I had never considered getting a comic slabbed till I got this MTG #11 variant. And I brought it with me to a convention in June of this year and I got it in the mail last Friday finally and I’m so happy!
I certainly will consider getting other comics slabbed, but it depends on how I want them displayed. This was pretty exciting though.
So since for the first time in the past few years I’ve actually been able to get all the cover issues of certain sets of variants out together, I thought I’d take advantage and get a photo of each set. I have so many others but they’re in piles that it’s just too much to go through right now to sort through them all from the last 8 years. At some point I’ll will sort those all out, but that’s not today, haha.
I will try to continue this when I realize I’ve finished a set of variants. We’ll see how long this lasts, but hopefully I can’t remember to take photos of them once I realize I’ve finished a set. The ones here are from as far back as mid-May of this year up till this week, as the last covers of some of the sets came out and as I was putting them all together I thought I might as well take all the sets out I have that are easy to get out and take the photos.
I will list the artists for each set each time I do these.
These are the post card variants from this year that started on May 18 and finished on July 6th. the Savage Land one is from Peach Momoko. The Madripoor one is from Carmen Carnero with colors by Romulo Fajrado Jr. The Latveria one is from Natacha Bustos. And the Wakanda one is from R.B. Silva with colors by David Curiel. I would love to see this theme of variants continue. Landscape variants are always fun to see pop up.
These started on July 26th and finished on September 28th of this year. The first one really caught my eye and with that boarder and the colors. These are by Evan Cagle.
These are all the AAPI Heritage variants that started on May 11th and ended on June 22nd of this year. I certain have talked about what I liked about these when I posted the first one in May, but it’s just such a minimalist design for each of them. Another great use of the white space on the cover. Plus these are all great characters. These are all by Dike Ruan and Neeraj Menon.
These are all of the Marvel Voice’s Comunidades covers from this month. Ghost Rider 6 started it off on September 7th and the final issue of this Miles run brought it home on the 27th. These are all such wonderful characters, I’m glad that they got some amazing covers this month. They’re all by Leonardo Romero.
And of course Harley’s homage variants are saved for last. I’ve already said which issues each of these have been inspired by in each post of the piles they arrived in, so I won’t write all that out again, but I love homage covers and Ryan Sook did a fantastic job of integrating Harley into these iconic covers.
September 10, 2022 –
I won’t say too much about the movie because honestly, you really just have to experience it. if you’re a fan of the Askewniverse, I can’t just tell you how amazing it is XD.
The story is just what it says in the synopsis. But it’s also so much more than that. The characters have gone through a lot in the time since Clerks II.
This is a story about hope and family and purpose and life and happiness and sadness and acceptance and just so much nerdiness.
Now, since I was at SDCC in Hall H, I saw the intro to the movie, and seeing it again was fantastic. And seeing the audience react to what I’d seen already was fun. And the moment that ended after the title card I was pulled in and loved all of it!!
It actually seemed longer than it was, I remember thinking it was like 10pm or something already when it ended (it started a bit after 7pm), but nope. It was heartfelt and just a joy to see all these characters again.
I’m so glad that Kevin Smith did this tour and I’m glad I was able to actually go to this one unlike for the Jay And Silent Bob Reboot tour which I didn’t get to attend.
The credits are special because there’s a little surprise there, not a scene, but something nice.
Afterwards there was a Q&A, but before that, he told us that at the first screening of the movie there was a specific cheer during one scene where he didn’t expect it and it moved him. He then said that he expected it at other screenings, but it didn’t happen at a single one. That is, until it happened here. So he said this was his current favorite stop on the Convenience Tour because of that moment.
The Q&A was, as is normal Kevin Smith style, as he said some Q’s with him giving a whole lot of A’s haha. It really is a joy to listen to him speak. I could listen or chat with him for hours!
I’m excited for people to see this, who love these characters and I can’t wait for Mallrats return and another beloved film to get a sequel as he hinted at tonight.
Afterwards there was a photo-op and it was lovely. Of course as these things go, it was quick, but I managed to tell him it was my birthday yesterday and then we had our photo (which I have to figure out how to get 😅) and then I showed him my shirt, the fandom metro/subway stations map (people that know me probably know the one), and he loved it and was like hmm, I should make one of these for the Askewniverse! He also hugged me wishing me a happy birthday!!
I’ve seen him live a few times now, a couple times at AwesomeCon and twice at SDCC, and I’ve always thought it would be nice to meet him and it certainly was nice. I’m so glad that he decided to have a stop in DC and that it was on my birthday weekend. I hope I’ll get to meet him again one day! Getting to chat with him about all the nerd stuff would be amazing too. Who knows, maybe one day.
I know that was a little bit more than my usual movie review/reaction, but it was such a wonderful event, I had to say more. Kevin Smith is a gem of a human and I can’t wait to continue to love everything he creates for years to come ^__^
Thank you sir, your fans collectively eternally salute you. 💛💛
So I got back on July 27th and it’s August 3rd now, but it’s taken a bit for me to catch up on things that I couldn’t watch or do while I was gone for that week. And I’m still not even all caught up.
SDCC was as amazing as it was last time (2019) and I loved seeing my couple of friends that I hadn’t seen since then again. And I met a few artists and a couple podcast hosts I watch and an actor or two. The convention is cast and the experience is like nothing else. Even if you’ve been to a convention before, there’s nothing like SDCC.
This year I went to panels instead of spending most of my time on the exhibit hall floor like I did in 2019. It was also nice to not be carrying a bunch of boxes and stuff like last time since I didn’t pick up any exclusive figures or anything. There were a few free posters and smaller merch that I got, but I kept it light this time.
I also got into Hall H on Saturday again which was as spectacular as ever. I love being in that room on the Saturday of the con. It’s just the most intense and emotional and wonderful and joyful bliss there is. I saw Marvel trailers that y’all wont ever see (like the public will get normal trailer cuts but not what we saw in there specifically) and stuff that I can’t wait to see again in the future.
I also went to the Comic-Con Museum where they had the Beyond Amazing Spider-Man exhibition. It was pretty cool to walk through. I’d suggest it if you love Spidey or you only like him.
I’m glad to be home though XD. Just gotta catch up on everything I missed. And now to post the comics I got when I got back from July 13th and July 20th. Oh and I saw Thor: Love and Thunder again yesterday with one of my best friends, still enjoyed it!
(First off, I will post the last reaction to Ms. Marvel tonight or tomorrow depending on if I want to stay up past 4am to do the writing.)
So, I will be an San Diego Comic Con (FINALLY) again this year, and I’m leaving for it on the 19th. So, I won’t be able to get issues that week. I will have to wait till the Thursday after SDCC to pick up the issues from July 13th and July 20th. Though that gives me a little less than a week to get through them all before I get the next two-week pile.
And I guess this is the 400th post of mine. Wow, alrighty then. Well, I know this blog reaches a very tiny audience, but the reach was never the point. But yeah, woot for 400 posts! I still hope to add more things to this other than movies and comic photos, it’s just taking a while to get to the other things I want to do. Fingers crossed!
To those of whom I do share this blog with, thank you ^__^
I started typing out all of these on March 22nd and today is April 19th. Wow, it took exactly four weeks. Started on a Tuesday and ended on a Tuesday. 371 (this is 372) posts later and I’m caught up with all my comic photos and movie reviews/reactions from 2016 to 2022.
I intend to posts comic photos every other week and movie posts when I get to see a movie I enjoy (and those will be posted minutes after I return to my car in the parking lot after seeing whichever movie it is, or if it’s an online release, from my room.)
Next steps – I will keep thinking about topic posts I want to type up and I will now continue to add to my comic panel Instagram so any of the comics I reference as having posts (in some of my comic photo posts on here) on said IG account, will actually be there.
I’m glad I could actually catch up after all this. Thank you for reading some of my content and I hope you enjoy whatever I have to come.
And if this is the first post you see, sorry, I can’t figure out how to create the function to toggle the organize by date. So, unfortunately, you’ll have to scroll down on each post section once you click the section title in the drop-down menu above. If anyone knows how I can do that, let me know! XD Also, my first post is in the Milestone/Important posts section, so you can just go it from there instead of scrolling down forever.
So, I had started collecting comics properly in 2015. Before then, I had only read up on comics and characters via wikipedia and other sites to keep track of characters and such. I’ve liked comics characters since I was a kid in the 90’s watching all those shows and at some point in 2015 I got into a couple podcasts talking about comicbook movies and shows and comics from Marvel and DC and Star Wars, and when the hosts talked about comics, I wanted to know more about the characters I’d been enjoying in all the Marvel and DC movies and shows I’d been watching for years. This was a bit of a push that I needed and I dove into it. I started sharing these comic photos via twitter with the hosts of those podcasts and that lasted from 2016 ish till 2020. I paused while I was finishing Graduate school in 2018 and then I was backlogged with posting for a while after that. So during the end of 2019 and into 2020, I was clustering my photos. Then, of course, the pandemic hit and comics paused publishing. At that point it was a few months before comics came back, but that was way too many photos that I would be able to manage and thus, I still took photos of my comics when I got them, but I haven’t posted since then. I’ve been thinking about how I could continue that for a while now and when I started to think about this blog (which was initially only going to be my movie reactions/reviews) I made the connection that I could use this blog for archiving these photos as well as everything else I want to do here. So, as I’m writing this, I’m scrolling way back to 2016 posts I made to get these. The ones here were my first that I posted about back then (February 26, 2016).
The Phandom Bender 