July 2, 2015 by Adam Sheehan - 2 Comments

Why Conventions Matter to Me

Sorry for the short blog post but I’m writing this the night before Anime Expo starts and everything is insane and wonderful at the same time. This leads me to the topic of today. Conventions and my history with them.

I first started going to conventions in 1996, AnimeFest in Dallas Texas. I was instantly hooked on them from day one. The idea of all the people that understood and loved all the things I did in the same place for a weekend was absolutely intoxicating. It seemed like a thing that shouldn’t exist. It felt like make believe when jumping from conversations of Tenchi Muyo, to screenings of Nadesico, to playing Power Stone all night with random strangers. I slept on a row of seats of a screening room, talked my way into using people I just met’s showers, and ran out of money for food way early into the weekend. And. It. was… amazing! I some how knew this was something I needed to be a part of for as long as possible. I had no idea this would still be a thing almost 20 years later though.

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While in college a friend of mine and myself who while running an engagement event to recruit new members for our college anime club were asked my a former MBA business grad if we would be interested in starting a marketing firm to help promote local conventions. We of course jumped at this opportunity. Our first client was Project A-Kon in Dallas TX. The biggest anime con in the state by a long shot. We handled the marketing for pre-reg tickets and their PR department. We did this all pro-bono (a fancy word for free) since we loved cons and wanted the experience. We pushed the envelop here in in many ways. I slept on a cot in the PR room during the con since I didn’t want to leave until our job was 100% done. We did great in our first year and stayed together to do it for a few years past this as well.

After graduating college I got a job as the the tour manager for the DBZ CCG at Score Entertainment. Which put me at a decent amount of cons nationwide. Including Anime Expo, San Diego Comic-Con, and the Wizard World circuit. For someone who had previously only done Texas anime cons this was quite an eye opener. I was off the reservation for the first time and couldn’t get enough. 12 -16 hours days mixed with booth work, industry mixers, and other random gatherings of industry people and fans was not uncommon. and I loved every damn minute of it. I mean, why not? I was in my mid-20’s and everything was on Score’s dime. The party never stopped. The work load for this was intense but the benefits well outweighed and of the long hours.

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After this I moved over to FUNimation and got full reign to build and shape conventions for the company. This lead me to a whole new set of opportunities. Booth designs, events, promotions, and all sorts of other madness. All for the sake of connecting with the fans on a very personal one-on-one basis. Which is one of the deepest joys I have with conventions and one of the bigger things that keeps me going. It’s the energy of the fans. When my feet hurt, I’ve said the same thing 100 times, and been hit by a backpack full of plushies on more than one occasion that is what keeps me going.

A good example of this happened one random Sunday morning at Wizard World Chicago back around 2002-2003. I was in line at the hotel mini-mart buying some water and a bagel. It was a long night the night before and I wasn’t in the mood for pretty much anything at this point. There was a kid in his late teens in front of me in line that was all but jumping with excitement. He turned to me and said, “I met Adam Hughes yesterday!” My cynical mind thought, “ I had dinner with Adam Hughes not to long ago.” A couple of seconds later it hit me. This kid was so excited that he got a few minutes with a comic icon of his he HAD to share it with a random stranger in line at 9 am. I say HAD since it was clear this was something he would be saying to anyone and everyone he came across for the next few weeks. Friend, family, 7-11 clerk. They would all know of this meeting with Adam Hughes.

This quickly reminded me why I went to cons and what I loved about them. Every time you talk to someone at a con you have a change to influence and change their life for the better. This always reminds me about the time Michael Jordan was asked why he goes 110% at every game and he responded by saying that there could be a kid in the crowd seeing him play for the first and only time and he had one chance to to be a positive influence on them.

Every moment connecting with a person is a change to be a positive influence in there life, and I never want to miss a chance to make this happen. This is why conventions are important to me and always will.

June 25, 2015 by Adam Sheehan - 1 Comment

A Brief Look at a Decade in Anime

For the past 10 and half years I have worked at FUNimation Entertainment in some capacity. Brand manager, conventions manager, digital marketing manager, and a slew of random projects in between. I recently decided it was time to move on to the next big challenge in my life and have left the company. I’m not leaving the anime industry though since I am heading over to Crunchyroll to take on events and conventions for them.

Right now I am in between ending one thing and starting the next so I thought it would be a good time to take stock and reflect on my past decade working in the anime industry. 10 years might not feel like too long of a time in the grand scheme of things but when I first started at FUNimation single stick DVD volumes were king, Genoeon & ADV were expanding their market share, streaming anime was years away, and I had a VCR at my desk to watch dubbed episodes still in production. It was a different world.

When I first joined FUNimation they had around 10 shows currently in their catalog. It’s well over 350 now. I joined on as a brand manager and was given Kodocha and Tenchi Muyo OVA 3 as my first brands. Both of which I learned a ton from. I was also sharing an office with Lance Heiskell, who was in charge of brand management, so I was lucky to get a lot of good advice and help with these.

I also joined FUNimation to take on conventions. Lance had laid the ground work for this as well and I needed to grown the department. I learned the hard way that going back and forth between cons and working on brands was quite difficult. I managed to do both for a while but the success we were having with the growth of conventions meant less time to work on my brands. I eventually had to give up being a brand manager. Though not before working on the release of a good group of shows including Basilisk, Negima, Beck, and Shinobi.

Near the end of my tenure as a brand manager I got the opportunity/challenge of a life time in being part of the team that would bring CLAMP to Anime Expo. I was working both sides of this being that I was the brand manager for Tsubasa as well as had to set up all the convention items. This was one of the most challenging projects I’ve ever worked on. I more than once slept in my office to save time and not drive home at 5am. If it’s not hard it doesn’t count right?. It was all worth it though after seeing thousands of fans lining up for hours to see them.

The team we had in the marketing department around this time was amazing. We all were working as hard as we could and had each others backs 100%. One person tossed the ball up and another would catch it with out missing a beat. We were firing on all cylinders and having way too much fun while doing it.

When Navarre bought FUNimation I learned a ton about what it was like to work for a publicly traded company. I had only worked for private companies before then. Shortly after this was when the economy started to drop globally and the anime industry was hit just as hard. If it wasn’t for Navarre I’m not sure what might have happened to FUNimation during that time. This still didn’t phase the lot of us. We had anime to put out, no reason to ease off the gas now.

We spent the rest of the convention year keeping fans informed and calm that anime was going to be fine and wasn’t going away with our “Don’t Panic!” campaign. The industry survived and changed into something new after all the smoke cleared. We needed to change with it as well. That’s the really cool thing about passion and drive. If you put hurdles in it’s way it will always evolve and adapt to keep moving forward.

We had a good influx of new talent coming into brand management around this time that was going to set the stage of how the department would be redefined. This was when shows like Ouran High School Host club, Hetalia, Soul Eater, and Panty & Stocking were starting to come out. This was also when we started to team up with American Cosplay Paradise for getting cosplayers for our convention events. The combo of great shows, unique promotional ideas, and the right people involved with each event made every day an amazing adventure. Everything was coming up Milhouse, even the Wall Street Journal was getting in on the excitement.

Oh, also I met the girl of my dreams while working the con circuit around this time!

In between cons we wanted to create more content to help promote product release and unfortunately due to budget cuts our video series ‘The FUNimation Update’ had been canceled. So this left Justin Rojas, Scott Porter, and myself to do some gorilla filming around the office. We were never told to do these, we just started making them. Justin and I were even filming and cutting these videos ourselves after hours to turn them out. We were able to do live casts, had voice actors saying dirty words, contest commercials, con highlight videos, a voice actor interview series, and even a live feed of Scott locked in a room watching 200 episodes of One Piece. He was never the same after that. Luckily these did well which lead to the return of a video content series as ‘The FUNimation Show‘ a short while later.

At one point the opportunity came up for me to take on the marketing for the relaunch of funimation.com and I jumped from running conventions to digital marking. I was still working on events but now online instead of at cons. We had some great launch events that ended up so popular they crashed the site from time to time. …I had to slow those down a short while later. 🙂

FUNimation.com changed and evolved multiple times after that to what it is today. Streaming service, apps, an online store, and more. All things that seemed like a pipe dream when I first made the jump to take it on.

Now it is time to look to the future, to my next decade in anime. Which for me starts next week at Anime Expo with Crunchyroll. All that has happened before has lead up to what’s next and I’m excited to take that first step again. To have another turn with ‘beginners mind’ and still stay in the anime industry. It’s like seeing The Matrix again for the first time. I can’t wait to start up this crazy roller coaster again with all of you. Thank you all for being part of the past 10+ years with me and I’m looking forward to the next 10!

June 18, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

The Only Arms Race That Really Mattered: The Damp War

I was working on this week’s blog post, “the arms race which was upgrading your Super Soaker water gun in the summer of the 1990s”, when I found a blog post that had everything I was working on already. So …slight change of plans.

1. You all should read this blog post about the battle for water gun supremacy that happened across many neighborhoods, including my own, across American in the 1990s: The Race for Super Soaker Supremacy

2. Find out which Super Soaker you are!

I made a personality quiz just for all of you. Now you can find out if you’re the classic Super Soaker 50, duel wielding Super Soaker 30, or the behemoth Super Soaker 300.

Let me know which Super Soaker you got and if you had any of these when you were a kid how they helped make your summers more damp.

June 11, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

How Goku Became My Homeboy

I recently had the pleasure of being part of Derek Padula’s book Dragon Soul: 30 Years of Dragon Ball Fandom. A new book revealing the personal stories about Dragon Ball from 108 fans and professionals from 25 countries around the world. Derek was kind enough to let me share with you one of the questions I answered in the book on this blog. This is the story about how I first got into Dragon Ball Z. Spoiler alert: I wasn’t a fan in the beginning. Hell, I use to actively be against the series as you will read below.

If you enjoy this story and would like to read more from people like Mike McFarland, Christopher Sabat, or Sean Schemmel I recommend you picking up a copy today.

Q: When did you first experience Dragon Ball, and how has it changed your life?

I think how I first got into Dragon Ball Z will surprise most people.

I first collided with DBZ back in the late 90’s when it was getting its first run on US TV and I was still in college. I say ‘collided’ here since I heard about the show before I ever saw it. I was working at a local comic book retailer in Arlington, TX and would run into people regularly who would go on and on about DBZ all the time. I was the ‘anime guy’ at the store so naturally they all would be filtered my way. Which I wasn’t the happiest about. I disliked DBZ before I ever saw an episode.

A little backstory here. I have been into anime for as long as I can remember. Around this time I was getting a bit too high on the horse about anime being ‘art,’ and anything below that should be ignored. Not my proudest moment, and I’m so glad I got past this notion. I kept this opinion on DBZ for a bit and wasn’t afraid to share it with my friends when outside of work. I railed on the series enough that I was even asked to sit on a few anime con panels to speak against the show. Over the next few years my negative opinion of the series lessened. Not because I finally sat down and watched it, but because I just stopped thinking about it and it wasn’t coming up as much as it used to.

It wasn’t until I got my first job out of college that I would collide again with DBZ. This was as the Hummer driver and Tour Manager for the DBZ Collectable Card Game. “You totally sold out!” one of my friends said. To which I replied, “Yes, but for a good price.” What I meant by that was that I was about to get paid to drive around the country in a Hummer playing card games and hanging out with voice actors. I would have done the same thing for Rainbow Brite if I were asked too.

I thought to myself I would just ‘deal with’ being surrounded by DBZ all the time. That it was all worth it. Little did I know that before the end of my first tour that I would forever have a strong bond to the series. My main job on the tour was going to a new city each week to promote a mall event that Saturday with voice actors, game demos, giveaways, and the Hummer right in the middle of the mall. The rest of the week was spent getting everything prepped for this and promoting the event that weekend. I would go to card shops and anime stores to make appearances with the Hummer, pass out free stuff, and talk to people there about the mall event. This is where things first began to click for me with DBZ.

It was an H1 military grade Hummer covered in Dragon Ball Z characters, so I totally understood their excitement. But they were also excited to see me as well, which was something I didn’t expect. I mean, I just drove the thing and talked about our upcoming promotions. I’ve always been good for pumping up a crowd, but this was still marketing 101 stuff I assure you. They were excited to see me even before I got a chance to talk with them about anything. This happened everywhere I went, no matter what part of the country I was in.

I soon discovered something about DBZ that had never crossed my mind before. That is, it has a sense of community. Being a fan of the show brought people closer together instead of driving them apart. This was unlike my snootier ‘anime is art and anything below that should be ignored’ days where things were more exclusive than inclusive. Seeing DBZ bring so many people together with such happiness was not only refreshing, it was exhilarating.

I’ll admit I was a little embarrassed that by this point in time I could count on one hand how many DBZ episodes I had actually watched. I was traveling 100% of the time and wasn’t going to be back home for 3 months, so there was no real chance to sit down and marathon the series. So I did something that’s popular now but was a new idea back in 2001. I crowd-sourced the information.

If you know DBZ fans, then you know they will be happy to tell you anything and everything about the series. The story, characters, what was the best fight, whose death made them cry, who they most idolized, or who was their secret crush. Everything poured out of them, no matter the age, with such passion and love. So what was a better source for information than the fans I was now surrounded with on a daily basis? Over the next few months I coyly asked questions about the series. I was afraid to straight up ask about the show and admit I didn’t know much about it. I didn’t want to make anyone feel bad that a representative of the show and card game they loved so much was a total phony. I was always waiting for a Holden Caulfield in a Goku shirt to call me out.Luckily if anyone did catch on they were kind enough not to say anything.

By the time the first tour ended I was well versed in the series. By no means an expert, but enough to know I was no longer talking out of my ass when asked how to do the fusion dance. I’ll leave you with the main thing I learned from this experience: Don’t be too quick to write off anything in your life until you have tried to experience it from as many sides as possible. You might find something unexpected and wonderful out there. Like I did, with Dragon Ball.

June 4, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

Wait… that’s it!?! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

When Mad Men ended a few weeks back the final episode was something that had many people talking, myself included. Some loved it, some hated it, some didn’t quite know what to make of it. I’ll admit I had to run it through my head for a few days to solidify my final thoughts on the episode and the series as a whole. No matter what you thought about the ending it does bring a thought to mind about how much endings matter to a series. TV series, book trilogy, album discography, etc. How much does ‘sticking the landing’ effect everything else that happened before?

I’ve been an anime fan for a long time and not getting the ending you want, or one at all for that matter, comes with the territory. I’m actually surprised half the time when I get closer on something here. Deadman Wonderland leads you to read the manga to complete the story, the third season of Rurouni Kenshin was basically bad fan fiction, and then we have a great ending with Space Dandy which was unexpected for how sporadic the series was overall. I share this to say that my overall perspective on how important ending are is a bit skewed. If it’s 98% done well they can still count me in for liking the series. Similar thinking to when working on Jaws Steven Spielberg told Peter Benchley, the author of the original book, who was saying that you couldn’t blow up a shark by shooting an air tank in it’s mouth and making it explode, “I’ve had them for 118 minutes, I can have them for 2 more.”

I think this question stirs a wonderful debate because there really isn’t a right answer. It all depends on your expectations, how well the series lead up to the finale, or how much story ‘Kool-Aid’ you’ve drank before its over. I would like to say I’ve found some semblance of a trend over the years but it seems less a venn diagram and more spin art. I’ve picked a few titles to talk about that’s endings are normally as much a part of discussions of the series as the series itself is.

Lost

I’m betting you thought I was going to lead with the end of The Sopranos right? I didn’t finish watching the series so going with something that seems to have just as much popular dislike for the ending.

I liked the first few seasons of Lost, then it became a delicious train wreak up until the end. I do know people who loved the series all the way through for not-WTF factors as well so there is plenty of room to debate the series on the whole of course. From my perspective the series finale jumped shark (which was hard to do since jumping the shark had been a staple for a few years now so I came to expect it by now) on the last episode. The people I talked to about the final episode who loved the series still were a bit miffed by it’s ending. This didn’t seem to sway them from enjoying the series as a whole though.

Stephen King’s The Dark Tower

The Dark Tower series took Stephen King over 20 years to write. 7 books that seemed to get thicker as the series went on. I started reading these in high school and can highly recommend the first three books in the series if you are looking for a fun action packed post-apocalyptic story to read. The series mellows out as it progresses. By the time I got to the final book I was mostly reading to see how the story would end. For anyone who has read this series just bring up the ending can make the hairs on their neck stand on end.

I’ll keep this to the minimum of spoilers here in case you haven’t read the series. When you get to the end of the book there is a conclusion to the story, but not everything you want answered is answered. Very similar to the ending of Mad Men. King has a brief chapter after the book ends that he wrote for people who have to have a full ending of a story. King leads in to this chapter with a page basically stating “you really don’t want to read this so I recommend you stop here.” This alternate ending gives you more closer but also makes you want to throw the book at the wall afterwards. I of course read this ending but don’t consider it the main ending of the series since King is clearly trolling people who can’t live with not having all the answers to a story. I ended up being satisfied with the original ending overall. Would have liked to have been given more but can live without it none the less.

Neon Genesis Evangelion

I can already hear a lot of you saying, “which ending are you referring to?” so let’s talk about both the TV series ending and End of Evangelion. Neon Genesis Evangelion was a ground breaking anime series from the mid to late 90’s that is still talked about today. The final two episode of the TV series went from epic giant robot battles and the internal struggle of teenagers at the end of the world to something that looked like it was produced by a 32-box of crayons and a script written on the back of napkins. After making it through all this the ending felt so different from the rest of the series it was hard to adapt to such a juxtaposition. The studio that produced the series seemed to feel the same way, basically pretended these didn’t exist, and made a movie to end the series.

The end of End of Evangelion had all the wonderful feelings of global annihilation and school kids singing. To say it was a trip is like saying the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey was ‘colorful’. I personally love this movie. It’s one of my favorite anime films of all time. I do see though how the film, and ending of the film, have lead many people to discuss the series as a whole. Overall I don’t see many people not liking the series because of either ending but it sure is something brought up from a WTF perspective from many angles.

I do enjoy the debate that comes from endings like this. How much of the internet is devoted just for these sort of debates? If anything this puts out a conflict discussion that’s just silly enough to get heated over but has little to no real consequences.

“I may regret the way we ended, but I will never regret what we had.”

― Drake (not the rapper)

Which series finales stand out most to you as departing from what lead up to it? How did these endings effect your perceptions and enjoyment of the full series? I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below or feel free to hit me up on Twitter at @neumaverick.

May 28, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

Ohayo, Copyright Infringement

Some of you might be aware that anime has been a part of my life for as long as I remember. Some of the things I did to show my love of anime in those earlier days make me want to facepalm sometimes. This is a story of one of those times back in high school when I thought I was smarter than everyone else and it almost got me in trouble.

I was in high school in the mid 90’s, I was also deep into “OH MY GOD (because OMG wasn’t invented yet), anime isn’t just a cartoon!!” part of my life. I was watching anything remotely related to anime on TV, using any extra cash I had to buy Ranma 1/2 VHS tapes, and buying random Japanese import magazines that I couldn’t read whenever I found one. I had accumulated a small stack of Japanese NewType and Animage magazines and would look at the art from them regularly. A few shows I knew but many I didn’t.

During my senior year our class was asked to submit art designs for our senior t-shirt. We would wear this shirt during pep rallies and other events where we wanted to represent ourselves as a class. I naturally had the thought that it would be super cool if the t-shirt art was anime related so I decided that I would submit something. I could barely draw a circle so I hatched the brilliant idea of trying to copy one of the images from the Japanese anime magazines I had. I found an image of two kids in school jumping large on the page from some anime I had no clue of. If I didn’t know what it was I’m betting no one else at school would either.

I first tried to draw these free hand by looking at the picture and then drawing what I saw but these turned out more …lets call it ‘abstract’ than what I was going for. I gave up on this pretty quick and went to straight lifting of the artwork in 3 easy steps:

Lay some wax paper over the image
Trace the art with a black pen
Use copy machine to transfer art to regular paper

I didn’t copy everything on the page, just the two characters so I added a scroll in the middle and wrote something about being a senior. I did actually write this part, but I’m betting it was pretty terrible. I don’t really remember any more. I do remember that my first draft had a vodka bottle saying ‘Absolute Senior’ instead of a scroll to mimic the Absolute Vodka ads that were popular at the time. I had 40+ of these ads ripped from issues of Entertainment Weekly on the ceiling of my room at the time. I changed this out after coming to my senses and realizing the school wasn’t going to put a bottle of alcohol on the back of our office class shirt. I submitted the art the next day. I felt a little bit bad for submitting art that I didn’t draw later that day. I calmed myself by saying, “They probably won’t pick it any ways. I’m sure there will be a lot of submissions and why would they go with some weird Japanese styled art anyways?” Little did I know I was either the only submission or one of very few. They choose my art for the t-shirt.

I will add that I was extra surprised that they didn’t ask to see the original artwork or for any updates or changes. They used the copied piece of paper I submitted for their master screen print. Bonus, my ‘artist signature’ on this was an anarchy symbol with a small ’s’ squeezed into bottom. Because I was totally hardcore back then with my binders of dot-matrix printed anime info sheets. When the shirts were first passed out a few students questioned why this symbol was on the shirt but I never really owned up to drawing it to anyone outside of my circle of friends to play it safe. That’s the weird thing too, they never made an announcement on me suppling the artwork for the shirt at any point. Maybe they knew it was a copy or they didn’t really get it but had to choose something and thought it better to just slide it out there without any pomp and circumstance. Which was fine by me.

After the first week of the shirt being out there any questions or issues about it seemed to waver. Hell, some people even liked it. I was in the clear. No one in the school knew or cared that the art was lifted and that I drew it. The only people who might be able to recognize this art would need to be Japanese school kids. It wasn’t like we were every going to have anyone from Japan come to our school in small town Seekonk, MA. Population: Not Boston.

About a month later we got the announcement that a Japanese school was visiting the US and choose to spend part of the day at out our high school. About 200 kids of different grade levels coming to our school. There would be a big assembly. We were asked to wear our class t-shirts. …oh crap.

I spent the next few weeks talking myself off the ledge about being ‘discovered’. I first was telling myself that they might not know the characters since they weren’t from any anime I knew. Because clearly 17 year old me who had access to dial-up internet via the school library knew more about anime at the time than a school of Japanese teenagers. I started to think of the worst case scenarios that could take place if I was ratted out.

Top scariest ‘worst case scenarios’:

I would have to apologize on the local news for my crimes and forced to leave town after graduation due to the looks I would get from everyone and the shame I would bring to my family.
The Japanese would be offended that we copied a beloved characters and I would be expelled to save face for my city, state, and country.
The FBI would be brought in to take me away for forgery of copyrighted foreign art and eventually sent to Siberia for life after a lengthy OJ Simpson styled TV trial.
They would take my anime away and I would be banned from ever watching it again!

The day came and everyone excited to show all the Japanese students our school. I should have been as well. A chance to interact with kids my age who have direct access to the art form I was currently obsessed with. I was too nervous to even bring up the question of anime to anyone. American or Japanese. As I walked through the halls I saw different Japanese students point at our shirts with excitement. They knew exactly who the characters were on the shirt. Most of them couldn’t speak that much English was the odds were still not in my favor that no one would bring this up or at least politely comment on it. Clearly I was doomed. I might as well turn myself over to the authorities. Anyone got the number for the White House?

To my surprise no one brought this up in any langue. The Japanese students seemed to just be happy that an american high school was wearing official t-shirts with anime on them. After the fog of fear dissipated I started to notice how nice everyone was. We even had an assembly for both schools to meet each other where some of the Japanese students even sang a very heartfelt rendition of ‘To Be With You’ by Mr. Big. At the end of the day everyone had a good experience and I was still free to come to school for the foreseeable future, finish watching Tenchi Muyo, and not added to any watch lists.

I’m betting by now you are wondering what art I used for this shirt. So am I actually. I never did find out what show it was from, I’m pretty sure I don’t have the magazine anymore, no clue what happened to the ‘original’ art, and the t-shirt might be buried in a box somewhere in our shed but I have no clue.

I may have not been sent to Alcatraz after all this but I did learn not to copy other people’s works ever again. Between the stress of getting caught and missing out on the chance to talk with kids from Japan about anime the whole experience was more than enough of a punishment to get me back on the straight and narrow.

May 21, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

Star Wars is the 90’s Bulls of Pop Culture

I watched the final score on the Bulls/Cavs Game 6 playoff game last Thursday night come across my phone and sighed. It was official, the Bulls were knocked out of the playoffs again. As I saw this I noticed three guys dressed as storm troopers walk through the lobby of the hotel. I was at an anime con at the time of the game. I’m not sure how the thought first came into my head. Maybe it was the fact that I didn’t want to think about how LeBron James had again knocked Chicago out of a run for the title or the fact that the three storm troopers were trying to pose for a jumping high five ala an 80’s TV show credit role and weren’t quit sticking the landing. But it was in there and it spent most of the weekend in the back of my mind being milled over.

Star Wars is the 90’s Bulls of pop culture.

For those who are not familiar with the Chicago Bulls of the 1990’s they were one of the most dominant teams the history of the NBA. Six championships in 10 years. Lead by Micheal Jordan, Scottie Pippen, and the zen master Phil Jackson as their coach.

In the early 70’s the studio system in Hollywood was getting stagnant and profits were down. The studio execs were desperate and started to hire untested young directors for all types of new kinds of films. George Lucas and Star Wars were one of these. When Star Wars hit the theaters in 1977 it broke the mold of what a movie could do. A strong set of characters, a larger than life world never seen before, and it left audiences with a new expectation of what they wanted to see when going to the theater. The Bulls started something similar staring in 1991.

The late 80’s were a great time for basketball but there lacked a finesse that made it hard for new fans to want to jump in and watch. The Celtic and Lakers dynasties were starting to age and the Detroit ‘Bad Boys’ Pistons were not the family friendly type of team you took your kids to see. Then in ’91 the Bulls beat the Lakers in the NBA Championships and everything started to change. They won two more championships in 1992 and 1993. Their first of two three-petes and an new generation of basketball fans were born.

Star Wars changes movies forever and the Bulls lead the NBA into a new era.

When The Empire Strikes Back came out the whole world was excited with anticipation. How could any film follow A New Hope though? How do you meet those expectations? Most sequels don’t. They are usually shells of the original film that are made just to squeeze some extra cash out of a franchise. Luckily for all of us Empire delivered in a big way. Considered by many to be the best of all the films. It not only met expectations, but destroyed them.

In 1993 Micheal Jordan shocked the sports world and announced his retirement from basketball. The Bulls struggled without him being there. Another championship looked out of the question. Then just as surprising as Jordan leaving he came back in the middle of the ’95 season. This lead them to the greatest regular season record in NBA history (72 wins, 10 loses) and another championship in 1996.

Return of the Jedi was a great closer to the original trilogy though most people will lean towards the first two being the better of the films. Great battles on the ground, in space, and with their greatest enemies leading to a climactic end of giant explosions and dancing around bonfires. New characters were met and some old ones said their farewells.

The Bulls clinched their second three-pete by winning two more championships in 1997 and 1998. The team added more all-star players like Europe’s top player Toni Kukoc and the always controversial rebounding machine Dennis Rodman. The team was firing on all cylinders but this was the beginning of the end. After the 98 season Phil Jackson left Chicago, Jordan retired for a second and final time, and many of the other players were about to become free-agents and sign with other teams.

The end of end era, cut to credits with a John Williams score or The Outfield playing “Winning it All”.

Player vs Character Comparison

Micheal Jordan is considered one of, if not the, greatest player to ever play basketball. I feel he encompasses the group of Luke, Leia, and Han. The key trio that lead the rebels to over come the empire were MJ finally getting past the rough & tumble play of the Pistons and passing the then king of the NBA Magic Johnson to win his first title.

Scottie Pippen was one of the best wing men to have for Jordan. He’s Chewbaca and Lando all wrapped up in one guy who knew when to pass the rock and always ready to pull the ears of a Gundark at any given moment. A life debt and a bond to never be broken.

Phil Jackson will always be my Yoda. The zen master invented the triangle offense and taught his players through focus and determination.

“In basketball — as in life — true joy comes from being fully present in each and every moment, not just when things are going your way.”

– Phil Jackson

“You must feel the Force around you; here, between you, me, the tree, the rock, everywhere, yes. Even between the land and the ship.”

– Yoda

Toni Kukoc came off the bench as the best ’sixth man’ on the team and was the R2-D2 of the Bulls. When you needed someone to step up and score when Jordan or Pippen were being double teamed he was your man. When you needed someone to shut down all the trash compactors on the detention level R2 was your droid.

Dennis Rodman made just as many headlines off the court as he did on it. Boba Fett was his spirt guide. Fett showed up, said two lines, and walked off cooler than the other side of the pillow. Rodman didn’t need to step up and be bigger than Micheal Jordan, he just needed to make rebounds …and wear feathered boas while riding a motorcycle …with green hair …in a wedding dress.

Sadly the Bulls haven’t won a championship since 1998. The early 2000’s saw some really bad teams. Sounds familiar right? The Star Wars prequel trilogy left many of us in tears and were quite happen when Disney came and took the franchise from Uncle George’s green-screen-Jar-Jar-special-editon-dance-game-angry-birds hands.

I have hope for what JJ Abrams is doing with The Force Awakens. The trailers look great and from what we’re seeing this next chapter of the Star Wars universe could be quite enjoyable. Just like the present day Bulls lead by the amazing, yet a bit more injured than I would like, Derrick Rose. This season there were high hopes for a championship, and next season looks good too I will say.

I hope a new dynasty starts soon, for Star Wars and the Chicago Bulls. I believe this because I want to stop looking back at both of these franchise’s golden age as being a long, long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.

May 14, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

What if the Phantom Menace was an enjoyable movie or: How I learned to love the bomb

I went to the movies this one time to see …some movie. I honestly don’t even remember what it was. It wasn’t really that good. It wasn’t walk-out-of-the-theater-and-tweet-angrily-from-the-Chillies-bar-next-door bad but it was bad. What I do remember is the woman sitting next to me during the film. She would audibly react to every thing happening on screen. Some bad guy would enter a room and she would grasp her purse and go ‘oh no!’ The hero would save the girl at the last minute from certain doom and she would pump her fist and cheer him on. When there was a twist to the plot she would put her hands to her face and gasp with surprise. Did I forget to mention this was around 60 years old?

When she started doing this I was kind of a jerk in my mind. My inner film critic was already ripping apart the movie and being in this state of mind I was rolling my eyes as hard as I could over this woman.

“How can she not see how terrible this film is?”

“Is she watching the same movie I am?”

“Does she seriously need to be this overly dramatic at EVERY moment of EVERY minute of this movie!?”

As the movie went on my inner jerk started to lighten up for some unknown reason. It wasn’t the film getting better I assure you. But I started to look at this woman in a different light. She was legitimately enjoying this film from start to finish. And she wasn’t being rude with her reactions either. They were mostly quiet, almost reserved. Only myself and maybe the person in front of her could really hear her. Her reactions were starting to make staying for the remainder of the film more tolerable even. After every scene change or action sequence I would shoot my eyes to the side and see what she would do next. I was starting to like her commentary track for the film and would have loved to see a ‘grandma reacts to bad movies’ DVD extra as an extra feature for the home video release.

At some point it hit me that this woman must enjoy most movies she sees if she was this into the garbage we were currently watching. This got me thinking. It must be quite wonderful to be able to walk into a film with genuine excitement and normally be right about it. That’s like watching The Matrix for the first time over and over again. I’m thinking this could be more than ‘ignorance is bliss’ too. I’ve seen people who weren’t the sharpest knife in the draw go to movies. Those people react when the film says, ‘laugh here, jump here, cry here’. This woman was going past this. She would react to other moments without having to be told by the movie execs behind the scenes telling her to.

An experiment for you all. Think of a bad movie you have seen. Not a “so bad it’s good” film but a truly bad film. Transformers 2, Yogi Bear, Son of Mask, Battlefield Earth, Gigli, etc. There are plenty to choose from. Now imagine enjoying all the moments you hated about that film. Imagine enjoying all the moments between those moments that were just kind of okay. Imagine following the crazy plot or characters all the way through the film cheering them on. These would be quite different films right? For many people I’m betting this is quite difficult. I know I can’t turn the awesome meter on Blade 2 to 100% without some struggle.

This does make me wonder though. If she likes every movie does the truly amazing films go even higher or do the all just sit at the same level? If she can turn The Smurfs into an 8 and Lawrence of Arabia into 18 I want some of what she is having. If this groups them together instead I would silently cry myself to sleep most nights. There needs to be some balance between the good and the bad here. If you live your life at 11 then every thing is really a 5.

How would your life be different if you enjoyed most films you saw? Do you already enjoy most films or know someone who does? I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below or feel free to hit me up on Twitter at @neumaverick.

May 7, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

Star Wars Figures: Addiction and Confession

I still vividly remember waiting outside a KB Toys in Massachusetts in 1995 one weekday morning. I didn’t need to be at school until around 11am so I had time to purchase the first new Star Wars toys since 1983. Like most people my age I had some of the toys when I was a kid so why not, it would be fun to have some updated ones. The store only allowed each person to purchase two action figures that morning so to let more people buy some. Which was a new concept back then. I talked some other friends of mine to get in line and pick me up some extras. If this wasn’t foreshadowing I don’t know what is. This harmless small purchase would be the beginning of something that would spiral down into much darker territory. So I give you here my tale of the fun hobby that started that I started in the mid 90’s which before the end of the decade would leave me a broken man.

Going back to that day in 1995. I didn’t have enough extra cash in high school to get the full first series of the Power of the Force set. I was 17, had no job, a small allowance, and made most of my cash trading Magic: the Gathering cards 2-3 times a week. To get the full ‘red card’ set would have to wait until years later. No rare variants like the half circle Boba Fett for me either at this time. Those were a far of pip dream that I wasn’t even aware of yet. The POTF action figure line was a strange one in the history of Star Wars toys. Everyone had ripped biceps you could see by the under armor typed clothing they were wearing, and Leia looked like Luke in a dress. But again, first new Star Wars toys in over a decade so we forgave these transgressions quite quickly. I kept collecting a little here and a little there through the end of high school and into my freshman year of college. Didn’t really think much of it more than just something fun to do. Picked up some vintage stuff to but I knew that would be almost impossible, and very expensive, to get a complete set so I focused more on the new stuff.

Fast forward to my college sophomore year. I got a job at the largest comic shop chain in Dallas/Fort Worth. I was hired for my anime and action figure knowledge as well as being able to talk nerd to most people without scaring them off. Now I was getting paid to talk about my collecting, get others excited about buying figures, and connect with people who were even more into it than I was. Only in hindsight do I see now that this was the match that lit the fuze for what was about to proceed.

Within 6 months I’m going out on ‘runs’ with collector friends looking for action figures. This could be between classes, on days off, or late at night when we knew Wal-Mart restocked their figures. You would think that walking around the toy aisle around 3am on a Tuesday would be a red flag but hey, we weren’t the only ones there most of the time. We knew all the collectors in the area and they did the same things. It felt quite normal between our weird little community. Though we did have standards. No Furbies, Beanie Babies, or Hot Wheels. Figures were 100% of what we went after always. We never paid off the guy stocking the shelves to grab rare figures early or to give us a heads up when they were about to do an unscheduled restock Hell, I had the power to give people discounted comics and I never misused it. We were above that, it was about ‘the hunt’ and taking shortcuts was cheating. We would make trips to out of the way stores in nearby small towns that we knew were not as popular with DFW collectors scene. I would say we plotted all these on a map and studied them like a scene from a WWII film but we didn’t. We didn’t have too, we had them all memorized!

I think about the time the POTF2 Collection 2 came out (green cards with hologram) was when I decided that the best way to get every figure for my collection was to get in on each new set when they first hit shelves. Now to do this would take more money than I had regularly. So what was a crazed collector with no reason for slowing down to do? It wasn’t like a bank was going to loan me the money. Then the best/worst idea came to me. Get a credit card just for toys! There was always some company on my college campus giving away free credit cards with a $5,000+ credit line. Sometimes you even got a free t-shirt with you 30% interest rate. “You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain” right? So I got one and sat down to plan my next big purchases. I mean, I would just buy them all at once at department store prices and then pay off the credit card with the money I would normally spend on action figures over the next few weeks right? Cleary this would work out perfectly. Not so clearly was the math I was using to make this assumption. But hey, I needed that second Momaw Dandon figure. One to open, one to save naturally.

This continued for a while. Like, ‘two fully maxed credit cards’ while. I had a room just for action figures in my apartment that was 90% Star Wars. But maxed credit cards didn’t stop me from picking up figures still. Like any good junkie a lack of funds wasn’t going to stop you from getting your fix. I just had to get more creative. Still keeping it all legal too, no cheating remember. One time a friend of mine and I found some newly released Princess Leia Collection 2-Packs at Wal-Mart. We didn’t know these were out yet even. We were totally broke so when no one was looking we grabbed a few of them, walked over to the home and gardens department, moved some vases, lifted the bottom shelving grates, and tossed them in. We came back later that weekend and purchased some of them. We weren’t able to pick them all up before the store closed down sadly. I’ve always imagined when the store owners were moving things out they came across these and were very confused why they were under the shelving unit 5 departments over . We have now reached the point of madness you say? That point when any sane man would step back and look at what his life has become and realize he needed help. Nope, not yet. But don’t worry, I’m about to get to that.

1999, the year Episode I: The Phantom Menace was releasing in theaters. The first new Star Wars movie since Return of the Jedi. The excitement for this film was so high that it being such a terrible film made the crushing fall of emotions after it’s release that much more cruel. The same went for the action figure release. Since 1995 all the Star Wars figures had a very predictable release strategy pattern for every updated production line:

They would overprint the most popular characters and not enough of the stranger ones
They would only print a certain number of each product line and almost never went back to reprint
These would release in small batches and trickle out more over a few months

This pattern was perfect for collectors and casual fans a like. Everyone can get a Luke Skywalker in X-Wing gear but if you want an Garindan (Long Snoot) you would have to hustle a bit to get one. So Kenner would do this again for the initial Episode I action figure release right? THEY CERTAINLY WOULD NOT OVERPRINT EVERY FIGURE AND FLOOD THE STORES ON DAY ONE RIGHT?!?! What happened next was easily my darkest moment in collecting. The white whale I didn’t even know I was chasing until it was too late.

I rushed into a Target the second it opened the morning the figures were released. I didn’t have $5 to spend on them but I had a plan. That morning I signed up for a Target credit card (that’s three credit cards just for figures now if you have been keeping score) which I could use immediately. I went to the toy aisle and grabbed 2+ of every figure they had. It felt like that dream when you are a kid at Toys ‘R’ Us and told you can have anything you can grab in the next five minutes. I maxed out that credit card in one shot. This even made the store clerk nervous enough to call their manager over to see if I was running some sort of scam. I wasn’t, I was just an extremely crazed 20 year old bereft of all reason and sanity that NEEDED a Nute Gunray with a CommTech figure base! By this point even my main cohort through all this was giving me a worried look.

I rushed home in friend’s car full of action figures, eyes still glazed over from my fasted set completion every. Once I got home I started to tear into the figures and set them all up on my coffee table. Most of this was a blur that I don’t remember. I do remember very clearly the feeling that came over me once they were all opened and set up. I remember it like it was yesterday. You would think this would be a feeling of absolute domination, the securing of one’s legacy, or the relief that comes of the completion of some grand task. A feeling greater than any word currently in the dictionary. Sadly, it was the opposite. I felt empty. So, so empty. I looked at the figures and felt nothing. This was a first. This is when reality started to come back into view. With each realization the pit in my stomach got tighter. I just sat there and started at the figures thinking less “Alexander wept for there were no more worlds to conquer” and more “how the hell did this happen?” I’m not sure how long I sat there silently staring at these figures but it felt like all morning. I eventually gathered the will power to stand up, put all the figures in a box, and take them up stairs to my action figure room. I looked around at everything in there and started to get the dry sweats. For the first time I was looking at this not as trophy room but as a major problem that I had no clue how to stop. Like when the lights come on at closing time of a bar and everyone and everything looks a whole lot more real and not as the piece of wonderland you thought it was 5 minutes ago. I was just unplugged from the Matrix and wanted to throw up.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to throw up or stand there any longer pondering on this since I was due at work in 30 minutes. As fate may have it I was asked to work in the corporate office that day helping with a new large influx of action figures. Episode I action figures. The store owner had all the high level collectors in the area (guys who made a living off of trading figures, comics, cards, etc.) buy up as many Phantom Menace figures as possible and bring them to us to purchase. We had eight stores to stock and as I mentioned before, these should dry up in the retail location quite quickly. Making us the main source for these figures in the DFW area. I’m sure you have figured out by now that this line was way, way, WAY overprinted to match the expected demand based on the hype the movie was currently getting. Hasbro printed at least 10 times more than they had ever for any past release and with in a week every single figures in the line were barely worth their sticker price. I had about thousand of these SOBs to inventory, price, and sort before the day was out. If there is a special place in hell for figure collectors, this was it.

As a reminder of my actions on this day I framed the Target receipt for all these toys with my Phantom Menace opening night ticket stub and film strip clipping I got from a girl I was seeing at the time who worked at a movie theater. This still sits in my office at work today.

By the time I got home that night I was all but curled into a ball thinking about the crushing debt I had put myself into here. But, like any addict you don’t get to escape that easily. My hardcore action figure hunting days were over but I would still find myself picking up a figure here and there on a semi-regular basis. Which sometimes let the idea of ‘getting back in the game’ enter my head. Luckily for some reason I never acted on this. One day I found my version of a nicotine patch for Star Wars collecting. The Star Wars Action Figure Archive. This is a fantastic book, it really is. It showed great photos of all the vintage and new figures from 1978 – 1999. All the card variations, info on each version, release dates, and much more. It was like my collection printed into a book. I had found a way to have my cake and eat it too. And for only $20. I bought the book that day and a strange calm came over me. The day after that I packed up action figure room and started to sell off or give away most of it. I discovered that it wasn’t owning the figures that I enjoyed, it was having access to them. This and the hunt to find and complete each set was what made it fun. I lost the drive for the hunt after the Episode I incident and now with this book I had the access to the figures and didn’t need to actually keep the real ones any more. I still have this book on my shelf today.

It took me over five years to pay off all those credit cards and almost all of my original collection is now gone. I still pick up figures every now and again but it’s more like 1-2 a year than a week. Now every figure I buy must pass three key criteria for me to purchase it:

Can I afford it?
Do I have a good place to put it?
Do I REALLY need it?

I hope you all enjoyed this extremely nerdy tail of a man’s journey into the dark world of plastic and cardboard. If you take anything away from this story I hope it is this: Always be the master of your passions, not the other way around.

April 30, 2015 by Adam Sheehan

Rolling 20s with your Role Model

When I was 8 I wanted to be a truck. Not just any truck but a red Kenworth K100 so bad ass that when it showed up you knew things were going to be alright. Of course I’m speaking of Optimus Prime. After an episode of The Transformers you could find me running out the door with my friends making Transformer noises, jumping over imaginary barriers, shooting the invisible hoards of Decepticons scattered around the backyard.

I will add that back then after watching almost any tv show or movie that I thought was amazing I could almost always find some character to bond with. Causing me to run around with the same vigor and boundless imagination as mentioned above. Swinging around a broom like a lightsaber making whooshing sounds, running from imaginary giant boulders in the woods on a treasure hunt, or looking for ghosts with a PKE meter made from an old remote and some cardboard. I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences.

Going back to Optimus, there are some characters that stand out more than just an imaginary friend or the toy you always took with you on vacation. Some play a bigger role that you might not have realized back when you were a kid. A role that would help set you on a path to being a better person. The role of a role model.

First, I don’t want to discount any real life role models. Family members, friends, public figures, etc. These can of course be an amazing source for finding a role model. Here though we are going to talk about the kind that are not flesh and blood. More like ink and memorable voice acting.

A good role model is ‘a person looked to by others as an example to be imitated’ as the internet tells me. There are many of these kinds of characters in pop culture. Characters to guide us and teach us how to be better than we currently are. Show us how to stand up taller, be stronger, and to care about others more than ourselves.

Role Models Breakdown & Examples

Hard working – Peter Parker/Spider-Man
- Saving NYC from everything under the sun and still able to punch the clock as a photographer for Daily Bugle with only being yelled at by your boss every other day. That takes a work ethic on a level most of us won’t dare attempt on our good days after 5 cups of coffee.
Creative problem solver – Sherlock Homes
- Any version of Sherlock Homes owns at problem solving. From the classic books to Cumberbatch. “When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” I’m betting he pre-solves Rubix Cubes in his sleep.
Open minded – Samus Aran
- Samus lead the charge when it came to the extermination of the Metroids. You would think she would never side, let alone protect, a Metroid. If you have played Super Metroid you probably well remember the climactic final boss fight that can be summed up as, ‘Get away from her you bitch: rainbow laser beam edition’.
Brave – Kamina
- Three words: Pierce. The. Heavens. Determined to always keep moving forward and protect his friends no matter what they were up against. Always the first to run into a fight or push forward to make his goals a reality. “Whether impossible or laughable, we continue to walk the path of men!” Dude was hardcore with a capital H.
Have a good conscience – Clark Kent/Superman
- Truth, justice, and the American way. Do I really need to say more about the ultimate boy scout? There has been some darker storylines in the pantheon of Superman but at the very core of the man of steel he full of absolute goodness.

Over all the importance of a role model is generally expected to decrease as one gets older. The lessons and the feelings can still remain but asking yourself ‘What would He-Man do?” during a meeting on quarterly budgets with your boss might not be the best idea. One of those, “When I was a child I thought as a child; but when I grew up I put my childish things on eBay” situations. If you are reading this I’m betting that might not be the case for you. For some reason us in fandom tend to carry our feelings, attachments, and overall love for what others might call ‘kids stuff’ longer than most. The same tends to go for role models.

I’m not going to dive too far into the idea of how pop culture has changed the growth patterns of Americans over the past few decades leading us to never really growing up because that’s a much longer topic than we have time for today. I do want to briefly discuss why we choose the role models that stay with us through out the years. What makes us hold true to Yoda’s teachings and not Snake Eyes? Why find strength from Sailor Moon and not Jem? When does the calming voice in your head sound like Yuna and not Zelda?

In my humble opinion it’s because of specific personal moments in your life with a character. These could be as big as your Rainbow Brite blanket was the only thing you could save from a house fire or as small as you ate Nintendo Cereal every morning for a year and preferred the Mario side over the Zelda side.

These kind of moments puts a seed in your heart that grows into something much larger. A moment that you go back to when needing comfort, guidance, strength, and whatever other emotions you have tied to it. The role model becomes a totem for this moment and all your feelings associated with it. A stronger bond is solidified, not to be broken easily. Not even by Micheal Bay or Joel Schumacher.

What are the role models you had when you were young that you still hold dear to and what makes them special to you? I would love to hear your thoughts on this in the comments below or feel free to hit me up on Twitter at @neumaverick.