Launch Party at Silicon Valley Comic Con

Friday, March 18, 2016 5:00 PM 17:00
Sunday, March 20, 2016 5:00 PM 17:00

San Jose Convention Center 150 West San Carlos Street San Jose, CA, 95113 United States (map)

Google Calendar ICS

For 3 days in March, the center of the universe shifted to the San Jose Convention Center for the Legion M launch at Silicon Valley Comic Con. Check out the gallery below for evidence of all the mayhem!

The Legion M booth was located in the heart of the convention--right across from the time traveling DeLorean and the "Back to the Future" cast reunion!

The show was PACKED! Even though it was a first year show, it sold out the convention center!

The centerpiece of the Legion M booth was Robot Chicken animator Dillon Markey, who answered questions from fans and did LIVE stop motion animation (yes, we know that's an oxymoron!) all weekend long.

Here's a camera's eye view of the action. The next slide has the fully animated clip!

...and here's the final clip!

Dillon was moving pretty quick and just having a good time. If you look closely at the video, you can even see his hand in some of the shots. When animating production quality video, he typically generates about 10 seconds of footage per day.

At the show, we unveiled the Legion M company car, Marilyn. She was the first thing you saw when you entered, and the last thing you saw before you left!

Marilyn is a '59 Cadillac. Just like her namesake (Marilyn Monroe), she looks absolutely stunning in Candy Apple Red...

...and draws a crowd wherever she goes!

What's that she's posing with? Oh, just a 9 foot tall winnebago transformer costume named "Stoop Bot" from Stoopid Buddy Stoodios. He spent the whole weekend hanging out at our booth.

Stoop Bot isn't just a prop--it's a full fledged costume. Anybody who saw him jumping and dancing through the crowd won't soon forget it!

There's a great story behind "StoopBot". When Stoopid Buddies Stoodio was just starting, they used an old winnebago as their office space. Once the company blew up and "transformed" into a world famous animation house, they built this piece.

It takes a team of 3 people to operate Stoop Bot. (1) Brett, the world class stilt performer who operates it. (2) Ben, the world class builder who created it (and communicates via radio to Brett inside), and (3) Amy, the world class girlfriend (who also happens to be a world class entrepreneur and fashion blogger!) who is needed to help get the costume on and off.

The truly amazing thing about Stoopbot is even though he is MASSIVE, he is designed and animated in such a way that small children absolutely love him, and flock to him wherever he goes.

Stoop Bot wasn't the only robot at our booth. We also had the world famous "Humping Robot" from "Robot Chicken", shown here chillin with a squad from Halo.

The humping robot was busy. He spent all weekend posing for slightly provocative pictures with the ladies...

...and the gentlemen.

Our booth was swamped with media all weekend long.

Legion M cofounders Paul Scanlan (middle, in the Han Solo vest) and Jeff Annison (right, in the Jedi Robes) were busy, fielding over 26 press interviews in 2.5 days.

This was our launch event for Legion M, so it was exciting to share the story, and we were thrilled with the enthusiastic response.

World famous Meltdown Comics also sent a couple representatives to hang out in our booth, including "Mel" who was on loan from the store on Sunset Boulevard.

Here's Mel overseeing one of our many interviews of the show.

We also had special guests from Osterhaut Design Group, showing off augmented reality comic books.

These glasses allow the comics to "come alive" and literally jump out of the page!

It's an exciting new frontier in storytelling, and one that Legion M is excited to be pioneering.

One of the highlights of the show was a panel entitled "Disrupting the Studio System: How Equity Crowdfunding is About to Change the Way Content is Made"

The panel featured (from left to right) Jeff Annison (Legion M), Paul Scanlan (Legion M), Terri Lubaroff (representing Meltdown Comics), David Brooks (Stoopid Buddy Stoodios), and Alex Lieu (42 Entertainment/Animal Repair Shop). It was moderated by Jim Louderback (VidCon/Revision 3) who went "Geraldo style" into the audience fielding questions.

The alternate title was "Opening the Gates of Hollywood: How Legion M is allowing fans to become a part of the entertainment industry."

Our friends at Animal Repair Shop/42 Entertainment loaned us one of the limited edtion, custom made "Space Paranoids" arcade games from the movie "Tron".

Flynn Lives!

We had a special appearance in our booth by Professor Dumbledore who kept everyone, ahem, spellbound.

This team is ready to take over Hollywood!

One of the best parts of the show was the ability to meet people face to face and tell them what Legion M is all about.

The most common question of the weekend was "This is amazing! Where do I sign up?".

The second most common question was: "Can I take a picture with the humping robot?"

Oh yeah, we also had a Tardis!

We had originally planned to use the Tardis as a changing area, but we soon learned it was also the perfect place to stow all our stuff (being as it's bigger on the inside).