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Awesome Con in Washington D.C. this past weekend certainly lived up to its name, and its rep. They had a huge collection of actors, artists, and authors (and that only covered the first letter of the alphabet) doing their best to make the gathering memorable. Pretty much all of the guest actor/voice talent celebrities manned (personed?) a booth on the bottom level, off to the side of the hucksters area by the primary entrance, most of the time they were not doing a panel or presentation. Between those two groups were the artists, both Comics and Fine, with quite a few other visual disciplines mixed in. That last sentence gives you the idea, but not the scope, unless you expect there to be a hundred or more impressive illustrator/storytellers on the multiple-football-field sized area you are crossing to get to your next scheduled event.

They had some presentations I never expected, like Twisted Toonz, where a group of world class voice actors played out a famous movie as totally different characters than the ones in the original. This year the film was The Wrath of Kahn, and the voice of Wini The Pooh coming from the bridge of the Enterprise was one of the the least disconcerting aspects of that presentation. I can’t wait to see another show organized around the same principle, it was absolutely amazing and entertaining! Although the voice actor tasked with being Bill Cosby for one part of it kept looking out at the audience like he was trying to find an escape route.

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There are a ton of Sci-Fi Parody Songs, often and mostly fan built; these are a few of my favorites from the Star Wars franchise. The first is Moves Like Jabba from Break Originals, the second is Star Wars Disney: Let it Flow from Box Step Productions, the third is Wrecking Maul from Randy Turnbow. Yes, they are silly, but that i part of the appeal.

The short film Mechanical Creep is a mixture of live action and CGI put together by Darren Wallace, Matthew Parsons and Rebecca Knight. It was a second year student film project at the JMC Academy in South Melbourne, Australia, and won both Best Animation & Best Sound Design at the 2012 Martini Awards (the JMC Academies in house competition to pick out the best presentations from each year). It is more of a visual joke with a punch line than anything else, but I liked it, so I am sharing it here.

In Movies this week we get Jupiter Ascending, another tasty sci-fi action romp from the Wachowski’s. We also get the direct to DVD Monsters: Dark Continent, taking place a decade after the original movie. Critics have commented it lacks the originality of its predecessor, and was instead just another war movie.

In TV we have Falling Skies: The Complete Fourth Season, coming out just in time to rewatch it before the 5th and final season starts on June 28th.

In Anime, Fairy Tail: Collection 4 has episodes 73 through 95, originally released as Fairy Tale parts 7 and 8. To put that in perspective Part 15 is about to come out on disc, and the current season is at episode 235. Also this week, Nobunagun is about alien invasion and a girl who can manifest weapons possessed by the spirits of historical figures. This is the complete series, 13 episodes in all.