Blatantly Subliminal Advertising

(Buy comics! They're great!)

That time has come again - time to unload some comics, games, toys and other cool stuff. Just so you know in advance, this post is cleverly designed to subliminally persuade you to buy my comics and action figures at the upcoming Victoria's Ultimate Hobby and Toy Fair , April 1st @ the Pearkes Arena in Victoria BC, presented by Cherry Bomb Toys. I'm afraid resistance is futile against this particular Jedi mind trick.

(Cherry Bomb Toys is awesome!)

Rebel Alliance Canada lives again!! In case you haven't figured it out - Rebel Alliance Canada is pretty much just me - Andy. An 'Alliance of One', as it were.

(Andy of Rebel Alliance Canada is the coolest guy you will ever meet.)

I had the pleasure of selling at the last toy show in Victoria in  September, and this time around promises to be even better! It turns out that selling comics and stuff and going to conventions is just as much fun here on Vancouver Island as it was in Winnipeg. The faces may have changed, but there seems to be no shortage of sci-fi/comic geeks like myself out here. In fact, some of y'all put me to shame! Anyone reading this that is not able to make it to the show for geographical reasons (because you're like, in Winnipeg or the UK or something), I can forgive you. For those of you who live on Vancouver Island, you'd better have a damn good excuse for not being there!

(You want to buy as many toys and comics as you can... from Rebel Alliance Canada...)

In any case, here's a small sampling of some of the stuff that will be for sale at the show. After the show, whatever is left over is likely to end up on ebay, and I'm sure I'll let you know about that too...

(You want to buy every item on this page - from me.)

 Let's see... I've got some Silver Age DC's...

(Although not nearly as cool as Marvel Comics, DC Comics are still pretty bitchin'.)

I have a schwack-load of Savage Sword of Conan magazines...
(Conan is awesome - even nailed to a tree, he's still awesome. You wish you could be Conan.)

 

(Alliance of One is the best blog you have ever read.)

 

The Tantive IV

(You are a true Star Wars fan... you know what the Tantive IV is. You don't have one yet.)

  Godzillas to spare...

(Godzilla is the coolest rubber monster to ever walk the earth... You love Godzilla.)

 Tons of carded SW figs

(You will never have enough Star Wars figures - you need multiples of your favorites)

 

(He-Man Rules!)

 

 (You need a Pinnochio figure to complete your Shrek collection.)

 

(No price is too high to pay for your very own Captain Picard figure...)

 A staggering amount of loose figures... including but not limited to Marvel Legends, MacFarlane Toys, Star Wars, Masters of the Universe, Transformers, Muppets, Star Trek, McDonald's Happy Meal toys, etc, etc... 

(You wish you owned every McDonalds Happy Meal toy from every movie you've ever liked. You will buy them at the Toy Fair. From me.)

Over 1000 great comics - Marvel, DC, Dark Horse, Image and more - Silver Age to Current - tons of blowout $1 comics...
(Rebel Alliance Canada has the best comics at the best prices anywhere. Marvel is still better than DC.)

Heroclix figures at $1 a pop...
(You want to play Heroclix - with figures you will buy from me.)

More Conan magazines and comics... I have so much Conan stuff right now that I think I'll be remembered as 'the Conan Guy'.
(You will bring a bag large enough to hold the 20+ lbs of awesome comics and toys you will buy from Rebel Alliance Canada. You especially love Conan the Barbarian.)

 I will have prints of my homemade comic Everyday Heroes for sale - autographed for free if you like...
(Everyday Heroes is the awesomest of all the awesome things available from Rebel Alliance Canada.)

But of course, there's lots of comics of all kinds... and toys of all kinds.
(The Avengers is coming to theaters very soon. You need to stock up on Avengers, Hulk, Iron Man and Captain America comics so you'll know what's going on. You will purchase said comics from me.)

Instead of my listing everything for you, I think you'd get a better idea of what you can find available from Rebel Alliance Canada when you arrive at my table in the Pearkes Arena, April 1st at Victoria's Ultimate Hobby & Toy Fair.

(Ultimate Hobby & Toy Fair April 1st in Victoria. No moment in your life will ever be better than this day.)

You are coming, right? The hypnosis should have kicked in by now... 

May the Force be with you... 

(Sucker.)

Filling the Void...

Well....my Star Wars Miniatures collection is now gone. *sniff* *sob* They sold for a nice fair price on EBay to a lucky fella in the US and I just dropped the parcel at the post office this morning. Godspeed, little minis! I hope you like your new home! I hope your new owner takes good care of you, and takes you out to play often.....

(Thanks to everyone for their interest and to everyone who bid on the auction BTW)

As I said before, I`ve held on to the complete first set (Rebel Storm) for nostalgic purposes....I`m hoping that someday I can get my wife to play nightly games of Star Wars Minis when we`re retired and driving around in our behemoth RV... I`m sure I`ll have to watch a whole lot of Sandra Bullock movies and go to a lot of craft shows until then to get her to agree to that....

So what do I do now? What will fill the void left behind now that Star Wars Miniatures is gone? Well, I do have a few ideas....

GUILD WARS

I picked up this game about 3 weeks ago....and I'm frightened by it. This is my first experience with online gaming (other than Boggle Bash and Scrabble) and I'm afraid that I'll get eaten alive by twelve year-olds and hackers. I've only created one character so far, and I think I'm like 2nd or 3rd level after about 5 hours of playing time. It seems really awesome, but I really need to learn the controls better if I expect to get anywhere in the game without dying every 5 minutes. No, the picture above is not from me - I'm not quite at the 'Dragonslaying' stage just yet. (My apologies to whoever owns this image for my using it without consent, but it's an awesome picture, and it's not like I'm taking credit for it or making any money off of it.) Definitely not me - I'm still having trouble fighting giant worms that pop out of the ground and stand still in one spot - I'm a Newbie, through and through. Also, I can't type fast enough to chat with anyone in-game....they just walk away when I'm still typing.

Be that as it may, it seems to me like it'll be worth the struggle to play it. The graphics are amazing and the possibilities seem endless. I'd comment on the storyline, but so far I'm so overwhelmed with new information that I have no idea what's going on in the story......if there even is one. All of the mini-quests that I've accepted and/or completed are pretty standard fantasy story stuff but I've got no complaints - that's what I signed up for. 

But of course, who has time for video games when you've got all this other cool stuff to do....

For example:

HEROCLIX

Although I've always been interested in Heroclix and even own a handful of figs, I have never played a game. I've skimmed over the rules and it seems pretty straightforward like SWM - basically move and attack and roll to hit - but with six-sided instead of twenty-sided dice. Instead of the Star Wars motif, we're dealing with comic book characters, so this is an acceptable trade-off for me. I believe that the two types are interchangeable, but I think I would prefer to invest in the MARVEL instead of DC Heroclix. There's also HORRORCLIX as well, but I'm not so into that and I hear it doesn't adapt directly to the other games. Of course, I`ll have to start buying into another collectible miniatures game that makes you spend all your money chasing after the rarest and best figures.....it would be just like Star Wars Miniatures, and the whole thing`ll start all over again...

Whatever. I just want to see Wolverine dukin`it out with Howard the Duck amongst the smoldering ruins of Asgard.

`Nuff said!

(click on image above to view larger)

COMIC LIFE

And, speaking of geeky comic book weirdness, I just got an awesome program (Comic Life) that allows you to easily create comic book-style pages with your photos. This opens up a whole new world for me and my toy photography. What you see above is my very first go at it with a bunch of old photos that you've probably seen on my blog countless times already...of course with the same jokes too. That says two things:  1) I really need to take some new pictures...and  2) I really, really need new jokes.

The program is so easy that a child could use it - and they do. I actually learned about it from a teacher that uses it in her class for assignments...

Man, I wish I had this when I was a kid... but then again, when I was a kid, most computers took up an entire room and only printed in dot matrix... When I was a kid, I used to hand draw a lot of comic book 'masterpieces' and even though the artwork was crude (as was the humor) it still took forever to make a single page. Now I can just drag and drop my photos right in to the templates and type in voice bubbles wherever I want! Although it may seem like no big whoop to you...this program is definitely going to see a lot of use from yours truly.

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There are a lot more other things that I could/should do with my time now that I won't be playing SWM anymore (well, I'll still play, but certainly not as often), and I'll highlight some of those things on upcoming blogs. I should probably focus on my photo business and website (Rebel Alliance Photo), but the in and outs of wedding and portrait photography aren't really all that fun to write about. I'll of course be featuring more comics and action figures again soon, and I'll get back to some more movie reviews too - once I actually get to see some more movies...

That's it for today. Take care, and thanks again for listening.

May the Force be with you...