Entertainment

New York Comic Con 2018 Recap of the Week

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This year for the 7th year in a row, I covered New York Comic Con as part of the media. The show has grown very large over the years and it will keep getting bigger for years to come. Everything on the show was flooded with attendees going to different vendors to get their favorite comic book or piece of exclusive merchandise. It was massive and the crowds are as huge as a group of zombies on The Walking Dead. The Funko booth has been the busiest line all week from what I have seen and i can see why since that is the hottest brand of the entire show. You however, needed to enter a lottery and win in order to even get in the line of the booth. I have also seen various lines at the booth of writers, artists, and various celebrities and professional wrestlers such as Sting, Lita, Trish Stratus, Finn Balor, Bayley, and much more. There is a fandom for everything at this show every year and I love seeing it being showcased. My experience as press this year has been at the level of San Diego Comic Con as i went from one place to another inside the convention center and I connected with different writers and journalists that I have meet previously and for the first time such as Brandon Davis of Comicbook.com, Kirsten of INSIDER, and Linda Marie of Fan Fest. We have all connected during different times of the show to talk about various things about the show.

My press days started on Day 0 (I would like to call it) at the Titans red carpet event and screening. The red carpet event featured the cast of the show as they were there for flash photography and interviews. I liked that this was done outside because it would have been very hot and muggy if it was done inside. There were big white couches on the floor for press members and they were much more comfortable than the hard chairs at the Hammerstein Ballroom (I have been there before for wrestling events. Trust me, those seats are painful). We were shown the first two episodes of the show and It is largely watchable for the most part. The SDCC trailer received a huge amount of backlash from fans, but for the screening, the reception was mostly positive. There was also a Q and A panel afterwards along with a teaser of the Doom Patrol series. We also were shown another teaser of the Harley Quinn animated show as well and then it was announced that Titans will be renewed for a second season. I had my worries of the show (and I still do), but I think that it can be better on the long run in the future.

Day one was Thursday and the show felt like a Saturday with all of the people there in different areas of the convention center. I meet with Ray Flook of Bleedingcool.com to discuss the podcast plans as I was also recording the 200th episode of my show. I also seen that the E! Network had a small truck outside the convention center as they were giving away free donuts to everyone as long as you voted on the selected category of the People’s Choice Awards. I came back there about 3-4 times per day to get some donuts. TruTV also had an area inside one of their panels where they were giving away free bagels as well. These two networks really wanted to have all of the attendees fed very well.

I ran into Kasey Pierce at her booth at Source Point Press as we talked about the show and the stuff that was going on at SDCC since I planned on stopping by her booth at that show originally but it was way too busy for me over there. I picked up a few of her comics that she and her team has produced (also if you are reading this, thank you for signing them). I wanted to stop by more booths during the show but my time at the press rooms overlapped too much so I could not see them along with a few panels I missed out on.

I meet up with my friends and also fellow podcasters Jason Solomon of the Solomonster Sounds Off, John Draper of Wrestling Soup, and Shaheen of THT (The Hot Tag) as I also recorded part of my 200th episode with them one by one. It was Jason’s first time and I gave him most of the rundown on what to avoid during the show. It was great seeing all of them including Fred Richani of The Sports Courier as we talked about our predictions of the UFC 229 show.

My first press room of the week was at The Man in the High Castle as the cast talked about the show in roundtable interviews. My second press room was TruTV’s Jon Glaser Loves Gear as I interviewed Jon Glaser himself as he talked about the upcoming season with me and a funny story about working with Amy Schumer.

My final press room of the day was at Crackle’s Supermansion. I interviewed the creator and producers of the show back in C2E2 earlier this year so it was great to see the entire cast talk about the show at the press conference including Bryan Cranston himself.

Friday’s press rooms featured the Amazon Prime exclusive TV series Lore as I was part of the Roundtable interviews with Alicia Witt. This show is developed by the creator of the podcast of the same name, Aaron Mahnkle. I also spoken to Gale Anne Hurd who is also a producer of The Walking Dead and other movies such as The Incredible Hulk, Armageddon, and The Terminator. I asked her about when she found out about Andrew Lincoln’s departure of the show. My next press room interviews was the 25th Anniversary of Batman: The Animated Series as I spoken to Kevin Conroy and Tara Strong about the Blu-Ray release of the show and their memories of the show.

Saturday, my time was mostly away from convention center after i covered the Legacies press room. I spoken with Danielle Ross Russell, Matthew Davis, and Jenny Boyd and they talked about the upcoming show and it’s ties to The Vampire Diaries. After that, I attended the Paleyfest red carpet event of The Walking Dead. Cast members Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Melissa McBribe, and Norman Reedus were therefor photos and interviews along with show runner Angela Kang. I was very surprised that Jeffrey remembered me as he looked at my direction and said “Hey I remember you from San Diego, how are you doing man” as we shook hands. This followed by a screening of the first episode of the 9th season of The Walking Dead with a discussion panel after the episode finished screening. I did not go to the Madison Square Garden panel later that night, but the news of the passing of Scott Wilson happened while the event was going on. It was sad for everyone to find out that this happened especially if you are in that building where other people in the same room are talking about it.

On Sunday, Me and Ray Flook recorded part of the podcast as we talked about the show in general and this was after I covered the press room of FOX’s The Gifted. The cast only had a few minutes at a time for interviews since they all had to go to the panel right after it but i was happy to meet the entire cast!

Overall, it has been a great show for press coverage this year. I am always looking forward to the show every year. Next year, I will return again to bring you more coverage of the show. With that, check out some of the photos I have taken of cosplayers.

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EXCLUSIVE: Former Developers of Telltale Games Breaks Their Silence on the Layoffs

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The news broke out Friday that Telltale Games has laid off over 250 members of their staff and only kept 25 members of the staff to complete the Minecraft Story Mode for Netflix. This is the same company that has produced many hit titles such as The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us, Batman, Game of Thrones, and Tales of Borderlands and their upcoming titles included a sequel to Game of Thrones, and The Wolf Among Us and an upcoming Stranger Things title. The news came out of nowhere and those titles were canceled. The biggest hit from the titles is The Walking Dead as their final season of the game just started over a month ago and after the second episode which will release this Tuesday, we will not get the rest of the planned episodes. This caused a huge uproar online due to the fact that many people has paid for season passes for the game and they cannot give out refunds to the people who has purchased the game expecting a full season.

Since then, the hashtag of #TellTaleJobs started trending and major gaming studios started to pick up on this and it shows a good sign that they want to hire many of the former developers. Of the many developers, I have interviewed one of them and his name is Johnathan Straw of Telltale Games and this is what he had to say of the situation:

Hey Jonathan. Thank you for taking the time for this interview. I appreciate it very much. What can you tell me about the situation at Telltale and did you have any indicator that this was going to happen on Friday?

Jonathan: “Here’s my side of things. I was actually on PTO on Friday, and noticed something was up as I was waiting for my flight at SFO. I noticed rumblings through our Slack channels, and saw an all hands company meeting appear on the calendar. Shortly after I saw a cryptic condolences message on Slack and began asking for clarification on what had happened. While waiting for a response, my company email account force signed off. Then peers started alerting me through Slack that the company had been closed and everyone had half an hour to vacate, then return on Monday to gather belongings. There was no indication that this was going to happen. In fact, just within the last week or two, we had made new hires, and one of my supervisors had just returned from intern recruitment outreach in Florida. I had a meeting on Thursday right before the closure concerning training plans for transitioning the studio to Unity, and even had a candid conversation about converting my employment status from project hire to permanent hire. Both of my immediate supervisors were enthusiastic about advocating for my conversion. My team had a major project review that is typical and routine to our development process still on the calendar as the employees were being ushered out of the building. All I can really say is that everything was running as normal until suddenly it wasn’t.”

Yikes! This is crazy. So of the 25 that stayed, were they alerted also, or they found out as it happened. And there is a load of rumor and innuendo going on with the last few episodes of the game including the talked about situation of the way they will be released and that the CEO’s only focused on gathering as many IP’s as possible. Would you like say your input about it here?

Jonathan: “I don’t even know who the 25 retained employees are. I won’t comment about rumor and innuendo. The official statements from Pete Hawley and Telltale official social channels are as much as I know about project and IP status. I hadn’t gotten to a point in my employment to begin exploring our IP library, as I was primarily focused with getting The Walking Dead: The Final Season out the door. Even if I knew what else we were exploring, I wouldn’t be able to reveal them if they hadn’t already been announced by the company.”

Interesting. My final question is, since a number of former employees were let go while their health benefits were cut, did that happen to you as well? And do you feel that there was an over saturation with the amount of people that were hired through them? I would also would like to add in that there will be a class action lawsuit (which just came out today) against Telltale. Would you like to comment on that?

Jonathan: “All my benefits were rescinded immediately just like everyone else’s. I didn’t feel there was an over-saturation of hires. I was hired after the November layoffs, and it was a bit sad to see a quarter of the building empty where there were previously desks and people when I first interviewed. The teams I saw there were adequately streamlined, and in general we were all working under better creative conditions both from my observations based on my previous employment at Telltale Games (2010 – 2012) and from sentiments among my peers. I am following the class action lawsuit. We have all been discussing the legality of the lay-offs, but none of us are lawyers. I suppose it was only a matter of time until this all caught the attention of lawyers. If it gets me and my peers the severance we all deserve, then I am all for it. Fortunately, I have been in this kind of situation before. I am prepared with alternate sources of income, independent game projects of my own making, and a healthy network of friends in the industry.”

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The Walking Dead’s 15th Anniversary Variant Covers For The Re-released Issues

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We learned a few months ago that Image Comics and Skybound are going to reprint some of the key issues of The Walking Dead for the 15th anniversary which is approaching next month. This week, I was emailed the high resolution photos of the variant covers and these will come in their normal color, or in black and white. You can pick these up in comic book stores on October 13th and the list of the reprinted issues are the following in this order.

#1

#2 (First appearance of Carl and Lori, Glenn, Andrea, and Sophia)

#7 (First appearance of Tyrese)

#19 (First appearance of Michonne)

#27 (First appearance of The Governor)

#48 (Death of Lori, Judith, and The Governor/Final Prison Battle)

#53( First appearance of Abraham, Eugene, Rosita)

#92 (First Appearance of Jesus)

#98 (Death of Abraham/First appearance of Dwight)

#100 (First appearance of Negan/death of Glenn Rhee)

#108 (First appearance of Ezekiel/Shiva)

#127(Post All Out War/First appearance of Magna and her group)

#132 (First Appearance of Alpha)

#167 (Andrea’s death issue)

#171 (First Appearance of The Princess)

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AMC Network Announces The Walking Dead NYCC Panel

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AMC today released new unit and behind-the-scenes photography from the highly-anticipated new season of The Walking Dead, premiering Sunday, October 7 at 9/8c.

In addition, select cast and producers from the show will be at New York Comic Con for a panel, moderated by Chris Hardwick (Talking Dead), at the Theater at Madison Square Garden on Saturday, October 6th and 8/7c.

Cast members including Andrew Lincoln, Norman Reedus, Danai Gurira, Melissa McBride and Jeffrey Dean Morgan join Executive Producer and Showrunner Angela Kang, Executive Producer and Chief Content Officer Scott M. Gimple, Executive Producers Robert Kirkman, Gale Anne Hurd and Dave Alpert and Special Effects Makeup Supervisor and Executive Producer Greg Nicotero to discuss the show’s exciting new chapter and what’s to come in Season 9.

The Walking Dead returns Sunday, October 7 at 9/8c.

Keystone Comic Con Cosplay Contest Highlights

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Keystone Comic Con is here for the weekend in Philadelphia which is so far a great show. The cosplayers are a huge part of the show and it showed on huge display during the costume contest that happened later that day. The costume contest had four judges which were Sharon Rose, Tessa Netting, Lee Anna Vamp, and Marie Anna Chiment and the host was very entertaining during the show. It was broken down to different categories for each themed costume. This contest was very fun to watch and to see the cosplayers take the time to make those costumes and hearing about how it was made is very informative. Here are the photos below and the winner which was Necromancer.

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Fear The Walking Dead Season 4 Episode 13 “Blackjack” thoughts

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This week on Fear the Walking Dead, we were all over the place. With only 3 episodes left we are winding down to the end. We got to see all our survivors separately. Then miraculously finding one another like always. The episode jumped all over, but I’ll break it down per group.

First we see John, and Strand. They are Stranded on a small island surrounded by water. The water has risen quiet high because of the storm. John is making a raft to get across and find the others, while Strand is, well Strand. After trying the raft out alone, because Strand was staying behind, John got a big surprise in the form of a huge gator. This thing was massive! Jumping back to shore John loses hope of getting across, and an I told you so from Strand. While cutting branches John sees a truck with a bed cover and enlists Strand to get it, pulling the your people shot me card. Once up there, Strand seen a bottle of liquor on the floor, but also a zombie in the driver’s seat. The truck was on a horrid angle. Hopping on the side of truck Strand leans in for the bottle and down goes the truck, flipping down the hill it was on top of. Luckily the zombie gets a branch to the head, Strand gets his drink, and John gets his Truck bed cover. Rigging the battery to the car horn, John hopes to bring the dead to them, keeping the Gator occupied whilst they slip by in the raft. Convincing Strand to join him, they start-up the horn and take off. Everything is working great until the horn dies, the dead turn around, and the gator starts attacking their makeshift raft, causing a leak. Panicking John shoots off his gun to call the dead back and they swim back to where they started, both defeated.

Lucy is looking for Charlie and spots a library. Knowing she loves books she checks there to no avail. Waking outside, she finds a gravely injured man in a car. While trying to help him, they realize the car crushing him is what is keeping him alive. He tells Lucy all he wants is one last beer, so she sets off to find one. Looking everywhere, she has no luck and eventually radios in to tell him she was sorry. He tells her she will help people on her journey, even though she couldn’t help him. That’s when she finds a box left by Morgan and co, with a single beer. She also grabs an ice pack out of a first aid kit and puts them both in her pack, heading back to the old man. He is so happy to have his last beer he gives her some journals. Turns out the man is the Truck driver that owned the truck Morgan is in. On the box was a radio channel to call for when of needing help. She calls and it’s Morgan.

Morgan and Co are still looking for the elusive Quinn, when they find the crazy ladies old walker. Then get a call from her on the radio. She tells them to stop leaving supplies, because it is making people weak, then she has to make them strong again by killing them. I don’t know either, she is insane, clearly. She tells them that Quinn is dead, so they pack up and head off to find the others, still leaving things in boxes. They are looking for John, Strand, Lucy, Alicia, And Charlie. Eventually while driving they get that call from Lucy, who they find and pick up, and Alicia and Charlie, who they don’t make it too. The reason being is miss psycho in Al’s van found them and shot up the truck, ending the episode.

So we only see Alicia and Charlie very briefly in this episode at the end, Strand and John are still not even close to being found, and the truck has been shot up by psychopath. Can’t wait for next week!

This episode was entertaining, but a little slow. I definitely enjoyed watching non the less.

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Keystone Comic Con Is Next Week!

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INAUGURAL KEYSTONE COMIC CON HEADS TO PHILADELPHIA CONVENTION CENTER ON SEPTEMBER 14-16

Celebration of Entertainment and Pop Culture to Feature Blockbuster Talent, Special Guests, Tremendous Cosplayers and More!

**Great Photo/Video Opportunities**

 

WHAT: Keystone Comic Con, an event combining the best of pop culture and entertainment is heading to Philadelphia for its inaugural show! The event will bring together an outstanding lineup of comic, entertainment and musical guests with a twist that will be unique to the Keystone state.

Over the 3-day event, fans will get to experience multiple panels, autographing sessions, Keystone Champions of Cosplay and so much more. This year’s confirmed blockbuster talent includes: Angela Kinsey, Brian Baumgartner, Oscar Nuñez, and Creed Bratton with Leslie David Baker, Stephen Moyer, Anna Paquin, Joe Manganiello, WWE® Superstars The Bella Twins™, AJ Styles™ and Daniel Bryan and More!

 

WHEN:Friday, September 14-Sunday, September 16

 

WHERE: Philadelphia Convention Center, Philadelphia PA

MARVEL Entertainment Takes Over New York Comic Con

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MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT TAKES OVER NEW YORK COMIC CON

WITH EXCLUSIVE PANELS, ADVANCE SCREENINGS, LIVE-STREAMING COVERAGE FROM MARVEL.COM, THE HOTTEST GAMES, AND AN AMAZING LINE-UP OF TELEVISION AND COMIC CELEBRITY INTERVIEWS, FAN ACTIVITIES AND STAGE EVENTS AT THE MARVEL BOOTH

 

Visit Marvel Booth (#1354) for Autograph Signings, Exclusive New York Comic Con Giveaways and More

 

Los Angeles, CA (September 5, 2018) – Marvel Entertainment is descending onto New York Comic Con in full force! Join us for a robust lineup of fun events from Marvel Television, Marvel New Media, Marvel Animation, Marvel Comics, Marvel Games and Marvel Themed Entertainment. With exclusive first-look videos, star-studded signings, and incredible fan experiences at the Marvel booth, this Comic Con is guaranteed to bring you loads of unexpected surprises you won’t want to miss – all starting Thursday, October 4 through Sunday, October 7.

 

Fans at New York Comic Con will be the very first to witness the highly-anticipated return of Marvel’s Daredevil, Marvel’s first Super Hero on Netflix, and the critically acclaimed Marvel’s Runaways, both on-stage at Madison Square Garden for the first time ever!

 

Join the cast and producers of The Gifted at the Javits Center where they return to New York Comic Con with an exclusive first look at an all-new episode from the second season of the series.

 

The always fun Marvel Animation will present a star-studded Marvel Rising panel, and the annual Marvel Animation Presents panel returns with exciting news from Marvel Animated projects and a special screening of the television film, Marvel Rising: Secret Warriors.

 

Marvel Comics will be returning to the con with surprise guests, panels, giveaways, and more! Fans will be able to hear from Marvel’s top writers, artists, and editors as they talk about fan-favorite characters and the thrilling stories in the Marvel Universe today – along with a sneak peek at what’s next!

 

Marvel fans at home can tune-in as Marvel New Media brings fans four days of streaming coverage from New York Comic Con on Marvel.com, and Marvel social media channels. From hosting This Week In Marvel and Women Of Marvel panels, to live episodes of Earth’s Mightiest Show, Marvel New Media’s coverage of NYCC 2018 is not one to be missed!

 

Marvel Games will be bringing some of the hottest games to the con including Marvel Contest of Champions, Marvel Puzzle Quest, and MARVEL Battle Lines. Follow @MarvelGames on Twitter for more information coming soon.

 

The fan-favorite Marvel booth (#1354) will once again return with a full lineup of Events touching all points of the Marvel Universe! Fans will be able to attend signings with their favorite Marvel stars, participate in special costume contests, and much, much more. The booth will be jam-packed with giveaways and exclusive Marvel merchandise, so get there early!

 

For more exciting Marvel highlights and news during New York Comic Con 2018, tune in to the Marvel Livestream at Marvel.com starting Thursday, October 4th. Join the conversation using #MarvelNYCC, and stay tuned to www.marvel.com for all the breaking news from Marvel Television at New York Comic Con. Follow @Marvel on Twitter and “like” Marvel on Facebook for minute-by-minute updates on all things in the MCU.