Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
::Today's soundtrack: Blur "Girls & Boys" ::
WARNING! This posting contains photos, so thar be load lag! Also there is some weird personal life stuff which is boring. Maybe. You decide.
Hey, folks I'm back after taking last week off! Where did I go, you ask? Sure you did. I heard you. With mind powers. Well, I spent the last week at Wizard World Philadelphia! Yeah, I know, it's like a twelve hour drive for me to get there, so why do I even bother?
Oh yeah. That's why. Great googly moogly there were some lovely ladies in costume this year! Yes, nothing says "slap on a costume and go mingle with your fellow geeks" quite like a comic book convention. I have to say, what with the amazing success of last year, I too donned a costume and did some mingling and Caramell Dansen:
Yeah, that's me. You get three guesses as to which one I am and the first two don't count. As you can see, I returned as V from the comic book and movie, V for Vendetta. It's all in good fun, you nay sayers. Seriously, it's really neat to have fans of your character tell you how much you rock and take photos with you:
Unlike last year however, I decided to try my luck at entering the official costume contest! Not to be mean or anything, but amateur costume contests are always a mixed bag of participants. First off, you get those jerks who buy a costume, open the plastic wrapper and put it on. It's always really obvious and I think it's pretty tacky. Then you get those people who at least try, but don't really put as much effort in as they ought to if they really think they have a chance at winning. Once you weed those folks out, the competition actually looked pretty stiff:
See, you honestly can't go into a shop and BUY a Chamber (character from Generation X, top of above 3) costume. That would be impossible. I talked to the guy and all that flamey energy stuff is made out of hot glue. Ah, American ingenuity. Those three Legend of Zelda people really looked terrific, I thought. Then you get people like Dr. Strange up there. People who simple LOOK the part, which I think is great. Like these fellows:
That girl simply LOOKS like Miriam Ravenwood. Too cool. So, after Galactus set us up:
The contest began! What they did was they had us all go on stage in groups of about seven or so. An announcer would go down the line (a girl who spoke all too quietly and wasn't quite geeky enough, in my opinion, as she didn't know who some quite obvious and famous characters were) and let the audience know what character we were supposed to be. Then one by one we'd each step forward and strike a pose or twirl around or whatever for audience applause. The one with the most applause in the round would be a semi-finalist. It was pretty much the luck of the draw as to who else was on stage with you for how well you'd do. I was pretty nervous because I didn't get any of the cheap Poison Ivy outfits or one of the three Heath Ledger Jokers up there with me. No, I got a quality Lobster Johnson, Dr. Strange, and a kick-ass Darth Maul type Sith warrior. But you know what? I beat them all with the power of my awesomeness and was totally a semi-finalist, bitches.
Anyhoo, there were about seven or eight rounds, so that's how many semi finalists there were as well. Then the semi finalists got culled down to four finalists. Yeeeeeaaah, I wasn't one of them. Ah well. But ladieeeeeeees and gentlemen! Here, are your Wizard World Philly 2008 finalists (images of the contestants on the right, and image of their character on the left for comparison)!
Once again, winners were determined by audience applause and Master Chief won the grand prize. I know. I think Wheeljack got cheated, too. Those things of the side of the face even light up, just like on the cartoon! Interesting tidbit: there's a petite woman inside all that blocky get-up. Also, no one could figure out how the hell Black Manta could freaking see in that thing.
I may not have taken home the prize, but I'm pretty proud to have made it to semi finals. That was darn sweet. Here's a link to the official Wizard World Philly cosplay photos page: LINKY. You should look because I'm in there. No other reason whatsoever. I mean, other than they took better pictures than I did.
And just when I thought I had reached the high point of my day, on the way back to the hotel I see this:
That's right. Indiana Jones and Lara Croft are lost and looking at the map. Only a comic con could bring one such hilarity.
William the Bloody (hiding behind a mask)
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