Top Hat Sasquatch

I have long disparaged my hometown for its lack of a comic book convention. Indianapolis is a great Midwestern city with lots of advantages but it doesn’t offer one of the increasingly popular comics festival.

Indy is 12th largest city in the country. It’s also one of the leading convention destinations for various industries and associations. Just the moniker “The Crossroads of America” would lead you to believe we can handle a comic-con. Smaller cities like Charlotte, NC and Columbus, Ohio have celebrated events devoted to comics—but not us. Instead we have semi-regular shows at a budget motel which are more like glorified garage sales than an actual con.

I had written off any hope of Indy ever hosting an event when the announcement came on Thursday. Lo and behold, Indianapolis is getting a comics convention.

On March 14-16, 2014, there will be an official Comic Con-style event at Indianapolis’ Convention Center. It’s from Action3, the same promoters that put on events in Tampa, Orlando, and Nashville.
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The Top Hat Sasquatch team reads a lot of blog posts every day, and some slip through the crack or just don’t warrant their own post. That’s where Missing Links comes in. Every few days we collect the best links we’ve come across and pass them on to you.

This New App Lets You Know if a Movie Includes a Postcredits Scene | Movies.com
What a great idea for an app. I always forget that it's not just Marvel doing post-credits scenes these days. I could see myself firing up this app during the credits of a movie to see if I needed to stick around.

New Funko Pop Disney Pixar Toys Merida Princess Jasmine | The Mary Sue
I only have one Funko Pop toy, but I think I’ll be starting a little collection as soon as the TMNT Funko Pop toys come out. These new ones from Disney are pretty awesome too.

Paul Williams Says Muppet Movie Soundtrack Will Be Re-released – ToughPigs
Very good news for Muppet geeks like me.

Pee-Wee Herman nastygrams Pee-Wee fan-fest to death – Boing Boing
This is a huge bummer. I was looking forward to going down to Louisville for this and taking a bunch of photos and video for the site. Too bad Paul Reubens couldn't just embrace this and make an appearance instead of getting it canceled.

EA teases new Star Wars Battlefront game – GameSpot.com
Oh man, a new Star Wars Battlefront game would definitely get me to buy a next-gen console. Those two games are amazing and I still play them today.

Chicago Grid | Eight nerds get rich off a game that makes Oprah sob into a Lean Cuisine
I love this game and it was surprisingly awesome reading about the team that created it.

When comic book geeks hear the names Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, they probably think of the duo’s most famous and enduring character: Captain America.  And rightfully so.  But these two talented creators didn’t stop at the star-spangled Avenger; they also wrote and illustrated dozens of other comic book stories throughout the Golden and Silver Ages.

Over the past few years, Titan Books has been releasing some of the best work from these groundbreaking collaborators in the form of the Simon & Kirby Library collections.  The latest edition covers science fiction comics spanning the heyday of space opera, to the atomic era, and everything in between. Read More

I don’t know how I hadn’t heard about this sooner, but I squealed like a little girl when I read this news. Later this summer the wife and I will be heading down to Orlando for a much overdue vacation to celebrate our anniversary, and we were already planning on hitting up Universal Studios in between our beer-from-every-country-days at Epcot. I was pumped about seeing the Harry Potter park, but I had no clue there was going to be more Simpsons stuff too.

I’m a crazy-huge Simpsons fan, and just getting to walk around a section of Universal modeled after Springfield would be amazing, let alone getting to actually try Duff Beer, Krusty Burgers, and Lard Lad donuts. From the official press release:

For the first time ever – anywhere – fans will be able to walk down Fast Food Boulevard and visit the places that helped Springfield stake its claim as “Shelbyville by the Sea.” They will be able to grab a Krusty-certified meat sandwich at Krusty Burger, snatch the catch of the day at the Frying Dutchman, get a slice at Luigi’s Pizza, go nuts for donuts at Lard Lad, enjoy a “Taco Fresho” with Bumblebee Man and imbibe at Moe’s Tavern.

They had me at Krusty-certified meat sandwich.

There is no solid opening date, but the site Orlando Informer expects the restaurants to be open by June 20th and the waterfront attractions (the Kang & Kodos ride and Duff Gardens) to not open until September. All I know is that if there’s not some awesome Simpsons stuff open by late July, I’ll be a sad panda.

I wonder if they’ll sell Bort license plates?

Via Cartoon Brew

I was going to just add this to the next Missing Links post, but I think it’s awesome enough to warrant it’s own. How crazy is this life-sized X-Wing model that LEGO unveiled today in Time’s Square?

The thing uses 5,335,200 LEGO bricks, which I’m sure would cost a pretty penny on Bricklink or eBay. LEGO is showing the model off today to promote The Yoda Chronicles, a new animated LEGO Star Wars show that premieres next Wednesday. In other news, there’s a LEGO Yoda show coming soon? Nobody tells me nothin.

Head over to Gizmodo to see a ton of awesome images, videos, and more details about this crazy LEGO model. What would you like to see LEGO make life-sized next? Personally I’d like to walk through a life-sized Millenium Falcon. Hey Internet, get on it!

Update: THS friend and blogger Amy Kraft got to check it out first hand, go read about it on Geek Mom!