I have done a number of Halloween posts already this year, but as one of the major religious holidays I figured I should do another entry. I loved the Sci-Fi Wired sequence of 14 Great Cthulhu Toys that make devouring souls fun, 19 Amazing Star Wars Pumpkins, and 20 Great Pet Costumes, all of which put my appreciation of the site back on top where it belongs. But they are displaying Other Peoples Work; don’t you want to build your own? Two of the best sites I know for that are the Instructables Halloween Costume Collection and the Make Halloween Site. The later will help you with your haunted house and special effects technology more than your costume, but it all means your are building a unique holiday event. Make is also running a Micro-Controller Halloween Contest, so make sure to document and enter your remote-controlled exploding pumpkin as soon as possible. D-Vice came up with the concept and basic technology to build the Gaping Hole Costume for a Real Life application of the Death Becomes Her special effect, but I have yet to see a believable working version of it. For the little ones and their parents I can recommend Homemade Halloween Costumes from the Funtimes Guide web site. That should be enough for now; we still have a week or three to the holiday itself, so there is still time to get creative.
It’s that time of year again, and one of the best online resources for Halloween is the Instructables Halloween Costume collection. Since these are instruction sets teaching you how to make your own costumes, I figured I should post now so you had the lead time to start building. Another great place to get ideas and help on creating costumes are any of the Cosplay groups, including Cosplay dot Com or the Cosplay Lab.
The first full day of Dragon*Con has ended, not because people have gone to bed for the night, but because we crossed the line into Saturday in its time zone. The best real-time reporting I have found so far is the aggregate at the Dragon Con Twitter filter; it’s 2:30AM here (and there), and in the time it took me to type this 58 new Tweets have arrived. Most of the Dragon Con tweets come with links to some wonderful pictures like this one of strange Cosplay, or the Doctor Horrible cast, perhaps performing live like they did last year? One of the tweeters contributing is Fancy Fembot, and the latest episode of her podcast, SciFi Party Line #31 just went live yesterday. A ton of other podcasters are there, like Escape Pod, and a ton of authors, including Scott Sigler, bringing his Rookie Tailgate Tour to the Con.
Since I can’t be there this year, my plan was to hit the movies It Might Get Loud and Gamer tonight. It didn’t quite work out that way; I managed It Might Get Loud, which is undeniably the best rockumentary of the last few decades (longer if you are a guitar player). The scene where Jimmy Page picked up a guitar and started belting out Whole Lotta Love, U2’s guitar guru The Edge jumped up, electrified, riveted, and all but foaming at the mouth, and White Stripe’s Jack White also jumped up, staring at Jimmy’s hands like he was memorizing the secrets of the Universe, was worth every penny of the ticket price. The other hundred minutes of the film were just bonus, glimpses of history, genius, style, attitude, and everything that goes into creating people that much larger than life. Just because that wasn’t good enough to make up an entire movie (or for whatever reason they like; I enjoyed it to much to care), the three of them kept jamming together on songs they each had written. The film started with Jack White building a guitar from some spare lumber, a coke bottle, and some wire he had hanging around; when it ended, they went out jamming on the Dylan/Band classic The Weight. How perfect is that? To see when it plays by you, check the release dates. I also saw Cold Hearts tonight, and plan to see Gamer tomorrow night; but those reviews can wait until the next Blog entry.
Anime Today interviewed Bandi Entertainment’s Robert Napton about the new movie EUREKA SEVEN – good night, sleep, tight, young lovers for episode 99. They covered some other interesting topics as well, which mostly involves trying to sell you things, but there are a few good contests you might want to get in on. The movie will be showing on the big screen in the US for one night only on 24Sep09 courtesy of Fathom Entertainment. If you happen to be in Texas this weekend, you might want to hit San Japan, the Japanese Culture and Anime Con in San Antonio. To the north, there is Anime Iowa, and for Europe try Aya Revolution. All the Cons are running Panels, Cosplay, Screening Rooms, and all the other usual; two have AMV competitions, and one has both a J-Pop and J-Rock lounges.
It’s party time again! Thanks to the World Science Fiction Society, Worldcon 2009 is about to happen, from the 6th to the 10th of August. This time around, it takes place in Montreal, Canada, and goes by the name AnticipationSF. As always, it will include presentation of the Hugo Awards and the Campbell Award, as well as the Chesley Awards (and you might enjoy reading the Crotchety Old Fan’s Hugo Winner Prediction). Since this years Worldcon is also Canvention 29, the Aurora Awards will be handed out there as well. There will be the usual world-class writers workshops, the rather insane Masquerade, and so much more I can’t decide what to mention next. So I will just do the Masquerade historical reminder; Cosplay was invented by Forrest J Ackerman and his friend Myrtle R. Jones at the very first Worldcon in 1939. He came dressed in a space suit, while she wore a gown recreated from the classic 1933 film Things to Come (written by H.G. Wells, the movie was staged for 1936, and only 6 years in the past at the point the convention occurred). Neil Gaiman is the Guest of Honor this year, and Tom Doherty is the Publisher Guest of Honor. You gotta love Worldcon!!!
Otakon kicked off today, and included the east coast premiere of EVANGELION 1.0: YOU ARE (NOT) ALONE, and a fun little project called Pirates vs. Ninjas. Musical guests include VAMPS for those wondering what Hyde has been up to since he left L’Arc-en-Ciel, and MELL. It is being covered by all the usual suspects, including Anime News Network, Ani Gamers, Funimation, and more. The con has an official Twitter link and a dealers room webcam, but that’s not as much fun as being there yourself. It runs through Sunday if you still want to grab a daypass.