CCD Interviews: Live From The Show Floor Of The 2014 NY Comic Con - The American Nature Comix Crew Brings The Weird!!!

There is no shortage of weirdness on the show floor of NY Comic Con, and for some reason we seem to have a magnet attracting us to it. So when you see a comic book being hawked at a booth featuring a character named Beef Jam (a giant basketball player with a cheeseburger for a head) on the cover sitting right next to a T Shirt that reads "Basic Bitches Buy Marvel"... well, er, you make your way over there. The gang from American Nature Comix were definitely selling some unique and bizarre products, and talking to them helped shed some light on the books and art they were trying to move. The main draw of the booth was the American Nature Comix Presents anthology comic that featured a few stories (Beef Jam being one of them) that were wacky and weird. The mouth piece of the group, Mark described it as "Mad Magazine if HBO got a hold of it!". I mean, c'mon... a basketball playing, cheeseburger headed main character? Being worshiped by deer antlered hoochies? Yup, I am in. It also features a cover done by Steve Seeley. The guys were also pushing a cool comic called Rad In Time, also from their home comic company Bogus Publishing.  They also have some awesome acrylic art that they create by artists Greg & Fake using familiar pop culture characters given a subtle twist of adding rap lyrics into them. And with a $20 price point for an original piece, these were one of the best bargains of the con. Check em out over at Bogus Publishing, on Facebook and over at Greg & Fake's Tumblr. Check out the interview after the jump...

CCD Interviews: Live From The Show Floor Of The 2014 NY Comic Con - Imagination Asylum Toys & Collectibles

Resin toys are a burgeoning industry. When we walked around on The Block at the 2014 NY Comic Con there were literally 100s of booths that were selling some sort of resin figures... and usually the prices were quite high. As someone who does not collect but loves to look, I am always attracted by the way a figure LOOKS first and than I am shocked at the price tags. But when I was walking down the aisle and I saw the figures at the Imagination Asylum's table, I was instantly drawn in... and pleasantly SUPRISED at how reasonable the prices seemed to be. I decided to chat with the owner and artist/sculpture Rich, who peeled back the layers of the Vermont based company and let us in on a little secret: That a lot of the resin toys that are priced SO HIGH are kinda of rip offs because it doesn't cost nearly as much to make them as people are charging!!! Rich shows us that you can make cool ass sculpts and create great toys, charge an amount much lower than market price for these types of toys, and still make a profit. Hell, these guys have some figures that are only around 5 bucks each! How great is that? Check out all their stuff by clicking here to visit their webpage, and proceed after the jump in order to see our interview with Rich right from the show floor....

CCD Interviews: Live From The Show Floor Of The 2014 NY Comic Con - Fat Guy Inc. Doing It BIG On The Main Floor!!!!

Most of the CCD gang is on the chubby side... we are proud of that. Hell, even the skinny guys down with our crew put on when it comes to throwing down food. It may be one of our favorite things to do as a group (especially Tommy & I). So when I came across an interesting looking artist booth with a couple of guys who look ALOT like me sitting behind it I had to walk over. And when I saw the name of the company... well, Fat Guy Inc. certainly has an appeal to a guy of my size!!!! Brendan & Peat are two Long Island residents that were  brought together through food... and now that they are a team, they are taking the art show/con circuit by storm! They have some great pieces, and the coolest part is that their styles are different but work well together at the same time. These guys are hysterical, and the art is pretty amazing. They refer to their collected works as 'an artistic stew', considering they have many different styles and mediums that they work with. One of my favorite pieces was a scene from Star Wars, which was after the destruction of Uncle Owen & Aunt Beru's house. The is a smoldering pile of what can only be assumed to be a Beru/Owen souffle, and Brendan refered to this piece as "A Tatooine BBQ". Hysterical... and all food related! These guys were great, so jump on over to their Facebook and Twitter pages and show 'em some love!!! Check out Tommy's interview with the fellas after the jump....

CCD Interviews: Live From The Show Floor Of The 2014 NY Comic Con - Ray Arcadio, Artist Supreme!

We meet lots of people on our adventures with the CCD press pass, but none as cool and as down to Earth as our good friend Ray Arcadio. Ray is an extremely talented artist that we met & interviewed at the 2013 NY Comic Con and stayed in touch with. His work is very unique, specifically his awesome takes on the traditional "happy face" pieces in which he re-designs tons of pop culture characters into the circular happy faces we have seen so often. What he ends up with is often way cooler than any smiley face you have ever seen, that is for sure. Ray has jumped into more complex pieces since we encountered him last year, and his new works for the 14 NYCC are unreal... or should I say, TOO REAL!!!! They feature many pop culture staples (The Walking Dead, Star Wars, Groot, etc) but with a realistic twist... specifically in the teeth. This guy can draw some detailed mouths & teeth. Wow. My favorite of his new pieces has to be his Michonne with her companions, which we find out is not one large canvas but actually three individual canvases assembled into a larger frame. The Michonne is raised higher than the two Walkers, giving it the 3-D feeling that she is actually "LEADING" them out of the frame! Totally rad idea, from a truly creative force (this dude makes his own fucking frames? C'mon man!). Check out more of Ray Arcadio's work by clicking over here and heading to his website. After that, watch Tommy get in there with another one of his patented CCD Interviews after the jump....

CCD Interviews: Live From The Show Floor Of The 2014 NY Comic Con - Ink Whiskey Steps Up It's Drinking Game... Literally!

In our quest to bring all of you guys who DIDN'T get the chance to come out to the 2014 NY Comic Con the best coverage possible, CCD has always looked for the best and most original booths on the floor to conduct interviews with. So when one encounters a 4 foot high Nintendo cartridge with a sticker for a game called "Drunk Hunt" on it... well, lets just say you got my attention! So after wandering over, I began to realize that those cartridges were not games at all... they were actually FLASKS, made out of replica Nintendo cartridges from the gang over at Ink Whiskey that feature fantastic original artwork for games like 'Legend of the Drink', 'Tetraquila', and 'Fine Ale Fantasy'... yup those names bring back some great memories, right? They even have a special edition 'Gold Plated' version of the 'Legend of the Drink' cartridge in honor of the O.G. Zelda game it is based on. Yup, these guys had one hell of an idea... and they are cool as shit to boot! Check out all their great products over at their webpage, and check out some pics of the cool ass cartridge flasks as well as the video interview we did with owner Matt live from the show floor...

CCD Interviews: Live From The Show Floor Of The 2014 NY Comic Con - Artist 'SpaceWolf' And His Unreal Woodwork!!!

While we were cruising the show floor at the 2014 NY Comic Con we are always on the lookout for cool booths, and when we passed by the SpaceWolf booth on the edge of The Block we got just that. Awesome wood carved art... and a crazy vintage spacesuit to boot? Yup, the look and aesthetic of the booth got me to approach it from across the way. Then once I met the proprietor and struck up a conversation with him I was really intrigued. Original wood carved art, hand made in Brooklyn NY, and all pieces limited to a run of just 50 laser engraved pieces with the original being destroyed after? Yup, this was an interesting booth to say the least. The work was unreal, so pinpoint accurate and fine in the line work. And the subject material was quite awesome too... vintage spacemen, sea monsters, crazy flying ships, and all types of shit that we truly love fill the pieces that SpaceWolf has created. After the show, I went over to his website and saw even more cool ass pieces he has to offer... and some of those were much more pop culturally related. Chtulu and Battle Royale? Yeah, this is the exact way I like my art! They also create things like IPhone wood skins, laser engraved moleskin journals, and even necklaces & other jewelry. But the coolest part was helping to support the dissemination of a fellow Brooklynites fantastic artwork to a wider audience, which was truly our pleasure. Make sure you head over to SpaceWolf's website, and check out their cool ass Instagram by clicking here.   Check out some samples of his work and the video of us interviewing him live from the show floor after the jump...

CCD Interviews: Live From The 2014 NY Comic Con Floor - Sidekick Trading Card Publishing

I love it when we are walking the floor of the NY Comic Con and come across something quite unique. So when I saw a man operating a hand operated printing press in The Block area, making up ink images of the Millennium Falcon on dictionary pages... wait, what... I knew I had to stop in and see what was up!  Yup, the gang over at Sidekick Trading Card Publishing were doing all types of fun stuff at their booth, and proprietor Tom Litchman had no problem bringing us into the world of vintage printing presses and wax packs of cards that was the Sidekick booth. The antique press that they brought to the show was insane 95 year old Chandler & Price hand fed platinum press and it was a show stopper for sure! People were staring in awe as Tom was banging out print after hand rolled print to the enjoyment of all that stopped to watch. It was epic...

See more after the jump...