*Sigh* It's happened. I made a mistake while ordering our last stock of supplies. Now I've got a giant roll of red vinyl that is *JUST A SMIDGE* darker than what we usually carry. I'm always worried that this is going to happen every time I order supplies, and I check and check again. Should have checked a third time I suppose.
So, the question was: Suck it up and use it, or chuck it and start over.
I don't wanna do either. It's perfectly good vinyl, and the color isn't bad, just noticeably different than what we usually stock. However, it's not going to match any of our displays, so I would have to replace all of our samples that are cut in red for Comic Con, and I really don't want to have to edit ALL of our online listings. So, to make the best of a frustrating situation, David and I have decided to offer a super giant vinyl sale!
Get any and all of the decals in our shop (even the GIANT Zombie Outbreak Response Vehicle decal!) cut from this roll of red vinyl for only $4 plus shipping. Want something custom from this roll? Let me know, I'll make you a deal. Want to buy 10 or more decals from this color? Contact me first, and I'll make it even cheaper. Stock up for Christmas, cover your house with red polka dots, whatever you want!
The listing for all regular sized decals is here and the listing for the XL decals is here. The only difference is the cost of shipping!
There's been so much going on over the past few weeks, we've been AFK more than we had planned to. Halloween is looming, and I've still got costumes to work on (We're going to be pirates, YAR!) Then of course there's the Christmas season that we're gearing up for, trying to build some stock up so that we're able to ship orders out more quickly. We've expanded our marketplace quite a bit, not only are we selling on Etsy now, but we've moved onto Artfire as well. This means I'm diving into books on SEO optimization and other things that were, before this point, foreign concepts to me.
And like a shining beacon on the horizon, we've got Austin Comic Con. The guest list keeps growing, and we're becoming more and more excited. I'm not sure how much time David and I will really have to get around and meet the guests, as usually working a convention means we're tied to a table from early morning to late night, but lots of great guests means that we'll have the opportunity to meet a lot of great fans, and that's exciting to me.
Adam West and Burt Ward the original TV Batman and Robin will be there, as well as Billy Dee Williams who was Lando Calrissian from the original Star Wars Trilogy, Walter Koenig who played Pavel Checkov in Star Trek - they've really done a fantastic job covering a wide array of genres. For a complete guest list (there are just tons more) check out the Austin Comic Con Website.
We're going to be doing something new at this show, and I'm a little nervous about it since we're anticipating that the show will be very large. Every show we've sold at up to this point, we've had electrical access and have been able to cut our vinyl on demand. This allows us to take on custom orders, or cut our existing decals in custom colors. This time, however, we're not going to have electricity, which means that everything that we'd like to sell we need to have on hand. It's hard to anticipate what will be the popular thing here (it seems to be different for every show we do) and color options also change in popularity depending on the show, so we're going to be doing a lot of guessing and we're building a lot of stock to carry with us. It's nerve racking, but exciting too, since this will give us the opportunity to spend less time cutting and prepping vinyl, and more time talking and visiting with con goers.
So, if you're going to be at Austin Comic Con, find us in the Artist Alley and visit with us a bit. We'd love to meet you!
We've been busy at Stickerella, so this update is about a week behind, but I wanted to make sure to take a moment to congratulate everyone at the Oklahoma Horror Film Festival on their first year and thank them for letting us be a part of it. We had a great time!
Now, we love doing shows, but because we keep busy, often times the only part of the convention or festival we get to see is the vendor area. This being the case at OHFF, and because we were new to the area, I took the opportunity to get to know some of our fellow vendors and see what's up in OK.
Jonathon and James Fowler are a illustration and design team and also put on an anime convention called Tokyo in Tulsa.
Lotus Cafe and Comics is a group of guys trying to start up a cosplay coffee house and comic book store. Go to their website to see how you can help them out.
Craig Mullins runs the site unfilmable.com where you can find news and reviews exclusively of films based on H.P. Lovecraft stories. This may seem like a pretty specific focus, but Craig knows his stuff and where to find it. There are a lot more Lovecraft films out there than you thought.
Joe runs Fast Custom Shirts.com. Check out his site for his awesome selection. For OHFF he had on display shirts featuring horror classics as well as really obscure cult favorites. I loved this table, and we ended up bringing a handful of shirts home for ourselves.
Felix Matos does really great paintings of all your favorite films, actors, writers, and other pop culture icons. Some of his stuff can also be seen at the Juju gallery in Oklahoma City. They also show the dia de los muertos inspired work of Crypt-o-licious.
The Tulsa Ghost Investigators were also on site to offer their insights on the hereafter and psychic phenomenon. If you've got a paranormal situation on your hands, hit them up for advice and answers to your questions.
Once Upon A Silver Moon had all manner of great little witchy things on display. Hit up their Etsy shop and get some of your own.
Custom Cranium features what creator Darien refers to as "osteo-oddities" and "snuff stuffies." These beautifully macabre critters combine cuddly stuffed animals and real animals bones. A special thanks to Darien for putting one of these up as a prize for horror movie trivia, because I promptly won it with my superior knowledge of Peter Jackson's career prior to Lord of the Rings.
Thanks again to everyone at OHFF. Congratulations and good luck with next year!
I'm a bit late in choosing a winner for our Lovecraft giveaway, but I'll get to why in a minute. First, to announce our winner! We made a chart, and Dave pulled out his trusty d20, and the winner of our Lovecraft giveaway is : The Zombie Crafter! Congratulations! Thanks to everyone who participated, be sure to come back often for other giveaways.
Now, to the ouch, and the reason it's taken a few days to announce our winner. David and I went out to sneak a peek at the new Games Workshop opening in our little town last Tuesday, then ran off to the theater to catch a showing of Raiders of the Lost Ark. After the movie, we got up to leave, and my back said no. I'm not sure what I did to it, but it put me down for nearly a week. I spent several days in bed, and took several trips to the chiropractor, but I'm up and walking again just in time for the Oklahoma Horror Film Festival! Still not back 100%, but feeling much better now than I did a week ago.
We watched several movies over the past week - not much else to do when you're stuck in bed - and we worked through a bunch of the random horror movies we've had on our Netflix queue for awhile now. Most of them were really bad, but we did find one gem.
First, we watched The Hunger, a movie featuring David Bowie from 1983. This movie was awful, which is sad, because it started out with something that could have turned into a really interesting film. Somewhere in the middle, the first story is tossed aside, and I got an eyefull of far more Susan Sarandon than I ever needed to see. It was disjointed, and bad, but not the sort of bad that I usually enjoy in a horror film.
We watched Suspiria, a 1977 film which was directed by Dario Argento. Joan Bennett, of Dark Shadows fame, played the head mistress of a prestigious ballet school. The art design was really striking, and disorienting, and it seemed like everything in the movie was red. It had a fairly interesting plot, but was told haphazardly and left several holes in the story.
Dead Snow is a Norwegian zombie film that mixed elements of classic slasher movies with zombies. From the start you know they're not going to take the plot too seriously, as all of the zombies are Nazis, and the college kids are on vacation in a cabin in the woods. This was hilarious, and totally enjoyable. I didn't think I'd care for it from the start, because the main characters aren't terribly likable, but it was a perfect bad zombie flick.
Fright Night... oh, what to say about this one... It's a vampire movie, it's terrible, and it's packed full of 80's. BUT if you're interested in special effects in horror films, I think it's worth watching. Some of the vampire transformations were really cool.
Purely out of morbid curiosity, we watched the first 30 seconds of Thankskilling. David insisted he had to see what a homicidal turkey looked like. 29 seconds of boob, 1 second of homicidal turkey, 5 full minutes of laughter. I'm sure this movie is just as awful all the way through.
We re-watched Bram Stoker's Dracula, which brought up the question that's been plaguing me for the past 18 years... who in their right mind would cast Gary Oldman and Anthony Hopkins next to Keanu Reves and Winona Ryder? Why?
And, for the diamond in the rough. Tonight, we sat down to what we had expected to be a typical slasher or haunting type movie; Session 9. From the start, I wasn't expecting much. The movie takes place in an abandoned asylum, and the film quality says from the get-go "Low Budget." However, they really make the best of it. The plot is interesting, and I got really drawn in to the story. There are several striking shots, and shots that make you uncomfortable. They had me hooked to the very last sentence. In my opinion, a good horror film is very difficult to make. You either have to focus more on character development and allow the horror to come second, or you have to keep the horror out of sight, allowing the mind to fill in the dark places. This movie successfully did both.
On the way to lunch today, Valorie and I spotted a new, temporary sign up in one of the shopping centers for Games Workshop. I excitedly pulled over to check it out. They had just put the sign up this morning and weren't even open for business yet; but the manager let us come in and poke around and we talked to him for an hour or so. They're opening for business on Thursday so you Denton, TX nerds should check that out. They'll be doing game nights and model paintings nights once they're open.
Then tonight we went to The Movie Tavern for their retro movie summer series and saw Raiders of the Lost Ark. All in all a pretty nerdy day.
David and I have been reading a lot of Lovecraft recently, usually while we're winding down for the night (as you can imagine, that has a fun effect on dreams :P).
If you're not sure who H. P. Lovecraft is, chances are you've heard of some of his creations. The Necronomicon for example, Cthulhu, and all manner of weird creatures and myths. He's a well loved horror and science fiction writer from the early 1900's, and his work has inspired a huge following of horror writers, game designers, toy lines, and even several of the decals we have in our shop.
If you would like to find out more about Lovecraft, you can find all sorts of information on hplovecraft.com, including full texts of a lot of his public domain writings.
What's really amazing to me about Lovecraft is that over 70 years after his death he's remained a very relevant influence in his genre. As a celebration of his life work, I'd like to feature some of the modern things that he's influenced, and do a little giveaway.
These two videos, both made by badadvicegoodtimes on Youtube, are just great:
Then there's the plush Cthulhu, everyone's favorite Elder God, designed by Toy Vault. My daughter had her very first little stuffed Cthulhu before she was a year old :) This isn't the only stuffed version of Cthulhu out there, and he and several of the other Elder Gods have been turned into statuary and miniature models, from companies like Reaper Minis, among others.
Then there's the endless line of games. Arkham Horror is a fantastic board game, and Call of Cthulhu is a horror role playing game in the vein of Dungeons and Dragons. There are video games for several different consoles, from games based directly on Lovecraft lore, to games that are heavily influenced by his work.
One of my favorite movies made from a Lovecraft story is Reanimator, where Jeffrey Combs has earned a special fangirl slot in my heart for his portrayal of Dr. Herbert West, a doctor who has found a way to beat death. And of course there are the Evil Dead movies, and In the Mouth of Madness. There are tons of really bad horror adaptations of his short stories roaming around too, so if you love really bad horror films as much as I do, they're worth looking for.
His work is featured in several modern songs, including Call of Ktulu and The Thing That Should Not Be by Metallica, Behind the Wall of Sleep by Black Sabbath, as well as inspiring the work of bands like Morbid Angel, Nile, and Cradle of Filth.
He's also inspired other writers in his genre, allowing the Cthulhu Mythos to grow. Brian Lumley has written several books using Lovecraft's mythos, Donald Tyson has turned the Necronomicon into a memoir of the bizarre life of the Mad Arab, Alhazred.
The Giveaway! As a happy birthday gift, we're offering up one of our Cthulhu decals! The winner can choose from either the Nom, or the O'Rlyeh decals, or any of our Miskatonic University decals, in whatever color they'd prefer.
There are three different ways to enter: 1) Leave a comment telling me your favorite Lovecraft story, or your favorite thing that his work inspired. (Required) 2) Become a follower of our blog! (Optional) 3) Become a fan of us on Facebook (Optional)
Leave one separate comment for each entry, and be sure to leave your E-mail address so that I can contact you if you win! I will choose the winner on August 27th, at 12:00 noon central time. The winner has 48 hours to claim their prize, or a new winner will be chosen. This giveaway is open to participants world wide!
A few years ago, I read through a few of the books in the Ender's Game series. I was introduced to the series in my Science Fiction Literature class while at college, and have really enjoyed reading it. I recently picked up a book in another of Orson Scott Card's series, The Seventh Son, and it rekindled my love for his writing style. I ran out to the used book store to find the second book in the series, and finding that it wasn't available, I came home with Ender's Shadow.
There are two story lines in the Ender's Game series and there are a number of short stories that flesh things out. I haven't read all of these (though I plan to in the future), and have stuck to the Ender Series so far. I have been curious about reading Ender's Shadow, which focuses around another boy in Battle School named Bean. I was also a little hesitant because Ender's Game doesn't really give Bean much of a personality, and so I didn't find him particularly endearing, or know what his story could add to the story line.
Well, I read it, and I loved it. Card succeeded in making Bean a genuinely interesting character, and even though a good portion of the book centers around things that were already talked about in Ender's Game, having it from another view point really rounded out the story.
After reading Ender's Shadow, I dug out my old beat up copy of Ender's Game, and started to re-read it. Ender tends to examine things internally, he's wrapped up in emotion and fear. Bean, on the other hand, is interested in analyzing other people, and so his story examines other people, and why the events in the first book happened as they did.
All of this has also reminded me about how much of a story I forget over time, and I'm considering re-reading some of my other old favorites.
*Sigh* It's happened. I made a mistake while ordering our last stock of supplies. Now I've got a giant roll of red vinyl that is *JUST A SMIDGE* darker than what we usually carry. I'm always worried that this is going to happen every time I order supplies, and I check and check again. Should have checked a third time I suppose. 
