Big Damn Heroes

Greetings friends,

It should go without saying that I am huge fan of the TV show Firefly. As a result, Summer Glau has become one of my favorite actresses. She is great in many other shows and movies as well. Last year she was supposed to be at a Wizard World convention that I attended but she got the opportunity for a role in Arrow and took it (I don’t blame her). Luckily, she came back to my area for Gen-Con! My fiancé and I jumped at the opportunity to meet her and she is a very lovely person. I found out that Summer had a birthday recently, so we decided to get her some gifts to celebrate. She loved them! It made her day. She in turn made mine by requesting to give us both a hug which we graciously accepted. It is always awesome when you are able to meet your heroes in real life and they become big damn heroes.

It was also a pleasure to meet Terry Brooks! Author of the Shannara series and many other things. Believe it or not, I actually haven’t read anything that he has written. My fiancé and her Mother are avid fans and it was nice to be able to share in their excitement. Also, soon I will be reading Terry Brooks when I can find the time. He is a fantastic person and I do find the descriptions of his books to be very intriguing.

Although I love tabletop gaming, I also love the pop-culture side of Gen-Con as well. It does a great job of blending both fandoms. This year there was a lot of waiting in lines but it was worth it. As always, there were many fun people to interact with. The costumes were great as usual. Gen-Con is more than just a convention it is an experience. Being able to share the experience with my fiancé just makes it that much better. I love that we both love some of the same things. One of my favorite things about Gen-Con is seeing the enormous talent of the artists that attend. This year, I was drawn to an artist that had some Dresden Files artwork on display. It was the best Dresden art I have seen since Chris McGrath. Much to my delight, I found out that he worked on some of the Dresden Files comics. The Dresden Files by Jim Butcher is my favorite series of all time. I bought both Dresden prints that he had for sale. You can get them from his website if you are interested.

Another artist that grabbed mine and my fiancés attention for the past few years is Nene Thomas. This year we picked up some of her artwork and I invested in her book: The Unwinding Path. It is fantastic, the artwork is simply stunning. I highly recommend exploring her website. If puzzles are your thing, she has many of those available as well.

My future mother-in-law got me this awesome version of Doctor Who Monopoly! Collecting awesome Monopoly editions is becoming quite a hobby of mine. I love the pieces that come in this edition and absolutely cannot wait to play it.

My current wallet is still ok for now, but I always like having a backup. I found this at one of the booths and quickly threw my money at them.

King of the wallets

Thank you,

Jake Jeffries