Arrow/Flash

2015 has been an eventful year for me, as far as adding to my autograph collection goes.

If you are an autograph collector, you probably do the same thing I do and collect a little of everything. One thing I decided late last year was to concentrate my collection to a few 'key' areas, and one of them was the DC TV shows. I love Arrow and after a shaky first few episodes, I love The Flash. My friend Lew got me Stephen Amell and I personally added Catie Lotz/Canary and David Ramsey/Diggle from Arrow, but I had a little help with some other additions to the DC/CW collection.

Katie Cassidy - I was going to drive to St. Paul, stay with a friend of mine for a few days and attend Wizard World Minneapolis, and get Katie Cassidy in person. I had a photo made, I made plans, and then she cancelled. I still went to St. Paul, but I didn't bother with the show. Instead, someone I know from the Rebelscum forums was heading to WW Philly and got this shot for me. I love the photo, the signature looks great, and she added the character name like I wanted. I went with an 8x10 to match the Amell I have, but I kinda wish I had gone 11x14.

Danielle Panabaker - this was thanks to someone else on the RS boards. He was heading to show where Danielle was attending, and The CW had released a ton of promo photos in the same style so I decided to print a bunch up and try and get them all signed. I love the photo, and her signature is immaculate. A few more years of these shows and it will be unrecognizable no doubt (just trying comparing a Karen Gillan signature from her first season on Doctor Who vs what she signs now to see how doing thousands of autographs changes the way you sign).

Willa Holland - this was not supposed to be Willa Holland. Another person on the RS boards (there's a pattern here) was going to a show where Tom Cavanagh was appearing. I'm a fan and I love his podcast 'Mike & Tom Eat Snacks', and I had a Flash photo in the same design as the Danielle Panabaker photo. I sent the photo in, and then the night before I get a message on the forum saying that Tom has not shown up and the con organizers say he stopped communicating with them so it looks pretty unlikely he would show. Since I had already sent the money, I sent a message back saying he should grab Willa Holland instead. Apparently she didn't have a large selection of photos from Arrow (and this is pretty common from what I see at shows, too, and it never makes sense - you are famous because of the show you are on, bring photos from the show and not your random headshots!) and he got this one, which is nice. I do prefer posed photos instead of action shots, but since he only had about 9 hours notice, I am pretty happy with the results.

C2E2 2015 (or 'The Never-Ending Shuffling of the Damned')

I have been attending Comic Con International in San Diego since 2001. I attended a few conventions before that, and a few after that (mainly the Chicago TARDIS Doctor Who convention), but it's mainly been the SDCC for me. As the SDCC has gotten larger, a convention renaissance has started. Better guests are heading to the convention circuit and that makes these smaller regional conventions a lot more essential.

There are two reasons I don't really attend many cons though, even though a lot are within driving distance. 1) For me, I don't really have anyone to attend these conventions with -- the people I used to attend these conventions with are either living in different cities or just plain not people I want to hang out with anymore -- and so that has meant I would have to go alone. I dipped my toe into the solo convention circuit with Fantasticon here in Milwaukee, but then once I went to the Chicago TARDIS alone, it opened the doors for me to just start doing cons solo all the time. 2) The cost at these is prohibitive because you pay for EVERYTHING. As I go, I will total it all up and you will see the cost of these things.

And so I decided to head to the C2E2 alone (I asked a few people if they wanted to go, but it wasn't a deal breaker if they didn't go).

I drove down to the convention. I hate driving in Chicago (the TARDIS con is in the burbs, not the actual city) and it was even worse because the area around the con is being worked on. That being said, I drove down early enough that it wasn't a big deal at all. When I got to the convention center, pricing was a whopping $21. I parked, walked through the massive convention center, and headed to the con.

COST: $21

I am usually a chatty person in line, and have made actual real friends at SDCC, but I just was not really in the mood today. I wanted to get in, get out, go pick up a couple of pizzas at Lou Malnati's and then head home. I popped in my overpriced Beats earbuds and waited to be let in.

I had a plan for the C2E2 because I wanted 7 autographs, so I decided to visit them all in a certain order to make sure the 'important' ones were out of the way asap. Once they let us in, I headed straight towards the autograph area for my #1 priority: Hayley Atwell (Peggy Carter from the Captain America movies and her own tv show 'Agent Carter'). She showed up pretty much on time. I wasn't too far back, and she was cranking through them at a decent pace, so before long I was up there. I was really nervous for some reason. Maybe because it was the first autograph of the day, I don't know. I brought a blue sharpie with me in case she didn't have any because she was wearing blue in the photo I had, and sure enough she only had black. I pulled out the blue, asked her to add her character name, and left.

COST: $60 (TOTAL $81)

Next stop, Jason Momoa. I had my poster and my friend Mark's poster and needed him on both. He was almost an hour late, so I started to worry about my schedule. His agent (who happens to be former Babylon 5 actress Julie Caitlin Brown) came over to the line to tell us he was close. Finally he showed up and started cranking them out. The guy in front of me was from Iowa (turns out Momoa is too) and when he got up there, Conan was excited to hear someone made the drive from his home state. The guy also had a red paint pen, and Momoa loved it so much he offered to buy it from him and said he was going to sign everything with that pen. Then I walk up next and asked him to sign in silver, and he didn't seem too happy. He added his signature and a 'Drogo' inscription without me asking, and I went on my way.

COST: $120 (TOTAL $201)

The only free autograph I went for was next. I love MST3K, and I love 'Freaks and Geeks' and there is a new show called 'Other Space' on Yahoo! Screen created by F&G co-creator Paul Feig and starring MST3K creator (and nicest guy in the world) Joel Hodgson and original Crow T Robot Trace Beaulieu. I was worried the line would be capped before Momoa got there, but I wasn't very far back in line at all once I walked over. The signing was Joel. Trace, Paul and then Milana Vayntrub and Karan Soni (both of which you would recognize from AT&T commercials). I asked Joel about the rumored MST3K reboot (all he would say is 'my lawyer told me to talk about Israel everytime anyone asks me that question'). Trace told me it was nice to meet me and I jokingly reminded him that I met him before at a Cinematic Titanic show ('oh yeah, Jason in the fourth row?' 'no, I was the chubby guy in the balcony'). I told Paul that he needs to cast Jon Hamm in Sigourney Weaver's role in his Ghostbusters reboot. I then talked a little bit to the super adorable Milana (who misspelled friend on the poster and then went back to fix it) and Karan (and I told him I can't watch the show on my Roku box because for some reason it always loses picture at the same point). I like the poster, the cast was super nice, and I really like what I have seen of the show.

the only picture I took at the show

As I was walking back I saw that David Ramsey from 'Arrow' had almost no line left, so I headed up to get him taken care of. I had a large Suicide Squad photo I made up, and he was excited to see it and asked me if I bought it there. Don't be surprised if you see him with that photo at his next con. Super nice guy. I told him I thought Michael Jai White would be the hard one to get on the pic, and he said "we'll see him again". I thought he said "what's he in again?" and told him I didn't know, before he got a confused look on his face and I had to ask him to repeat himself.

COST: $40 (TOTAL $241)

Next was Doctor Who's Neve McIntosh. Her line was also short, so I headed up. Disappointingly, I hadn't brought anything for her and all they had was one photo with the con logo on it. I was grabbing one for myself and one for my friend Lew. She was very nice, and when she saw my Chelsea FC hat she said 'why are you a fan of Chelsea?' (The British are big football fans.) I told her that it started because I liked Michael Essien, and we talked about how great Eden Hazard is and how much of a scumbag John Terry is, and I headed on my way. I wish I would have made up a photo for her, I wanted to start a Paternoster Gang multi-signed piece.

COST: $60 (TOTAL $301)

Then it was break time, so I bought a Walking Dead book and headed to the car to drop some stuff off.

I headed back to grab Jewel Staite for someone I know on the Rebelscum forum. Her line was short, and she added the inscription he wanted. She was a sweetheart.

COST: $40 (TOTAL $341)

I had about an hour to kill before my last autograph, so I wandered around artist's alley. I had brought two comics to be signed and thought I had missed my chance to get Batgirl #35 signed by the artist Babs Tarr (I thought she was going to sign at the DC booth, but there was no DC booth) until I saw her table and a note that said she was signing at 2pm. It was 1:45, so I hopped in the line. Good thing I did, it quickly got really long and by the time she got there at 2:15 it was stretched from artist's alley to the food court. I was planning on taking her picture, but I wondered if she would find it weird so I didn't bother. I told her that it was the longest line I had seen at the entire show and she modestly said 'no, it's not.' Yes, it sure was.

By the way, a huge and annoying issue at Comic Con is that people just don't know how to walk. Everyone shuffles, stops in the middle of traffic lanes, morons bring massive strollers and block people's way, etc. C2E2 is a thousand times worse. No matter where you are, no one moves. No one knows how to walk, they shuffle, stop, shuffle again, and block your way. I wanted to start shoving people out of the way as I walked back to the autograph area for my last signature of the day, Ming-Na Wen from 'Agents of SHIELD'.

I have gotten things signed by Ming-Na before. Once at SDCC for the Stargate Universe signing, where she seemed like she was having a blast (she was video taping everyone and had a huge smile on her face the entire time) and once before SHIELD started airing when we were standing outside of the Hard Rock Hotel and the cast of the show got off of a shuttle bus to a press event (and she was the only one who stopped to sign). I needed her again though because I recently started a cast photo for SHIELD with Chloe Bennett, so I got in line. This line might have been longer than Babs Tarr's line, but even if it wasn't, it sure moved slower. Ming-Na was talking to everyone, waving, and having a blast. A lot of people seemed to be getting Mulan photos signed. I got to the front of the line and she said 'how about we stop now?' A little panic shot into me (I did not want to keep waiting!) and then she said to me 'do you mind if I go the bathroom and come right back?' 'Go ahead, I would hate for you to be angry while signing this because I made you wait.' When she came back, she signed the photo and asked me if I had gone to Seattle to get Chloe Bennett to sign. I told her someone I knew online got it for me and told her I thought Iain De Caestecker would be the hardest to track down. She asked me my name, told me to have a great day, and off I went. Hands down the nicest and most enthusiastic person I met all day.

COST: $50 (TOTAL $391)

For my last stop, I headed off to artist's alley again to get my copy of Revival #1 signed by the writer Tim Seeley, artist Mike Norton, and cover artist Jenny Frisson. I also wanted Jason Latour to sign my Southern Bastards trade, but he was gone when I went over.

I thought about walking around a little more, but the damned shuffling was too much so I got out of there and headed home.

Other than the fact that they need to hand out a flyer to people telling them how the hell walking works, I had a fine time. They did not allow photos of the signers though (which is why Other Space was my only photo) and that annoys me. If I go back next year, I won't get so many things for myself -- taking out the autographs I got for other people, it cost me nearly $300 -- and I might post a help thread on the forums to recoup some of my costs. All in all, I was worried I would not have the time to get it all done but managed 7 signings and 2 comics in about 6 hours.

Chicago TARDIS 2014

You can blame this all on Comic Con, and you can blame it specifically on Josh Hartnett. But, let me start at the beginning.

I have attended the Chicago TARDIS convention five times before. I have met three Doctors (Peter Davison, Colin Baker twice, and Sylvester McCoy), a bunch of writers and a bunch of companions (including the two best ever, Lis Sladen and Sophie Aldred). I have attended a bunch of the talks, accidentally walked into a Sunday brunch, and gotten a photo of me and Colin Baker that forever reminds me of the time I decided that a handlebar mustache was a good call. 

I first attended in 2003 when it was a small convention and have seen it grow into a pretty decent sized convention, but I have not attended in a few years because I work a part-time retail job and they frown on letting you have Thanksgiving weekend off. I managed to arrange it so that I could work late and head down for the day. The reason I needed to head down this year? Billie Piper was there.

Billie Piper is one of my Who holy grail autographs. She is the companion in my favorite season of the new series (season 1) and she's not very common. For new series companions, Catherine Tate is probably a harder autograph to get, but I also actively hated her season of the show so I can live without her. Aside from Peter Capaldi and the Paternoster Gang (and I missed one of the three at CT 2013), Billie is right at the top of my want list.

So what is Josh Hartnett's fault? Well, if you would have asked me back in June what I would have Billie sign, it would have been the 10th Doctor/Rose photo that I have signed by David Tennant. Or maybe the Doctor Who Magazine series 1 poster signed by Simon Pegg and Russell T Davies. But that all changed in July when we went to Comic Con. My friend Mark and I took the same cast photo from Penny Dreadful (the new show Billie Piper is on) and we were lucky enough to get the attending cast to sign. Among them was Josh Hartnett who signed across Billie on the photo and then jokingly said to Mark 'it doesn't matter, you'll never get her anyway. She hates these things.' So a couple of weeks later when the TARDIS announced she would be there, I knew I would have to be there to prove Josh wrong.

I couldn't find anyone to go along because of work schedules or plain not wanting to go to Chicago on Black Friday, so I headed down alone. Not too long ago, I would have been nervous about going alone but I wasn't nervous in the slightest. It was a nice car ride down listening to a Big Finish Paul McGann audio adventure, and I rolled in around noon. I regret getting down there so late because Deborah Watling was signing and I missed it. I have autographs from Wendy Padbury and Fraser Hines (the people she signed with) but I am stilling missing her. I got my virtual queue ticket (more on that later) and then walked over to the main auditorium to listen to Camille Coduri talk. When she was done, I walked around the dealer room until it was time for Wendy Padbury's talk. Then I walked over the virtual queue room, not really sure what to expect.

The virtual queue is basically like waiting for a flight. You sit in a room, they call you when your ticket group comes up, and you line up and head in. It went really smoothly, actually. The guy running the line announced that Billie wanted to get these autographs done as quickly as possible and the line started moving incredibly quickly.

As I got close to her, I noticed that the guy about 10 spots in front of me was dressed in drag as Rose from 'The Idiot's Lantern'. He was cracking jokes and Billie could not have looked less entertained. Warning to everyone: Billie Piper does not like it when you cosplay as drag queen Rose.

 (Billie being annoyed by drag Rose)

Finally, I got up there and pulled out my Penny Dreadful photo. 'There we go, now it's starting,' she said. (I think I was the first person without a Who photo.) We discussed the show and the other signatures. She seemed amazed at John Logan's awful signature. I told her the Josh Hartnett story and she said 'oh, that sounds like him'. She asked me where I got it signed, and then I said to her 'We'll probably never get Timothy Dalton' and she looked at me and said 'yeah, probably not.' (And I trust her on that). Then I left with Billie Piper's autograph on my Penny Dreadful cast photo. So take that, Josh Hartnett.

Billie Piper was quite lovely, and capped off a fun solo Chicago TARDIS. I think next year I will head down alone on purpose. 

When I stopped to put away my photo in the toploader, the guy sitting next to where I was asked me if I just met Billie and then told me that he heard she was out drinking all of the men the night before, which made me think she was a little more awesome than I already did. Now I need Eva Green (who I have met before) and Danny Sapani and I can call this one done, unless some miracle happens and I get Mr. Bond to sign this thing, too.

Our Whole Universe Was in a Dense, Hot State

Signed by the five original cast members of The Big Bang Theory at the CBS booth during the 2010 Comic Con International in San Diego.

I don't think the entire cast has been together again since then, so I am very lucky to have gotten this when I did. The line was out of the exhibit hall and half way down the convention center and they ran out of the posters they were signing, but they were gracious enough to stay and sign longer than they were originally scheduled for and I was lucky enough to have this TV Guide in my bag. As I sit here typing, this is still in the plastic magazine toploader sitting next to my desk.

Convention Stories Part I (or Tears of a Clown Star Fleet Admiral)

Over the years, I have attended a decent amount of conventions. I have gone to maybe 30 in my life, maybe less. It may sound like a lot, but I know people who attend 10+ a year. At this point, just to save money I have decided to limit my cons to Comic Con in San Diego and then a couple of smaller cons in the area if there are guests I feel like I can't live without (for example, Neve Mcintosh will be appearing at the C2E2 in April 2015, and therefore I will be appearing at the C2E2 in April 2015). I am trying to limit my collection to Marvel Studios, Star Wars Episode VII, Doctor Who and Arrow, although there will always be some random person I feel like I desperately need.

My first convention was Star Trek in Milwaukee by the airport, in 1993. I mentioned that William Shatner was the main guest (and truthfully, I think the only guest) and he made a man cry.

I went with two friends of mine. We were there the entire day because Shatner's talk was the last thing happening that day. It was a Creation con, which means that the talks are just fan Q&A sessions. The reason I have stopped going to panels at the cons I attend is because fan Q&A sessions are the worst thing I can imagine. The questions are almost always incredibly stupid and it's torturous to listen to. I didn't know this then, and so we all gathered by the stage waiting for Shatner to show.

He showed up, and started taking questions. Most of them were the standard stuff like what is your favorite episode? and which guest stars did you like the most?, but then it happened. Up comes a guy wearing Kirk's Admiral uniform from Wrath of Khan. He was a thin guy with a thin mustache, and he strolled up and said 'Mr. Shatner, I would like you to know that I am the Star Trek trivia champion of southeastern Wisconsin --' [this meant something then, I guess, since you had to track down the trivia and the random info by reading books and old issues of the Star Trek Communicator Magazine] '-- and I would like to know how you felt about doing an episode of The Outer Limits with Leonard Nimoy before doing Star Trek?' Obviously the question was meant to show his Trek knowledge. If it wasn't, he could have phrased it differently like 'when you did that episode of The Outer Limits, did you ever think you would work together again?' It would have given Shatner a chance to say some random platitudes about how much he and Nimoy are great friends. Instead, Shatner glanced away dismissively and said 'Well, I did it, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.'

That would have been bad enough for the trivia champ. The problem though, was that there were 45 minutes left in the talk and every time someone would come up and ask a question about Trek (and not all the questions were -- there were some Tek War and TJ Hooker questions, too) Shatner would yell out 'HEY MR. STAR TREK MAN, do you know the answer to this one?' We would all laugh, he would answer the question and then move on.

I thought he was great. He is a great storyteller and he really knew how to work the audience. As we were walking out to the car, though, we see Mr. Star Trek Man sitting in the open back of a mini van, a gaggle of Star Fleet officers surrounding him, bawling into his hands while they tried to comfort him. I laughed a little then, but years later I feel for the guy. Sure, he was smarmy and wanted to prove he was the smartest person in the room which led to Shatner taking him down a peg. But, Captain Kirk (and by extension, William Shatner) was my childhood idol and the idea of him doing that to me is terrifying. Years later when I did meet the guy, he could not have been more awesome, but until the second I got up there I was worried it would all go south.

Fantasticon 2014

The first convention that I ever attended was a high school graduation present from my mother. She bought me two tickets to a Star Trek convention by the airport because my hero, William Shatner, was going to be there. It was a lot of fun -- I bought a bootleg Godzilla vs Mechagodzilla VHS tape and an Ensign Ro action figure, and I was right up at the front for Bill Shatner. He was funny, he was charming, and he made a grown man cry. In short, he lived up to the hype. My friend said to me afterwards that I looked like I was staring into the face of God I looked so ecstatic. I didn't get his autograph then (or at all until many years later) because autographs seemed so far beyond my reach to me then -- sort of like something that people with a ton of money could do, but I would never be able to do.

Things have changed. Now I attend conventions pretty much exclusively for celebrity autographs or signed books. I have hundreds of autographs, and I would consider it my primary hobby. And so, more than 20 years later, I went to another convention by the airport -- the inaugural Fantasticon Milwaukee -- specifically to get an autograph.

Fantasticon is a brand new convention. It was exactly like you would expect a small local con to be. Small dealers room (where I bought a Doctor Who audio adventure from the only booth there that would take my credit card) and a small room with a few celebrities like WWF announcer Mean Gene Okerlund and the guy who played the villain in the pilot of "The Flash". The headliner was John Barrowman, although he was only there Saturday and Sunday and I was there on Friday, using up a floating holiday from work. The reason I was there was Caity Lotz.

I love the show "Arrow" and Caity **SPOILER** played the (now dead) Canary. She is gorgeous, her character on the show was great, and so I headed down at noon when the place opened. I was hoping to get in, get out, get home. One small problem with that: Caity didn't show up in the signing area until almost 3pm, so I had nothing to do. I sat in my car and listened to the Doctor Who audio. I went to Taco Bell. I wandered. At about 2:30, I was in the parking lot sending a text to my friend and Caity walks past me to the autograph area so I thought it would finally start (I was trying to make a 3pm showing of John Wick). I went inside and sat there, and finally she came out and started signing. The few people in front of me all decided to be super yakky, so as 3pm passed by, I finally got up there. She asked me if I wanted the pic personalized and what color ink I wanted. I chatted with her and her friend for a few minutes, and left with the first autograph in my "Arrow" collection.

"And so it begins..."

Hello imaginary reader, and welcome to my blog! This blog was inspired in part by my friend Lew and his autograph collecting blog (which I enjoy reading), partially by my desire to publicly track my weight loss, and partially by my desire to just write about the things I personally love -- comics, sci fi, video games, etc. That being said, this blog is meant to serve three basic purposes:

1) I will post random thoughts or reviews about the games I am playing, shows I am watching, comics I am reading, etc. Heads up: I read a lot of comics starring Batman, and a lot of comics by the Hernandez Bros., so there will be a ton of talk about them.

2) I will talk about things that are personally important to me or made an impact on my life, so expect a lot of talk about my personal autograph collection, why Babylon 5 is my favorite tv show ever, and my life-long obsession with Captain James Tiberius Kirk. Wanna hear about all the times a sci fi show or movie made me cry? Of course you do.

3) I am going to publicly track my weight loss. Beginning Sunday 10/5 and continuing every Sunday going forward, I will post (usually without commentary) my current weight and the +/- from the week before. This one is especially important to me. I have struggled with my weight (and my desire to eat burgers and chocolate all the damn time) since I was a kid. A few years ago, I cracked the 250 lb mark and decided to join Weight Watchers and get the pounds off. I managed to lose exactly 50 lbs... and then slowly gained most of it back. My target weight is 180, and let's see how long it takes me to get there.