Archive for November, 2012

Lucca C&G 2012: computer fever

In Lucca Games there was the Miniature Island. Yes, we were on an island in the sea of Lucca Comics & Games (and Cosplay, remember). We were only an island in Lucca Games pavilion too. Boardgames had a larger space and importance because in Italy we have various publishers on the market. This means that more money is involved in this sector than wargames one. Roleplay games are another sector and it has a respectable market. Live roleplay is an obscure sector to me and it was located in another pavilion. But the videogames market rules upon us all.

To celebrate the release of the new chapter of the Assassin’s Creed saga, the third one, an entire pavilion was dedicated to it. A polite statement to say that Ubisoft bought it. They have got the money to do it.

Around the city you could see some projections of this videogame advertisements on the walls. More revealing was the reenactment event of the Saturday, the simulation of Bunker Hill battle (1775). Almost 200 reenactors and lots of gunpowder were involved. We play wargame battles with miniatures, videogame industries play wargame battles with real men. Money makes a difference.

Another money matter. Videogame stands were huge and customised. I forgot to take a picture of the new Nintendo console and its gorgeous girls stand assistants. Among these game giants I took a photo of a wrestling videogame with the straight edge wrestler guy. Weird. Minor Threat – the band who came up in the eighties with the “straight edge” term – didn’t think about this evolution.

Just Dance is the exhibitionists videogame of the fair. Every year a new edition, every year wild girls try to hypnotise men with their rhythmic movements controlled by a game console with video camera. Some stand assistants lead the game. Here at the end of a day. I saw them in the morning, before the open of the gates, dancing without public: they were so crazy for dance to do it for fun! After 4 days in Lucca I was dead tired. And these girls?

An alternative way to utilise your old CRT computer screen: using it as a stage for miniatures.

In Lucca there is always a little modding section. This one was kitsch for sure, a gun with inside and outside various bad taste things, as Smurfs and model cars. Ugly looking.

Something better. But not so practical with that finger-eat fan. Glamorous but too much “open” to be a computer case.

A great machine! Water cooled case. Clean design, neon lights, blue-black-white colours. What can I say? It is sexy.

Paolo from Switzerland came to Lucca by train. Here while he is wearing his new computer headphones. Saturday night we walk together to a place outside Lucca where were relegated the computer geeks. They organised an all night long videogames lan party. Someone fell asleep on the floor, indeed. Instead Paolo, our hero, killed millions of aliens and took the train the morning after at 7 to the watches country.

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Lucca C&G 2012: diabolik

Diabolik is an Italian comic anti-hero that now celebrates 50 years life. He is a thief who steal for no real reason: it is his nature. He is even an assassin, a cold man that utilise technology in his jobs. He is a spiritual heir of Fantômas.

A couple of Diabolik exhibitions were in Lucca, one inside the Comics Museum and the other one inside an ancient church! It was weird to see the king of the thieves with his dagger in this context!

This comic was very anti-conformist when it was published in that years. Bigoted people and authorities saw in this character a dangerous menace to moral. In 1967 this cover with a girl who wears only a bikini was sequestrated as a porn publication.

Some years after, some bank coined small gold ingots with Diabolik covers as an economical investment…

After a psychotronic film directed by Bava and a childish tv cartoon series, now is the time for a glamorous video series. Sign of the times, during a long 50 years story.

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Ludica Roma is coming!

A break from Lucca C&G reports. They will follow next week. Now is the time of Ludica Roma convention! I’m leaving with Andrea “Ganesha Games” Sfiligoi for a three days duty in a huge fair full of wargames, boardgames, videogames and more. A full report here after I will have ended the Lucca series.
See you in Ludica!

Ludica Roma website

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Lucca C&G 2012: cosplay

Lucca Comics & Games has a wrong name, a better statement would be Lucca Cosplay, Comics & Games. This is the Italian biggest event for cosplayers. This year I was more involved with the Ganesha Games table so I dedicated only few time to take cosplayers photos. Sorry.

These two girls remained all the time on the wall posing for photos. Every day (4) they changed the dresses. They have got a video blog where they speak about their daily experiences in Lucca.

The walk on the bastions are the traditional place for show your cosplay and your legs to people and photographers hordes.

A huge sword and a slight corpse. Yes, the sword isn’t made of steel.

A girl in bikini. A common view in Lucca those days. Look at the girl on the right: a little more heavy as dresses. On the left another girl with an open umbrella. Maybe it wasn’t summer time.

Monsters from famous flicks. It was fun to walk with a bed or a well!

Steampunk, a new subculture that I like. The next year Osprey will publish a book with steampunk wargame rules.

This paunchy chap was just come from a human female abattoir. Or had he devastate a mannikin deposit?

Anime heroes gone bad. This chap impersonate a pop singer from Love Me Knight (“Kiss me Licia” in Italy) anime. Time goes by for us all. And a big belly can be the result. These film producers are specialised in parodies.

A miracle in the parking! A pirate patch was discovered by us on the ground. We suppose that a cosplay recovered sight! Lucca works miracles.

A warm androgynous nude look. And a blast from a fist. Common sights in Lucca.

Another cosplay from anime world. And an easy way to keep close a girlfriend. She is almost a cat, he can remind an Arabian knight. I’m too old, I don’t know all these Japanese series. I don’t know which characters are impersonated by 80% of cosplayers…

This guy is the “reenactment part” of this post. Some people as cosplay costume wear their softair dresses. So they can walk in the streets with (softair) guns. I think that they are prohibited outside specific areas. Even a lot of metal cosplay swords are illegal, I suppose. However, lots of people in Lucca wear costumes so these weapons are saw as part of the fair colour. But there is someone who overdo! This is a Humvee, indeed! This vehicle is labelled as German but the overall aspect is American, with a forest camouflage, I believe. In Italy we don’t have Humvee. The guy wears an Italian desert “vegetata” uniform. A patchwork and another not so legal presence.

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Lucca C&G 2012: sexy action figures

What is an action figure? Only some resin parts, glued and painted…

Well, the result is not so simple, these are works of art.

In this post I collected the best of sexy action figures that I saw at the fair. I am a male, so I fell in love with weapons and girls…

The next action figures are less sexy. Because this is porn, sold as an item for anoraks. I don’t think that something like this can easily find a place on all desks or bookshelves. And inside a comic fair? Well, if some manga series support male homosexuality, if Fifty Shades of Grey has sold 60 million copies worldwide and females think about it as literature, maybe these statuettes are not so strange here. So these sculptures are not things for perverts, are only a matter of healthy sex urge. Only some resin parts, glued and painted, do you remember?

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Lucca C&G 2012: go nagai

Heroic samurai robots are made in Go Nagai. The sad thing is that he revise in perpetuity his fictional world cast and sometimes he don’t end the series, so you cannot understand the full story. Maybe because there isn’t a real story but only an accumulation of stories based on stock characters.

Mazinger (Majingā) family. Sometimes almost the same names for slightly different characters and stories. I don’t care so much about this, because I remember when I was a child watching these cartoons. Amazing!

An UFO Robot Grendizer diorama. Very dynamic. The tag is not an abstract number, it is the cost in euros.

UFO Robot Grendizer with some its flight modules. This was chronologically the first giant robot on television in Italy. At that times it was a revolution in children entertainment. Grendizer gadgets were a must have. I increased my social status among other children because I owned a Grendizer official t-shirt.

A version of the Mazinger robot. Those bat or hellish wings gives a great touch to the character.

A photo of our Samurai Robots Battle Royale scenario. Andrea is selling some t-shirts with the cover of the rules. Ask him for sizes and price.

A drink with Go Nagai’s robots customised cans: giant robots for some sort of exotic beverage… Don’t drink them for your safety, just collect them…

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Lucca C&G 2012: gundam

Gundam anime started a new kind of Japan giant robots genre. I am a Gundam addict and I like a lot these mechas. I think that in Japan the Gundam modelling is not a hobby, it is a cult. As every year, an Italian vendor of the Gunplay circuit set out some displays with his Gundam models. It is like a army museum…

Zaku design is the perfect mecha design. These old style mobile suit are just classics.

MS-09R Rick Dom, the original concept of bulk Zeon mobile suits. The others born from here.

A winged model. Under all these things there is a Cyclops mobile suit

Later Zeon mobile suit with the German helmet style head. Great!

Variations. That one on the left is weird but tasty. The other one is a sniper.

Slimmer models are by Earth federation. This one has got huge fuel tanks.

Less fictional and more military mobile suits by Earth Federation.

A samurai Gundam. It come from Japan…

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Lucca C&G 2012: mecha

I like mechas, do you remember?

This is a scratch-built starship by the Kallamity chap. He is a mecha designer. I’m waiting his second book out next year.

Every year the NKGC organise a modelling competition. I think these are from the Ma.k.s world. I appreciate them very much.

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