We pick interesting products and trends for you!
Our Ramen team kicked it all day at the Kidrobot SF store in Haight-Ashbury as Kidrobot released their new 2013 Dunny series. The day was long and the lines were super long as Dunny fans eagerly await to buy blind boxes and cases hoping to chase their favorite artist created Dunny and the “black” limited Andrew Bell Dunny.
Bordin (Mark) Marsinkul, also known as Hyperbooster, astonishingly produces up to 50 commission drawings in a day at a comic or anime convention.
His hybrid technique of calligraphy and Japanese style manga brush strokes creates his uniquely textured drawings with anything he can get his hands on from paint, pencil to marker! He works intensely fast and he’s amazing if you get a chance to watch him. His drawings begin with abstract scribbles, marks and accents, but then it begins to reveal itself before your eyes with every scribble, mark and accent of intention. The image becomes animated, three dimensional and before you know it – it magically appears! Watch the video and you’ll experience what I’m talking about as he quickly draws a fantastic image of the Green Lantern!
For more information about Bordin (Mark) Marsinkul and where to catch him at his next convention visit www.facebook.com/hyperbooster
As the Ramen crew weaved their way through Big Wow’s ComicFest, we found something that FLASH fan, Sheldon Cooper, from the popular television hit series The Big Bang Theory would wonderfully appreciate. And that’s having your collected comic books bounded into a single volume for that utmost presentation. I would also like to mention that the longevity of a professionally bound hardcover will also help preserve and protect your favorite comics for future readings and sharing. However, if you can’t bare the fact of having your comics punctured and sewn together, they also have other wonderful alternatives!
For information about Herring and Robinson Bookbinders, and how to get your comics bound, go to their website:
The Ramen crew may have not been the first to stumble upon the fascinating eight year old Spidey-artist, but we still stumbled!
This kid was amazing and we felt this is one of the things that Big Wow Comicfest’s opens up to, and that’s passion and talent from everywhere under the umbrella of comics. On the floor at Big Wow Comicfest, you can’t help but feel inspired by all the people that are there introducing new stories, new artists, new genres, new characters, and it becomes an absolute gift when you run into someone as young as Ethan Castillo drawing Spider-man or Marvel Comic characters because he loves to! You actually start to feel the kid in yourself while watching him draw! “It’s just fun!” – He says.
We also recognized the extent of love and support that Ethan’s parents give him and we can’t help but strongly say, great talent can come from self-ambition, but it also comes from parents that nurture and encourage it!
Attack of the Oreo Cookies!
Artist Shawn Wigs has a cool custom Dunny series – the Oreo 3″ Dunnies. You don’t have to love eating Oreos to appreciate this. It’s super cute and fun to collect and have. A case of the blind boxes will run about $65.00USD and there are 4 in the collection – Original Dunny (15/20), Vanilla Oreo Dunny (2/20), Mint Oreo Dunny (2/20) and Bitten Oreo Dunny (1/20).
Kidrobot’s biggest product release of the year is their Dunny series and for 2013 select artist from around the world helped in creating this collectible toy vinyl set.
Toys’R’Us Hong Kong releases some funny and LEGO busting Kreon mini-figs in stop-motion action.
The Transformers soccer match features the Autobots crying foul when the Constructicons form Devastator.
Hunky international action star Byung-hun Lee drops by Hot Toys Tokyo to take a look at his own Storm Shadow figure. Byung-hun has played Cobra villian Storm Shadow for the past two films and also look for him in Red 2.
Hasbro has really cool exclusive toys for this year’s San Diego ComicCon 2013. So you might want to bring a sleeping bag and get in line early at the Hasbro booth.
Like Apple-addicts, if you can’t get enough of the Linux-based Android OS platform, show your support by buying these cute little Android Mini-figures by DYZ Plastic. This Rainbow Set features a collectible display box and 10 different colored Android figures. The heads are removable too, so that you can store things.
It can get very expensive collecting LEGO Star Wars toys, but this LEGO Star Wars Ewok Village playset looks like fun to build and best of it comes with 16 LEGO minifigs which include Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Han Solo, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, 2 Rebel Soldiers, 5 Ewoks (Wicket, Teebo, Chief Chirpa & Logray), 2 Scout Troopers and 2 Stormtroopers. Look for this LEGO Ewok Village in September 2013. Check out this video by LEGO designer Marcos Bessa:
Continue to check back with RETRENDERS for upcoming segments from Big Wow ComicFest and FanimeCon!
Since the beginning of comics, superheroes have dominated the comic book pages, but the creative team of Joe Simon and Jack Kirby didn’t just do superheroes, they also put science fiction genre onto the comic book format. Titan Books has collected various science fiction stories by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby from the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s featuring the likes of “Solar Legion” and “Blue Bolt” in The Simon & Kirby Library – Science Fiction.
The Ong-brothers from the Philippines are well-known as Rotobox Vinyl Anatomica where they customize Munnies, like Gundam robots and superheroes. Here’s their latest creation – the Valkyrie VF-1J MegaMunny.
It was hard for me to decide which convention to go to when Bitcoin the future of currency and Big Wow! Comicfest 2013 happened at the same time at the San Jose Convention Center. The nerd in me wanted to find out more about this new form of cryptocurrency called Bitcoin (BTC) created by Satoshi Nakamoto. But anyways, I’m probably boring people now, let’s get on with another episode of Ramen from Big Wow! Comicfest:
Where is the Retrenders team going to be at this Memorial Day Weekend? We’ll be at FanimeCon from May 24-27 taking place at the San Jose Convention Center in San Jose, CA.
For more info, go to: fanime.com.
Our Retrenders crew may be tired and sleep deprived from the Big Wow! Comcifest in San Jose this past weekend, but we hope to bring you exclusive interviews from various comic book artists, cosplayers and other cool happenings from the event, so come back to our site for video updates.
Hey, were is our team going to be at this weekend? We’ll be at the Big Wow! Comicfest kicking off this weekend at the San Jose Convention Center. We’ll also be hanging at the Comic & Figure Addicts (CFA) booth #209, so catch us there and say HI!
For more details go to: Big Wow! Comicfest.com
Eddie and Ramon hit up Kidrobot SF for artist Frank Kozik signing and his latest Skeloton Labbit releases.
He’s a designer, artist and collector – he’s Brian Flynn of Hybrid Design and Super 7. In this short docu, Flynn talks about how he got into collecting Japanese monster toys, LEGOs and his inspirations from just designing.
Detective Comics #400 Batmobile
So there’s no Batman flick this summer, but these cool Batmobiles can hold you over until the next film. All the die-cast Batmobile cars are in the 1:43 scale with scenic backdrop and case. And each comes with a 12-page magazine on details of the specific Batmobile.
Buy it @ Entertainment Earth – Detective Comics #400 Batmobile.
Vinyl mini-figs are very popular in collecting and now The Loyal Subjects have released a very detailed 3″ vinyl figures of G.I. Joe with approval from Hasbro. Designed by Les Schettkoe the Series 1 set features 8 popular Joes: Cobra Commander, Destro, Duke, Snake Eyes, Zartan, Storm Shadow, Gung-Ho & Snowjob and also 3 chase figures.
As a kid I could never get the G.I. Joe Skystriker and because of Robotech and Top Gun, I wanted this toy even more. When Hasbro re-issued it 2011 for it’s 30th Anniversary, I was able to pick one up. I think this is one of the coolest G.I. Joe toy vehicles ever. And now fans have been building really amazing custom Skystrikers.
Have your very own Iron Man 3 movie playset with this Boxo Papercraft Iron Man 3 Playset.
Aren’t LEGO’s Duplo toys for little kids? Not anymore – it’s Duplo’s Pulp Fiction series. Your kids can play build and play with these foul mouth hitmen – Vincent Vega & Jules Winnfield.
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