Some of you may know Bob $tencil from his comedic comic-con coverage that he has been doing since 2005.

For 2008 Comic-Con, he joined fistshoving.net firstshowing.net in covering the massive con. If you haven’t seen his videos yet, you gotta head over to firstshowing.net and check em out. Take a look at the video below, just to get a taste of “the $tencil”.

Anyone here excited about Terminator Salvation? I am excited to see a better trailer…if that makes sense. I know the one they showed was simply to get the hype and rumors going across the net. It didn’t really hold anything solid that gave us a good idea on what is going on inside the film. I didn’t even see majority of the cast appear in the trailer. I am sure the movie will rock though…the movie industry got wise within this last year and is starting to raise the bar on quality (besides the scary movie type).

So here is the poster for T4

I like the gritty Terminator model. I always hated how they put white / human teeth into the previous Terminator models. I know it was for the purpose of making them look human..but after the skin came off, it just looked weird.

Check out the Comic-Con panel

Common isn’t all that known yet for his acting talents, but I think he has got a good chance of making something big out of his acting career. He is playing nothing but supporting roles right now…I hope he gets something big soon.

If you have not seen the trailer yet for Terminator Salvation, check it out here

Afro Samurai creator Takashi Okazaki. I got him to sign my CC collectors figures.

The weirdest thing I saw at the convention. It was a promotion for some comic. Apparently it fully operational.

The Nite Owl ship “Archie” was on display. It was amazing. Here is a look inside it.

Tom and I had a chance to play Castle Crashers by The Behemoth. I didn’t want the demo to end.

Left to Right, Rob, Myself (Also Rob), and Tom at the Hard Rock Cafe. Shortly after the Joker impaled us with sporks.

Comic-Con wanna be cool fictional personality Bob $tencil. He asked me why I wore the bear head. I told him about my abusive child hood and how I took refugee the bear life.

Yuri Lowenthal, the english voice of Kuma (the character I dressed up as) from Afro Samurai. I didn’t know it was him until he asked to take a picture and I asked him if he knew who my character was. Another great moment.

Side Show Collectibles Hellboy showcase, Big Baby.

More to come later!

We have been kind of dry since Comic-Con started. I apologize for that. We should be getting back into the swing of things tomorrow. I had to play catch up with a few things today so it left little time to post.

So during Comic-Con, the folks at Xbox Live picked me out of the crowd for my costume and asked me to do a little video for them. You can check it out here

http://www.xbox.com/NR/rdonlyres/77A0DBAC-1523-45DE-8F84-25E92EB63587/0/vidMonday_WrapsmHi.asx

I believe its about 1 min-33 seconds into the video.

It made my day and

Day 3 started out rather tragically. As many of you know, I am a huugggeee fan of NBC’s Heroes. Well, Heroes premiered their first episodes for season 3 on Saturday. I woke up about 6:30 am, took a shower, and got some food before heading off to the con to get in line at about 8:00 am. Keep in mind the panel didn’t start till 10:30 ish so I figured I was making good time getting there 2 hours early.

WRONG!

Oh god, it was massive. The line started at the door, did about 10 “Z’s” across the grass lot and then proceeded to wrap around the entire convention center. I walked about half way across the convention center before I said “screw it”. I am just not a person to stand in a line that stretches well beyond a mile. So yeah…I missed the Heroes panel and premier. Needless to say day 3 didn’t start out so well. I figured I would knock out my disappointment by buying junk in the dealers room. It worked.

After spending nearly half the day taking chances on new books/DVD and hunting for autographs, I decided if I was going to see the Mutant Chronicles premiere I might want to head up to the designated Hall really early so I didn’t repeat that morning’s tragedy.

I got up to the room that would be showing Mutant Chronicles, where a panel was currently in session regarding the future of Marvel comics (or something like that). After that panel ended, Tom joined me to sit in the room and wait. I didn’t really have a clue what was showing in the room before Mutant Chronicle’s time so I was quite surprised when Patton Oswalt jumped on stage to introduce Sarah Silverman and the cast of her show.

I am really not a fan of Sarah Silverman, but her panel was pretty funny. Partially because of Patton himself who flamed audience members who got up to ask questions.

Wolverine and the X-Men was the next panel up. The panel premiered the first 3 episodes of the new animated TV show. The show is about Wolverine leading the XMen after professor Xavier and Jean Gray mysteriously disappear and the X-Men’s mansion is destroyed. Wolverine and Beast must reunite the X-Men in order to stop the Mutant Registration act and find Jean and the Professor.

I was not really expecting much out of it, but I enjoyed the 2nd and 3rd episodes so I will give it a try if I see it on TV.

Finally it was time for Mutant Chronicles to start. Tom Jane and Ron Perlman came out for the panel and premiere. The movie started up and I slowly dozed off. About half way through the movie, I gave up on trying to stay awake and just put my head down. Don’t get the wrong impression though, it wasn’t the film that made me sleepy, it was the accumulative lack of sleep from previous nights. The room went dark and my mind went into a fatigue zone.

Tom woke me up after the film ended, and we walked back to the hotel.

That concluded our Comic-Con adventuring as we flew home on day 4 due to the lack luster event line up.

My overall thoughts on Comic-Con are this.

The Good: CC is great if you’re a collector of rare material objects, love to meet new people with similar interest, hang out with friends (if you have any with you), and have a need to be the first to hear the latest news on the movie, comics, and gaming industry. Also, the badge pickup was so fast! I was shocked by our 15 minute wait. I have had to wait nearly 4-5 hours before to get a badge.

The Bad: CC suffers greatly from being too crowded. At some points you may be standing in one spot for about 3 minutes (a long time) while walking to your destination due to bottle neck areas of the convention. Another thing that really got to me was how ignorant the staff was. About 80% of the staff had no clue what event was going on right behind them or where Hall locations were if it wasn’t in their general area. Half the time they felt the need to shout at you as if you were across the room. I flipped one time during this type of incident and told the lady to shut up as she was screaming at me after I asked her if the hallway leading to an escalator was closed. I am sure it’s because they get asked the same question over and over and that probably gets frustrating, but if that becomes a problem then you should make a sign and post it in view of attendees a couple yards before they reach the closed off area. It’s just bad management.

I’d been to Otakon in previous years and I have to say their staff is much more knowledgeable on events and locations and the smaller crowd greatly improved on my experience compared to Comic-Con.

I am not sure if I will attend Comic-Con again any time soon. I hear they might move to a larger venue. We will see what happens if that comes true.

Freedom at last! Day 2 was such a breeze without my kuma head piece. I was able to walk around the dealers room without being stopped every 2 minutes. Seriously…respect to cosplayers who have been doing it for years, its a a selfless job.

Any who….Day 2..yeah..one word (or rather 2 combined) Watchmen. Tom and myself took a seat to watch the full cast of Zack Snyder’s Watchmen come out and talk about making the movie. Zack showed an exclusive comic-con reel that was impressive and really got people hyped for the movie. I haven’t been able to find any bootleg video showcasing the exclusive footage yet but when I do, I’ll be sure to screw the movie industry that I love so much and post it.

After I got done with the Watchmen panel I headed off to go get my pair of Afro Samurai organic figures autographed by Afro’s creator Takashi Okazaki. It was kind of a star struck moment. I have photos of Takashi and myself standing. Me of course with a fools grin.

Tom got to check out The Spirit, from what I hear it was amazing (of course!). He will be reporting on it later so check back for that shortly.

I spent most of the day in the dealers room where Tom and myself got to try out Castle Crashers. What a sick game that was. I can’t wait to play it on my 360. Its a lot like their first title “Alien Hominid”. Even the bosses have similar attacks and weak points, but the humor and playability were still awesome.

I checked out various happenings in th dealers room. We saw Activisions new Spider-Man game. I about dropped my jaw when they showed a quick shot of symbiote Wolverine at the end! Think venom…but with claws and more ape like. Awesome…(to the max!) The game itself is a revamp of the Spider-Man video game series which has tragically gone down hill from it’s PS1 days. It looks very promosing.

Dinner was great! We had our official NF dinner at Dussani resturant. I felt a little under dressed with my big NERD t-shirt on.

From there I headed out to watch some late night anime at the convention center which included Golden Boy, Miami Guns, and the worst anime I have seen to date…”Step Up Love Story”. It had your typical super high pitched voice girl that has is as innocent as a baby and completely confused about everything dealing with emotions and the opposite sex.

We headed back to the hotel around 1am.

One great thing about Comic-Con is my hotel. You can go up to the counter and ask for a cookie. BOOM! They pull out a handful of warm cookies that must be baked in grandma’s oven or something because they taste sooooo good. Its like a nightcap for us nerdy people.

So yeah if your ever in San Diego…stay at Doubletree Downtown Hotel…they got cookies and stuff.

Thats it for day 2 wrap up. Check back later for that Spirit coverage.

I will try and post my Day 3 coverage tonight or tomorrow latest.

Picture gallery coming soon!

PS. We have a lot of new comic books we picked up from the con by upcoming artist, we should be posting about them over the course of the next week or so. Check back for that as well.

In May 2008, Hong Kong based company Fluid Friction will be launching their first comic book, Devashard locally. The book will be made available to stores in the UK, US and Singapore in June of 2008. According to the press release we received from them, DevaShard is an epic comic book that explores a new world of magic, lore, Demons and Gods. It draws its inspiration from Asian mythology and will introduce a bunch of new characters seamlessly woven into the lives of those already in existence. The series will span 25 books and is targeted at people who are interested in character entertainment.

We had a chance to speak with the Business Development Manager for Fluid Friction, Spencer Douglass, yesterday and he provided us with a copy of DevaShard and some press releases to review. So this morning I sat down and read the first issue of DevaShard and I’m ready to tell you folks what I think.

The story is solid and engaging. I started reading it and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. It left me wanting to read more actually. That, I find is the marker of a truly good comic book. When you read it, it should leave you wanting more and to delve deeper into the world that book. That’s what I felt the entire time that I was reading DevaShard. The artwork was also phenomenal. Every panel looks like a painted masterpiece. It’s visually stunning to see something of this high quality going into a book. Honestly, I can’t wait to read the next one. So go down to your local comic book shop on Wednesday and pick up a copy of Previews. Devashard will be in previews so you can tell your local shop to order it.

DevaShard scores a golden cylon

Check out the company website where you can download a free preview of the comic book.

Hey Folks! First day at comic-con was a complete disaster! I got stuck in 6 hours of traffic thanks to some huge accident on the freeway. Imagine my frustrations when I arrived at comic-con at 5pm! I got to tour the dealers room for about an hour and didn’t get to see much so I’ll have pics of all the awesomness tomorrow!I promise!

I DID get to catch the Video Games Live! concert which rocked hardcore! The San Diego Symphony preformed songs from games like Legend of Zelda, God of War, Super Mario, Metal Gear Solid, Kingdom Hearts, Castlevania, Starcraft 2, Halo, World of Warcraft, Metroid, Final Fantasy, and even old classics like tetris!

My personal favorite was the guy who played Super Mario on the piano, blindfolded!

They even had a live Guitar Hero: Aerosmith demo. Some guy out of the audience actually played ‘Sweet Emotion’ on EXPERT! He blew me away because he barely missed any notes! He scored over 200,000 and got a note streak of 220! Lucky guy got a free Dell Laptop because of his awesome guitar hero skillz.

They even suprised us with a fireworks show over the ocean at the end! It was a good end to my not so good day.

I urge you to check out a Video Games Live show. It’s worth it!

Just got done with the Spore panel. A good amount of gameplay was shown. I am impressed. It takes the whole black and white / sims exeperince to a new level. Start from creating a tiny organism and end in space exploration and planetary take over. The amount of detail they cover in the game is amazing.

Of course not so funny humor was included by the panel host in which everyone felt the need to laugh like dane cook hit the stage or something. What else is new? :/

I checked out the dealers room earlier. That was a mess as I practically have to hold my Kuma head piece above everyone to keep them from bumping into it. The collector’s pieces are amazing. I got an special hands on demo of the Hellboy’s Right Hand of Doom from Side Show Collectibles. It was an amazing piece of work.

Besides Spore and the Dealers room, I have pretty much been stopped a hundred times for pictures. Most people don’t have a clue that I am cosplaying as Kuma from Afro Samurai, they just look and say “he has a bear head”. I kinda find that funny.

Well I am sitting down now for the Red Sonja panel with Robert Rodriguez (Sin City, Planet Terror). After that I am off to the Afro Samurai panel!

Alright, more updates to come.

The film Fanboys has been up in release date limbo for some time now, leaving many anxious mover goers upset and disappointed by unnecessary delays. Some of the factors delaying the film are the constant string of edits to the films “final” cut and overall story.

Well there is some good news for those hopelessly waiting for the films release, but only if your attending the San Diego Comic-Con this week. Fanboys will be showing Thursday, July 24, but you HAVE to attend the Lucasfilm’s 7th Annual Star Wars Fan Movie Challenge in Ballroom 20 and be the first 300 in line or else your out of luck. Should I even be posting this? I DON’T WANT YOU STEALING MY TICKET! Save me a spot in line? :/

The Comic-Con screening will be at 10:30pm Thursday night.

[via movieblog]