Doctor Strange

Another "victim" of my lazy thursday movie marathon this week, the Marvel Universe has entered the magical dimension.

Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, who really "feels" like Sorcerer Supreme Steven Strange, this is an origins movie and an dimensional introduction movie in one.

Following an accident that ruins his hands, top surgeon Steven Strange becomes depressed and tries to find ways to regain his skills.  When he learns of a paralyzed man that can walk again, he travels to Kamar-Taj and under the wings of Mordo and the Ancient One he learns the ways of... magic.

He learns faster then most sorcerers ever had due to his photographic memory, and he learns about the Dark Dimension.  He rushes to the defence of the London sanctum, holding of Kaecilius, a servant of the dark demom Dormammu.  Later on, Hong Kong becomes under attack and while it seems the heroes are outclassed, the creation of an infinite time loop, resulting in Strange being killed over and over again, forces Dormammu to strike a bargain with him in order to escape the loop.

This was a visually very impressive movie, think DiCaprio's Inception style of things going on.  Cumberbatch puts down a true Strange, and his comic vibe is very present but... of the heroes selected by the MCU, you now have TWO very arrogant, ego-tripping rich guys running around, in both Strange and Stark.  Which gives it a bit of a feel of "that thing again", compared to for example the Netflix "poorer background" heroes like Luke Cage.

But never the less, it was a very intresting movie and I for one will be happy to see Strange again in Thor: Ragnarok.

Kablamo Store Re-opening

Hey all, today I'm taking you all along for the re-opening of the Kablamo store in Mortsel, near Antwerp.

Ran by fellow BeLUG member Iban and his lovely wife, they moved the store from it's old venue to this spacier new one.

It's still located in the same stores gallery, just 4 doors down the hallway now.  And today at 13.00 hours, the festive moment was there: the grand re-opening in this new location.

The store is about a quarter bigger in surface then the old one, but the fact they don`t have to cope with a winding stairs in the middle of the shop makes it far spacier and with a lot more room to display their goods.

Kablamo is known for it's huge assortement of Funk Pops vinyl figures, ranging from the basic ones up to the special editions and large sets.

Now, that isn`t everything they stock, as they also have a great selection of other action figures.

Like this "anime" style Harley Quinn...

(Honey, if you read this, consider it a "silent hint" for my birthday btw).

Some glass cabinets adorn the store, containing some lovely statuettes and merchandise.

The service was great as always, and if you go to their Facebook page, there are vouchers for the opening weekend, which ends on sunday.  Some great deals are to be found with them, and even I bought my very first Funko Pop for myself like, ever...

Because it's Harley Quinn... and Limited Edition... and in a great black and white colourscheme!

Excalibur - The Sword is Drawn

This is a bit of a special moment for me, filled with nostalgia of the highest order.  This comic is the one that made me to the Geek that I am.

You see, way back in 1988, this 10 year old stepped inside a comic store in Antwerp, Mekanik Strip, an bought his very first comic from his own pocket money.

By then, I had already read some of the dutch translated JuniorPress editions, passed down by my aunt who loved reading X-Men, but then I saw one named after a legendary sword (little did I know back then) and with Nightcrawler on the cover.

I immediately fell "in love" with the Captain Britain character, and the rest as they say, was history.  I parted with most of my old comic collection in the beginning of the 21st century, but for this series I really regretted it and I am slowly putting the series back together.  And at Comic Con, in a bargain bin, I found this one.

This is the story of how two X-Men that survived the apparant dead of their team, Nightcrawler and Shadowcat, are recovering on Muir Island.  In the meantime, Captain Britain is losing himself in drinking over the loss of his twin sister Psylocke, as the Technet, send by Saturnyne, and Mojo's Warwolves are hunting the dimension hopping Phoenix (Rachel).  This forces the heroes to put aside their grieves and pick up the dream of Charles Xavier, forming the Excalibur team (often called the british X-Men team afterwards) even though neither Brian nor Meggan are actually mutants.

And the rest, for this little Geek, is history as they say... this was my Patient Zero inside my comic life!

Green lantern: Brightest Day, Blackest Night

Hal Jordan, John Stewart, Guy Gardner, Kyle Rayner... but who remembers Alan Scott?

This was the Green Lantern that founded the Justice Society and who saw action during WW2, and in 2002 this comic was printed.

It hails back to the golden age of comics, involving contested theme's like Nazi fanatics during the war, who want to use a secret weapon to make The reich victorious.
The plane carrying the weapon crashes in Slaughter Swamp, and this tells the origin tale of Solomon Grundy, with whome he would clash a lot in the future.

Now, with the Infinite arc, the whole setting and the origin of his Lantern and Ring have been tweaked, but it still remains fun to read in the "old style", even if it was a comic drawn decennia after the original character was at it's prime in comic world.

Comic Con Brussels 2017

And so the winterstop is officially over, as I went off to the first convention of the year!  

Comic Con Brussels was the destination, held in Tour and Taxis for it's second edition, and what a great show it was!

Now, I have to appologise for the pictures, I`m not quite used to the settings and all of the new cellphone, and as a result, most of the pictures are rubbish :-(

But we had a blast, from arriving at the venue on the early saturday morning, to the breaking down at the end of the sunday.  We had some lovely neighbouring stands, though the Letzemberger Ghostbusters will be in my head for a variety of reasons tonight (Saving the daaaay, saaaaving the daaay...)...

The convention was of course stocked with great cosplays:

And had some very lovely displays in the Fan Dome.

Celebrities where present as well, oncluding the one and only Sam Jones, aka Flash Gordon.  Of course you will find him in my loot video below, this was one autograph I couldn`t pass on!!

Our LUG had a lovely stand as well, including the debut of Hans's "Eleven" mosaic from Stranger Things amongst other excellent builds, check them out on this little video:

Other activities included workshops, like this one about YouTube, as well as lightsaber games (to the soundtrack of Star Trek no less).  Some kids really took it by heart...

There was a variety of catering (some had impressive, but moving, lines) including the "Haute Dogs" by Belgian TV Chef Jeroen Meeus franchise restaurants Wurst.  Though in all honesty, I`ll keep taking my dogswith mustard and sauerkraut in the future.

But for me the nostalgic headlight of the show was the concert by Bernard Minet, who like, sang all the entry themes at Club Dorothee of all my favorite shows back in the 80s, going from Liveman all the way to Saint Seiya.

The Loot:

Well, I collected a LOT of signatures this convention, and here they are in all their glory:

Apart from that, I picked up a small stack of comics in a bargain bin (I wanted the Excalibur ones, so had to take some others to go with it) for 5 euro and that`s it.

Well... almost... because there is still that special event brick of course to go on the brick badge :-)

I want to thank my team, consisting of Hans, Wilfried, Chris and John for the efforts they put in on this weekend, and I HOPE that I didn`t fail them as "team leader ad interim".

And now, the countdown begins to the next event, which will be for me Brick Mania Wetteren.