Con Name: FanimeCon

Location: San Jose Convention Center, San Jose, Ca

Dates: May 24^th-27^th, 2012

Ticket Costs:

Full Weekend: $65
Friday May 24^th: $35
Saturday May 25^th: $40
Sunday May 26^th: $40
Monday May 27^th: $30
Half Weekend (Sunday & Monday): $55
Children (10 & under): Free with paid membership!

Website: www.fanime.com/

History:

FanimeCon, or Fanime, is an annual anime convention put together by the Anime Resource Group (ARG). With humble beginnings of just a few hundred attendees, Fanime started out at California State University Hayward, in Hayward, Ca, back in 1994. Since then, the convention has moved several times to larger venues, finally calling the San Jose McEnery Convention Center its home since 2004. With over 20,000 attendees last year, the convention continues to grow by leaps and bounds each year. Over the past decade they have had major guests such as FLOW, Fred Gallagher, Ric Meyers, Carl Horn, Seiji Mizushima, and countless other anime voice actors, directors, film stars, and musicians. Fanime is the largest anime convention in Northern California, and perhaps one of the most enjoyable anime conventions on the west coast in previous years.

Major Guests:

• Takahiro Omori
• Yumi Sato
• Gilles Poitras

7!!Kaja Foglio

• Tsuyoshi Nonaka
• Darrel Guilbeau
• Steam Powered Giraffe
• ROOKiEZ is PUNK’D
• James Carrot
• Hiroyuki Yamaga

Major Exhibitors:

• Cyberstep
• Electro Flash Media LLC
• Media Blasters
• Shark Robot LLC
• Whimsic Alley
• Yaya Han
• Yes Anime, Inc

Lucasfilm announced yesterday that production has begun on the next Star Wars animated series, titled Star Wars Rebels, and will be set between Episodes III and IV. In the 19 years between the events of these films we know that the Empire continued its meteoric rise, Vader began hunting down the remaining Jedi that had escaped Order 66, and a small group of idealists would give birth to the Rebel Alliance. Given the title of this new series, I think it is safe to say that it will focus on the birth of the Alliance and the fight and struggle of this group of people who could not stand by and watch the galaxy they fought so long and hard for slip under the oppression of Emperor Palpatine’s reign of evil. Granted this is of course speculation as any details about the shows specifics are a well guarded secret.

The creative team on this project will bring some new names to the SW universe, as well as one most are already familiar with. Fresh from his duties as supervising director and show runner of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Dave Filoni will serves as an Executive Producer on this project. His fellow Executive Producers on this project are Writer/Producer Simon Kinberg (Sherlock Holmes, the upcoming Elysium), and Writer/Producer Greg Weisman (Spectacular Spider-Man, Gargoyles, Young Justice). I for one think that Weisman really has the most to contribute to this project, as his biggest hits have also been some of my favorite animated programs.

The President and CCO of Disney Channel Worldwide, Gary Marsh, had this to say, “The entire team at Lucasfilm has provided extraordinary creativity and innovation for over three decades, and we’re thrilled to be bringing the expansive and imaginative world of Star Wars to Disney XD’s viewers.”

“I couldn’t be more excited to explore new corners of the Star Wars universe,” said Lucasfilm’s President, Kathleen Kennedy. “I think Star Wars Rebels will capture the look, feel and fun that both kids and their parents love about Star Wars.”

So aside from the title, what else do we know? We know that the series will air in fall of 2014 on Disney XD, and that many of the animators who had worked on Star Wars: The Clone Wars will be working on Rebels as well. That coupled with the knowledge that earlier this year Disney had completely closed their “classic animation” department, tells us this series will also be CGI. We also know that attendees of Star Wars Celebration Europe this July will get an exclusive first look on the series.

The only question this rabid Star Wars geek has right now is…When the hell are we getting Star Wars: Detours?

The Halo TV series was a fun note, as they brought up the involvement of Steven Spielberg on the project. Sadly, few details were actually given, but as more info comes you can certainly expect us to discuss them here. Otherwise the console’s press conference focused heavily on the many live television and steam video options, as well as blue ray features and other ways to watch things you could probably already enjoy on your television without a brand new console attached to it. The new discussion of Kinect seemed nice, with inclusion of Skype and other features, but it was nothing incredibly beyond what could be done with the motion sensor bar currently. For those who want to know the specs talked about so far, we can expect 8GBs of RAM, a 500GB harddrive, Blu-ray options, cloud heavy service, USB 3.0, blue tooth and smart phone integration, and more details to come closer to E3.

One of the key things that was brought up that stirred annoyance amongst fans, aside from the lack of game coverage, was the restriction on video game disc sharing. The games on the Xbox One will install themselves on to your consoles harddrive and attach their unique information to your Xbox Live account, preventing you from sharing your copy of your game with friends or reselling the title without causing the receiving party to pay a few that might be equal to the original purchasing cost. Fans understandably seem outraged by this, with many believing it is Microsoft’s greatest failure since Windows 8. Once again, there is not enough information on this yet, and with such a strong fan reaction, things could change in the coming months. We’ll just have to wait for E3 for more info on that.

But for those who want to see what the new console, it’s controller, and the new Kinect look like, check below. We have a trailer there that unveils video for the Xbox One, showcasing the console, the new Kinect sensor, and the new Xbox One controller, as well as some of the new options that will be coming with Xbox One, including the personal homescreen, cinematic gaming, Live TV and Skype.

Batman’s Arkham Origins trailer is finally here, as promised back on Thursday. The trailer reminds me of one we got a few years back, featuring Batman fighting off Tyger Guards and Doctor strange. This one, however, has Batman, Deathstroke, Deadshot, and Black Mask all appearing as rather amazingly badass. The game releases October 25th of this year and apparently offers Deathstroke as a playable character if you pre-order now. Even though the developer has switched from Rocksteady to Warner Bros. Games Montreal, and we will no longer have classic voice actors Kevin Conroy as Batman or Mark Hamil as Joker, Origins is looking rather awesome. Replacing Conroy and Hamil is Roger Craig Smith as Batman and Troy Baker as the Joker. Conroy is still reported to be involved with the game as a voice actor, but it is not yet confirmed what character he will be voicing. Expect more news to follow.

The Info Bit

Title: Soulfire #5 (Vol. 4)

Genre/s: Fantasy

Writer: J.T. Krul (Jirni, Teen Titans)

Art: Giuseppe Cafaro (Extinction Seed, Grimm Fairy Tales) & Mike DeBalfo (Grimm Fairy Tales, Tales from Wonderland: The Red Rose)

Colorist: Nei Ruffino (Green Lantern: New Guardians, Birds of Prey)

Letterer: Josh Reed (Shrugged, Jirni)

Publisher: Aspen Comics

Page Count: 23 pages

Price: $3.99

The Review Bit

When we last left off in the long-running series (now on it’s fourth volume), the Samsura, Malakai, and his trusty crew of both magical and technologically-advanced beings had barely escaped death in a fight to reclaim their friend Grace from dark forces that turned her into something other than the beautiful, caring being she once was. Returning back to the Everlands with one member fatally wounded, what used to be Grace soared away to spread Chaos across the world, leaving nothing but tragedy and destruction in her wake.

In this issue, the group of friends (and that jackass Sarin) convenes to figure out a way to free Grace from the Chaos god, Oris, and put the world back together. Conflict flies high and Sarin is evil as usual, Faye doesn’t want technology to “infect” their way of life, and a character from the past shows back up to join the good fight, with no little drama. Some really epic stuff goes down at the end, too, and then one of the most perfect cliffhangers. That may be vague, but I’m certainly not going to spoil anything because I truly think everyone who’s a fan of this series should read it for themselves.

J.T.’s writing manages to capture the desperate, dark tone of this issue, letting the reader really feel the weight of what will happen if Chaos isn’t stopped. While I quite enjoyed the story, I felt that the pacing wasn’t as consistent as it could have been and sped too fast through the battle scene. It’s six pages of close-ups with a lot less action than one would expect from a crew of magical beings trying to defeat some fucked up dark forces. Where it was Krul’s intention to make Malakai such a whiney, pain in the ass for the larger part of this, I can’t really say, but I sure did want to give him a good kick in the shins.

I felt slightly cheated that the series’ regular artist, Mike DeBalfo, only illustrated about one quarter of this issue because I always love his work. Fellow Aspen artist Giuseppe Cafaro stepped in for the first fourteen pages but it felt too soft and dream-like for such an intense setting. The differences in the artwork are too noticeable to pass by. It is also worth noting Lori Hanson and Blond both provided assists to pencils and colors respectfully.

Nei’s work on colors are absolutely phenomenal, per usual. She gives depth and definition to every single image and makes the panels really pop to life. Her color palate only adds to serve the dark feeling that hangs over the heads of the main characters.

The Rating Bit

While there were a small handful of things that irked me, I felt that this was a fairly strong issue to further the story of the long-running Soulfire series, and definitely one that all fans of fantasy should check out next time they’re at their local comic shop. A bit of inconsistency with both artwork and pacing should not deter you from giving this a read, and I don’t think anyone will be too sorely disappointed. I give it a 7 out of 10.

The follow-up to the My Chemical Romance album, Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys comic was first announced at San Diego Comic Con back in 2009 then re-announced late last year from Dark Horse. Earlier this month, Dark Horse gave fans a look at the comic by writers Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance, Umbrella Academy) and Shaun Simon and artist Becky Cloonan (Saga, Conan the Barbarian) via their Free Comic Book Day giveaway. In that giveaway, which you can download and read for free on Dark Horse Digital, fans got an 8-page story called Dead Satellites. Below we have an actual preview from issue #1 of The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, feature 6 interior pages and all 3 covers. The covers are by Gerard Way himself, Becky Cloonan, and Gabriel Ba. Ba worked with Gerard Way on his previous Dark Horse Comics project, Umbrella Academy.

Well if that doesn’t just excite you for the comic, I don’t know what will. But if you can’t wait until next month for the comic to release, we do have a few more Killjoy treats to share. You can read a bit more about the comic in our previous coverage, or check out a bit of a prequel below. When Gerard Way and his band, My Chemical Romance, released their Killjoys themed album back in 2010 they created an entire universe for the story. Set in a post-apocalyptic California in the year 2019, the four Killjoys were “Party Poison” (Gerard Way), “Jet Star” (Ray Toro), “Fun Ghoul” (Frank Iero), and “Kobra Kid” (Mikey Way). The Killjoys were a group of outlaws who fought against an evil corporation known as Better Living Industries (BL/ind or BLI) and its various “Draculoids” and exterminators from their S/C/A/R/E/C/R/O/W Unit. The band produced 2 music videos, directed by Gerard Way, set in the Killjoys’ universe. Even better, the music videos featured popular comic writer, Grant Morrison (All Star Superman, Animal Man), in a rather frilly blouse as he portrayed the exterminator known as Korse. Check out the two videos below for a bit of background on the upcoming comic!

Music Video for “Na Na Na” Directed by Gerard Way

Music Video for “Sing” Directed by P.R. Brown & Gerard Way

The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys #1 hits stores Wednesday, June 12th 2013. Make sure you reserve your copy at your local comic shop, because if it is anything like Umbrella Academy #1, MCR fans will certainly be all over it!

The full trailer for the video game releases on Monday, May 20th. The game itself sees release on PC, PS3, Xbox360, and WiiU October 25th of this year, alongside a spin-off game entitled Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate for Nintendo 3DS and PlayStation Vita. Check back Monday for the full trailer and more.

Marvel Fact Files is Eaglemoss’ new weekly subscription based magazine of sorts, offering fans highly detailed reference material on all the awesome characters, items, and locations found in the Marvel universe. In these files you’ll find information on teams, heroes, villains, technology, and locations found throughout the Marvel universe, as well as background on the company and creators involved with making up the Marvel universe we fans hold so dear. Each issue seems to delve a little into every realm of the Marvel universe, so whether you’re a fan of the Avengers, the X-men, Marvel’s cosmic characters, the Fantastic Four, or even the lesser known heroes and villains of Marvel, you’re sure to enjoy something in every fact file. But the thing we loved about it is just the extreme nostalgia it brings up reading all these facts about Marvel characters and concepts from old comics and even providing details we forgot about or even didn’t know (not that we’d admit to not knowing a comic fact…).

To give you an idea of just what you’ll find in you average issue of Marvel Fact Files, issue #1 is full of great character bios, schematics, and histories, all of which are beautifully illustrated alongside the great written details. In issue #1 you get a very detailed bio and stat run down on Wolverine, including a cross section of his adamantium laced body. Tying in with Wolverine’s bio there is a page devoted to his ex-lover, Silver Fox, a character you simply don’t hear enough about in modern Wolverine lore. For fans who are more recent to Wolverine (as in the last 2 decades), this will be eye opening and amazing information to add to your knowledge of the character. If you’re already familiar with Wolverine, like you are the back of your claw-popping mutant hand, it is a great refresher course and has some nostalgic tinges with great visuals from art dating back to Herb Trimpe’s first drawings of the character. This is followed up by a great fold out cross section of the Baxter Building and all the details about the classic Fantastic Four headquarters. Then? A timeline of the 1960′s Avengers team and all their activities (including what comic issues you’d find these events unfolding). Not only is that informative, but it makes collecting comics great because now you know Hank Pym marries Janet in Avengers #59 & 60, which came out in December of 1968 and January of 1969, respectively, so you can track down those specific comics if you’re a big Antman and Wasp fan. From there you get brief bios of the members that make up the X-men’s first and second classes (and this is the real second class, which is often forgot about, that existed before Wolverine and Colossus’ team). The issue also contains full bios on General Ross (Red Hulk), The Lizard, Elektra, and the Infinity Gauntlet, as well as details about Fantastic Four #1 (the actual comic) and Spider-Man’s many costume variations. It truly is just packed with comic knowledge! The best part? All of this in issue one comes for just 99 pence! While future issues run £2.50 a week, that’s still a steal at less than the price of your average Marvel comic.

Issue #2 of Marvel Fact Files gets even better with details on the Avengers’ Quinjet; indepth bios on Spider-Man, Bucky Barnes, Rogue, Dormammu, The Skrulls, and Gwen Stacy;  the many costumes of Wolverine; the Uncanny X-men roster; an Avengers timeline for their 1970′s stories; and a bio on Stan “The Man” Lee! From there each issue looks to just get better and better as they come filled with more encyclopaedic knowledge and beautiful illustrations from Marvel’s top artists. We strongly recommend this not just to any Marvel zombies out there, but any one with any interest in Marvel comics whatsoever. Whether it is a young kid who watches the cartoons and movies, hoping to one day be Spider-Man, or a long time comic reader with more grey hairs than Steve Rogers should have, you’ll love these Fact Files.

Now like most Eaglemoss Collections, there is a good chance they will make their way State-side eventually, but for now they’re exclusively in the UK and Ireland. But if you happen to live in the UK or Ireland, we highly recommend you subscribe to the Marvel Fact Files, because not only will you get these great magazines, but you’ll get 6 great gifts for free! Subscribers get free digital editions of the Marvel Fact Files (which work great on tablets), a Marvel calendar, a tin-plate replica of Fantastic Four #1, a 1:14 scale Iron Man figurine, a 1:14 scale Spider-Man figurine, and a unique Marvel T-shirt created specially for subscribers to the Marvel Fact Files! And that’s not even mentioning the free Marvel binder and dividers you get to hold all your Fact Files. At just £2.50 a week, we at Speak Geeky To Me could honestly not be more excited about this product. If you have the chance to get your hands on it? We’d recommend holding on to it like Spider-Man sticks to a wall.

Now, to talk about the actual game itself. Galaxy Defenders is a tactical board game based on 80′s and 90′s Sci-Fi worlds. There will be different missions included with the game. There are two of them posted on their website as part of their beta-release. The missions control what aliens, events, and close encounter cards are used in the initial setup. There are also special events that can game or change the cards being used in the different decks.

Agents

There are five agents in the base game. Each of them has a very different play style to them. To give you an idea of these agents, some of them are:

Agent Mercury the Infiltrator: This agent starts with a blade and pistol, along with having one more speed than the average speed of the rest of the agents.

Agent Titanium the Hulk: This agent starts out with a machine gun and bladed brass knuckles for when he gets into close combat. The Hulk also has the most health and is the slowest agent out of all of them.

Agent Thorium the Biotech: The speed and health to this agent is pretty average but this agent gets to use a shotgun and is the only character with a built in way to heal any other agent.

Agent Iridium the Sniper: This agent obviously has a sniper rifle as a starting weapon but also has a scoped pistol for closer targets.

Agent Chromium the Marine: This agent comes equip with rifle and pistol, along with a reaction ability that allows him to take a free shot at aliens as they pass him.

Each agent has different armor and abilities to help them out and as you advance through the missions you have a chance to gather more equipment to make your weapons better. If you are lucky enough to advance through all the levels of being an agent, you get to flip the character sheet and become a platinum agent. I have not had a chance to see all of the agents advance that far, but the progression is a fun aspect to the game.

Aliens

There are six types of aliens, some in multiple colors, with the basic box having 18 alien minis in it. If you get in on the KickStarter there are plenty more that will be added. Each mission will tell you how many of which alien to put into the alien deck and each card will have a miniature matching it. There is a nice variety in the aliens and on each card, there are instructions on how the alien is to be played when they are chosen by the close encounter card on each of the alien’s turns. There are aliens that will try to get into the perfect position to take a couple of shots with their gun, while others are meant to rush an agent and keep it locked in combat. More aliens can be added to the board when mission cards are drawn. Mission cards can effect the weather of the planet to cause agents to move slower, cause some equipment to not work or make dice rolls become a lot more inaccurate than before, along with other effects. Each time a mission card is flipped, there is a chance for signals to show up on the planet. Each signal represents something showing up on the radar but not completely identified. As soon as the signal moves into line of sight of an agent, it will be flipped. If the signal is an alien, a new alien miniature and card will be added to the play area.

Round Order

Refresh – Each turn powers and items will refresh and be usable again

Strategy – Alpha Agent (1st player) is selected, if an alien was killed the last round there are chances for promotions by each agent, after four aliens are killed reinforcements will supply a group with items or weapons to help out during the rest of the mission, and you check if you beat or failed the mission.

Battle – This section of the round cycles between agent and alien. First an agent gets the chance to move, perform an action and engage in combat. There are a few special actions like jumping through a window or unjamming a gun that can take up two part of your turn also. After the agent has taken their turn, the aliens get a chance to interact. This is done by flipping one of the close encounter cards to see which aliens will activate this time. Each alien card tells you how to move the alien or if the alien will just attack twice. There is no way to plan for these activations since it is controlled by a shuffled deck of cards. If you are not careful, the multiple alien activations can be very detrimental to the agents moving around trying to complete the mission.

Combat – Combat is pretty easy to get a hang of. Each weapon will give you its range and the number and color of dice you roll. There are two different sets of dice to be used. Green dice and Blue dice. Green dice seem to be paired with the more power weapons and blue dice are a little weaker along with being the color used during the defend step. Each time a hit mark shows up on the dice, the defender will roll one blue dice to try to absorb damage with their armor. There are special abilities on some of the weapons that will remove dice to the defender or that just let you reroll your misses. After you figure out how much damage goes through, you take that many wounds from the agent or alien. If an agent is brought down to 0 hit points, there is a chance they come back if someone can heal them back up. If the aliens decide they are the bigger threat though and an agent with 0 hp is attacked again, the agent is out of the game.

Event – After everyone has gone and the following alien turn has resolved, an event card is flipped. The effects of the event are completed and then signals are moved and added to the board. Then the round starts over from the top.

Once a couple of rounds have gone off, the game moves along at a decent speed. You become familiar with alien’s mechanics and resolving attacks and defense. If you aren’t careful though, there is a chance that the agents will be swarmed by aliens or the party gets split enough that you cannot take out enough aliens to complete your mission. If you enjoy Sci-Fi games or are looking for a tactical game to play with friends to take out some intelligent life trying to stop you from exploring a new planet, this game definitely fits the bill. Either by adding some extra aliens to your stash or just using the cards included in the box, you should have a decent amount of replayability. Aliens will spawn in different orders and on different teleport pads. Missions can be created pretty easily with the number of boards that come with the game and there are a couple of stretch goals that have added even more to that.

With less than a week left, there are still a few spots left to get the game at a discounted price, but if you are considering getting the game in September (date posted on KickStarter) then I would imagine the extras you get with the KickStarter will be well worth the advance payment.