Over the weekend, Stan Lee’s Comikaze in Los Angeles happened, two days stuffed with all sorts of comics-related events and more. Having just started last year, Comikaze has grown huge in a short time, now that Stan Lee and Cassandra Peterson, Elvira herself, are at the forefront. From what I’ve heard of folks who went last year, the size of everything certainly has gone up. This overview will be in three parts; a showing of the main floor, an interview with the wonderful voice actor Cree Summer, and a return of the DC Steampunk group.
Comikaze may only be two days long, but it is a wild time stuffed with plenty to do. I found myself having to make some tough decisions on what to do at any given moment, there was always something cool going on. You could see all sorts of amazing events and panels at any given time that I’d need to be in at least three places at once, regularly, to see everything I wanted to.
The floor was big and on one end were celebrities ready to sign things, and on the entire other end of the floor, Quidditch was being played all the time by anyone who wanted to join. The main stage in the back was always having something going on every hour on the hour. You could see Stan Lee promoting something, Cassandra Peterson interviewing someone, superheroes both in and out of costume (Batgirl: Spoiled had a stunt show and there was Adam West, Burt Ward, and Julie Newmar). I wasn’t able to see many of these due to just having so much stuff going on.
The place was packed with artists and shops with all kinds of good stuff. Art pieces of wonder were available. I’m pretty sure just about any itch could be scratched. Want some X-Men that reminded you of Ziggy Stardust? Done. Prince riding a unicorn? They have it. Animatronic creatures? Absolutely. Monster heads on display like a hunter may have a deer’s? Right over there. Or my favorite, Prince Jareth, the Goblin King of Labyrinth, riding a unicorn in the style of “Napoleon at the St. Bernard Pass”? They had it and I bought it from Mia Renee Johnson of Unicornatopia. Tons of things to choose from all over the showroom floor.
There were also plenty of things beyond art pieces. If you were looking for a new outfit, it could be managed. Shirts of superheroes, slogans, and styles were all available. I was looking for a nice Batman dress shirt, but found a belt I wanted more, also Batman from Superhero Stuff (the man working there was nice enough to help me find the perfect belt for me). You could get clothes from any of the four Hogwarts houses by Whimsic Alley (they were also in charge of the Quidditch games). Plenty of Steampunk attire could be found; you could probably walk in dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, and with the right amount of cash come out looking like some sort of robot gentleman or lady ready to go to a party or fight off a mob of monsters. I bought a Scientist shirt and a mini-punching fist weapon from the League of S.T.E.A.M. You gotta be careful with those mini-punching fists, it can lead to a child nearly punching a baby.
Well, that’s it for the floor, they had plenty of cool things going on; I need to find what booth was selling Ex-Men artwork, it had pretty fun designs. If you know leave it in the comments. Next time I’ll have my interview with Cree Summer!
Alexander Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
It wasn’t that great and plus I was harassed by the staff of Norman Reedus for having my phone out in line. I’m still waiting on Comikaze Expo to refund my tickets.