Beyond My Geeky Life

 While it may be way out of my budget range, next year Disney is going to open their new totally immersive Star Wars themed hotel, Star Wars Galactic Starcruiser. You go for a two-day interactive Star Wars themed experience with a unique storyline playing out around you as you get to make choices that change your own experience. Everything about this concept just sounds as amazing as it gets. When it was first announced the big criticism was over the price point, which does sound costly. The best deal is for a package for four that comes out to about $1500 per person. Now that does include your two day stay, all your meals and the interactive live show you will take part in. Having recently been to Disney World, I can tell you it not hard at all to spend much more than $1500 person if you want to take part in all the various special experiences they have for meals and such if one breaks down all the charges. In some was this is Disney being far more honest and open about your costs...

Last year I cheeked out season one of the Netflix series 'Locke and Key' based of the graphic novels by Joe Hill of the same name. I really enjoyed the show. Lots of interesting magic being used, with a complex backstory and system in use that slowly gets explored. So many intriguing ideas. And the keys themselves are just a really awesome take on an old concept. I really could use the Anywhere Key (A key that when used on a door makes the doorway open on any other door you can picture) myself. Recently season two came out and I enjoyed it as well. A lot of storylines from season one were finished up with new plots and twists being introduced so that there is clearly a story set up for a third season. At that point I was able to hunt down a good on a set of the original six graphic novels and read them. The base story is the same more or less between the two formats, but there are just so many differences in the details. The comics were more direct horror stories, while the liv...

 I have talked a few time in the past about collecting and my main advice to everyone being: Never collect with value being the main concern, only collect what you have an actual passion for and want to collect. The best example to defend this idea is Beanie Babies, where people have lost thousands of dollars on them, being left with a bunch of worthless little plush figures that they really don't care about, yet had invested a big chunk of money on. Never invest in fad collectable for any manner of long term investments. Most of the time you will lose a lot of money. Now with that being said, I look at trends and I really am thinking right now is a great time to take some chances with collecting. What is it that makes collectable valuable? It is all based on supply and demand of course, rarity vs popularity. The 90s killed the collectable market by over producing collectibles to a truly insane degree, with so many people believing that they could make a lot of money by buying up a...

Dealing with other fans of various franchises I enjoy can be at times trying and stressful, as there are those out there who don't seem to care about respecting the idea of differing opinions, so they will go after anyone who disagrees with the their views in a truly hostile and insulting manner. I have been told I was delusional, stupid, clueless and some more crude titles, all because I liked or disliked something and politely expressed my views. Of course a huge issue right now that is bringing out some of the worst toxic attitudes I have ever seen in a fandom has been those who dislike the Star Wars Sequels trilogy. These fans are outright vicious in their attacks against people who say they enjoyed the films. I recently had to deal with a toxic fan who never once was able to counter any of my statements, but continued to mock me directly, questioning my intelligence, flinging insult after insult and just telling me I was wrong because I was wrong. He really seemed to enjoy mak...

It is right now unquestionably the time of the Super Hero Movie, as for over a decade now movies based on comic book Super Heroes have been dominating the box office, with the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) becoming one of the most, if not the most, successful film franchises ever. and despite some rather random claims, there is no sign of this winding down any time soon. As a fan of the MCU, having seen every one of the films in the theater opening weekend, I have enjoyed them all. Some time someone trying to be bluntly critical of the MCU film started using the term 'The Marvel Formula', making the blanket claim that most of the MCU follow the same story telling formula for each of the their films. The basic ideas is that all the MCU films share the same structure, trying to imply a lack of creativity in the films. So here is what is claimed as being the marvel Formula: Having a villain similar to the hero - Yes this does happen, but it is far from being in every film and it...

One of the few Christmases I really remember well is the Christmas of 1982. The plan was for the family to drive out to California for a few weeks on Christmas day. A nasty snow storm was moving in on Christmas Eve and the decision was made to start the drive at midnight instead of the next morning to stay ahead of the storm. Which paid off. We ended up spending a few weeks in sunny California while those back home got the fun of a really bad blizzard. I very much remember that as I waiting at the kitchen table that Christmas Eve, I was playing with my new Christmas presents, He-Man and Battle Cat. This was before the cartoon, so there was only my first mini comic to follow and I don't really remember being worrying about following it. After the vacation I used my Christmas money to get Skeletor and Castle Grayskull. In a few months I had all the figures and the battel ram. I didn't stay interested in the line at that time, although I would every so often get back into it brief...

I had an exchange with someone on Youtube and in every comment they made to me they seemed to have to go out of their way to proclaim that Captain Marvel is a Mary Sue. I had only defended the film once, but this person felt they had to express those feeling in all the half dozen comments in our exchange, and they fully ignored anything I said to counter their statements. I truly have no clue why they were so aggressively out to put down the movie (And Brie Larson, as they made sure to add negative comments about her every chance they had) and it really seemed to be a broken record after a point. But is Captain Marvel really a 'Mary Sue'? So here is the Wikipedia page about 'Mary Sue' -  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue .  Oddly enough, the original Captain Marvel (Now known as Shazam) is a 'Mary Sue', as were so many heroes form that era, including Superman, who very well may be the more pure and famous 'Mary Sue' out there. So why is Superman a ...

 On-line now there are a large amount of people who are pointing out that at this time in the USA Manga (Japanese comicbooks) are more popular than the new issues of traditional comicbooks by Marvel and DC. Their claims as to why this is focuses on their beliefs that the comicbooks have become 'woke' over the last few decades and that has driven away the fans. They are openly ignoring that both Marvel and DC have been doing 'woke'/political storylines for well over five decades now, only focused on the 'wokeness' of todays' comics that they disagree with. For the record, Manga is as 'woke' as it gets. LGBTQ+ characters have been in Manga for decades. There are so many gender fluid characters, as well as countless androgynous characters and that is nothing new. 'Mary Sues' are everywhere in Manga. In fact just about everything that is being claimed as the problems with traditional American comicbooks right now, can be found in Manga and has be...

I know it has been some time since I have posted here.  I have been real busy lately. Had a great vacation to Disney World and Galaxy's Edge and I do plan to do a full post about it soon. Got back from that and published the second Georgie and Armand's Place novel, ' Georgie and Armand’s Place Under Siege' ( https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B095WDZPXM ). I then did some promoting of the book. Nerd Alert News ( https://nerdalertnews.net/celebrate-pride-month-with-an-interview-with-author-ian-brazee-cannon/ ) posted an interview with me on their website. Then 5280 Geek ( https://weekendgeekupdate.podbean.com/e/weekend-geek-update-1623186267/ ) had me in the studio for an audio interview as part of their podcast. Now here on my blog I am going to give the readers of my blog a little treat. I do a series of short stories in the  Georgie and Armand's Place called the  Georgie and Armand Vacation stories. These are fun stories following Georgie and Armand as th...

Right now it seems like the toxic fans are getting worse every day. With all the youtube channels dedicated to promoting counterproductive attitudes as they promote and encourage aggressively destructive toxic actions, we are seeing a growing darkness expand over fandom in general right now. I'll start off by trying to explain the basics of what it is to be a toxic fan. Just disliking a show or program or some creative choice in a franchise is not being a toxic fan. You can dislike something and just say 'I don't agree with what they did' or 'I didn't enjoy that show/movie' without being toxic. You can have opinions and express them in non-toxic ways. That is 100% fine. Toxic fans on the other hand dislike something and instead of just respectfully expressing their opinions, they go and try to burn the whole franchise down. They often resort to childish, personal attacks at a specific person that undeniably cross a line and have at times chased talented peop...

 Just saw the date of the last post here and I didn't realize it has been that long since I last put up a post. I've been busy working on my writing. My second novel, 'Georgie and Armand's Place Under Siege' is almost finished and will hopefully be out by summer.  Of course you can go and pick up the first novel 'A Day at Georgie and Armand's Place' if you have not done so yet. (https://www.amazon.com/Day-Georgie-Armands-Place-ebook/dp/B07YK6C8N5). Now on to the topic of this post. Knock-Off actions figures are an interesting market. There is a lot of odd stuff out there. A lot of it is straight forward poor quality reproductions of existing figures that often are just humorous, especially with whatever odd title the figure is given, that often suffers from translation issues. I have a few knock-Offs in my collection. The Aliens Fighter is my favorite. So you have a X-Wing fighter from Star Wars, with the wings put on backwards and a standard grey alien ...