Friday, November 17, 2017

New York Comic Con 2017 Haul

This is over a month late, but better late than never! Hah. Even though New York Comic Con was a while ago (first week of October), I still wanted to make sure I shared my NYCC haul especially because I really love everything I purchased. This haul was much lighter than previous cons which made me really happy because it means I (probably) spent (wasted?) way less money. Whoo!

I'll start with the Funko Pops. We put our names into the random drawing for the NYCC Funko line, but didn't have any luck. Mickey, being as resourceful as he is, took to Twitter to ask if any fans who DID win the drawing would be willing to help us out with our Pops if they weren't already buying them for themselves. Long story short, he found somebody and we were able to meet up on Friday (albeit while we were very hungover) and got a hold of the below Pops! Thank you so much, kind stranger. As you all know from my SDCC post, not all Funko collectors are so nice! This is yet another reason for me to love Twitter (check out this previous post for all the other reasons why I love Twitter). I'm sad because this person didn't get to buy what he wanted since his preferred Pops were all sold out, but I'm definitely grateful that he was still nice enough to help us buy what we were looking for.

Among the things he helped us acquire was this black chrome Batman Funko Pop. I wasn't able to purchase the (much more popular and now much more expensive) blue chrome Batman Funko Pop from SDCC earlier this year, but definitely loving and appreciating the sweet black chrome finish on this one. Look how shiny and reflective!


The 2nd (and surprisingly last) Pop I purchased from NYCC this year is this blue 8-bit Batman. He's absolutely adorable. When I looked at these 8-bit characters online, they did not seem very appealing at all, but being the Funko Pop sucker that I am, I bought one anyway and it's actually so much more adorable in person. Funko announced additional Batman characters in this 8-bit design so I've already set aside some space on the shelf for those. You just know I'm going to end up with them somehow.


Mickey didn't leave empty handed. He was able to purchase Sailor V (aka Sailor Venus before she joins the squad). I'm lightweight swooning over the giant glasses and giant bow. This one's for the Sailor Moon fans! Including Mickey and me.


Lastly from the Pop haul, the baddest bitch in all of Westeros, Lyanna Mormont. They got her haaaaair. Look at it! She's so cute. I don't think I know any Game of Thrones TV show fans who don't love Lyanna Mormont.


Among all the Pops are other NYCC goodies. We visited our favorite artist, Dustin Nguyen, in artist alley as usual. If you're not familiar, he works for DC Comics and is the very talented person who painted our proposal painting. You can see the gorgeous painting  in one of my previous blog posts. It's been a while since I've taken a photo with him, but what better time for a selfie with him than when Mickey and I are super hungover on Day 2 of comic con. ðŸ˜‚ If you're reading this, Dustin, thanks for always being so welcoming and nice to us every time we come say 'hello'!


I own dozens of prints from Dustin, but I always want the new ones. These were the two I walked away with this time around. The Batman Beyond with Joker scribbles is framed and ready to be hung! I need to buy a slightly larger frame for the Harley Quinn print, though, so that one is waiting patiently with some (read: many) other Dustin Nguyen prints I also need larger frames for. In the mean time, I'm admiring the water color background and use of negative space on this Harley one!


When we planned on attending NYCC, I knew I was going to purchase AT LEAST one item and it was this "Be a dragon" shirt from Jordan Dene. I had my eye on it for months seeing as how I was born in the Chinese zodiac year of the dragon and I love the Game of Thrones reference (the shirt is a quote from Olenna Tyrell to Danerys Targaryen). If you love this nerdy print, you'll definitely love her other stuff. Check it out. This shirt comes in a long sleeve, too!


Then after I purchased this shirt, I turned a corner, saw this Batman flask, and whipped out my credit card so fast, I don't even really remember it happening. This was definitely an impulse buy, but I regret nothiiiiing! A Batman flask has been on my mental shopping list for a long time so it really worked out in the end. What better way to put the whiskey in "Batman and whiskey"? I know the answer to that. It's whiskey. Actual whiskey.


Hope you enjoyed the haul! Let me know if you attended NYCC and what your favorite purchase or find was. It feels so great to get this blog post out there! I've literally had my NYCC haul piled up for a month knowing I wanted to blog about it eventually so here it is. I've got more ideas for content coming up so hoping I won't stay away too long this time.

Until then, have an amazing weekend, everyone!

Thursday, November 16, 2017

Throwback Thursday: National Fast Food Day / Taco Bell x DC Comics

Happy National Fast Food Day, y'all!

I thought, on this particular day, it would be appropriate to share some throwback pictures I dug up of the kids' meal and "toy" that Taco Bell was giving out for DC Comics' 75th Anniversary back in, I believe, 2010.

First things first, though, I want to get this out there right now, my top fast food chains are:
  • Jack in the Box
  • Taco Bell
  • Wendy's
As of right now, Jack in the Box is #1, but Taco Bell and Wendy's have both held that spot for me over the years depending on what phase I'm going through. Jack in the Box has been more readily available for me lately so I'm currently all about their sausage croissant sandwich, onion rings, and even their egg rolls. Hah! I'm an Asian girl who likes Jack in the Box egg rolls. No shame. I also need to add that this list doesn't include In-n-Out. As an admittedly biased Bay Area girl, I consider In-n-Out a step above your usual fast food chains. It's just more fresh! It's alsooo probably fair to note that even after living in Austin, TX for over 4 years, Whataburger hasn't quite made the list for me. I like the food, but it's not an absolute favorite or go-to like it is for a lot of (probably more senior?) Texans. If you don't know what Whataburger is, give it a chance when you're in Texas and let me know what you think!

Now that I've gotten the whole fast food part of this blog post off my chest, I can get to the DC Comics/Batman part. With their kids' meals, Taco Bell offered either Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, or Superman goodies. I ordered a kids' meal (even though I was 22) and specifically asked for the Batman version of the "toy." It came with a mini comic that I believe also folded out to a 3-D poster complete with 3-D glasses and a DIY Batman pop-up stand-up cardboard poster.

These first couple of photos show how it was packaged. I can't imagine this flat "toy" package being very exciting or impressive for younger children.



The unpackaged photo below has everything laid out. You can see the 36x24(-ish?) 3-D poster, corresponding 3-D glasses, and the unconstructed DIY pop-up cardboard image I mentioned.


Here's what the pop-up cardboard poster looked like after it was put together! It was a little bit smaller than a standard letter size. I wish I took photos of different angles of this so you can see the various layers. If you compare this to the last photo, you can see all the different parts that came together to make this what it is.


Overall, a bunch of paper items you can easily toss, but it was some quick fun for a Batman nerd like me. I'm also almost 100% positive I kept all of these items somewhere because, as mentioned in previous posts, I'm a hoarder... especially when it comes to my Batman stuff.

Hope you enjoyed the very random Batman goodies on this fine National Fast Food Day! I would celebrate today by grabbing some Jack in the Box, but I'm currently doing this fit challenge at my boot camp and I should really be better in general about what I'm eating. I haven't been trying very hard when it comes to my nutrition. Oops! There's always room for improvement as they say, right?

That's not to say you can't use today as a reason to go hit up YOUR favorite fast food place! Hah. Am I a bad influence? ðŸ¤”😬