Went to the Atlanta Comic Con this weekend, and of course I spent entirely too much money. I bought quite a few Trade Paperbacks, a couple of CD’s (Monkey v. Robot by James Kochalka Superstar and Alan Moore’s Snakes and Ladders). I also picked up a few bootleg movies while I was there. Going in one of the things I was looking for was a copy of Versus on DVD, and I was dismayed to see that there were only two bootleg movie dealers there at the con. Neither had the film on the first day, but I did find it before I left on the Sunday.

I suppose it’s a good thing that the bootleggers are being driven out of the con, but by goodness all I wanted were some copies of foreign films that aren’t going to be available here soon if ever. I also bought three busts (Ekimus and Scarlet X from Crimson and the 70s version of Captain Marvel) on which I spent a grand total of $30. I also picked up Fans and Freaks an independent film about conventions made by a husband and wife pair from Nashville. I bought it mostly because it has footage from a Dragon*Con that I attended a few years ago where members of GWAR wrestled, along with former WCW “star” Glacier and Jerry Only of the Misfits.

The con was pretty sparsely attended, and the layout this year was quite a bit different than the previous two years, with creators spaced around the room and in the middle and venders throughout. I took my digital camera with me, but I wasn’t moved to take any pictures worth mentioning. This con had a distinct lack of memorable freaks. That is one thing that pop-culture cons like Dragon*Con have over straight comic conventions. After Jim Mafood cancelled his appearance I lost alot of my enthusiasm, and I only got a few new sketches (Bart Sears, Tim Flanagan and Phil Hester did Dr. Strange, Terry Moore did a Kixie the Pixie and Jacen Burrows did Detective Cain from Scars). I didn’t even take my sketchbook in on the second day because I just didn’t see anyone else I wanted a sketch by. (or at least any that I could afford to pay for or wanted to wait on).

Tommy and I both overheard dealers talking about the lack of sales this year, which even my great expenditures didn’t help.

I don’t know if I’ll want to go to ACC again next year unless they get some new guests. I was really looking forward to Mafood, and if he came next year, or Guy Davis, I would definitely be there.

Versus brief movie review

Chad suggested versus to me, and I can see why he liked it so much. Plenty of the hyper-violence, from Samurai’s hacking up Zombies in feudal Japan plenty of carnage in the present day.

I didn’t actually catch any character names in the film, but it’s the story of a samurai re-incarnated into an super cool escaped felon who is destined to fight an enemy from his previous life in the “forest of resurrection” which is one of 666 portals to the “other side” and is located in Japan. Much kung-fu and Wu-fu action ensues and you can guess about what happens. Pretty good if you like this sort of thing.

Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets brief movie review

I didn’t pick this one up at the con (Though for some reason there were bootlegs of it available there. I don’t understand why they would think someone would pay $15 for a less than perfect copy of the film when you can go to Wal*Mart and pay $19 for the real thing with extras.), but right before I left for it, but I watched it Sunday night.

This one is better than the first film, but it still just isn’t quite there for me. I enjoyed it, but little things bug me about it. The dialogue in the film needs to be punched up. The interplay between the actors is well done, but often the dialogue slides into Chris Claremont like exposition. When Harry and the others are confronted with the mysterious message written in blood on the wall instead of having Hermione say “It’s written in blood,” a better line would have been “Is that blood?” Granted this is a bit bitchy on my part, but it was one of the things that stuck with me about the film. I am just glad that they didn’t feel the need to explain the rules of Quidditch to us again.

I agree with Harry at Aint-it-Cool that the final sequence was unnecessary. The entire school applauding for Hagrid seemed a bit forced. Why would all of them be applauding? I get the impression from the books that Hagrid is not the close friend of all of the students, rather most of them don’t really know who he is beyond being the impossibly tall groundskeeper.

But all of these are minor complaints, as on the whole, I enjoyed this film quite a bit. I look forward to seeing someone other than Chris Columbus’s take on the books in the next one though. The next film should take an even darker turn and introduce my personal favorite