Photos: New York Comic Con 2009 - Friday

Friday was Geekanerds "lazy day" at Comic Con. No stress, no running from panel to panel...just a stroll around the floor, chatting up creators and PR people, trying to get free stuff, and watching a bunch of uncensored episodes of Shin Chan.

I did manage to take a few pics of some of the more extraordinary sights...

Like this for example!

The ladies of Valve! This is Zoey from Left 4 Dead and Chell from Portal, but of course you knew that. I suggested this pose, and I saw them using it again later on the floor. This is because I'm a director, and when not blogging, I help the world by directing it to be more funny and visually pleasing.

Sketches, booths, Leias, and the requistite Storm Trooper, after the jump...


Look up in that window...see that? A Stormtrooper. He was watching me. Probably thought I was a Jedi. A lot of people make that mistake.


This was the best promo booth I saw. It's for a Showtime Show about clones (the name escapes me) but they were giving people a chance to watch clips of the show on those movie-goggle things while standing in cool sci-fi tubes. There's no reason these people had to be in tubes - it's purely for visual effect of the passerby. Get it, they look like clones! Eh, maybe you had to be there.

Mario seems genuinely surprised to see that Hunter. I guess when you're used to dealing with like, evil mushrooms and turtles, killer zombies are a little above your paygrade. I was genuinely surprised not to see more Left 4 Dead cosplay...there was a general lack of interesting costumes over all...I'm hoping it will pick up tomorrow.

Nice booth, Squaresville! What was the New York Times doing at Comic Con in the first place? I think they just unpacked their table, looked around, and left at around noon.

I guess this sweatshirt is old news, but it was the first time I've ever seen it. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. I know it's not cool to like Boba Fett ever since Lucas killed that Golden Goose of Coolness with overexposure. But honestly; this is cool. The sweatshirt is by Ecco and can be purchased online for a Ben, and I don't mean Kenobi. I have to say, the dude in the picture did a good job accesorizing it, I think it was a smart purchase. I love cosplay that doesn't replicate a costume, but creates a cool outfit BASED on a character, like this.

Hey, remember this panel from Cleaners #2? It was the recipient of the Banana Randomizer Award in Panel Dicussion a few weeks back. I had the opportunity to meet the creators of Cleaners, who were both super cool and happy to talk about their work with a nerd like me. They had a book of the original inked pages, so I took of picture of my favorite scene. Artist Rahsan Ekedal was even good enough to sign a copy of issue #1 for me with a little picture of a shark fin.

Free fortune cookies in the press room! And possibly a free book? Honestly I didn't even notice anything beyond the cookies.

Okay this photo is blown out, sorry. But still - two slave Leias! Eh? Ehh?

More to come tomorrow!

Best Geek Jack-o-Lanterns of 2008!

Sure, it's one thing to invest hundreds on an elaborate costume honoring your favorite icon of geekdom... but it's a whole 'nother deal when you're elbow-deep in pumpkin innards carefully carving that same icon into a decaying gourd. Here we honor the 2008 masters of negative space with the top geek pumpkins of this past Halloween!


UPDATE 2009! Here and here are a new crop of pumpkins designed by your own Gnerd editors, including Left 4 Dead zombies, Larry David, and Ponyo!


First of course, the most popular costume... ALSO one of the most popular pumpkins!

Image Courtesy of CraigG144

Now if only I had found this costume, I would have won Bingo!

Image courtesy of sage_82

Star Wars, Portal, Cylons, and so much more after the jump...


Another Wall-E... much simpler, but its simplicity adds to the cuteness of the character

Image courtesy of mrboma

An awesome Wario and Boo
Images courtesy of grantsewell

Some one's got Secret Invasion on the brain...

Image courtesy of lensbs

Of course it wouldn't be a geek Halloween without Star Wars!

Image courtesy of pixelelated

Image courtesy of Metal Chris

Image courtesy of Simon Davison

Image courtesy of garcher84

Here's The Adorable Gizmo and his pal Batman (my favorite Batman RIP title so far)

Image courtesy of ktsaltishok

Here's an impressive combination of the latest in LED and pumpkin technology

Image courtesy of MAKE

This is a simple pumpkin, sure... but the connotations of this image are far more terrifying to any geek than anything else Halloween has to offer...

Image courtesy of penner42

If you weren't aware of Geekanerd's obsession with all things Portal, then you've been under a rock for a year (or you haven't visited this blog... either or)

Image courtesy of wickerman

Image courtesy of prettypinkninja

This one's for AHR

Image courtesy of bluedot11

And lastly (and probably leastly), here was my pumpkin... It was a design I did in high school during a major Bond phase... unfortunately I didn't have time to flesh out my own Joker design this year-so I went back to this oldie... but it turned out pretty well. Unfortunately this photo is at a bit of an angle, but you get the idea.

You Too Can Have That Mad Scientist Style

Mad Science isn't just a job, it's a lifestyle. Look at the recent smash web series, Dr. Horrible; Joss and Neil Patrick Harris absolutly nail the fundementals. The egotism. The speeches. The voluminous hairstyles. Unlike this upcoming Adrian Brody movie called Splice; that's supposed to be a mad scientist look? What kind of press still is that? He looks like he's sticking his hand behind the counter of a Baskin Robins. And he's not wearing a costume. No. This is pathetic.

If you're looking to get a piece of that tampering-in-God's-domain style for yourself, see how some of Gnerd's favorite mads have distinguished themselves, after the jump ...

Dr. Victor Frankenstein II, Young Frankenstien

MAD SCIENCE: Creates a frankenstein.
STYLES: Lab coat, welder's goggles, big hair.
DEMEANOR: Mostly quiet dignity and grace, occasional mania.
QUOTE: "HEARTS AND KIDNEYS ARE TINKERTOYS! I'm talking about the central nervous system!"

Dr. Daniel P. Schreber, Dark City

MAD SCIENCE: Creates artificial memories for the unwitting human test subjects of Dark City. It's kind of like the Matrix, but with aliens instead of robots. Also it's much better.
STYLES: Himmler Glasses, labcoat, leather apron, tweed, hair gel.
DEMEANOR: Jittery, stilted speech, cowardly yet subtly rebellious.
QUOTE: "These do bring back memories. This one is still warm. What is it? The recollections of a great lover? A catalog of conquests? We will soon find out. "

Dr. Hubert Farnsworth, Futurama

MAD SCIENCE: Mostly quality of life inventions, and the occasional weapon of mass destruction.
STYLES: Lab coat, incredibly thick glasses, pajamas.
DEMEANOR: Enthusiastically senile, proactive.
QUOTE:
Bubblegum Tate: We need some kind of Doomsday device to create an implosion like that.
Professor Farnsworth: Doomsday device? Aha! Now the ball's in Farnsworth's court. [looks over a selection of several doomsdays devices] I suppose I can part with one and still be feared.

GLAdOS, Portal

MAD SCIENCE: Conducts human proficiency trials for the Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. Indefinitely.
STYLES: She's a robot.
DEMEANOR: Passive agressive, petulant, explosively indignant, and more.
QUOTE: "Good news. I figured out what that thing you just incinerated did. It was a morality core they installed after I flooded the Enrichment Cetner with a deadly neurotoxin, to make me stop flooding the Enrichment Center with a deadly neurotoxin. So get comfortable, while I warm up the neurotoxin."

Professor Jonathan Crane, AKA Scarecrow, Batman

MAD SCIENCE: Fear toxin, fear toxin, and more fear toxin.
STYLES: More of a theoretical scientist than a laboratory scientist, Crane sticks mostly to academic wear. In some comics and cartoons he has big, one might say straw-like, hair. And of course, he also likes to wear this:

DEMEANOR: He's a comic book character, so he get characterization is inconsistent, but self-agrandizing, cruel, and haughty are good places to start.
QUOTE:
(being dragged through Arkham by Batman and Robin)
Crane: I am the master of fear! The Lord of Despair! Coward before me in witless terror!
Harley: Hi Professor Crane!
Crane: (calm) Good evening, child. (back to Batman and Robin) Worship me, fools! Worship me!

Dr. Strangelove, Dr. Strangelove, Or How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love The Bomb

MAD SCIENCE: Calls for nuclear shelters to be created hundreds of miles below the earth's surface, to be populated with government officials and a 10 to 1 ratio of beautiful women to men.
STYLES: Black suit, dark glasses indoors, big hair, leather glove to contain his self-destructive left hand (this is a real thing!)
DEMEANOR: Enthusiastic, on edge, fascistic.
QUOTE:
President Muffley: You mean people could actually stay down there for a hundred years?
Dr. Strangelove: It would not be difficult, Mein Fuhrer! Nuclear reactors could... I'm sorry, "Mr. President"...

Dr. Drakken, Kim Possible

MAD SCIENCE: World-domination devices, that range from basic to absurd, including a product called Lather, Rinse, Obey: Doctor D's Brainwashing Shampoo & Cranium Rinse.
STYLES: Blue lab coat, facial scar, big hair.
DEMEANOR: Egotistical yet insecure.
QUOTE:
Drakken: Oh, just because I do bad things that makes me evil?
Kim: Uh...yeah. You're a villain.
Drakken: Oh, you teenagers think you have it all figured out! Sometimes there are shades of gray!

Dr. Clayton Forrester, Mystery Science Theater 3000

MAD SCIENCE: Used his lab's janitor as a test subject in an experiment to determine how to drive people insane with bad movies. Also creates evil inventions, including a guillotine for chocolate rabbits and pills that are intentionally painful to swallow.
STYLES: Green lab coat, green glasses, big white-streaked big hair and mustache.
DEMEANOR: Cheerfully sadistic, professorial but excitable.
QUOTE: "Your movie today is Pod People. It has nothing to do with pods. It has nothing to do with people. It has everything to do with hurting!"

And finally, one of my favorites. Only featured in one episode of a TV show precious few watched, and voiced by the inimitable Tim Curry....

Dr. Mystico, Freakazoid

MAD SCIENCE: Created a race of superstrong Orangu-men. Who's crazy now, hmm?
STYLES: Blue suit, advanced level facial hair.
DEMEANOR: Suave, paranoid, boisterous.
QUOTE: "You think I've got a clock in my head, don't you?!"

Ah, hell, just go watch the episode and take your own notes. And please let me know in angry detail about which of your favorites I skipped; but keep in mind we're talking EVIL scientists, so Doc Brown doesn't count!

Real Homemade Sentry Gun!

Here's something for you Portal/Team Fortress fans (or fans of any fps set in any time period post 1998 for that matter). Some geeks with an affinity for motion sensors and paintballs built an actual auto-targeting sentry gun! No remote controls or anything (just a cumbersome laptop parked next to it) Prepare to be amazed as some poor kid in a bmx helmet gets wailed on by an automatic paintball gun with nothing to lose!

Via Kotaku, The Sentry Project

Robot Day: Tracing the Lineage of Wall-E's Robot Pals

Geekanerd loves Wall-E! Even me, the resident Pixar cynic. The first third of the movie is a masterpiece, a MASTER. PIECE. Between that and the credit sequence, let's give them the Oscar, why not. I spent most of yesterday evening geeking out about my favorite moments, watching clips on YouTube, pouring over the amazing BuyNLarge viral site, and crying over the mere memory of several scenes.

As a product design nerd, I love that they didn't over-anthropomorphize the "modern" robots, ie all the robots except Wall-E himself. The art designers gave them tons of personality while still making them realistically look they were built for only one service. They're not androids, but true blue mass manufactured robots.

While the Johnny 5/Short Circuit comparisons have already well chewed over, here's our attempt to trace the robo-influences of some of Wall-E's friends...

Until Auto started talking, I thought it actually might be GLaDOS. Still alive indeed, seven hundred years in the future! Red eye against white circle with a black line down the middle...it's all there, people. But as Sarah pointed out, GLaDOS' look is in turn a rif on HAL 9000, and Auto's eye is clearly a DIRECT reference to his iconic red light. Portal only came out a year ago, so there's probably no way Auto could have been influenced by GLaDOS...how about that short before the movie, though, with the magic hat? That was Portal. It just was.

More after the jump....


I wouldn't be at all surprised if the PR-T cosmetic bot was designed with a nod towards the IT-O Interrogator droid from Star Wars. Both are floating orbs with multiple arms, and given that the PR-T droid we meet in the movie is malfunctioning, their functions may not be all that different either.

Eve is harder to pin down, but the resemblance to Apple products in general is pretty clear. I think more than anything she/it reminded me of the Mac Mouse, in it's smooth, seamless white ovaltude. But the face and gun reminded me of something as well; the Robosapein toy robot from Wowee, which me and Albo saw at Digital Life last year.

Anyone else see anything in Wall-E that reminded them of another famous robot?

Details on Portal 2 Surface, World Grinds To A Halt

Ooh boy. Grab some paper towels, Portal fans, cause this link may literally make you drool. Kotaku brings us the casting notice for a primary character in PORTAL 2, that's right, the sequel that Valve has been super tight-lipped about, that they said wouldn't be coming out until 2009. This notice includes a LOT of info about what we can expect from the sequel and one of it's main characters, who is neither GLaDOS nor Chell. It IS, however, someone that will ring a bell for crazyfans, but I won't say any more in case you think you can wait a year without getting spoiled about this sort of thing. You're only fooling YOURSELVES, people! Hit the link for the pic and character description, then come back for some classic Geekanerd analysis...

Fan theories and conjecture after the jump...


The character description indicates pretty strongly that the writers be using a similar format to the original; it sounds like Cave Johnson will guide you through the game much like GLAdOS does, as she could also be said to go from "sidekick to principal antagonist". I'd even go so far as to guess that we never see him (he is described as "dead", after all), and our only visual clue is portraits like these throughout the game. The fact that he's dead might be intended as a surprise, but whatever, I knew the ending of Portal Classic before I played it, and that did little to dampen the impact of how it all unfolded.

As the Kotaku article says, this sounds like a prequel. I think that's an excellent way to go about expanding the franchise, since both in-game dialogue and the aforementioned website give a ton of implied history to build on. It does present a possible problem in giving us new features of the Portal Gun, since presumably the model we've played with would be the best of all possible Portal Guns thus far. Maybe we'll see an experimental prototype with features that were later deemed unreasonably dangerous. And will we see a bustling new vision of Apeture labs, with labcoated people milling around? I kind of hope not, but we'll see.

And in all of this excitement, wither GLaDOS? And Chell, for that matter. Maybe we'll see in the background of Aperture Science at some point, verifying my personal theory that she's was a janitor. But since Cave is the "principal antagonist", we can assume GLaDOS will be regulated to a secondary role, if not less. I don't know if I can handle that kind of disappointment. But I can't believe the writers could resist the chance to give us a look at GLaDOS in her early stages; as the Aperture website states, she was originally created as an AI unit to run fuel-line de-icers. So depending on how far back in the Portal chronology we are, a glimpse at her first Neruo-Toxin massacre may be too much to ask.

This rant can also be found on our Portal Round-Up page, Portal Authority.

Happy Birthday To Us! Geekanerd Is One!

The Gnerd Crew: Albo, Johnny, Bishop, Fred, Sarah B and AHR.*

"But Albo," you say, "Just one year? I feel like Geekanerd has been around forever! I can't imagine a time without such a great source for comic book, movie, and video game news and opinions!" Yeah, we get that all the time. But it's true! One year ago this week, AHR posted our very first article--a "Panel Discussion" of Avengers: The Initiative #2. Panel Discussion became a weekly feature, and this wild n' crazy journey down the rabbit hole of Geekanerdism began. But enough about the first article, what were the BEST articles? And so, in celebration of our first birthday:

GEEKANERD'S TOP TEN MOST POPULAR ARTICLES ALL TIME

(Based on total visitors)

After the jump!

*Not pictured: Degan. He's in LA or something. Nerd.

10. The Dark American Psycho Knight
Our mashup of the newest Dark Knight trailer with scenes from American Psycho probably got some people in trouble at work, but that didn't stop word of mouth from making it a minor internet hit.

9. MoCCA 2007: Hot Webcartoonist Action!
Apparently people are really curious what all those reclusive cartoonists look like in the flesh. I must admit I was mildly surprised to discover what a good looking group they are! Or maybe Special Ops Correspondent Bishop just has eyes for the pretty ones. I suspect we'll be getting a sequel to this one soon, considering MoCCA went down over the weekend... Bishop?

8. An Insane Fan's Guide to the Sweeney Todd Trailer
As soon as the Sweeney Todd trailer reached our internets AHR withdrew into her patented Foaming Geek Analysis Mode to dissect the images and draw an opinion on the adaptation of what she has long considered "the greatest material ever written." She picked it apart as only a true fan could, which is really what Geekanerd is all about.

7. Superhero Fashion at the Metropolitan Museum
Special Ops Correspondent Bishop strikes again, with this awesome sneak preview of the Superhero Fashion exhibit that's still going on at the Met.

6. The Kwik-E-Mart Comes to Times Square
Mere steps from her apartment door, AHR stumbled upon NYC's very own Kwik-E-Mart on the morning it opened, giving Geekanerd readers the first look at this Simpsons Movie publicity stunt. Having the only Kwik-E-Mart photos on the internet for a couple of days got us tons and tons of traffic. Truly our first blockbuster article.

5. Watchmen Movie Photos to Comic Panels Comparison
Many places on the internet referencing such a comparison link Maxim's similar article, but ours was chock full of the kind of intense scrutiny and analysis that only a true fan can deliver. "Geekanerd: When Maxim Just Isn't Geeky Enough."

4. Dark Knight Bootleg: The 7-Minute Scene
This video still gets a lot of visitors clamoring for anything Dark Knight related. It's a recording of a full scene from DK that ran before I Am Lengend on IMAX screens. The video gets taken down every once in a while by Warner Bros., but we've managed to keep getting it back up. I actually haven't even watched it, as I want to be as fresh as possible when I go in this summer. (It's great! - AHR)

3. Venture Bros. Season Three Preview
This is a relatively young article that's climbed to the top three in record time. Another case of being the first on the scene with something that a certain niche is itching for, AHR shot this at a New York Comic Con panel and for some reason was the only person to do so and post it. There was only one place for Venture Bros fans to come for their fix, and we welcomed them with open arms. The recording was so ubiquitous that most sites reporting the official release of the preview weeks later made remarks like "Now you can stop watching that bootleg version."

2. Portal Authority: Everything Good on the Internet About Portal
AHR here for this one. This post is very close to my heart. Writing it allowed me to take the mind-consuming obsession and adoration I experienced after playing Portal and expel it onto the internet, where I could share the crazy with similarly afflicted fans. Analysis born of all-encompassing geek-love is something I always wanted to be at the heart of this site. It's been more than half a year since this post, yet it seems like GLaDOS and I met only yesterday.

1. Early Zelda Drawings Reveal Hyrule That Could Have Been
It might be misleading to call this our most "popular" article ever. It certainly has the most visitors, but my fanboy rant drew a lot of fire from Zelda-ites all over the internet. I thought I loved the franchise, but I've got nothing on the people that came out to say all sorts of bad things about me: "the author's a whiny little bitch," "this guys is an idiot," "a bucket of pure distilled nonsense," "he's talkin rubbish," "this guy is a whiny dick," "what a prick this guy is." I had some well spoken supporters in the massive (for G'nerd) comment section, though, which softened the blows. I suppose I've learned my lesson about inflammatory language.

And to you, dear readers...thanks to the early birds who've been with us for the whole year, and who stuck with us during our colored text phase and the endless reconfigurations of Snap Judg(e)ments. Thanks to the new folks who have joined the party in the last few months, and have pushed our stats into the magical land of Maybe We Should Be Making Money Now. Thanks even to the horny guys and gay girls who just came here once for the Nerdcore Calendar link. We wish we could offer each and every one of you a piece of this unbelievably delicious Food Emporium cake. Stick around for an exciting year two, which Force-willing will include some podcast action and maybe even our own little t-shirt collection.