January 2022 Class Sign Ups Available

We are opening up spots on Monday nights and will add Tuesdays if demand requires.

Class is $150/mo. for 4 weeks.

Next session starts January 10th.

For more information check out my Education Page.

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I found weird videos of me on the internet.

I’m updating this website. As part of that update I’m looking to add some additional videos, especially stuff from back in the Sabrina the Teenage Witch days. All my Sabrina stuff is on VHS tapes (remember those?) so I rely on YouTube for a lot of the older clips. As I was searching I came across the following videos:

I don’t know the user, but they seem to have some pretty solid ideas on who they’d like to ‘ship and Gordy and Libby were in that category (so was Gordy and Teenage Zelda). The videos feel like art installations and I’m impressed with how our heads were made to look like they were oversized and bobble-like. Rene and I thought they were worth sharing. If you’re interested in more like this go check out Bruno Mars Fan videos of couples.

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Alter Nation Nominated for Toy of the Year!

Hey.

It’s been a while.

Yeah, I’m doin’ good. You?

I totally wrote that Signal-Above-The-Noise post months ago and then totally fell off the face of the earth. Stopped really participating on social media all together, with the exception of stuff I needed to do for Panda Mony Toy Brands, and even then I let our social media manager handle 99% of that. I just need to do approvals and then check the analytics every week. It is, by far, my favorite way to interact with social media at the moment (also, if you’re enjoying anything posted on my Instagram lately thank Rene, she has been on it posting for herself, Arlo and me and doing a hell of a job).

But something has happened, something I did not expect – my website traffic is starting to grow. A lot. Not sure why, but if people are coming then I need to have more than an old post here for them to visit. I mean, it’s the neighborly thing to do. You come visit I should at least produce some new content. And what better way to start than by telling you about HOW AWESOME ALTER NATION IS DOING RIGHT NOW?!?!??!?!??!?!?

We have been nominated for Action Figure Toy of the Year at the prestigious Toy Association Toy of the Year Awards! From their website:

Known as the “Oscars” of the toy industry, the Toy of the Year (TOTY) Awards are presented annually to the top toys, games, and properties of the year. Administered by The Toy Association, the awards program supports the philanthropic work of The Toy Foundation, which delivers new toys to children in need.

From toyassociation.org

You can help! Consumers are invited to participate and vote for their favorite toys HERE.

There’s a lot to catch you up on, so I’ll be writing more soon and trying to publish more often. In the meantime you can check out more about Alter Nation here.

VOTE HERE

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Signal above the noise.

I’ve ignored this blog and website for a really long time. Nearly all of my energy has been pointed toward the success of Panda Mony Toy Brands and our first line Alter Nation, but now is not the time to ignore whatever platform a person might have.

I’m really unhappy with standard social media platforms. I use them for advertising 99% of the time, that’s it. I don’t feel closer to people, I don’t feel like I’m staying in touch, it feels very cynical, and I can get a shocking amount of information about tens of millions of people just by buying a $5 ad. People in technology know how scary it is and how the algorithm can be used to less than honest ends, but I don’t know that everyone really gets it. The echo chamber makes it really easy to not care. But there are things happening in the world that we have to care about, and we need to care a lot. Facebook/Instagram/Twitter aren’t giving me the tools I need to make the kind signal I want to make. Audience, yes, but I need to get that audience away from their platform so the message isn’t diluted by all the noise.

So, rather than scream into the void I’m coming back here. I can use social media the way I’m comfortable using it – as an advertising platform – and get the message out in a different way.

I don’t know how well this will work, but this is a time of change and experimentation, so I’m going to experiment.

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Alter Nation Updates

There has been SO MUCH going on with Alter Nation the last month.

Well, longer than that, but this last month has been especially busy.

First of all, the toys have actually landed on U.S. shores! This means that toys are actually shipping to stores where you can buy them! That said you can still order them to come directly to your home HERE!

Also the first webisode has been released! It features lots of cool people, including Rene and myself. You can see the first episode here:

And you can subscribe to the Alter Nation channel to see new episodes as they are released HERE! New episodes release every Wednesday.

I’ll do better about keeping this blog updated. As if this wasn’t enough, there’s all kinds of cool stuff happening right now.

See you soon!

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I wrote comics, you can read them!

One of the earliest projects I worked on when I started working for Panda Mony Toys were the mini comics that will be packed in with the figures.

I proud of these. They aren’t breaking crazy new ground in the world of comics, but they do what we set out to do which is teach people about the characters and the world of Alter Nation.

We are releasing them as a special preview over the next couple months in the comics section of the Alter Nation website.

Go check them out and if you like what you see buy some toys! We still have some cool exclusives available until mid-August.

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Panda Mony Toys Headed to San Diego Comic Con

I haven’t posted on this blog in a long time. I’ve been completely booked working at Panda Mony and on Alter Nation, although I have still managed to work a few acting gigs here and there.

It’s living the freakin’ dream!

I think that it’s a good idea to start documenting stuff here again. There’s all kinds of cool stuff happening and I’m really excited to share it. So I’m starting with a tease…

If you like t-shirts, hoodies and coffee mugs I suggest you check out our merch in our SHOP.

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Rose City Comic Con 2018

Last weekend I went on assignment to Rose City Comic Con for Panda Mony Toys. We are releasing our first action figure line next year and we are looking for cool shows to visit. Rose City was pretty great! Here’s a video of my adventures:

If you like t-shirts, hoodies and coffee mugs I suggest you check out our merch in our SHOP.

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Squirrel – Coming Soon!

I did this movie last year. We shot at Aldworth Manor in late September and October. It was a gorgeous location and such a great time with a great team. I’m very grateful to have had this experience and I’m REALLY excited for you all to see it!

Follow these accounts for more details:

HCT.Media Squirrel Movie Instagram

Of course there’s still my Twitter, Instagram and Fanpage which will also have details as they become available – so follow those today!

Shameless plug:

If you like t-shirts, hoodies and coffee mugs I suggest you check out our merch in our SHOP.

And of course I’ll be posting updates here as they happen.

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Am I Still A Geek?

When I created this image I really thought this blog was going to go another way.

In the past I would have no problem identifying with this statement:

I am a geek.

I don’t think that this is any kind of real surprise to anyone who reads this blog or knows me, but it’s not something that I bring up that often for public consumption.  Working in toys has really activated my geekery gene and since that is what I’ve been spending so much time on turning it into content for the internet seemed like the next natural choice. But as I’ve gotten back into my geekier pursuits I’ve noticed that I’m not feeling particularly connected to “geek” as a community – and I don’t know how I feel about that.

Why do we care?

In all likelihood you probably don’t, but it’s very possible that we are about to see a change to geek culture and since geek culture has been mainstreamed any changes that come are likely going to affect the entertainment industry in a massive way. I think my identity crisis is just a symptom of something bigger… maybe.

Being a geek is nothing new and we are somehow still in a geek culture golden age. If you were to tell me twenty-five years ago that some of the most popular things on YouTube, videos that were getting MILLIONS of views, were of people playing Dungeons and Dragons and other role playing games I’d laugh until I passed out. Put on top of that the fact that the Marvel Cinematic Universe is one of the most popular, profitable and unstoppable franchise factories making household names out of characters that no one knew of merely a decade ago? And the fact that Star Wars as a universe is still chugging along in mainstream media? And that I can find Iron Man action figures in just about every single armor that he has ever worn both on screen and in the comics? I tell you my little teenage heart would burst.

But it was not always this way.

I like to frame myself as a “proud geek,” but if I’m being honest that hasn’t always been true. Even in times as geek popular as now I tend to hold that part back from the spotlight. In the past I have justified this hiding because of my “brand.” On this blog and on social media I preferred to be an actor first, focus on career related things… and every once in a while toss in an obscure movie reference, mention that I need to go play D&D, or talk about Iron Man. But that was not very authentic in how much of my private identity can be tied back to what are considered geeky (sometimes VERY geeky) things.

Although some of the geeky things have gained a hip status, the fact of the matter is that all the cool popular people playing or involved in this stuff  are a very small, niche part of the people who play and participate in the core of geekery. The core audience still carries the stigma that was turned into stereotypes used in TV and movies, especially in the late 70’s through the 90’s. Hell, that was my bread and butter for most of my young acting career.

That’s me, in the broken glasses, as Kirby the Nerd.

You can see it in the faces of cosplayers, Magic the Gathering players, wargamers and hard core D&D enthusists; there is an underlying fear anytime they are around people outside of their community that they will be made fun of. And I totally get that, I have also had that fear.

I think that Simon Pegg has presented the best definition of the modern geek:

As he points out, this doesn’t just apply to things like superhero fans and Warhammer 40,000 players but sports fanatics and people who love cars too. But the stigma doesn’t follow the latter the way it does the former. Jocks and nerds may be satisfying the same itch deep down, but society in general views them in very different ways and always at odds.

I was at Rose City Comic Con this year. It’s the first con that I’ve been to since San Diego ComiCon back in either 2012 or 2014 (I can’t remember) and even longer than that since I went to a convention of any size that wasn’t related to the entertainment industry in some way shape or form. This year felt different than what I remember.

Some of my favorite childhood memories are of my dad and I going to comic cons all over Southern California (mostly the Shrine Shows in L.A.) looking for old Iron Man back issues, checking out old toys and collectables, and doing our best to bargain down a price with the dealers. At these shows I built a very impressive collection of Yoda memorabilia, got my first Iron Man action figure from the defunct Secret Wars line, and completed a volume 1 collection of Iron Man comics. 

I would spend my days reading comics and coming up with adventures for all my favorite characters in my head. The reading material came in handy for auditions as well since I was merely a passengers for nearly a decade. I was proud to know as much about the Marvel Universe as I did. I knew Doctor Who lore and stories that would surprise adult fans. I knew Star Wars down to the Tonnika sisters. But I had very few people that I could share all this with.

Junior High School, the worst of all the “schools” in my opinion, was when I met my core group of friends, people I still know and love to this day. Jeff Garvin was my entry point to the group. He and I met doing Annie with a community theater group (another thing that is generally considered pretty geeky, but that’s another blog post altogether). We shared mutual interests, Star Wars and comic books in a general sense, and he introduced me to his Dungeons and Dragons group. Jeff, Dan and Scott became my best friends through school. 

In addition to D&D we shared other common interests in movies and music. Star Wars and Indiana Jones were big favorites and we spent way too much playing the original X-Wing and TIE Fighter computer games. We tried some other RPGs and Dan, Scott and I all started playing Warhammer 40k. We had each other’s backs. We were our own little community and we could run in the circles of other geek communities without effort.

At Rose City Comic Con I was the outsider. Even though I’m an over 40-bearded-beer-gut-guy (a description that has come to be the standard archetype for the stereotypical geek) I saw the distrustful looks that came from the cosplayers and gamers and comic book fans. I imagine I must’ve looked like a dad who was missing his kid, especially since I was there by myself. There was a part of me that wanted to say, “Don’t worry I’m totally one of you.” But even writing that seems condescending and pointless, especially since geekdom and fandom are plagued by toxic jerks right now. I can’t find fault with the suspicious looks. If you didn’t know any better I could be one of those entitled, angry and anonymous man-children screaming about The Last Jedi. Toxic Fandom is the culmination of people who felt powerless finding a voice and, in most circumstances, trying to claim ownership on a fictional world that should be open to everyone. When that kind of “fandom” finds other people who feel the same we get things like what we saw with recent Star Wars stars leaving social media.

But that’s not what I want to see. Sure there will always be jerks, but in general the community is at its best when it is supportive of each other and when people who want to learn about and participate in the geekery are welcomed. Even though I got a lot of side-eye yesterday, the folks at the convention we all very polite and super excited about what they were doing there. That’s the part I like. That’s what I’d like to see more of.

To that point I’m going to start talking about my geekier pursuits here on the blog more. I may not feel like I’m directly linked into the community like I used to be, but I still D&D like a boss, build and paint 40k armies competently, and can still throw down in Supernatural continuity conversations with the best of them. The old saying goes “be the change you’d like to see” and I’d like to help put some positivity back into the geeky stuff that I love.

Please join me! Tell me about the geeky stuff you love in the comments. Introduce me to that thing you like that maybe you’re self conscious about. Let’s build a better community without entitlement and toxicity.

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