SMASH! News

In the scheme of free things that are cool, we rate comics pretty highly (beaten only by free money. Think of all the comics you could buy with free money!). That’s why we’re pretty excited for Free Comic Book Day on Saturday May 1st.

Both Kings Comics and Books Kinokuniya will be celebrating the day in style, with Kings holding their annual 20% off sale, and Kino celebrating with a zine fair and Cosplay Competition.

Facebook Cosplay Competition
At their store during FCBD, Kinokuniya’s photographer will be taking photos of people dressed in their favourite character’s outfits and uploading those photos to their facebook page. The three photos with the most ‘likes’ will receive a $100 Kinokuniya voucher! The three categories include Best American Graphic Novel Character, Best Manga Character, and Best Gothic Lolita.

Save with Kings
Kings Comics is having their yearly sale on the same day, with savings right across the board! Excluding New Release items (comics and merchandise released in April 2010) all back issues will be 50% off, while everything else in store will be 20% off, but only for one day.

Kinokuniya Craft and Zine fair
After you’ve nabbed your free goodies, why not relax and sample the works of local artists, writers and comic creators at Kinokuniya’s zine fair? Oh, and they have a life size Dalek in attendance too. That’s pretty awesome.

So whether you’re a comic aficionado or a total newcomer, there’s plenty of fun to be had and free stuff to horde. Drop by, enjoy the festivities, and celebrate this fascinating visual medium with Free Comic Book Day!

Another day, another new batch of events for SMASH! Protecting the bastions of convention-dom, we welcome back our stalwart allies of Karaoke, AMVs and BJDs.

In our ongoing battle against the malaise of mediocrity, we’ve also introduce a streamlined sign-up form which we’ll be using for several of our events! (aptly located at events.smash.org.au) Entering competitions just got that much easier.

Karaoke
SMASH! Idol is back again this year, with a whole new venue and stage to strut your stuff and show why you deserve to be the Idol of 2010. Find out more on the Karaoke page, or enter today!

AMVs
The Anime Music Video competition is back at SMASH! Open to anyone around the world, make the best Action/Upbeat, Comedy/Parody, or Drama/Romance AMV you can and win for 2010! Entries are accepted online and via snail-mail, so read up on the competition here.

BJD
There will be a Ball-Jointed Doll (BJD) display table again this year, and competitions for our creative BJD enthusiasts to show off their works! Stay tuned for more details on our competitions.

We’ve created a little countdown page that lets you know how many days, hours, minutes and seconds until SMASH! this year.

Why did we do this? Well because Tom said he’d like a clock that counted down how much time was left until doors open in August and when Tom says do something we usually dither around for a bit, watch Doctor Who, laugh at Turkish Rambo, dance to Korean Pop and then, depending on our mood, do it.

Speaking of which, we’ve created a countdown timer. The code is based on Alexandru Pitea’s excellent tutorial at Nettuts+ but with some extra special love from SMASH!. Feel free to borrow the code yourself!

This one’s a biggie: we’ve got an important announcement about cosplay rules, a taste of some of the cosplay activities and a call for YOU to host a panel (only one yaoi panel will be selected).

New Cosplay Rules
We at SMASH! like to make things fun. Fun is good.

But we think cosplay competitions aren’t as fun as they could be. In the past we’ve honored the skills and creativity of people who have made their own costumes. We’ll always love you guys, because you’re awesome. But we also saw there was a gap for people who just enjoy dressing up and participating.

We want to share the love with you dressing up and participating types and so this year we’re making some changes to the rules. The two most important relate to competitors with store-bought costumes.

In 2010, competitors wearing store-bought costumes can participate in the cosplay competition but are not eligible for the Best Individual, Judges’ Choice, or Best Group awards. Competitors wearing store-bought costumes can win the Best Skit award.

We think this makes sense. If you bought your costume, well you can hardly win best costume. But if you have a great skit, well, who cares if you bought your costume? And if you just like dressing up and you don’t want to win anything, we want you to be able to get on stage, too.

You can read up about the Cosplay Competition and peruse the full list of rules on our website.

Cosplay Chess
The perennial favorite of Cosplay Chess is back again and awaiting your sign-up! Cosplay… chess? It’s like regular chess, but fun! Cosplayers play the role of the pieces and ‘battle’ each other under the direction of their respective chessmasters. More information is available on the Cosplay Chess page.

Panels Sign-up
Think you’ve got what it takes to run your very own panel? Let us know! We’ve even made this easy sign-up form. Panels can be about any topic and successful applicants will be selected on the basis of expected interest, duration and prior experience. So tell us! Now!

Ah, Easter. That other yearly excuse for retail stores to change their decorations, while we reminisce and devour chocolaty goodness.

You know the other awesome thing about April? Supanova! That Other Cool Convention is revving up for its April tour, starting this Friday in sunny Brisbane (April 9-11) before hopping down to Melbourne (April 16-18).

If you thought SMASH! having five international guests was a lot, you should see their list. With such stars as James Marsters (Buffy), Karl Urban (Star Trek), Gareth David-Lloyd (Torchwood), Mary McDonnell (Battlestar Galactica), Alex Meraz (Twilight), Yuri Lowenthal (Naruto, Prince of Persia) and a whole stack of cool artists, what’s not to love? (I personally am totally excited for Yuri and the President of the Twelve Colonies. That’s a combo I can vote for!)

Supanova Brisbane kicks off on Friday in extra special style with their new Director’s Day, a unique opportunity for fans and budding professionals alike to enjoy themselves and soak up some valuable knowledge.

We’ve started accepting applications to be a club or an exhibitor at this year’s SMASH!

Just like with the Artist Circle, you can apply online in the Clubs section if you’re a club or the Exhibitors section if you’re an exhibitor. Our Artist Circle filled up within about 10 days so don’t delay! Apply now to make sure you don’t miss out!

A list of who is confirmed as attending will be progressively added to the new Vendors section of the website. We’ve got a page for Artists, Clubs and Exhibitors. Keep checking back to see who’s coming!

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to drop us a line. You can contact us about all vendor-related enquiries at stallholders@smash.org.au.

Good news and bad news, everyone.

The bad news is that our Artist Circle is full. I know. We only had it open for, like, 10 days before it was full. You can still register, though. Our new fandangled registration system means that we track people as they register and if anyone pulls out we go to the next person in the queue.

So what’s the good news? Well, the good news is that we have a full Artist Circle! That means another year packed full of the art and creativity you expect from SMASH! And with Endling and Zombiesmile both in attendance this year, we promise it’s going to be a great year for artists.