Forest City Comicon 2016 in London, ON Post-Convention Report

[Haruhifan]

Forest City Comic Con from November 5-6, 2016 in London, ON at http://www.forestcitycomicon.ca/specialguests.php

While this is my first time to this fledging convention it’s a return for The 404s who were a part of the Geek Comedy Fest as noted at http://www.forestcitycomicon.ca/events.php where many local and North American comedy acts get to present their stuff! It’s good when many local talents get a spotlight to entertain the masses. The convention itself has grown over the last 3 years to be a 4000+ attendee event with some great sponsorship and support locally!



The Main Stage room held 300 people seated and the first show on Saturday had about 250 which spread the word of mouth so the Sunday show exploded and packed the entire room full for 300+! Both shows were 45 minutes long jam packed with laughs.

The fans came up to help in games like Moving People to writing Random Lines such as “What a Bagel”, “I am a cheese pizza with a human soul”, “Elmo knows where you live”, “I really have the hots for the Twi-Lek in the audience”, and “One Hell of a butler”.

On the Saturday show there were many scenes, like Deadpool done in a minute than in Halftime, a funky romance in Look/Look Away, and a huge Objection argument that went from DC vs. Marvel to how the new Power Rangers movie is bad to what is a good sequel and ending on Disney movies. Kick It featured some unique rapping, and ended on Survivor.

The Sunday had some Pan Left/Pan Right combined scenes from touring Italy with an aloof tourist to plumbing gone wrong. Fans offered props for the Dating Videos done with swords, books and more. Film Noir escalated with a detective charging for everything from rides to entering his office to help with a case. There was an Improbable Mission that involved a lot of rappelling as well.

Also on the Sunday show, from Uh Oh on YTV the host Wink Yahoo (Canadian actor Scott Yaphe) even got on stage for the second half of the Sunday show too to host a Party with Quirky guests like Cookie Monster, Sailor Moon and a man turning into a cat, to supplying Sound Effects with an audience member for the first day on the job at a zoo with sloths and elephants that ended with the bad way to feed them through their trunks. World’s Worst ended the show with suggestions like Pro Wrestlers from John See You to a stunt Granny to the ever aging Hulk Hogan from his walker falling asleep while his pythons deflated, and for Wink worst Game Show hosts becoming a resurrected Bob Barker.

There was a bunch of things to do too! Project Play was there were I finally got some time to play some Street Fighter 5 where I got in some time to play as Cammy, Rainbow Mika and Ibuki even if I was very rusty in head to head play. I got some Pokémon Omega Ruby gym challenges in with a win over Bugsy and a loss to Aaron with the Pokémon Gym Leaders at http://ctrl-a.org/gymleaders I attended various panels such as one by Ron Rubin (Artemis) and Tracey Moore (Sailor Moon) where they had people read lines from the old Care Bears script when Shrieky (Moore again) debuted while giving fans tips. Paul St. Peter (Kurama of Naruto) also had one assigning roles to fans for a later panel scene. Billy West (Fry and others from Futurama) had a full house for his panel that ranged from hilarious to serious about his past with life back then as a musician to his inspirations like the 3 Stooges and Marx Brothers for comedy. I got to ask about slapstick comedy and visualisation which he handled both nicely for being informative and funny for his example using Professor Farnsworth.

I went to both Super Art Fight shows at http://www.superartfight.com/roster/ and was thoroughly impressed with the American comedy group who had some blazing hands for sketching so quickly suggestions from the WHEEL OF DEATH in a head to head game show format while keeping in pro wrestling characters like the Princess of Darkness and Baron Von Sexyful who looked like a flamboyant Conor McGregor from UFC. The champ Jamie “Angry Zen Master” Noguchi was my favourite simply for his “King of Brush Style” shirt which he did say is homage to Shinsuke Nakamura, while the commentary team was also good at keeping the energy up in Marty and Ross. The other fun new event for me was archery outdoors. I wasn’t pulling back hard enough in fear of snapping something or hurting myself but once I got over that, hitting a Canadian Hockey Zombie was fun!



BOUNTY OF FINDS

*I found Disgaea DS from one of the dealers at Roany’s Video Game Collectibles.

*After buying from EB in London a Zapp Brannigan POP Animation Figure I got it autographed by his voice actor Billy West. I also got 2 of my Sailor Moon TCG cards signed by Tracey Moore (Sailor Moon) and Ron Rubin (Artemis).

*I got on sale 5 packs of the new Pokémon XY Evolution set.

*The Yu-Gi-Oh! Yugi Muto Structure Deck was also on sale from l.a. mood at www.lamoodcomics.com

*For a Commander deck I got various Magic Cards from X-S Cards and Collectables.

*I took a photo in my Dick Gumshoe from Ace Attorney cosplay from Cosplay for a Cure @CosplayaCure on Twitter and http://flickr.com/photos/CosplayforaCure

*The Super Art Fight Art Compilation Book was autographed by the cast at www.superartfight.com

*An “OBJECTION!” Ace Attorney Magnet as well as a Classic Black Canary Comic Page ceramic coaster was made by a local dealer.

*A Saitama of One Punch-Man Magnet was purchased from Hunter Geek

*Got a new Sailor Moon Luna T-Shirt from Chop Shop Goods at https://www.chopshopgoods.com/default.asp

*Artist Jordan Gosselin at www.jordangosselin.com did a nice funny Mako Mankanshoku from Kill La Kill mini-print.

*All of the Starter Pokémon in sticker form was made by Storm Cup Creations at http://stormcupcreations.storeyy.com

*I got another Gym Badge from the Pokémon Gym Leader Squad at http://ctrl-a.org/gymleaders where I beat Bugsy but lost to Aaron to go 1-1 this time.

*I was recommended a Tatsumaki keychain from Cosplay FTW at http://www.cosplay-ftw.com/

*The Welcome Bag from the convention came with a Warframe bandanna and free Comic Book Day Suicide Squad comic book.



As always, I collect all videos of the Eastside 404s shows that can be found on the current ongoing Video Play Set at https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...aTYziAt6quFRQh on my channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/trigunkwan

Check out this regularly updated public photo album of my convention photos (the newest photos are at the end pages of the album) at: http://www.crunchyroll.com/showphotoalbum?id=10061028

The latest events for The 404s can be found as well at the main website at http://the404s.com/ as well as their social media outlets like their YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/user/the404s

Well folks, my post-convention reports look to be done for the year and for a while, barring being able to do any local convention next year which might happen so stay tuned for news on that. I want to thank everyone who has read the convention reports over the years! Keep enjoying the convention scene and I might someday return to it on the long and vast roads as well in the future, so for now it’s see you around!