Feb 19 2016

Tickets Now On Sale for Rhode Island Comic Con

Celebrating its fifth anniversary as Rhode Island’s Biggest Show in the Smallest State, Rhode Island Comic Con 2016 tickets officially go on sale today.

Available through Ticketmaster and the Dunkin Donuts Center Box Office, ticket prices are as follows: a 3-day pass to the show running November 11 through 13 is $75 for adults and $30 for kids between the ages of 6 and 12. Daily admission is $30 for Friday, $45 for Saturday, and $40 for Sunday. Daily admission for kids is also available, as well as a VIP admission for $139. Attendees are strongly encouraged to buy their tickets in advance.

Rhode Island Comic Con is held at the Rhode Island Convention Center and the Dunkin Donuts Center. Preliminary guests announced include Kristin Bauer from Once Upon a Time and True Blood, and comic book artist legends Kevin Eastman and Neal Adams. More guests are slated to be announced as the year progresses. For more information, visit the event’s website at www.ricomiccon.com.

Altered Reality Entertainment, LLC is an event entertainment company based in New England. It currently produces multimedia, multi-genre events in the New England area including Rhode Island Comic Con, Terror Con, and Southcoast Toy and Comic Show. In 2016, Altered Reality Entertainment expands its footprint to include Hartford ComiConn and Colorado Springs Comic Con.

Jan 23 2016

Movie Review: ‘How I Dumped My Ex-Boyfriend’s Body’

By Stacey Longo

How I Dumped My Ex-Boyfriend’s Body (2014) is a fun indie movie full of humor, buddy antics, and little people. (Okay, only one little person, but he steals every scene he’s in.) This low-budget flick is worth every minute of your time.

Maxine (Meredith Phillips) calls her BFF Shae (Vanessa Leigh) at an ungodly hour to beg her for help. Shae rushes to her best friend’s house, and finds Maxine sitting on the kitchen floor, distraught. It turns out Maxine has murdered her own boyfriend in the midst of a lover’s quarrel. Oops!

Shae is upset, of course—Maxine hit the guy over the head with a vase Shae gave her years ago, and now it’s broken. Maxine is more concerned with what to do with the body. The duo tries to take care of the problem themselves: they dig a hole in the back yard (until a nosy neighbor asks what they’re doing, to which Shae hastily responds “making porn”). They take the corpse for a ride, only to get pulled over by a bicycle cop (a scene in which Phillips will have you laughing so hard you’ll need to take a potty break). Eventually, they decide to talk to Shae’s cousin Mikey (Ed Gutierrez), a wanna-be gangster who sends them to Tony (Josh Pineo), who of course would be happy to get rid of the body. It’s only after Tony—a mobbed-up little person in a wheelchair, who conveys an impeccable “you don’t want to screw with me” attitude that would make Joe Pesci envious—disposes of the corpse that he then informs them of the price tag: $10,000. Now the ladies and Shae’s bumbling boyfriend, who has now somehow gotten roped into this misadventure to emphasize the strong bonds of friendship between the two girls that no man can break—in other words, “chicks before dicks”—must raise the money, fast. The ladies’ misadventures continue as they try their hands as muggers (and fail spectacularly), then explain in side-splitting detail to cousin Mikey why, exactly, they don’t want Tony to come back and turn them into sex slaves. Eventually, there is a hilarious climax and reveal that I won’t spoil for you. Suffice to say this movie was silly, funny, and a little bit sick.

Phillips and Pineo were the clear standouts in this gem of a B-movie. Phillips was unapologetically inelegant and fantastically funny. Her comedic timing and can’t-help-but-like-her attitude were fabulous. Pineo’s performance was baleful and belligerent—not for one moment did the audience think he couldn’t put some serious hurt on our two leading ladies, dwarf in a wheelchair or no. The rest of the cast played their parts well, and I laughed out loud through several scenes. If you have eighty minutes to kill and you’re looking for a good time, How I Dumped My Ex-Boyfriend’s Body is the perfect answer.

Jan 13 2016

Rhode Island Comic Con Hosts Toy Buying Event

Altered Reality Entertainment, owners of Rhode Island Comic Con, the Biggest Show in the Smallest State, have announced a partnership with Bruneau & Co. Auctioneers, Rhode Island based auction house to host a Major Toy Buying Event slated for January 16 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Crossings in Warwick, Rhode Island.

The daylong event, featuring entertainment for the entire family, will be hosted by TV’s toy hunting phenom Travis Landry. Attendees of this free event will have the opportunity to sell toy collections consisting of Star Wars, Transformers, comic books, G.I. Joe, and Barbie, among many other toys and collectibles. Collectors can also participate in free, no-obligation appraisals of their collections.

Entertainment of this exciting inaugural event will include celebrity appearances by pro-wrestler Rikishi, Ghost Hunters’ own Joe Chin, and Rhode Island’s TAPS team. Singer VChenay will also perform live. Family events of the day include a chicken wings contest and cosplayers.

This major toy buying event runs this Saturday, January 16, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Free parking and free admission is available to all in attendance.

The Crowne Plaza Hotel at the Crossings is located at 801 Greenwich Avenue in Warwick, Rhode Island.

Jan 8 2016

Altered Reality Entertainment Acquires New Convention, Hartford ComiConn

Just two months after the very successful fourth annual Rhode Island Comic Con, the management of Altered Reality Entertainment have announced that they have joined forces with Connecticut ComiConn to assume ownership and management of the newly formed Hartford ComiConn.

Hartford ComiConn is scheduled for September 24 and 25 at the XL Center in Hartford, CT. The two-day event will include all of the same aspects that fans have come to expect and enjoy from each of the shows involved in this merger — celebrity appearances from the big and small screen, industry-leading comic book artists, and the best vendors in the market with toys and collectibles, as well as the ever-popular cosplay competitions and events.

Guest announcements and ticket prices, as well as vendor and artist alley applications will be forthcoming in early 2016.

The XL Center is located at One Civic Center Plaza, Hartford, CT 06120.

Dec 1 2015

New ‘Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice’ Trailer Debuts Wednesday

A new trailer for Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice debuts this Wednesday. All you have to do to watch the new trailer is tune in to Jimmy Kimmel Live tomorrow, Dec. 2, at 11:35 p.m./10:35 CT. Here’s an exclusive sneak at YouTube: https://youtu.be/6as8ahAr1Uc.

Nov 27 2015

Black Friday Deals from Books & Boos Press

We at Books & Boos Press wants to give our readers a chance to fill their Kindles and other e-readers with spiders. We are giving away e-book copies of Where Spiders Fear to Spin by Peter N. Dudar from Nov. 27 through 30! Don’t miss this chance to read this novella by Dudar, who is a Bram Stoker Award Finalist.

Where Spiders Fear to Spin tells the tale of former soap opera star Sadie Mills, a woman literally haunted by her past whose final days are filled with horror. Her daughter resents taking care of her, her former lovers are dying off one by one, and her dead husband’s vengeful ghost has returned from the dead to drag her to hell.

To get your free copy, click here.

Along with giving away Spiders, we have lowered the price on Insanity. You can now get $2 off the e-book or print copy of Insanity Tales II: The Sense of Fear until Nov. 30.

The collection features eleven stories from six of New England’s finest storytellers. David Daniel, Stacey Longo, Dale T. Phillips, Rob Smales, and Ursula Wong each have two short stories in the book; Vlad V. contributed a novella. Multiple Bram Stoker winner Joe McKinney (Crooked House, Plague of the Undead) wrote the foreword.

The book is a themed anthology: each author based their stories on different senses, going beyond the traditional (sight, smell, hearing, touch, and taste) to elements such as a sense of doom, of powerlessness to control the future, and a sense of false hope.

If you want some Insanity, click here.

Nov 25 2015

Pictures from Super Megafest Fall 2015

By Jason Harris

The 2015 Fall edition of Super Megafest happened over the weekend and it was a great two days with celebrities, authors, artists, vendors and cosplay. Here are the pictures from the convention.

Actor John Schneider (The Dukes of Hazzard).

Actress Catherine Bach (The Dukes of Hazzard).

Actress Judith Hoag (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [1990]).

Actors Leif Tilden and Michelan Sisti (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles [1990]).

Actor Kevin McNally (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl).

Actresses Natalie Skyy (Sons of Anarchy) and Arryn Zech (Red vs. Blue).

Authors Matt Herring and Stacey Longo at their The Art of Genre Writing panel.

A alien has burst onto the convention scene.

Author Herring at his Dr. Who 101 panel.

Nov 19 2015

Talking with Ken Reid, The TV Guidance Counselor

By Jason Harris

Courtesy of Ken Reid’s Tumblr page.

Ken Reid is a stand-up comedian and a podcaster, TV Guidance Counselor. He will be attending the New England Super Megafest this weekend. He will be performing Friday night at the Cosplay Comedy Kickoff Party. I had the pleasure recently to ask a number of questions about

Q: In 2003, you decided to try your hand at stand-up. What was the impetuous behind that decision?

A: I had been in bands from 1996-1999 or so, I am in no way shape or form a musician, but always wanted to perform. Once the band broke up and I had no musicians to ride the coattails of I thought stand up was my only route. I always liked comedy and watched tons of stand up, so i gave it a go.

Q: How many stand-up engagements do you perform in a year?

A: I average about 2 a week so 100-150 a year is probably about the normal.

Q: Do you have any engagements coming up? If yes, where and when?

A: I’ve taken the rest of 2015 off for the most part for a much needed breather, but I’m still doing the podcast weekly and will be back to frequent shows in 2016. My updated schedule is always at ikenreid.com

Q: When did the idea for your podcast, TV Guidance Counselor, come about?

A: Friend and fellow comic Sean Sullivan basically told me that I have all these TV Guides, when people come over my house we often will flip through them and discuss old shows, why not just do that as a podcast? I wanted to do a podcast for a long time but didn’t have a great idea that would be different from the usual two comics just chatting format, until Sean threw that at me. I also do almost no pop culture stuff in my stand up, despite that occupying a huge part of my brain, so it was a great excuse to exercise a lot of that stuff.

Q: When did you start collecting TV Guides?

A: As early as I can remember. There are photos of me at age 2 with a TV Guide in my hand.

Q: What issue made you want to collect TV Guides?

A: Not sure if it’s a specific issue really . I like having the little digest sized time machine on hand.

Q: Are you still collecting?

A: Not new issues, but if I see some old ones I don’t have, I grab them.

Q: What were some of your favorite shows growing up?

A: Just the Ten of Us is a lifelong favorite, Newhart, Parker Lewis Can’t Lose, The Adventures of Pete and Pete. The Facts of Life. Weirdly I’ve been lucky enough to have people who’ve been on all those shows guest on my podcast.

Q: What are some of your favorite shows now?

A: Weirdly I don’t watch too much new stuff. I like The Flash, and I still watch Supernatural. Fringe was the only show I watched weekly as it came out and LOVED in the last few years. I think it is the best sci-fi show of all time.

Q: Who are some of the people you would like to have on your podcast?

A: I do have some dream guests. Paul “Pee Wee Herman” Reubens, Cassanda “Elvira” Peterson, John Larroquette, John Waters.

Q: You will be at Super Megafest in November and the Pop Culture Expo in December, are these the first conventions you have been a guest at?

A: Weirdly no. Gary at North East Comic Con has had me do live TV Guidance Counselors at the last few. I always have a good time. Last year, I did the stand up show at Super Megafest, which was also fun.

Q: What drew you to being a guest at a convention?

A: They asked, and I’m almost always there anyway, so it’s a win-win.

Q: Are there any comedians you looked up to growing up?

A: Dana Gould was my absolute #1 for sure. I was also always a huge Bob Newhart fan.

Q: Who are some comedians today that you would suggest people go see?

A: Hmm….I’d still go with Dana Gould.

Q: Do you have any advice for anyone who wants to become a comedian?

A: Don’t do it! But if you must be prepared to be terrible for at least two years even if you think you are. Don’t do it with a goal in mind, just do it to enjoy doing it and you’ll be fine.

If you are free this weekend, go to Super Megafest to hear Ken and to meet a lot of celebrities. Find out more information here.