FandomFest Recap

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Me with Tim Zahn and my awesome Tosche-Station.net shirt.


So, this happened.

FandomFest Louisville was a blast. My besties and I arrived for events Saturday and had a great time. Tickets were really reasonable–$25 for the day, though if you wanted autographs from some of the guests, they were $30 apiece. Among the geekdom celebrities available for (paid) autographs there were John Rhys-Davies, Sean Astin, James Marsters, Nick Brendon, Peter Davison, Gareth David-Lloyd, and Luke Perry. (These were all the ones I saw.) Other celebrities included cast members from the Walking Dead and Boondock Saints, Colin Ferguson from Eureka, and of course, the headliner, Bruce Campbell. He was only going to be available for two hours Saturday evening, due to conflicts with his shooting schedule for Burn Notice, and tickets went amazingly fast.

Read more about FandomFest after the jump.
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The Higgs Boson All But Confirmed

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In a coup for modern physics, scientists at CERN believe they have found proof of the Higgs Boson. While rumors have been abounding about this possible discovery of late, the Daily Mail just brought out a report last night that CERN is very close to having definitive proof (definitive being the difference between 99.99% sure and 99.99995% sure–semantics for most of us).

The Higgs Boson is probably the best definition for the Force–it very literally is what binds the universe together.

Cosplay Monday: I ain’t afraid of no ghosts!

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Louisville GhostbustersEvery week, we feature some awesome cosplayers on the blog, and when you run into these guys at FandomFest, then there’s really no question about who our next featured costumers are going to be! Complete with some of the most realistic proton packs I’ve ever seen on a Ghostbusters cosplayer, ghost traps and even a plushie Slimer, these guys were great.

Meet the Louisville Ghostbusters! This group of really fun guys had a booth set up at FandomFest, handing out business cards that said “We are ready to believe you!” While the guys no longer have their own website, you can check out this YouTube video of them checking out Waverly Hills Sanitorium. Check out their Facebook page for much better pictures than the one I took with my phone, including this one of the guys posing with Ecto 1 (Click the picture for a better view).

Louisville Ghostbusters with Ecto 1

In the meantime, if you’re heading to GenCon in Indianapolis next month, you can meet the guys, check out their proton packs and ghost traps, and get some tips on how to create your own Ghostbusters costume.

Stay tuned for for my FandomFest recap later today!

Star Wars, ANH, As performed by ALL THE VOICEACTORS!

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At Emerald City Comic Con back in late March, a panel featuring Billy West, Tara Strong, Maurice LaMarche, John DiMaggio, Kevin Conroy, Jess Harnell and Rob Paulsen performed Star Wars: A New Hope in the voices of almost all the characters that they ever played.  It’s pretty awesome, and hilarious.  If you’ve never imagined Luke Skywalker as played by Bender from Futurama, then apparently you haven’t lived.

Some of the language in here gets NSFW, btw. Don’t watch it with your kids.

In their tongue, Boba Fett is Dovahkiin, Dragonborn!

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When I was in college, I lived with one of my best friends for a year. We lived in the on-campus apartments so we had quite a bit more freedom than anybody in the dorms did. I had known that my friend was in the Imperial 501 and that he had several other costumes that he’d either purchased or made. I’d even watched the process of him building his own set of Mjolnir armor from Halo, and then proceed to paint it blue and drill a hole in one foot to make it Caboose from the popular webseries Red vs Blue. He helped me put together a few things of my own as time went by, the only one that I’ve been terribly proud of was my ODST helmet. My brother has the Uruk-Hai orc helmet that he built. What I’m trying to say is that I’m familiar with the process of building a costume out of cardstock, fiberglass, resin and Bondo.

So, I can understand all of what I’m about to show you and, given several months to work

on it, I might be able to emulate this. But probably not. And certainly not like this.

What you’re looking at is one artist’s work on making a piece for charity.  Harrison Krix built this helmet for an auction that will take place at Celebration VI that will benefit Make-a-Wish.  40 artists were contacted to make their own variations on Fett and Clone Trooper helmets for this purpose.  If you’re going to be at Celebration, then you really need to take pictures of these helmets.

This piece was inspired by the game Skyrim and its protagonist, the Dragonborn or Dovahkiin.

For those of you interested in seeing the process of building this piece of art, check out the artist’s site.

Future of Star Wars Books at San Diego Comic Con

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Details of Del Rey’s Future of Star Wars Books panel at San Diego Comic Con were released today. Of note was the one author explicitly said to be in attendance:

3:00-4:00 The Future of Star Wars Publishing: Dark Horse & Del Rey. Find out what’s coming up in the Expanded Universe of Star Wars publishing. Editors Randy Stradley and Dave Marshallfrom Dark Horse Comics discuss what’s next for Agent of the Empire, Dawn of the Jedi, Lost Tribe of the Sith, and Darth Maul, as well as reveal a new secret title that’s on the horizon. From Del Rey Books editors Frank Parisi and Erich Schoeneweiss, along with author Troy Denning (Apocalypse), look at new novels coming later this year from fan-favorite authors Timothy Zahn and Aaron Allston, as well as give a peek into 2013. Also on the panel is Jennifer Heddle, senior editor at LucasBooks. Moderated by author Pablo Hidalgo (Star Wars: The Essential Reader’s Companion). Room 7AB

What exactly does this mean? Well nothing concrete. Could signal that Troy Denning has a new contract and might be the person tasked with continuing the major post-RotJ storyline. It wouldn’t be much of a surprise and makes a certain amount of sense given the history between the two parties. Also keep in mind that Christie Golden was recently confirmed to be in attendance at SDCC.

Multiple people with Del Rey have said that for the foreseeable future, the megaseries will be shelved in favor of shorter formats. Whoever is writing the next series, expect it to be no longer than a trilogy.

Eight New Guests Announced for Celebration VI

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The Celebration VI staff announced eight new attendees today:

Roger Christian – Set Decoration: A New Hope
Jesse Jensen – Saesee Tiin in Attack of the Clones
Zac Jensen – Kit Fisto in Attack of the Clones
Tom Kane – Jedi Master Yoda in The Clone Wars
Katie Purvis – “Maternal Ewok” in Return of the Jedi
Mike Quinn – Nien Nunb in Return of the Jedi
Felix Silla – Ewok stunt performer in Return of the Jedi
Robert Watts – Producer for Star Wars and Indiana Jones

For a complete listing of confirmed guests, head over to the official site.

Tosche Station Radio #22: Big Damn Heroes

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This week on Tosche Station Radio, Brian and Nanci continue the summer X-Wing retrospective with a look back at the Rogue Squadron arc by Michael Stackpole.

On the blog this week, we introduced a new feature we’re calling Cosplay Monday. Each week we’re highlighting some costumers that have gone above and beyond to represent fandom and this week, we’re featuring Sylar and Sheila’s Korra and Tahno costumes. Maggie fired back at a New York Times article taking issue with The Hunger Games and romance in literature. Shane continued the blog’s look back at the X-Wing novels with his retrospective of The Bacta War. Meanwhile, Nanci reviewed Operation Montauk by Bryan Young.

In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci’s been keeping herself busy writing, but still managed to find time to finish reading Operation Montauk and start War of the Seasons by all-around awesome person Janine Spendlove. She also squeezed in time to see Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter. It was everything you’d expect from a movie with that title. Meanwhile, Brian kept himself busy by watching Brave, Pixar’s latest film and one he thoroughly enjoyed. If you follow him on Twitter, you might have caught a barrage of Legend of Korra finale related Tweets. He’s also giddy that Futurama is back on the air and has started reading Mageworlds. You can blame Nanci for that.

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Third ‘Mercy Kill’ Mini-Excerpt Features The Loran Family

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It’s Thursday, which means it’s time for another mini excerpt from Aaron Allston’s upcoming Mercy Kill! For those of you who had Face Loran and Dia Passik in the Wraith Squadron Ship Pool, congratulations.

Face’s approach was so silent that neither noticed until he was almost at the table. Both turned to look at him and, seeing the expression on his face, fell silent.

He turned to Dia. “I promise I will never make you so mad that you borrow an X-wing, take it up, and use it to burn me to a cinder.”

“Smart of you.” She gestured at the third chair. “Whose turn is it to cook?”

“Yours.”

“We’ll order something.”

He sat and turned to his daughter. “And you, young lady . . . Beware of older military officers who chase you when you’re a teenager. They’ll just dump you when you turn thirty.”

She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Dad, I hate it when you bring work home.”

Mercy Kill will hit bookshelves on August 7th.