That vid may or may not work because Youtube has been being an ass lately. Someone forgot to wake up Billie Joe Armstrong again.
But with that aside, I finally got to visit the Flea Market this year! Either the weather didn't work out or I was doing something else, I was only able to go to the Bellmore Flea Market a few Sundays ago. But I found some great treasures this time!
A genuine copper toilet, for just $300!
A genuine velvet Elvis!
One of a few instruments there, but hey, hadn't seen a saxophone there before.
I didn't want to solve the mystery of what bone was used for that.
This one wasn't working or else I would've snagged it. Or at the very least, it needed batteries.
A $90 comic. I mean, I've never seen this one before, but why is it $90?!
Next to the Velvet Elvis was this frame with nine signatures from the cast of Glee. $70 was kind of a steal since one of them is big (Jane Lynch), and one of them is dead (Cory Monteith).
A store display of Halo toys, most likely liberated from a Toys R Us or a Target.
A Nintendo handheld I don't recognize that was going for $200.
And finally, what I walked away with. A 1984 Olympics button, and THREE Pro badges from past NY Comic Cons (2017, 18, and 19)! They were all a buck each, how could I not grab them? I just had to clean them off and they were as good as new.
Speaking of NYCC, that's next month, and I'm sure to have fun then!
Last week was Anime NYC once again. Wait, didn't I go back in November? Yes. Yes, I did. For whatever reason, it's moved to August.
While I had a good time, I feel like it would've been better. Maybe I'm old and barely recognize half of what's popular these days. I know nothing of Hololive, or Genshin Impact, or JJK, or Honkai Star Rail.
And because of the date change, there were about a dozen other cons happening that same weekend so a lot of the usual panels or voice actor guests were scattered across the country.
Who DID show up though was the cast of Critical Role. Well, I barely know what THAT is, but it's made up of voice actors that play DnD and I know them from just about anything OTHER than what they were there for.
Take for one, Ashley Johnson.
She was the voice of, among others, Terra from Teen Titans and Teen Titans Go, Teenage Gwen from Ben 10, Tulip from Infinity Train, Ellie from The Last of Us, and how I know her best, Gretchen from Recess.
For some odd reason, it had a crossover with the Lilo & Stitch cartoon five years after it ended. Even she didn't remember it happening, and the episode mostly focused around her.
And then Laura Bailey, the voice of Maka from Soul Eater.
And then for the non-Critical Role people, I managed to catch Abby Trott, the voice of Nezuko from Demon Slayer, among other roles. She was there to promote the Dan Da Dan anime (a VERY strange manga and anime with great art), and I wasn't even expecting her signing to be open to non-lottery people.
And then there was Aleks Le, the voice of Zenitsu in Demon Slayer.
I was warned that he was the friendly and chatty type, and he certainly was. This was why his line took FOUR HOURS to get through. Seriously, I didn't even wait for Stan Lee that long, and that's even with him taking breaks every half hour because he was in his 90s.
I got my money's worth out of it, though, and it now stands as one of my favorite things I ever got signed.
And now a photodump of highlights over the weekend:
And a highlight of stuff I bought:
The artists alley is where it's at here. There were 530 tables this year, and I must have bought something from...thirty of them? It ranged from the gamut to all things anime, but just about everyone had something from Delicious in Dungeon, Frieren, Chainsaw Man, Spy x Family, JJK, and Genshin.
My wallet could only take so much and it hates that this is now BEFORE NY Comic Con instead of after. Walton Goggins ain't cheap, and funds went to this in the meantime.
It's the end of July, and as promised, here's the Kool-Aid Man comic I've been teasing.
Behold: The Adventures of Kool-Aid Man #2! What's so special about this issue? Well, for one, it was one of the comics that you could only get by sending away Kool-Aid points back in the 80s.
But it's also the comic where this panel comes from:
It was from a time travel story where The Thirsties steal a time machine to stop the Boston Tea Party. More on that it would leave everyone thirsty, and less preventing one of the first shots of the American Revolution.
Here is the whole page:
According to Jim Salicrup (the writer), the Ben Franklin cameo was just a fun Easter Egg he tossed in.
The next page is just as crazy.
And this is just nuts to see. Kool-Aid Man riding a horse to make Paul Revere's ride to warn everyone about The Thirsties.
After all is said and done, Kool-Aid Man beats up the Thirsties, they travel back to the present, the 4th of July picnic is saved. There's a second story where the Thirsties invade a campsite, but again, Kool-Aid Man just beats them up and everyone drinks of his life juice. And there's two other issues in the Marvel run, and SIX with Archie.
I'll share those another time. But now for this month's topic: It's the Olympics again!
It's been a while since I posted about the Olympic Mascots...SIXTEEN YEARS AGO?! So much has happened since then. The 2020 Olympics were held in Tokyo in 2021, thus averting the timeline shown in Akira.
As I noted in the December 2020 entry, Izzy's Quest For Olympic Gold had been found!
And then there were the mascots. Tokyo's were actually pretty cool.
Meet Miraitowa and Someity, the mascots of the 2020 Olympics and Paralympics, respectively. Of course it was a given that Japan, the country that perfected mascots, were gonna create some of the best ones I've seen. As the story goes, their designs were based on their respective logos, while Someity's colors were based on cherry blossoms.
So what are the mascots for the current Paris Olympics? I honestly forgot. So a quick Google later...
Meet The Phyrges. They're anthropomorphic Phyrgian hats, nothing too special about them. If they look familiar, you're not alone.
They're more recognizable here in the States as Smurf hats, particularly the red one worn by Papa Smurf.
And just for funsies, let's catch up on the mascots for the Olympics I hadn't covered since then.
Here's 2016 Rio's mascots: Vinicius and Tom. Vinicius represents Brazil's wildlife, while Tom represents Brazil's forests. They're named after Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim, the co-writers of "The Girl From Ipanema."
If they look like they stepped out of Brazilian Adventure Time, you'd be right. They had their own cartoons that aired on Cartoon Network Brazil, and as they say, as was the style at the time.
And here are 2012 London's mascots:
Wenlock and Mandeville, the Olympics and Paralympics mascots. I noted in the 2008 entry that a lot of mascots were oddly phallic, and these two were no exception. At least the trend stopped after these guys.
As their story goes, their bodies are made from the last girder that built the Olympic stadium, and they're made out of "highly polished steel allowing them to reflect the personalities and appearances of the people they meet." Their eyes are cameras, and the yellow lights on their heads symbolize the ones found on London taxis.
I'm just going off Wikipedia, people. Let's move on to the Winter Olympics mascots.
These are 2014 Sochi's mascots, "Leopard," "Hare," and "Polar Bear." I've mentioned before that the Winter Olympics mascots aren't nearly as impressive or creative as their summer counterparts.
The fake mascot the Simpsons created, Fatov, was way more creative and should've been the real mascot.
It's so creepy, but I love how it's just the lower half of Homer's face turned upside-down.
The Paralympics mascots had a bit more thought put into them. These are "Snowflake" and "Ray of Light." I bet all these names sound more creative in Russian.
Okay, these are more like it. These are 2018 Pyongchang's mascots: Soohorang and Bandabi. A neat looking snow leopard and black bear.
And finally, coming full circle are 2022 Beijing's mascots Bing Dwen Dwen and Shuey Rhon Rhon. A friendly Panda and a Chinese Lantern, respectively.
Since we're still in the midst of the current games, the mascots for the next two games: 2026 Milan & Cortina d'Ampezzo and 2028 Los Angeles haven't been revealed yet. At the rate I'm going, I'll update this post again in 2040.
