Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Home For Christmas by John Schneider and Tom Wopat: The Kickstarter Backed Album


As promised, the new Christmas album from John and Tom was delivered to my door yesterday.  Many Kickstarter projects fail to meet their release date, but Bo and Luke got theirs out right on time.


Being a project backer, I received an autographed copy.


Inside has a lot of great information about the creation process and some fun behind the scenes pictures.  I won't spoil it all, you have to get your own copy.


Tom's daughter Lindsey designed the package.  I said before how much I love the front cover art.  It adds just enough Dukes to the album.  The addition of Bo and Luke colored Christmas stockings is so cool.  The back has a Christmas Tree with the track listings on it.  Lindsey did a great job on this.


Some of the rewards I received are this autographed photo of Tom and John in Time Square...

 

And this Christmas ornament.  With the new Hallmark General Lee ornament and this one, my tree will be extra Duked out this year.  You can purchase your own copy of the CD or download on Tom's website.   I'm even more excited for the December New York concert now.  This is going to be such a very Merry Dukes Christmas!

Thursday, October 23, 2014

NYCC: The New York Comic Con 2014


Aside from all the wrestling and Hulk Hogan themed madness that made up NYCC for me, I had a blast being at the show.  New York Comic Con should be on every fan's list.  No matter what you love, you'll enjoy this huge comic con.  The numbers released by the event coordinators say nearly 150,000 people attended the show.  That's more than San Diego, crazy.


Having a press pass got me early access, but I didn't get there early enough to enjoy the floor without the crowds.  I did try to check out the awesome Batman 75th anniversary display...


But for some reason this is all the closer I was allowed to get.  I never did make it back during regular hours.  It was always mobbed with people.  Looked cool though.


Seeing everyone in line from the inside kind of made me think of a zombie scene.  I'm locked up inside the CDC and the monsters are trying to get in!  Maybe I watch too much Walking Dead.


Once the doors opened, the mob arrived.  There were a ton of people there.


I searched high and low, and this was the only Dukes I could find.  Not the biggest Dukes presence, but a pretty good price for this particular car.  Last year Hallmark unveiled the General Lee ornament at this event, but unfortunately nothing Dukes was announced this year.


There were some awesome displays at the show, like this huge Voltron.


Here's the mythical Wonder Bread He-Man, still a debated topic in the MOTU world.


This Mega-blocks Hot Wheels is pretty awesome.  Still want to find a lego Gen'ral.


There were great costumes at the show.  These X-Men did a great job.


There was some sort of Ghostbusters rally going on, I couldn't get close enough to hear what they were saying.  Whatever it was, I support them!


There was a huge area of the floor devoted to selling just Sons of Anarchy merchandise.  And people were eating it up. Gotta love the SAMCRO.


 The line for the Hulkster was beside other lines and they were all so big.


She had a great Bat-Girl costume.  The mask really fit her face nicely.  A lot of times the mask doesn't look right.


Kevin Conroy was right next to Hogan.  He is the voice of Batman in everything from the perfect Batman: The Animated Series from the '90s to the recent, also perfect, Arkham video games.  It was really cool hearing him recite classic Batman lines in person.


Next to him was the green Power Ranger.  I was never a fan of the Power Rangers, but he sure has a following.  He had a lot of fun running around his line and talking pictures and videos with his fans.
People in line to meet him sure had a blast.


I stopped these guys cause I noticed the Steelers Superman shirt.  The guy wearing it was surprised I picked up on it.  He was from the Bronx.  He should know the true Steelers fans would never let such a cool shirt slip by unnoticed.


In a recent comic story line, the Joker's face was cut off.  Gross.  There were several costumes devoted to the face-less Joker, but I think this guy was the best.  Great Job disgusting Joker.


A female Marty McFly...awesome.


Though a couple months late on the fad, this guy had a great idea.  We all know what would happen next if a Gremlin took the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  I bet this guy came up with the idea during the challenge's hayday in the late summer and kept thinking "don't fizzle out until after NYCC!"  Sorry it fizzled buddy, but great job nonetheless.


And the award for the most obscure Spider-Man costume goes to this guy!


Funny sign.


Artist Alley was in another portion of the convention center.  It took me a while to find it.  The crowd knew where it was.  It was as packed as the main floor.


Zombie Mario is a cool twist.  I like the bloody handprints and bloody mushroom.


Our pals at the FUBAR booth were busy every time I came by.  They know how to work a con.


These costumes are familiar DC characters with a Blackest Night story line twist.  Excellent job.


Guardians of the Galaxy was, of course, represented well with costumes.  It's hard to make the two foot tall Rocket Racoon look right, but this costume did a decent job.


Several different Catwomen here.


Great job Nightwing and Wonder Woman, not bad Superman.  Guy Garnder, well, ok.


These guys really nailed the cartoon TMNT look.  Ever vigilante Shredder is always ready to pose, even if he's walking down the steps.


I walked up the steps with this dude thinking he was a real cop.  Then I realized he looked just like Shane from the Walking Dead, and thought what a huge coincidence it was that this real cop looked just like a cop from TV.  Then I figured it out.  This guy did a great Shane.  I wonder when this guy figured out he looks like actor Jon Bernthal.  I saw another guy in a mediocre Star Lord costume, but the guy looked just like Chris Pratt.  I guess if you look like an actor, and that actor plays a role that can be costumed, you have to be that character.  Just like why I am prone to dress like Bo Duke.  My southern good looks.



People love dressing up like Deadpool and forming a giant group. It's comman ground at comic cons.


I think these costumes were officially made by either Hasbro or Rovio to promote the newly released Angry Birds Transformers game.  At least that's the quality shown in the costumes.  I just didn't see the usual assistant handing out info or anything you would expect from an official campaign. Regardless, they were amazing costumes and they got me talking about the new game: mission accomplished.


The Beast is just so happy in this picture.


There were a ton of people around this Bumblebee costume.  It was at the Chevy area, yeah Chevrolet rents space on the comic con floor.  I tried to grab a picture as I walked, but it seems it didn't focus.  It was really impressive.


In one of my San Diego Comic Con 2012 posts, I featured several pictures of Khaleesi costumes from Game of Thrones.  I spelled it wrong as Calisi.  Every so often, while checking my blog stats, I find that people are searching for the misspelled Calisi and find their way to my site.  There were some great costumes then, and this one is pretty great too.  Her dragon really makes the costume.  Now maybe people will find their way to this ol' blog no matter how they spell Danerys Stormborn of the House Targaryen, the First of Her Name, the Unburnt, Queen of Meereen, Queen of the Andals and the Rhoynar and the First Men, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, Breaker of Chains, and Mother of Dragons's name.  



Don't know who this character is, but it sure is cool.


Giant inflatable Teen Titans were outside.


I took the subway back to a friend's apartment each day after the show.  Seeing costumed fans in New York City was awesome, but seeing New Yorkers' reaction to costumed fans was priceless.  This guy had a great simple Batman costume, and the people on the subway loved it.  You heard a lot of "Batmobile broke down?" and stuff like that. I love that this guy stayed in character the whole time.  Thanks subway Batman.


This is a cool promotion for the new season of Community.  It will premiere on Yahoo Screen.  The Franks and Beans family of blogs has some high hopes for Yahoo Screen as it will be the home for the upcoming relaunch of the live action Tick show.  Let's hope Community is a huge success and that leads into great things for the Tick!


The family who loves Gotham together, stays together.


This is a great obscure costume.  It is from one of Jeff's favorites Mystery Science Theater 3000.  I like the direction the guy took with the costume.  Very unique and artistic.


This bat creature was huge and had a a very large wingspan, but by the time I got my camera out he dropped his wings and leaned over.  Just the way it goes sometimes.


Another obligatory huge comic con crowd shot.


Meeting of the light-saber wielding Jedis.


Out in San Diego, one of my greatest discoveries was the Taco Truck parked behind the convention center.  Since then I have been tearing up fish tacos across the country.  So of course the next time I'm at a top tier comic con, I gotta find me some Taco Trucks.  Luckily, I didn't have to search very far as their were several food trucks right outside the main doors.  I went with Korilla BBQ and I'm glad I did.  It is a Korean BBQ truck that offered Kimchi beef tacos.


Kimchi was new to me,  It's a Korean fermented cabbage that was quite tasty.  They loaded me up with some hot sauce and I really enjoyed my lunch.  Another win for comic con taco trucks.


I'm not sure what this costume was supposed to be, but it was sucsussfully creepy.  Maybe it's some kind of slender man thing.


These costumes were good.


If you didn't know, I met Hulk Hogan at the event.  Like you didn't know.  The whole event was huge, overwhelming, and a heck of a lot of fun.  Again, I recommend that anyone who reads this blog make it to NYCC, it's a great time.