The Awesome-ness That Was Sask Expo 2018

Comic Book Conventions are something that will never truly go away. While it’s true that most of them have evolved into all-encompassing “Entertainment Expos”, this doesn’t stop them from being any less fun. I recently attended “Sask Expo 2018”, an Entertainment Expo focused on everything nerdy. I loved the time I spent at the convention, and the things that I did there! While I didn’t take many pictures, allow me to show a few of them here. I’ll also show a few pics of what I bought there as well.

It’s Super Mario Bros all over again!

Here’s a pic I took with Yoshi The Dinosaur. The guy holding the camera was a friend on Facebook, who was nice enough to take a picture of me hanging out with a dinosaur. I would’ve gotten a selfie, but I prefer having full-body pics. Regardless, the guy in the Yoshi costume was super cool. The guy was awesome, and his suit was pretty much one of the best Yoshi costumes I had ever seen!

The next three are of the “Ecto-1”, which is a replica of the eponymous vehicle from Ghostbusters. It was really cool seeing it here, even if it wasn’t the original car from the movie. The things they added onto it (such as the statue of “Slimer” atop it) really give it a unique flair.

The guys running the Ghostbusters booth were also pretty nice. They had an awesome offer going on, where you could wear the Ghostbusters suit in a photo with both the car and them. It cost 10 bucks, which is a bit pricey. The did donate all the proceeds to charity, which made the price worth it in my opinion. Photos of the car itself were free though, allowing me to take several pics of this beautiful vehicle.

Finally, here are my acquisitions! First up is volume 1 of the 2016 Darkwing Duck comic. I actually bought this from the artist of the comic, who was nice enough to sign it. The comic serves as sequel to both the TV show, the Disney Adventures comics, and the Boom Comics imprint of Darkwing Duck.

I spotted this little beauty when walking through the “Artist’s Alley” with a friend, and caught sight of it out of the corner of my eye. I grew up loving Darkwing Duck, so this was an instant buy for me. I read through the book in one day, and loved everything about it! I’ll save my full opinions on it for a later date, so stay tuned for the full review!

Here’s another purchase I made, a 3DS game called “Rune Factory 4”. I had heard many good things about the series, and have always been curious about the franchise. After playing through Fantasy Life and Ever Oasis, I developed a taste for life-simulation/RPG hybrid games. So when I saw this, I just knew I had to have it.

I was originally looking for a copy of the old Megaman Starforce games for DS, but I couldn’t find any. I made an executive decision, and decided to finally try Rune Factory. I’m less than an hour into the game, so I can’t give a fully informed opinion of it yet. All I can say for now is that I’m enjoying it a lot.

Here is the last thing I got: Marvel’s Secret Invasion. I never actually read this book until now, and I gotta say it’s pretty solid! It involves Marvel’s superheroes going toe-to-toe with the shapeshifting aliens known as the “Skrulls”. The art is fantastic, along with the fake ads shoved into certain parts of the book. Overall, it’s a great book, and I’ll be sure to talk more about it in a full-on review!

Well, that covers Sask Expo. I probably should’ve taken more pics, but I doubt I’d be able to fit them all on my phone. For the 2019 one, I will definitely make space in my phone for more photos. In short, my experience was Sask Expo 2018 was amazing. Hope you all enjoyed what I shared, and have a great day!

One of The Best Obscure Indie Comics Ever: Sharknife

Stylin! (Artwork by Corey Lewis)

People seem to take a liking to Independent productions, also known as “Indies”. You’ve got Indie games, movies, and even TV shows on occasion. A high budget isn’t always need to produce something high quality. Sometimes all you need is the know-how, skill, and knowledge of what makes something work to fully put it together. This is what makes the works of a Mr. “Corey Lewis” so engaging.

Corey Lewis is known for a ton of more obscure comics, these include his anthology series known as “Sun Bakery”. Sun Bakery is a collection various comics, some of which are old and some are new. One of said older comics is “Sharknife”. It’s hard to fully describe what Sharknife, but I’ll try. The comic revolves around a young man named Caesar Hallelujah, and his best friend Chieko. They work for a Chinese food restaurant, that also doubles as a massive factory.

With the walls of said factory dwell powerful monsters, placed their by a gangster known as “Ombra Ravenga”. While fighting these malicious monsters is merely a meager attempt, the Guangdong Factory has one secret weapon up its sleeves: Caesar Hallelujah. By downing a single fortune cookie, Caesar becomes a powerful superhero named “Sharknife”. Not only does he gain super-natural strength and abilities, but also a fair bit of video-game-based powers. Using his varied skill-set, Caesar defends his place of employment from the various creatures and beings that threaten it.

On paper, this premise sounds ridiculous and kind of bland. In execution, it actually turns out to be pretty freaking awesome! A lot of this comes down to the artwork, which is magnificent. Lewis managed to combine the fluidity and action of a Shonen manga, with the style and urban feel of wall-graffiti. What it creates is an action series with fluid and fast-paced fight scenes. Despite being still images, the movements give off an “animated feel”. It’s hard to describe, but it comes down to how actions are portrayed.

Fights often play out with each character knocking each other around with flashy moves, combined with a strong sense of style. The amount of power put into every panel of every page is almost intoxicating. The way every punch is drawn makes you feel the impact, it’s really quite the rush! Likewise, character designs are pretty good.

I can always tell what each character is like by their design, which is always a plus. Unfortunately, sometimes a character doesn’t go beyond their design and general personality. Despite the amount of characters, only a few of them ever get focused on. The second volume (which goes by the subtitle “Double-Z”) is pretty infamous for introducing way too many characters, and bringing in characters from even more obscure spinoff materials.

As much as I like Sharknife, a lot of the series is style over substance. Sure, the fight-scenes, character designs, art-style, and backgrounds look amazing! Unfortunately, the dialogue, story, and how the characters act can be fairly bland. For example, the second volume introduces a long lost childhood rival of Caesar’s named “Enta Da Dragon”. Enta’s whole driving goal is to murder Caesar, because he beat him in a videogame and got superpowers. Seriously, that’s his whole purpose in the series.

Then again, Sharknife isn’t a series that takes itself too seriously at all. I can look past the lackluster story and somewhat underdeveloped characters, and still enjoy it for what it is: A sugar-infused action series with a lot of heart to it. I look forward to seeing what the “Soul of Sharknife” story in Sun Bakery will be like. Hopefully, it’ll be just as awesome as the first two volumes!