Entertainment June 13
Tim Weisberg Alvas Showroom presents Tim Weisberg and his band at 7:30 p.m., June 13. Weisberg’s band consists of five players who will be on: the flute, guitar, bass, keys and drums. Admission will be $25. Details: (800) 403-3447; www.alvasshowroom.com Venue: Alvas Showroom Location: 1417 W. 8th St., San Pedro Purple Sugar The San Pedro Brewing co. presents Purple Sugar from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m., June 13. The cover charge is $3. Details: (310) 831-5663; www.sanpedrobrewing.com Venue: San Pedro Brewing co. Location: 331 W. 6th St., San Pedro Calendar continued on page 15.
Long Beach Comic Expo attendee holding a conversation with attendees in Star Wars villain Darth Maul and Transformers character Bumblebee.
Long Beach Comic Expo: A Tease for Long Beach Comic Con in September By Terelle Jerricks, Managing Editor
Independent And Free.
On the last week of May, the Long Beach Convention Center hosted the Long Beach Comic Expo, a little appetizer to tide over the otaku community until the larger Long Beach ComiCon event in September. Joy Decapua of Black Jack Comics sent me an invite with the hopes I would provide the fledgling Sacramento comic book company some coverage. That was fine by me, considering I’ve been wanting to attend the ComiCon event and figured the Expo would give me a taste of what to expect in September. I’ll return to Decapua and Black Jack Comics after the run down on the entire experience. The Pine Avenue front entrance of the
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$999
with up to 2 Toppings, 1 Dozen Wings & 2 Liter Soda
with up to 2 Toppings each
June 13 – 26, 2014
Pick Up Special Large 1 Topping
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Not valid with any other offer, excludes gourmet toppings & extra cheese. Exp. 07/10/14
Large Pizza
2 Large Pizzas
$2350 $2295
RLn
Not valid with any other offer, excludes gourmet toppings & extra cheese. Exp. 07/10/14
RLn
Not valid with any other offer, excludes gourmet toppings & extra cheese. Exp. 07/10/14
Convention was filled with costumed people. It was like the street was filled with trick-or-treaters in the summer time during the hottest part of the day. Above the second floor promenade staircase were the iconic and not iconic vehicles from block buster movies and popular television shows of the 1980s and 1990s, such KnightRider’s black Camaro, Kitt, Magnum P.I. ‘s Ferrari, the jeep from the Jurassic Park franchise, or the old school Bat-mobile. I was a little mad that the badass Dark Knight monster-roadster version of the Bat-mobile wasn’t on display. Everywhere you looked, a feast for the eyes awaited. The Expo seemed to seem to take up a small footprint of convention space, sharing it with the Tea Convention and possibly something else. What that something was didn’t really matter considering that the little space the Expo had was filled with Expo attendees. There were Star Wars, Marvel Comics fanatics and various manga characters identifiable by the character costumes that were donned. Some were hired scantily-clad models made to look like Star Wars character Princess Leia with Jabba the Hutt. What was on display were thousands of universes
into which comics and manga fans escape the drudgery of the Monday through Friday, 9 to 5pm work week. And, this was just the attendees. The expo had several workshops focused on illustrators trying to break into the industry; talks were held by illustrators of popular comics or manga. Another room featured the growing confluence of gaming, comic/manga and cosplay (a kind of performance art that use costumes and role play to express an idea), i.e. the Eat-Geek-Play movement. Eat-Geek-Play appeared to be a digital platform for webcomics, gaming, both online and on board games like Dungeons and Dragons. When I got to the main part of the expo, I found a large room with more than a hundred booths occupied by new comic book companies— companies like Black Jack comics with heroes named Phantom Hawk, the Jaleena the Ambassador, the Ape and others. Decapua had only been working with the company since the beginning of the year and had no previous experience. She got into it by happenstance after reuniting with Nick Garber, an army buddy going back 10 years. “I was so brand new to comics. I was a reading nerd and I was a gaming nerd, but I had never really gotten into comics,” Decapua said. The center of the Black Jack Comics franchise is Phantom Hawk, a soldier named Max Malone who was deployed to Afghanistan and was critically injured in the line of duty. He returns home and is recruited into a top secret program that uses nano technology heal him. The lab is destroyed and Malone is framed. Phantom Hawk as well as the other characters in the Black Jack Comics universe are still too brand new and lacking in character development to determine if they will produce good storylines. But I was struck by the opportunity available wanting to get a slice of the $3 billion Comic Convention market and the possibilities for San Pedro as we transform our waterfront and create the infrastructure necessary to pull off such events. In the meantime, I’ll see about getting my tickets early for Sept. 27 ComiCon.