completely.

Also see: Mile High Comics To Not Return To SDCC.

Someone mentioned on /r/comiccon subreddit: Why doesn't SDCC do something similar to Blizzcon's "virtual ticket"? Yes the logistics would be difficult, as there are many studios and companies involved, but given the popularity and demand, I think there's money to be made worldwide from this. There's already so much coverage by the press, bloggers, and all the social media savvy attendees that everything is virtually livestreamed anyway. Instead of Hollywood trying to fight all the leaked footage, why not embrace it and/or even profit from it?

I'd like to see a Comic Con offer a pay-per-view event livestream in the future. It would certainly help cut back on the craziness that's happening there if fans could watch it from the comfort of their own home-- and still feel connected to all that's going on. But given the backwards nature of corporations on embracing new media, I don't see this happening anytime soon.

A more realistic solution to the massive popularity of Comic Con, is to have more comic conventions and events. SDCC can't be the only game in town to house all the studios and entertainment. There just needs to be more events that serve a niche crowd and interest(s), all throughout the year. For example AX is doing a good job-- their only problem is that they're outgrowing the LA Convention Center.

Even with all the negative reviews of SDCC from myself and others, I still plan to go next year. The next convention I plan to attend this year is Comikaze Expo, Oct 31-Nov 2, 2014. This will be their fourth con and they are improving greatly each year.

San Diego Comic Con

Comikaze Expo

Anime Expo

Misc Conventions

Monday, July 07, 2014

Anime Expo 2014

This year's Anime Expo (AX) has come and gone now. Just like the previous years, I went again to take photos of the cosplayers. For me, AX, has the best collective gatherings of cosplayers I've ever come across-- although one day I'd like to check out DragonCon, which I hear is amazing.

If you just want to see my sets of pictures see below:

I'm also on Instagram (again). I tend to post pictures there first.

Here are some of my pictures and thoughts by day.

Day 0 - Registration goes down

I always try to pick up my tickets on Day 0 since it's an easier, aka shorter line than Day 1. However, they had some problems with the registrations and printing this year. This caused major delays with AX responding that they would extend pre-registration hours until midnight. Despite hearing about these delays, my friends and I decided to go anyways since Day 1 would probably be even worse.

I got to the Los Angeles Convention Center (LACC) around 7:20pm. On the way to the line, I bumped into another friend that just got his badge and was walking back. He had been in line since 9am. That's right, he was in line for 10 hours. TEN HOURS.

I tweeted about how far the line was-- several blocks long! Walking to the end of the line was a disheartening experience. Every step I took was a step I knew I was going to retake in the opposite direction. In the end, we were in line for about 3.5 hours. Surprisingly, they processed 25,000 badges on Day 0.

Day 1 - Opening Day

Anime Expo from the front of the building.

The huge line waiting for the exhibit hall to open at noon.

The mad rush of everyone going up the escalators once the exhibit hall opened.

The Marvel and DC Universe gatherings merged into one big one.

LeeAnna Vamp

Day 2 - Cosplay in America Meetup

I actually spent almost two hours at the "Cosplay in America" @ Anime Expo 2014 meetup. I'm also a backer of the Kickstarter project: 'Cosplay in America' book. This was actually a relaxing time spent sitting down and talking with other fans of cosplay.

Ejen (right) meeting fans at the Cosplay in America meetup.

At this little meetup, I learned the difference between gender bender and crossplay.

Gender bender is when a cosplayer takes the character of the opposite sex, and portrays it as their own. An example is a male that takes a female character's costume, but portrays it in a male outfit.

Crossplay is when a cosplayer takes a character of the opposite sex, and portrays it as the opposite sex. An example of this is a male that takes a female character's costume, but portrays it as a female outfit.

Lonstermash cosplaying Wolverine. I enjoy photographing this guy, he makes it so easy for the photographer.

Loki Hates You-- the best Loki cosplayer I've ever seen.

Sailor scouts and Tuxedo Mask

Katarina from League of Legends

Famous cosplayer Monika Lee

Mystique from X-Men (cosplayer: Masochrist)

Ironhide from Transformers

Day 3 - The Busiest Day

The third day, Saturday, was easily the biggest and most crowded day. It was uncomfortable walking from one side of the convention to the other as you were shoulder to shoulder with everyone else.

League of Legends Ahri

The League of Legends cosplay gathering

Luffy (gender bender) from One Piece (cosplayer: cosplay_doll)

Bumblebee and Optimus Prime from Transformers

Saint Seiya

Cosplayinabox (On instagram: alicialoraine and spidergeorg)

Day 4 - Short Day For Me

The last day of the con I only wanted to go for a bit since my friends only wanted to do last minute shopping. I didn't bother to attach a flash to my camera and just shot casually. In total, I was only there for a little over an hour.

Snow White + Mandalorian armor

Anbu Special Ops member from Naruto

Mortal Kombat's Sub-Zero

Final Thoughts

I hope AX staff are open to the idea of distributing tickets in other ways for next year. The two main ones are:

Multiple locations for badge pickups.
Mailing badges (maybe even for premium price).

AX is just getting more popular each year and the lines are longer than ever. This year was also very hot. AX staff were distributing water for those in line-- many of those in line were in cosplay gear too!

Another thing they should consider is moving the convention to another bigger place. LACC is nice and all, but it's got some major bottlenecks going from one hall to the next. That and anime fans love to sit around, talk, wait, and cosplay everywhere. It's a fire hazard to have so many tightly packed areas.

I understand that there are concerns about counterfeit badges if they are mailed out. I guess getting the badges a few days early by mail gives more time for those who want to create/sell fake badges?

Throughout the con I overheard many fans complain the long lines, lack of communications or miscommunications, and general disorganization of AX staff. Although I feel for the con-goers who suffered in the heat in line, I can't help but think about how much we paid for tickets. For my 4-day pass, I paid $45 many months ago. It think it went up to $70 after the pre-sale. Either of these ticket prices are pretty cheap compared to other cons.

Anime Expo is a inexpensive, best-bang-for-your-buck con I've come across. They have notable guests, panels, booths, exhibitors, screenings, etc... for between $10-20 per day. I've said this before too, but in general their handling of the lines is actually pretty good considering many of them are volunteers. I've been to other conventions where the line handling isn't even half as good-- and this isn't even considering how much bigger of a con AX is to other smaller ones.

I was interviewed in a podcast at AX this year and I briefly made a comment about cosplay gatherings being rather poor or not as good as cosplayers in the main hall. I feel what I said could be taken out of context and wanted to take the time to explain my thoughts on that.

What I meant is that cosplay gatherings can indeed be a mess as some people don't even show up. Conversely, they can be incredibly large too. For a photographer, it's difficult to get quality shots at these gatherings. The photographer may not be in the best position, or even many cosplayers cannot get in the best poses either. Cosplayers and photographers are tripping over each other at cosplay gatherings and may not be worth the time and trouble to attend. The main hall is also a mess, but a more organized mess since the subject(s) are more limited to maybe 1-6 cosplayers.

Anime Expo, every year, is a reminder to me of how much anime is out there and how much I have not watched. Last year it introduced me to Attack on Titan. This year, it's Kill la Kill and Sword Art Online.

The next con I will attend is none other than San Diego Comic Con in San Diego. Just a few weeks away!

Tuesday, July 01, 2014

Photos of Naver Line Friends

I was in Chiang Mai, Thailand recently and found some Naver Line toys at the mall. I bought them with the intention of giving them to my sisters since we all use the Line chat app. But on the way back to the US, I had an eight hour layover at the Incheon International airport in South Korea. I happened to pack the toys in my carry-on so I took them out to have a little photo shoot.

I initially made them for my Instagram account, but decided to re-crop them with a different finish for HD wallpapers and prints. Then I expanded to take more pictures with them in other locations once I was back in the United States.

Here they are, hope you like! I plan to do more and maybe have them in other resolutions for mobile wallpapers.

My personal favorite is Brown the bear. And no, I won't be giving them to my sisters-- I ended up getting them Naver Line t-shirts.

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