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I got a glimpse of the off-beat muscle-bound Sharky and his friends in the graphic novel anthology Monster Massacre Vol. 1, and now we get a full Sharky graphic novel from writer Dave Elliot and artist Alex Horley. Why does Tank Girl have to get all the crazy fun? Sharky gets in on the action too. If you’re looking for Shazam!, well this isn’t it bitches! This is Sharky!
The “Eddie” and Ramon have made it to the end of the line – sort of like coming to the end of the yellow brick road in the Wizard of Oz, but here at Big Wow! Comicfest, we’ve come to the end to meet Stan Lee!
We also get to talk to a couple more cosplayers, three girls promoting Castle Corsetry and a local comic artist, and we interview Ivy Doomkitty to find out about her role at Big Wow! Comicfest.
Sanrio surely has licensed Hello Kitty on everything and anything, now a limited edition batch of Hello Kitty beer. This fruity alcoholic concoction has 6 tropical flavors like Lemon Lime, Peach and Banana. The beer is produced by Taiwanese beer maker Long Quan.
“The Eddie” was able to get a brief interview with Japan’s famous adult manga (comic) artist or Hentai (perverted) comic artists, Toshida Maeda. Click on his name to view his website.
He’s very well known and we feel pretty lucky have interviewed him. His comics may be for adult eyes only, but he definitely has solid good advice for anyone – including young artists wanting to get into comics and make it as a career.
Are you tired of the regular ho-hum superhero comics? How about something with big muscles, big guns, sexy babes, scary monsters and dark humor? Titan Comics’ Monster Massacre Vol 1. is a anthology collection of sci-fi/fantasy stories from the top writers and comic book artists in the industry.
I’ve been a big fan of artist/writer Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Avatar: The Last Airbender) and have many of his graphic novels on my book shelf. He just released his epic 2 volume series Boxers & Saints.
The Ramen Crew caught up with Darrel Guilbeau at FanimeCon for a one on one interview on voice acting for Anime. 
He has been a voice actor for several anime series such as Durarara!, Nura, and even video games, and continues to take on new projects. The Ramen crew completely sees Darrel doing just about anything – not just anime, but television comedy to film. He’s completely down to earth and has a kid-around personality.
Recorded May 25th 2013 at FanimeCon.
Host, The “Eddie” Ballar with Co-host, Reyson Sioson.
Produced by Johnny Moreno.
There’s a tuner shop named TMG in Germany that’s been known to tune Toyotas for track racing, now they show-off a street-legal concept, the TMG Lexus LS460 TS-650. It’s a mouthful to say, but the large sedan is street-legal and track ready. XCar Films takes a ride in this one-off racing family sedan.
Harry Potter fans may have all the books already in their collection, but this new release has all new cover art by critically acclaimed artist Kazu Kibuishi. The Special Edition Harry Potter Paperback Box Set (#1-#7) features box art and new book cover art by Kazu himself.
The Capcom horror-gothic hack & slash video game “Devil May Cry” first appeared on the PlayStation 2 and has now spawned many video game sequels and other multimedia tie-ins. This collected hardbound comic-book from Titan Comics – DmC: The Chronicles of Vergil is a prequel story of events leading up to the first Devil May Cry video game.
From the wacky mind of Roman Dirge comes the popular and kawaii (cute) living-dead girl Lenore. This hardbound Volume 5 book collects issues #4 to #7 in full color with bonus art gallery.
Image via Gundam.Info – Gundam Docks at Hong Kong
This past summer 2013 Bandai H.K. and Times Square presented Gundam Docks at Hong Kong Exhibition. This is one of biggest Gundam showcases outside of Japan. The Gundam Exhibtion runs through September 1st, 2013. So, if you’re on the Hong Kong island side, stop by Times Square to see the large diorama. Take the MTR and stop at Causeway Bay station!
According to my friend in South Korea, this is the latest and hottest girl group on the Kpop charts – Crayon Pop with “Bar Bar Bar”! The song went viral and straight to Number 1 on the Kpop Billboard charts. The 5 members are: Baek Bo-Ram, Kim Min-Young, Heo Min-Jin, Heo Min-Seon, Park Hye-Kyeong and Sekine Arisa.
I had the pleasure of watching Elysium on the big IMAX screen this past weekend and it was a blast to watch. Director-writer Neill Blomkamp created his first intellectual sci-fi hit with District 9 on the cheap and now with a Hollywood budget, he’s able to create visual science-fiction tour de force.
“The idea of Elysium was born out of growing up in a country where wealth discrepancy is a huge issue,” says Blomkamp – Elysium: The Art of the Film.
The year is 2159 and the Earth is overpopulated with scarce resources, rampant crime and poverty. The wealthy class escaped to space and built a heavenly space colony called Elysium. Our anti-hero Max played by Matt Damon clinging to life takes on mission to not only save himself but for the people of Earth. But before I get to the down and gritty of this art book I had some minor complaints: 1) Is it just me or Jodie Foster accent really annoying? 2) When the rebel ships try to land into Elysium, bad guy Kruger uses a shoulder-mounted missile launcher with missiles that are able to go all the way up to space and knock-down the rebel ships? 3) And this leads to my next rant, if this space colony has magic healing machines that can cure cancer and is a technical marvel, Elysium doesn’t have self-defensive weapons like in Star Trek’s Deep Space Nine or Babylon 5 – what is up with that? 4) My last rant – I wished we could see more of the people living in the futuristic space colony. But other than that, it was a wonderful summer movie.
Anybody can put a wing, aero-kit and turbos, but it’s also about passion and the love of just driving the car as a every day driver. Import Meet Street Car Competition (IMSCC) has put out some cool profiles of JDM builders and their cars for 2013. The IMSCC contest will take place in Seattle, WA running August 9-11, 2013.
It’s Friday and I want to go somewhere! Musician David Hansoo Lee (LEEHAHN) was inspired by his two-week Japan trip, that he made a music track and video montage about his journey.
The Ramen crew felt a bit like a paparazzi, though we haven’t exactly dodged crowds, leaped over people, or body-checked anyone aside at any convention yet! The only thing we managed to dodge are off topic questions, loud hand-clapping and voices that over powered us from hearing our subject, Alodia Gosiengfiao FHM.
In this segment we get plenty of new surfacing information about our Mistress of Cosplay.
So here’s Panel Interview CUTS 2 – raw and lightly cut – which means I did very little editing. So it’s
STRICKLY FOR THE FANS to hear first hand answers from Alodia herself :
– Her Cosplay beginnings
– What she likes about being a Cosplayer
– Her stumbled upon opportunities
– Video Game influences like Final Fantasy
– Cosplay pointers
– Her first reaction as Guest of Honor at AX 2013
– The Fan that came all the way from Germany to see her
– Costume making
– Her make up – her eyes & contact lens of choice and why?
PREVIOUS MAGAZINE STORIES FROM ANIME EXPO 2013:
Alodia Panel Interview CUTS: Finally we get some answers!
ANIME EXPO 2013: Sleeping Cosplay? Batman & Spiderman duo? Mortal Come back?
AX 2013: Adventure Time & X-Men Cosplayers Collide
AX 2013: Captain Falcon & Crew!
ANIME EXPO 2013 : In line to see Alodia and we meet Kirito & Asuna Cosplayers
ANIME EXPO 2013 Masquerade: Thomas Depetrillo’s EVA-01
Jessica Nigri : Part 1 of 3
Jessica Nigri : Part 2 of 3
Jessica Nigri : Part 3 of 3
ANIME EXPO 2013 Masquerade : Ornament Tree Wings
Hey Hey Alodia from ANIME EXPO!
Each story is not just an interview, but one of the many interesting and entertaining things that happen at Anime Conventions. They’re short, sweet and you might find yourself liking our content!
There’s been an interior Design, Art and Fashion for the home and crafts going on this weekend. “Think about the moment we live in and all the images from post, modern to impressionism – like the styles and periods of great paintings influencing and changing to what we call modern today.” 
Just as images change for the age of art, so does home interior and craft designs. If you happen to be in SF and if you’re interested in getting to feel how contemporary décor may serve you or if you’d just like to see some interesting styles, designs and crafts – there’s an event taking place this weekend that will showcase these innovative interior home designs first hand at the American Craft Council Show – a showcase of 230 of the best contemporary home décor, furniture, jewelry, and clothing artists from across the country.
It’s one of the largest craft shows in the world!
Sunday, August 4: 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. For more details click here: http://shows.craftcouncil.org/sf
Tile art from Justine Tartarsky & Clive Bridges. Take a look at their website site www.artontile.com . This is just one of the many interesting designs and things you’ll get to see.
Jpop Summit 2013 was held in San Francisco’s Japantown and Union Square districts simultaneously on July 27-28, 2013. The Ramen crew was there to check out this thriving event. We also see Eddie hyped up for Jpop superstar singer Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Ramon tasting some drinks and having a frightening fun interview with “The Killer Wolf.”
What’s going on here? Well, it’s early in the evening and some cosplayers are snoozing while others are trying to keep up with photographers. We lead in with cosplay model, Vampy Bit Me, who happens to be from the San Francisco Bay Area.
In this segment the Ramen Crew really caught some random images, a cosplay snoozing, and of course the other 99 percent getting their photo’s taken every which way and loving it. Interestingly enough, we caught a Batman and Spiderman dynamic duo cosplaying on the ground floor. Ryan Turney tells us how he used dye sublimated lycra to create his outfit and Danny Lopez shows off his Batman cowl mask which is made by professional prop maker, Shawn Reeves. Then we get a flash back taste of Mortal Kombat!
We pretty much interviewed the obvious of course… other than eat breakfast then cosplay, eat lunch then cosplay and then catch dinner and hit the cosplay night life, but for those who come from afar or from next door to the Anime Expo convention center and perhaps maybe stayed up a wee bit too late the night before excitingly undecided in what cosplay will do …Well, we got one person to explain that!
Alodia Gosiengfiao’s image blew up with her sleek and sexy cosplay of the Cobra Baroness at 2010’s Comic-Con in San Diego and was recently featured as FHM magazine’s Cover Girl for the July 2013 issue, but she has been cosplaying for years in her home country, the Philippines, where she’s literally the Queen of Cosplay!
The Ramen crew was really hoping to get a one-on-one interview with Alodia, especially our host, The Eddie, but under the hierarchy of certain press privileges some things just didn’t work out. So instead The Eddie and Ame Garrucho caught up with a panel interview and made the best of what they could get!
During this interactive panel discussion, find out how Alodia got her start in cosplay and why? She even mentions wanting to work with Jessica Nigri! Which makes sense, because both of these girls are at the top of their Cosplay fame and continue to be creative and entertaining in their world of ubiquitous cosplay.
GETTING THE PANEL INTERVIEW: This interview panel CUT was shot on the fly with a Canon t3i DSLR and a Sony Bloggie respectively by our on the spot camera persons, Ame Garrucho and our Host- now in our credits as camera person, Eddie Ballar. Look forward for a STRICKLY FOR FANS Panel CUT of Alodia with our camera operator Johnny Moreno. I guess the Ramen Crew and The Eddie just couldn’t get enough of Alodia and would like to share whatever we could get for the FANS.
WEIRD TECH NOTE: The Sony Bloggie is far from being sharp compared to the to the Canon t3i DSLR, but The Eddie did give us the effect of being inside his mind like the movie “Being John Malkovich”. Obviously from asking question directly from behind the camera, and it doesn’t help that he’s closer to the bloggie mic than Alodia, who is like 20 feet away… “still entertaining and informational though.”
This past weekend, the aftermarket auto and lifestyle event Wekfest rolled into San Jose, CA. Wekfest celebrates 5 years here in the Bay, which started in the Japantown Garage in San Francisco. The Ramen crew hits up Wekfest for the tuned cars and hot import models.
Before there was a Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes, there was Edgar Allan Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin the sleuth from Paris, France. The short story “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” appeared in Graham’s Magazine in 1841 and kicked off an influential fictional character in which he uses his brains and wit instead of guns and physical combat to solve mysteries.
Editors Paul Kane & Charles Prepolec have brought together an amazing group of award-winning authors to the table featuring new adventures of Auguste Dupin by Clive Barker, Mike Carey, Simon Clark, Joe R. Lansdale, Jonathan Maberry, Elizabeth Massie, Weston Ochse & Yvonne Navarro, Lisa Tuttle and Stephen Volk.
As I’ve heard, “Third time’s the charm!” I also believe that being persistent is always key. So finally, our Host, “The Eddie” interviews Jessica Nigri!
The Ramen crew had their doubts, but we persevered and got to find out that Jessica is just an all around fun and down to earth person. She’s just a busy-body when it comes to working at conventions, especially when Anime Expo 2013 hit an all time high attendance rate this year!
Batman may drive a technological advance Batmobile, but what about his Justice League teammates?
Edward Ballar
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