The Foul Mouthed Character

 Continuing where I left off yesterday, here's cinema's most foul-mouthed character, R2-D2, whose vocabulary is so obscene that his words are all bleeped out.

More cosplayers to be found.

I liked these tea towels.

There is a vendor I will always buy from, a local vendor, who does pop culture designs onto t-shirts. I have several of their work. This year I picked up a Predator shirt, and one with aliens abducting a cow.

Another vendor I went to is Thor's Trinkets, which uses a pop culture theme on glasses.

These cosplayers caught my eye.

And this was a costume set up in the hallway.

Among my purchases this year were items from two Canadian editorial cartoonists, who were sitting side by side. Michael De Adder and Aislin (Terry Mosher) are among the best there are in this line of work, and Michael recognized me from this blog. I have bought books before from both of them. I picked up two of his prints. A few days prior, he had put this one up online, commemorating the late Dolly Parton.

My other choice was also musical, but very Canadian. De Adder did this one after the death of Gord Downie, the lead singer of the Tragically Hip, who died in 2017 of a brain tumour. He created a Canadian flag consisting of lyrics from the band.

Terry Mosher goes by the nom de guerre Aislin in the Montreal Gazette, and I saw this in his social media feed some days before. There was no way the paper would publish this one given the language, but it sums up the feelings of many Canadians these days.

I also bought a book by Aislin on his memories of the 1976 Olympics.

The Time That Is Given To Us

 One of the vendors I bought some goods from was this one, whose primary specialty was cutting boards and coasters in wood, with a pop culture theme.

The map of Middle Earth on this cutting board was particularly appreciated. If I had a larger kitchen- or to be more precise did any cooking- I would have picked it up.

Thor's Trinkets is the name of an eastern Ontario artisan who does pop culture on beer mugs and other glassware as the bulk of her work. I have a good number of beer mugs and other glasses from her, and picked up a couple of glass coffee mugs this time out. Note the various genres represented here.

Another place I stopped by sells these t-shirts. They are pop culture icons largely done as silhouette, and most of them brown on a black t-shirt, but not all as you can see. I have several of them already, including the Batman one at top left, and bought two more this time out- a Star Wars one and a Godzilla one.

These cosplayers caught my eye- Wolverine, Juggernaut, and Mystique, all of the X-Men corner of Marvel.

The woman's Mystique make up was particularly effective- the character is a shape changer, and this woman decided to depict Mystique mid-transformation from her usual blue skinned self into whoever she's impersonating.

I chatted with a longtime Marvel artist who always turns up at these things, and bought some graphic novels from him to add to the others I had bought from other dealers. And I bought a few more things, shown here at home. While walking through, I had noticed several dinosaurs like this from one vendor; I returned and bought a triceratops. It now sits on top of my desk.

One of my favourite quotes from the Lord of the Rings; this sign came home with me.

My two new mugs. The one at left is definitely me, while the one at the right shows my LOTR fandom.

And I got four coasters- three of which were Star Wars related, and another featuring Groot from Marvel comics- and a bottle opener from the Harry Potter side of things.

Operation Overlord

 We move into the next section, which examines the Normandy campaign in detail.

Before D-Day could even happen, there were enormous preparations. This included working with spies, resistance groups, and operatives throughout occupied Europe, especially France, to pave the way for the invasion. Some tools of the spy are found here.

D-Day would be a combined assault, using army, navy, and air assets together. It would be the biggest seaborne invasion in history.

The post orders of General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces, are overhead the entrance. He would later write his memoirs, Crusade In Europe, a compelling read. Inside, footage of the D-Day landings are projected.

Allied forces landed at five beaches on the Normandy coast on June 6th, 1944. Omaha and Utah were taken by the Americans. Sword and Gold were taken by the British. And the Canadians landed at Juno Beach.

Two extraordinary paintings are exhibited together, one showing that day from the air, Invasion Pattern Normandy. It is by Eric Aldwinkle.

The second is D-Day, The Assault, by Orville Fisher, a commissioned war artist who has the distinction of being the only war artist to land on the beaches that day. While all hell was breaking out around him, he took out his pencils and sketch pads and went to work. His finished painting is a vivid one.

Here are both of them.

You may remember this. Canadian actor James Doohan landed on Juno Beach as a lieutenant with the Royal Canadian Artillery that day, taking wounds. Later on he would become best known as Scotty in the Star Trek series and movies.

A medal set for Private Harry Wellington Blakely, who was another who landed on D-Day.

Cosplay, Bombshells, And Artistic Work

These masks caught my eye at Comiccon.

Cosplayers are all over the place, and this trio looked good- Psylocke and Wolverine of the X-Men, and Kylo Ren from Star Wars.

Michael Myers stopped when he saw me. I have that same mask at home. Should have bought blue overalls and worn the mask.

This dress caught my eye. This appears to be done based on the DC Bombshells concept, an alternate reality series with heroines set in the Second World War. This one is the Batwoman's look.

At right, the Wonder Woman of the Bombshells design. The dress at left is a show stopper of its own.

More from this vendor.

Two very different cosplayers. The woman on the left was my favourite of all the cosplayers I saw, with a plague mask and fanciful formal dress.

Kylo Ren and Spider-Man- an odd combination. I've always preferred the black costume Spider-Man.

I thoroughly enjoyed Comiccon, and came away from it with a good deal of merchandise. That included this Tribble, on my desk at home.

I added to my graphic novels collection, now at two and a half shelves. I'm going to need another book shelf at some point.

And I finish with three prints by the artist Geof Isherwood, who I chatted with. Galactus is at left, with Conan and some of his women in the middle. The black suited Spider-Man is at right. I do like chatting with the artists or creative talents at these things, such as buying a couple of graphic novels from Ed Brisson, a Marvel writer who's been doing some Predator books for the company. Buying prints is a given as well.

Until next year, when presumably I'll have another bookshelf.