Monthly Archives: August 2014

Power Rangers Super Megaforce

Power Morphicon 2014 Shout! Factory Live Streaming

Shout! Factory offered live streaming of portions of Power Morphicon yesterday. For those who were unable to attend this Power Rangers centric convention here was a chance to catch a glimpse of the fun they were missing. To catch a few of the Question and Answer sessions, to see backstage chats with some of the talent, and realize just how much they wished they had been able to attend in person — and start making plans to attend next time.

For those who missed the live streaming, check out Shout’s Youtube channel coverage (scan through and look for interesting moments! Around 1:06:33 it starts up):

At San Diego’s Comic-Con International the cast of Super Megaforce was available for interviews, and when John Mayo and I arrived for our turn, microphones in our bag and a few questions in mind, we saw an interview already in progress — with a video camera focused in on these charismatic young actors, and the very questions we had in mind being asked.

It was one of those moments where you stop and think, and realize those actors are going to be just as kind to us, and give us just as great answers… but why put them through the exact same questions a second time, when Francis Sky of First Comics News has just done such a fun job of it, there was already so much energy captured in moving pictures, and we could highlight him, and his site, as well as this great show, and it’s cast? Yeah, you guessed it, we quickly decided the actors time was better spent getting fresh and different questions from other people — and our readers would be very entertained checking out Fracis’ interview: Power Rangers Super Megaforce at Comic-Con 2014.

John Barrowman – Class Act

John Barrowman (known for Dr. Who and currently a series regular on Arrow) turned to social media today to apologize to his fans for oversleeping, missing his flight to Chicago, and as a result missing most of today at Wizard World Chicago. His apologies were heartfelt, genuine, and accompanied updates on the lengths he was going to to correct the situation, to get onto the next flight, to reschedule events people were looking forward to attending, and through it all he took ownership of what had happened. No excuses, simple honesty – he overslept, but he would make it right, somehow.

It may actually be an understatement to call him a class act.

Over 20+ years of attending conventions of various sizes and fandoms I have seen a variety of celebrities and situations. When cellphones were first coming into use one actor called in to a convention every half hour to ask the organizers to give his line a status update on the traffic jam he was caught in and once again apologize for his thinking three hours for what was normally a two hour drive was plenty of time to get to us for his signing.

In contrast, I have shown up at the appointed time for a signing only to be told it was cancelled, the person in question had another commitment come up… when I asked if I should be excited to see them in some upcoming movie or tv show, I was told, “not unless his golf games are being televised.”

Experiences like that later one are few and far between, in fact I can only think of 2 or 3 in all these years of going to at least one convention a year. But they leave an impression… just as John Barrowman’s posting videos of apology, and live-tweeting from his flight to Chicago leaves an incredibly positive impression.

Barrowman has been re-scheduled so he will be doing photo-ops at the Chicago Wizard World Comic-Con at 8:00 Saturday night, his panel will be at 10:30 am Sunday morning, and he says he will be signing all day Sunday, when not at that panel — and the look of seriousness and determination in his eyes in these videos tells me he means business.

Just as he so often looks serious about having fun, and sharing the joy of life in so many of his social media posts, it is clear the next 36 hours are about putting right what did not happen this morning.

If you aren’t already connected to John Barrowman on social media, you might want to at least bookmark his pages… today was the proof in the pudding that John puts the internet to good use, and cares about his fans, and keeping them informed.

John Barrowman on Facebook
John Barrowman on Twitter

The Ruby Dice – Catherine Asaro

When I discovered The Ruby Dice by Catherine Asaro I was positively entranced. It was another book in a series (the Skolian Empire) I had been enjoying, and that was why I picked it up, but more than that, it introduced a dazzling concept I had never encountered before.

A means of communicating and exploring ideas through a dice based game. Elaborate concepts and structures were laid out, described as being somewhere between tremendous dominoes extravaganzas, and those multi-deck card houses my parents would demand I put away before going to bed because a card house simply was not meant to fill the entire carpeted floor of the living room — or so they thought. But these structures were made up of dice, each of which represented concepts, people, ideas, and the game functioned as a part of the plot and intrigue in the story.

By the time I reached the end of the book I almost understood the dice game, and suddenly I wanted to read the book all over again, wondering if with that new found understanding parts of the plot might play differently.

I have never been one to play the games that require 10 and 20 sided dice, and yet I can not help but wonder if The Ruby Dice is a book that would make even more sense, and hold more meaning to someone who is accustomed to seeing meaning in dice where all I see is painted numbers on an object I roll while praying.

Orphan Black – Podcast Coming

We (John Mayo of ComicBookPage, Kay Kellam of PopArtsPlace, the lovely Erica / TV Heartbeat of MikeTheFanBoy and Linda Chan) have recorded an Orphan Black podcast, which will be going up in the not too distant future. For those who have not yet tuned in to Orphan Black — take some time and check out the first two seasons, which are currently available to be viewed in a variety of ways, including free video-on-demand on Time Warner Cable Boxes.

For those attending Fan Expo Canada in Toronto next week, we have tried to figure out a list of Orphan Black filming locations that fans have identified that are within striking distance of the convention center. My original purpose was to give John Mayo and myself something fun to do between the time we arrived and the convention began Thursday, but the more I found and began plotting, the more I thought others might be interested. (And I should mention it was the Lovely Erica who first mentioned to me that we might be able to see some of the Orphan Black filming locations while in Toronto! Great call Erica!)

At this point I have come up with a 6 mile tour of down town that takes you in a giant loop ending at the convention center. Several of the locations are in the general vicinity of the convention center and I am trying to whittle this list down to a much shorter selection that could be a walking tour done Thursday morning before the convention begins.

For those who have not watched the series, there are some spoilers below as I give rough descriptions to identify locations. You may want to stop reading at this point!

The following link should take you to the 6 mile route: https://goo.gl/maps/3Cp3R

The first 6 addresses make up a shorter ( 3.5 mile ) route

Union Station Rail Station — half a mile from the convention center, is where Beth is seen in her attention grabbing appearance in the pilot episode.

35 Mariner Terrace, Toronto, ON M5V 3V9 — Beth’s Condo (approximately half a mile’s walk from the convention center)

17 Iceboat Terrace, Toronto, ON M5V — Paul stands on the Puente de Luz footbridge while talking on the cell phone given to him by Sarah, via the skateboarder

28 Bathurst St, Toronto, ON M5V 2P1 — After the decoy skateboarder girl fools Daniel Rosen and his thugs, Sarah runs to the steel bridge at Front St. W and Bathurst St

1812 Lounge – Thompson Hotel, 550 Wellington St W, Toronto, ON M5V — Sara goes in with hat and sunglasses

483 Queen St W, Toronto, ON M5V 2A9 – Felix’s Loft (Exterior)

59 St George St, Toronto, ON M5S 3H4 — Helena’s second hideout, Knox College (looks like a church)

83 St Joseph St, Toronto, ON M5S — House that was supposed to be in Minneapolis

University of Toronto – Saint Michaels College, 81 St Mary St, Toronto, ON M5S 1J4 – Cosima spends a lot of time at the U of T.

130 Elizabeth St, Toronto, ON M5G 1C3 — Leekie meets Cosima at the Toronto Coach Terminal

19 Toronto St, Toronto, ON M5C 2R1 — The restaurant where Cosima and Delphine have dinner, and are joined by Dr. Leekie, is the Rosewater Supper Club

Metro Toronto Convention Centre North, Front Street West, Toronto, ON — Fan Expo Canada

To create this list of locations I relied on two lists I found online put together by very attentive and resourceful fans at orphanblack.wikia and Torontoist.com I am indebted to them for sharing their findings with other fans, and any mistakes are entirely my own. I am in no way attempting to take credit for their efforts or hard work, I merely attempted to arrange for myself and those I will be attending Fan Expo with a Orphan Black sightseeing tour, and realized others might be interested in seeing the maps and having a chance to do the same if they had the time. I can not thank the fans enough for sharing their discoveries, and helping out tourists like us.

You may want to look at the link to google maps that shows all of the locations, and see if any of them are near the hotel you are staying in, or convenient in some other way, or break up the sight-seeing into more than one jaunt.

Additionally fans of the TV show Flashpoint should be sure to take a moment to go into the Royal York Hotel, and check out both the lobby and mezzanine which were used nicely, and obviously. in the episode Broken Peace, the first episode of Season five. Aside from the filming that has taken place at the Royal York Hotel, the hotel has a fantastic history, and is well worth taking some time to see while in Toronto.

Another site we are hoping to fit into our time in Toronto is Casa Loma. Like the Royal York Hotel, Casa Loma has a rich history, and has been used in the filming of many projects, including as Xavier’s Institute for gifted children in the 2000 X-men movie. (Yes, that would be the Patrick Stewart Xavier.)