Wizard World Philly Report!

I set out to take part in my first Wizard World Comic Con (and my first ever comic con!) on Thursday, May 7th, the kickoff day for the show. Accompanying me was my lovely partner-in-crime, Lisa. Traffic was light from New York to Philadelphia, so Lisa and I arrived fairly quickly, in about two hours. After checking in at the hotel, I started off walking the convention show floor as soon as possible. There weren't a ton of people on the first day, which didn't surprise me much because it was a weekday. Tons of merchandise stands with everything your nerdy heart could ever desire, as long as your nerdy heart wanted Funko Pop figurines. Seriously, they were everywhere. The convention exclusive Funko figurines I noticed were Stan Lee, and the Winchester brothers from Supernatural. I ended up picking up a Roger Rabbit Funko Pop figurine for Lisa. They got me. Or, rather, they got her.

Arya Stark joins Doctor Who!

Although not, sadly as a companion. Yet. The BBC reported this morning that Maisie Williams, star of Game of Thrones, will step into the TARDIS as a guest star for the currently-filming Series 9. There's no details yet on what role she'll play, but Stephen Moffet did have this to say about it:

We’re thrilled to have Maisie Williams joining us on Doctor Who. It’s not possible to say too much about who or what she’s playing, but she is going to challenge the Doctor in very unexpected ways. This time he might just be out of his depth, and we know Maisie is going to give him exactly the right sort of hell.

When asked for her own thoughts, Maisie said:

 I'm so excited to be working on Doctor Who as it’s such a big and important part of British Culture. I can’t wait to meet the cast and crew and start filming, especially as we’ll be shooting not too far from my home town.

It's an exciting development for sure - Maisie has been fantastic on Game of Thrones, and it'll be interesting to see what she does with the more lighthearted fare of Doctor Who.

Watch Stephen Colbert Interview Smaug the Terrible

It's known that Stephen Colbert is just a bit of a Tolkien fan. So much so that he's dedicated an entire show this week to promoting the upcoming The Hobbit: The Battle of Five Armies. So who did he bring in as his guest for the show? Martin Freeman? Peter Jackson?

Nope, Colbert interviewed a live dragon on his show. Hit the jump to see the video.

New York Comic Con Report!

New York Comic Con, held every year at The Jacob Javits Center and ran by ReedPop,  is runwith a skeleton crew of 40 blue shirt volunteers (sounds like a joke from Star Trek) risking life and limb to give us the best four days of comics, movies, tv shows and geek entertainment possible. With crowds of 150,000 on Thursday and reaching upwards of record breaking 250,000 (beating numbers at San Diego Comic Con!) on the highlight day, Saturday, this year’s show was the best yet in relation to organization, guests, panels and quality. However, it had a rocky start, with unprecedented ticket sales that were sold out in under 30 minutes online and at retailers. People were calling in every favor possible to score their passes.

Arrow, or The Breakdown of a "Gritty Reboot." By Mike Fatum

Here's a well known secret for you: I hate "gritty reboots." For the last few decades it seems, everyone wants to take well known characters and strip away everything about them except the name, churning out the same group of chiseled jawed broody heroes for every story. For some characters, it works fantastic - thank god they did a gritty reboot twenty years ago on poor Batman. But a lot of characters thrive in the sun, and a little bit of cheese, and taking them to the stark color palate and constant window-gazing of your typical gritty reboot, and they fade into absolute boredom.

Whoa, how did this picture get here?