San Diego Comic-Con 2014 was bigger than ever in terms of attendance, and yet it was lacking the large Hollywood presence that has made the last few years unbearably crowded in the exhibit hall, which means there was plenty of room for independent artists to set up and share their graphic creations.

As usual SDCC rolled out the red carpet for indie artists trying to share their passion with fans on a personal level, and whether they were veteran exhibitors, or it was their first year on the floor, they all had one thing in common- a love of illustration, art and, of course, comic books.

I had the pleasure of speaking with some of the independent artists exhibiting at Comic-Con 2014, and even though a few of the artists I missed in last year's coverage weren't in attendance those who were nice enough to share a few minutes with me about their art showed that independent art is alive and well at Comic-Con.

Jeremy Bernstein

After speaking to Jeremy Bernstein for just a few minutes it became clear that he is extremely passionate about animation and illustration, and his passion was shared by those who stopped by his booth to check out his works.

Jeremy is a BFA graduate of Cal Arts (California Institute of the Arts) who started out working for Dreamworks as an animator on features such as Madagascar and Kung Fu Panda, but he soon found his desire to draw impossible to ignore, so he went to work on his own projects. So far he has illustrated seven books, many of which are self published, and like all of Jeremy’s art these books are extremely diverse in subject matter and target audience.

He’s currently developing his own animated series for Nickelodeon, where he works as a storyboard artist on the series Breadwinners, and he’s looking forward to bringing more of his creations to life in the future both on screen and in print.

Jeremy’s passion is evident in everything he creates, and he’s a shining example of what an independent artist can achieve if they continue to work on projects they find personally fulfilling.

Jeremy Bernstein's official website | Instagram | Twitter | Etsy | IMDB

Erwin Haya

Street art comes alive in the hand drawn works of Erwin Haya, who is now considered a Comic-Con veteran since he has been exhibiting at the Con for the last twelve years.

Erwin attended the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, California and began his creative career working for companies such as Barra, a financial software company, and Booyah Games before he decided to go independent and work on his own artistic creations full time.

In 2003 he began publishing web comics under the name OneSickIndividual, and he continues to create street art influenced illustrative works as an independent freelancer for companies such as Mattel, Scholastic and Simon & Schuster. 

Erwin’s currently working on his own graphic novel, and by the look of the works he had on display at Comic-Con fans of graffiti and animation are sure to find something they love in Erwin’s upcoming comics.

Erwin Haya's Tumblr | Facebook | DeviantART

Diana Sprinkle

It was the ultimate prize for a cat burgling sociopath, and once she’d claimed the cowl of the Batman she knew her legend would grow, along with the severity of her crimes...

Catwoman doesn’t take her eyes off the prize until it’s tucked safely in her satchel, and according to this incredibly cool statue by DeviantARTist Kordianl her latest acquisition has left Batman unable to conceal his true identity!

Kordianl created this pop culture inspired statue, with a little help from van den blocke studio, for the French department store Printemps, who held an art exhibition inside the store called "Pop the Bag".

This masterfully sculpted piece stands three meters tall and was "Inspired by theme of Judith beheading Holofernes", a celebration of our modern mythologies which are being created in the pages of comic books. 

-Via Nerd Approved

(YouTube link)

Sean Willets and Forrest Whaley remade the Guardians of the Galaxy trailer completely in LEGO. From Gamma Squad:

From YouTuber Forrest Whaley, who has turned moving Legos around into a career, part of the fun is spotting all the fill-ins Whaley used for huge scenes. If you’re quick, for example, you’ll spot Mon Calamari, oddly silent on whether or not it’s a trap, in the background. Also, surprisingly, this is an official spot, according to First Showing; it appears Disney gave Whaley enthusiastic permission to put their upcoming hit into plastic.

Now I really want a Rocket Raccoon minifig. Guardians of the Galaxy officially opens nationwide tomorrow, but there are plenty of showings tonight.    

Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice is an upcoming movie that has both superhero flick fans and comic book readers foaming at the mouth, our heads spinning from all the possibilities. 

Will Batman and Superman physically battle it out in the movie, or is the versus meant to indicate a difference of opinion about how to deal with an impending problem of superheroic proportions?

Dorkly artist Andy Kluth has an idea about how the whole situation will play out, and his comic offers up the easiest solution to the situation- the good ol' Superman flying so fast that he actually travels back in time trope.

Geez, Supes- you're a real jerk! Now I really hope Batman wins in the upcoming movie!

-Via GeekTyrant

If you've been on the internet at all over the last week, you know the San Diego Comic Con was last weekend. If you are a regular Neatorama reader, then you know that Zeon and I go to Comic Con every year to collect the greatest cosplay we can find at the convention. This year was no exception, and despite losing my badge on Saturday night, I am happy to bring you some of my favorite cosplay photos from the convention.

You'd be forgiven for thinking this crazy street display wasn't cosplay -but there was, in fact, someone inside this massive suit, operating it almost like a puppet. It even had conversations with the giant crowd surrounding it!

This Ice King costume was also massive. It was so big, I'm pretty sure he never even set foot on the convention floor that day.

Young Marceline here, on the other hand, had only her large prop to worry about.

There were a lot of great costumes this year, especially from Adventure Time, but of all the hundreds of cosplay characters I saw this year, I think this warrior Fionna was by far my favorite.

As far as bad-assed, yet adorable cosplays go, there were a surprisingly large number of them. This Rocket Raccoon costume was a particularly good example. Oddly, with all the buzz about Guardians of the Galaxy coming out, I only saw two cosplays based on the franchise.

Two costume trends I did see plenty of were Harley Quinn and Deadpool. This tutued Harley and Avengers Deadpool at least put a fun spin on the costumes.

This punk rock Harley Quinn was a delightfully unique twist on the character.

Some gamers find PC gaming a bit daunting, what with all the hardware needed to support high end games, extra software needed to run the games properly, and the myriad of settings you don’t need to worry about while gaming on a console.

Terms like anti-aliasing, tessellation and vsync boggle the mind when you’re trying to make sure you're maximizing your PC's performance while you play your favorite games. 

(Video Link)

Luckily there are two new videos, created by GameSpot for their Reality Check series, which explain what all these settings actually mean to your gaming experience.

Don’t have time to watch videos? Then check out A Beginner’s Guide to Graphics Settings at Lifehacker and read all about it! 

-Via Kotaku

Wasteland Weekend is “The World’s Largest Post-Apocalyptic Festival”, and since the official debut in 2010 the event has grown from a few hundred attendees to an apocalyptic mob large enough to initiate their own revolution against civilized society.

What began as a spin-off of Mad Max themed festivals, which were held in Australia and Japan as far back as the late 1970s, has become the place for fans of apocalyptic genre movies, video games and those who’d rather LARP in the radioactive wastelands than in a fantasy forest.

This year the organizers are expecting their largest turnout yet, and with a little help from the horde of wasteland ambassadors who attended San Diego Comic-Con 2014 they’re sure to get plenty of fresh meat heading out to the desert this September.

The HBO Series The Leftovers is an incredibly dramatic show based on the Tom Perrotta novel of the same name.

The Leftovers is a unique take on the idea of the Rapture, where two percent of all people on Earth disappear overnight.

In the show the survivors, aka the "leftovers", deal with the loss of their loved ones while trying to keep their lives together during this strange time.

It's a dark, brooding, and extremely humanistic story that focuses on the survivors rather than the Rapture itself, and the creators decided to advertise their show with realistic Loved Ones dolls outside San Diego Comic-Con which left people with lots of unanswered questions.

Some people thought the whole thing was some kind of inside joke, or advertising for a Real Doll style silicone mannequin for sick fetishists, but those who watch the show understood the reference and yet were still totally creeped out by these realistic looking figures:

Apparently the show's creators wanted to get under our skin with their morbid exhibit, but I doubt this strange form of advertising will work in their favor considering most people who saw the exhibit had no idea what the heck they were looking at!

The Last of Us: One Night Live was an event based on an alternate musical ending to the game that was “thrown together by the cast on the soundstage as they worked on the game"- it was a celebration of the game's storyline, soundtrack and the impact this darkly humanistic world has on gamers.

WARNING- If you haven't played the game yet there are spoilers contained within the performance, and some subject matter considered NSFW.

(Video Link)

Naughty Dog studio brought the game to life at The Broad Stage in Santa Monica, California, with "a performance of the score by Gustavo Santaolalla, plus a "live read" of key scenes featuring the principal actors, as directed by Neil Druckmann."

It's a clever way to celebrate a game that redefined multiple video game genres, and it truly showcases all the hard work and dedication that goes into making such an amazing game.

-Via Kotaku/Comingsoon

The super talented weaponsmiths from Baltimore Knife and Sword, collectively known on YouTube as MAN AT ARMS, are back with a new series called REFORGED, where they step up their weapon forging game by constructing hybrid weapons based on our favorite geeky franchises.

In this episode they came up with a rather creative way to combine all four of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle’s weapons into one freakin’ crazy weapon they should call the Cowabunga Choppah.

(Video Link)

You'd think a katana blade mounted on the end of a bo staff would be enough, but this is REFORGED, and MAN AT ARMS is going all out to create weapons we've only seen in our geeky dreams, so of course they had to work in Raphael's sai and Mikey's nunchakus.

However, seeing how they work the sai and nunchaku in to the overall build will surprise you...What will these creative weapon masters come up with next?! 

-Via Sploid

Most celebs love to get dressed up, whether in formal wear or a fun costume, so it’s only natural that celebs who attend San Diego Comic-Con each year enjoy channeling their inner cosplayer on the main floor of the convention.

However, celebs generally don’t enjoy getting mobbed by fans, and if they are easily recognizable even in costume they could wind up being the subject of an unwanted fan frenzy.

That’s why celebs are choosing to go to Comic-Con incognito these days, wearing outfits that obscure their identity and allow them the anonymous freedom to roam the floor as they please.

Maisie Williams decided to attend Comic-Con 2014 while wearing simple disguises that kept people from catching Game of Thrones mania and freaking out on the Con floor.

As you can see from her Instagram photo people didn't seem to think twice about the weird little fangirl wearing the Guy Fawkes or Spider-Man mask, and she was able to enjoy the convention without inciting hysteria!

-Via Fashionably Geek

Artist Hector Janse van Rensburg feels that Facebook profile pics are looking a bit too human these days, so he has taken it upon himself to bring a bit of critter color to the world of social media by slothifying random Facebook profile pics: 

The UK based artist has become known for his offbeat watercolor works, which he shares with the web under the name S**tty Watercolour, and if you are familiar with Hector’s works you know there is nothing serious about his artistic interpretations:

Hector has painted portraits of Redditors and celebrities, and now he’s tackling the ever changing world of social media, whether the Facebook users in question like it or not. Who knows, you might be his next slothification victim…

-Via Bored Panda

If you're a native Japanese speaker traveling to an English-speaking country, you might wonder how you will be able to conduct business and everyday transactions in a language that is very different from your own. How will you order food at a restaurant, check into a hotel, or make a business deal?

Thankfully, in the Anglosphere, you can get most of this done by selectively quoting Star Wars. Darth Vader's own dialogue is a particularly good starting point, which is why the publishing company Gakken has produced a phrasebook which translates Lord Vader's English into Japanese. Here are some sample pages.

-via Rocket News 24

Children’s television shows used to walk a fine line between enchantingly adorable and unnervingly creepy.

There have been so many kids shows that have come and gone over the years that it’s hard to keep track of them all, but Mental Floss’s Ransom Riggs went down the YouTube rabbit hole and came back with a few shining examples, to remind us how creepy some kid's shows used to be:

(Video Link)

Maybe it had something to do with the strange (and typically low budget) critter costumes, or the slowed speech meant to keep the whole thing kid friendly, but the creepiness most definitely DID NOT have ANYTHING to do with the puppets!

(Video Link)

Okay, maybe it had a little bit to do with the puppets, because they usually weren't friendly looking Muppet style puppets- more often than not they looked like the stuff nightmares are made of.

And speaking of creepy puppets, there's one show missing from Ransom's list of creepy kid's TV shows, one puppet filled program that used to simultaneously fascinate and disturb me to the core as a youngster- The Letter People.

The animated sequences were delightfully folksy, and totally meant to appeal to a Flower Child's child, but there was something about those maniacally grinning puppets with the totally blank expressions that used to haunt me in my dreams!

(Video Link)

Are there any old kid's TV shows that used to creep you out as a kid? Let us know in the comment section and we'll compare notes!

The Muppets are the funniest puppets in the land, and when they make a comedic puppet movie where they star alongside comedians famous for their fabulous sense of humor you know some funny business is bound to go down on the set.

(Video Link)

Tina Fey is one funny lady, and she’s also a fan of The Muppets, so when she has a blooper moment during filming you know it’s going to make you LOL, and if we could watch more than thirty seconds of hilarity folks would definitely end up ROFLing.

This Tina Fey blooper reel comes to you courtesy of The Mary Sue, who were given an exclusive look at The Muppets Most Wanted bonus features before the Blu-ray version is released on August 12th.