PopCult Rudy Panucci on Pop Culture

One last look at WonderFest

The PopCulteer
June 18, 2021

Your PopCulteer is in Wheeling, basking in the joys of the Marx Toy Convention, but you lucky people get to go back a couple of weeks to WonderFest 2021, which happened in Louisville.

I’ve already brought you photo essays of WonderFest in general, plus pictures of the model vehicles, heroes and monsters. Plus we had a cool, unplanned video.

Today we’re going to look at the remainder of my meager selection of not-too-blurry photos. If you read the earlier posts you know that I had camera and hand mishaps, and more than half the photos I took were unusable.

Still, you will get a glimpse of some of the cool dioramas and props, and we’ll bring you some of the cheesecake models, including a Vampirella section and a few other examples of the sexy female form, captured in plastic and paint.

Captions will be at a minimum, so if you see a photo with no caption, and don’t know what the hell it is, chances are I don’t know either. Like that big cool thing above right. I think it’s a demon vomiting into the brain of a guy eating a sandwich, but it’s probably from a movie or TV show or something.

On with the photos…

Possibly my favorite thing in the model contest room was this monster building a model of himself to add to his collection of cool monsters.
Trek busts. They looked like part of a cool giant chess set.
What better use for a small blown amp than to house a Jethro Tull diorama?
This is one side of a fantastic two-sided diorama of Snow White and the Evil Queen.
Sadly, I did not get a decent photo of the other side.

The Cheesecake Factor

A big segment of the model-building hobby consists of model kits of lovely young women. Here’s an assortment, starting off with a trio of Vampirellas.  She was, by far, the most-modeled character at the show, edging out Batman and The Creature From The Black Lagoon.

 

 

 

Wednesday Addams, all grown up.
Vampira, from Plan 9 From Outer Space
A cartoony Elvira
A heavily-armed, patriotic young woman in a see-thru bikini.
Looks like tomorrow is another Captain America shirt day. (phrase courtesy of Bill Lynch)
Don’t mess with the well-armed lady wearing assless chaps.

 

 

With that we wrap up our WonderFest coverage…except for photos of the stuff I bought there, which might show up next week in this space. Check back with PopCult for all our regular features and fresh content every day.

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WonderFest: The Monsters

In this rather long photo essay we’re going to bring you images of some of the monsters, creatures, critters and freaks on display in the model contest room at WonderFest 2021, which took place weekend before last. As with our other photo essays, please excuse the odd blurry photo. Your humble blogger was having hand issues and camera issues, as detailed earlier, and I was not at all satisfied with my work on this.

Still, there’s plenty of cool stuff to look at here. Hit up the list of previous posts in the right column or scroll down for more of our WonderFest pictures and video. I will be posting the last batch of photos Friday.  Your PopCulteer is in a deadline crunch, and has other posts lined up for later this week, so we’ll be bringing you the climax in a few days. That post will also include a handy index to the other photo essays, since they’ve wound up spread out over a longer period than I’d planned.

For the sake of expedience and sanity, these photos are not going to be captioned. They are cool model kits, built by talented artists. That’s all you really need to know.  Enjoy the artistry…

 

Because of the size of this photo essay, we will continue with more photos after the jump.

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Sunday Evening Video: WonderFest 2021

This is a quick, unplanned, glimpse at part of the model contest entries, recorded June 5, 2021 at WonderFest USA in Louisville, Kentucky. For a few moments, while I was taking photos of the model contest entries at WonderFest last weekend, I handed the Zi8 camera to Melanie, who shot brief clips before she had to depart to get in line to get some stuff signed by Greg Nicotero.

This video was created out of that backup video shot in the model contest room, and is not, by any means, a comprehensive look at all the entries. It really only covers about half of them. The footage looked good enough that we decided to share it.  For pictures of more models from the rest of the room, scroll down the PopCult page for our previous photo essays, and stay tuned because we have at least three more of them coming early next week. There was a lot to see at WonderFest.

This video was shot by Mel Larch, for PopCult. Editing was by Rudy Panucci, and the music combines several pieces composed and performed by Rudy Panucci, Mel Larch and Frank Panucci.

Special note: PopCult may disappear from this location at The Charleston Gazette-Mail soon. Don’t miss out on our new posts at our NEW HOME. Bookmark the new site, and subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also follow PopCult and Rudy Panucci on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

WonderFest 2021: Heroes

…and maybe a couple of villains. We are back at it with the entries in the model contest at last weekend’s WonderFest.

In this photo essay we’re going to look at the figural models of Superheroes, with a few movie and videogame heroes and maybe a villain or two thrown in for good measure. There were many more models than what I’m showing you here, but as I mention, camera woes and wonky hands rendered many of the pictures unusable.

Apologies again for the blurriness of some of the pictures. Think of it as my way of raising awareness during Myasthenia Gravis month.

Some of these are simply made using commercially-available kits, while others are scratch-built and a few seem to be 3D-printed, scale up versions of classic model kits. Not being sure of which is which, I will keep my mouth shut about that. They all looked stunning.

Batman and his extended family and rogue’s gallery were very well-represented, but there was plenty of diversity among the ranks of the heroes. We even have some cute heroes wrapping up this batch of photos.

As with yesterday’s photo essay, captions may be sparse. Scroll down and enjoy!

You would’ve gotten used to seeing this guy. Batman, that is. Not so much the rich guy in the background.

 

A spectacular model by someone who didn’t get the memo about Batman never touching a gun.

 

 

Captain America, with spare parts.

 

Wolverine, back when he was hanging out with Jose Canseco.

 

 

 

Catwoman almost made it into the “Cheesecake models” photo essay.

 

 

 

 

A life-sized Green Goblin head. Really impressive.

 

The Hellboy, you say!

 

 

Seven of Nine was in with the fantasy figures, but I felt she deserved to be included as a hero.

 

 

I think this character is a hero, or hero-ish.

 

The Cute Heroes…

These guys seemed out of place amid the monster models.

 

Rumor has it that Baby Groot has become bitter of the success of Baby Yoda, and has been drinking the wood alcohol.

 

Our last photo today, because everybody runs photos of The Child.

 

That is our quick look at the Hero Models at WonderFest. Check back later for part one of our look at The Monsters!

Special note: PopCult may disappear from this location at The Charleston Gazette-Mail soon. Don’t miss out on our new posts at our NEW HOME. Bookmark the new site, and subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also follow PopCult and Rudy Panucci on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

WonderFest 2021: The Vehicles

Here’s the first part of our look at the awesome model contest at WonderFest, which took place last weekend in Louisville.

I need to make a confession first. I had a camera disaster of sorts right before I took these photos. I fired up my trusty Canon, and the battery warning flashed on, right before it went dead. I found an unadorned table in the room and put in fresh batteries, and…I got the warning again. My 13-year-old camera seemed to have finally given up the ghost.

It wasn’t a complete disaster because I still had my phone. The only problem with that is, my phone weighs nearly nothing. It has no heft to it. And I have Myasthenia Gravis, and when I get tired or hot, my hands get really shaky.  About half of the photos I took are unusable, and as a result, some of the best models won’t be shown here. It sucks, but I’m doing the best I can.  Apologies in advance for any blurriness you might encounter over the next few days.

Also, the model room was packed with people who have no sense of photographer ettiquette. If you take more than two seconds to snap a photo, somebody will walk in front of your camera. There was one young lady there with a bright green shirt who apparently thought she was the only person in the room taking pictures. I got about two dozen shots of her hands, elbow or camera.

After shooting about 500 photos in the model room. I went out to the hotel hallway and found a comfy chair to rest and wait for Mrs. PopCulteer to show up after she was waiting in line to get some stuff signed by Greg Nicotero. While there, I was able to fiddle with the Canon and get it working again. However, the model room had become a bit like The Black Hole of Calcutta, and yours truly was pretty well spent. At this point my hat was 70% water.

And I hadn’t made my “buy stuff” run in the dealer’s rooms yet, so I didn’t go back in to fight the teeming masses in the model room again.

Even with that, I have several dozen cool images to share with you in the coming days. First up, we have vehicles. This is everything from spacecraft to rockets to The Dude’s car from The Big Lebowski.

Captions will be sparse because I’d rather be silent than stupid.

We’ll start with this cool mini-diorama of an aircraft in front of a cool zoomy sky. It would look more impressive if I’d had my camera with a flash.

 

A table filled with amazing spacecraft models. You’ll see a few more pics like this.

Ya gotta love a Saturn V.
Go ahead and hum the “Imperial Death March.” You know you’re hearing it in your head.
Wired for lights.
This model was huge, and looked really cool. I wish I could remember what the hell it is. Somebody want to help me out in the comments?
Here it is from another angle, with the Millenium Falcon and other stuff.
A build-up of a vintage Aurora Moon Bus kit, from 2001: A Space Oddyssey.
Interesting kitbashes.
I had to include at least one shot that features a Constitution Class Starship.
Amid the spaceships, you’d find the occasional TV-inspired car.
And a few movie-inspired cars, too. I wonder if the Dude’s car included the homework in the backseat?

That wraps up our look at the vehicle models of WonderFest. Later this week we’ll bring you glimpses of monsters, heros, dioramas and maybe even some cheesecake.

Special note: PopCult may disappear from this location at The Charleston Gazette-Mail soon. Don’t miss out on our new posts at our NEW HOME. Bookmark the new site, and subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also follow PopCult and Rudy Panucci on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

WonderFest 2021 Recap Part One

 

Your PopCulteer has returned from WonderFest USA in Louisville, and it was a surreal blast going to a convention again for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. We had tons of fun, got completely exhausted and spent too much money on cool stuff.

I’ll be posting photos of my convention swag on Friday, but today we’re just going to get our toes wet with the first part of our convention recap.

While I had been thinking of going to WonderFest this year, the primary motivating factor was when Mrs. PopCulteer, Mel Larch, discovered that Greg Nicotero (seen left, and below with Mel), the executive producer of The Walking Dead, was going to attend and speak about his other TV series, Creepshow.

The first time we ever went to WonderFest was because Nicotero was talking, and it was fun to go hear him again.

Thanks to a fortunate coincidence in the dealer’s room, Mel’s first non-family, post-pandemic hug was with Greg Nicotero.

My first non-family, post-pandemic hug was with Steve Stovall, the organizer of the Kentuckiana GI Joe Toy Expo, which I’ll be telling you about next month.

Hugs aside, because we were there well before the doors to the model contest room opened at noon, we headed upstairs to grab a good seat for Greg’s panel with Frank Dietz, where they showed an episode of Creepshow that Frank had written, starring The Walking Dead’s “Eugene,” Josh McDermott.

We got there more than an hour before the Creepshow panel, which meant that we witnessed the whole panel prior. Happily, that panel featured Rick Sternbach, a legendary science fiction artist who has designed most of the Star Trek universe spacecraft and vehicles since Star Trek: The Motion Picture, in 1978. It was a real treat to hear him talk about growing up and geeking out on Classics Illustrated science fiction adaptations and The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits, plus so many classic science ficion novels and magazines.

He also spoke at length about the design process for Star Trek, and touched on how they fabricated the miniatures. He was also on the team that restored the original 11-foot model of the U.S.S. Enterprise for The Smithsonian, and he spoke about that. His talk was accomanied by a particuarly cool Power Point presentation.

After those two panels, the model contest room was open, and I will bring you photos from that mind-blowing experience Wednesday and Thursday. I didn’t take many photos in the dealer’s rooms, but you will see those below. I’ll save my camera horror story for tomorrow, too. Today you’ll get a brief look at the dealer’s room.

One whole wing of the big dealer’s room was devoted to Lost In Space. Judy Robinson herself, Marta Kristen was on hand, meeting fans and signing autographs, and there was plenty to see. Much of the wardrobe from the show was on display, but yours truly managed not to get a usable photo. There was a table full of ultra-rare merchandise, a recreation of the control panels from the bridge of The Jupiter 2, and, much to my surprise, four-and-a-half full-sized Robot B9s.

It was B9 heaven. All told, there were four and a half life-sized Robot B9s in the room, and as you can see at the top of this post, Bender, from Futurama, was on hand to hang out with his drinking buddies.
Yours truly, pretending to be on the bridge of the Jupiter 2.
And here’s a large and very impressive scratch-built Jupiter 2. Speak of the devil!
As a kid, I lusted after every toy on this table.

At the direction of Mr. Nicotero, I had to get photos of this one dealer, selling models of his own design. Many of these turned up in the contest.

 

In the other dealer’s room a fella had a massive display of fantasy Marx-style Playset boxes for which he had compiled and created accompanying sets.

 

And today we leave you with this amazing and gigantic model of The Cyclops from the Ray Harryhausen classic, “The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad.” This was several times larger than Harryhausen’s actual animation model.

 

Tomorrow we will bring you our first batch of photos from the model room.

Special note: PopCult may disappear from this location at The Charleston Gazette-Mail soon. Don’t miss out on our new posts at our NEW HOME. Bookmark the new site, and subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also follow PopCult and Rudy Panucci on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

Sunday Evening Video: WonderFest 2015

Since your PopCulteer is returning from WonderFest 2021 this evening, I thought it’d be cool to show you a video of my first trip to the cool Horror/Science Fiction/Model Builders convention, some six years ago.

As I write this, I haven’t decided if I’m going to shoot any video this year. If I do, you’ll see it in PopCult in the coming days. Either way, you can expect tons of photos from the event to show up in this here blog.

This video is set to the music of The Possum Kingdom Ramblers, our buddies from down ToyLanta way.

Special note: PopCult may disappear from this location at The Charleston Gazette-Mail soon. Don’t miss out on our new posts at our NEW HOME. Bookmark the new site, and subscribe to our RSS feed. You can also follow PopCult and Rudy Panucci on social media at Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

WonderFest USA 2017: The Rest of The Models

Despite the technical difficulties that PopCult has been experiencing, we can see a light at the end of the tunnel of our WonderFest USA photo essays. Your Popculteer is going to attempt to show you the best of the rest of the model contest room in this huge photo essay that will test the limits of what PopCult’s blogging template can handle.

As you can see in the photos below and at the right, WonderFest was a hotbed of creativity and craft. These models were eye-popping, and in many cases, photos do not do them justice. This is an amazing event and anybody even remotely interested in model-building would be well-advised to make the trip to Louisville at least once to see this astounding collection of pure works of art.

We have a couple of smaller photo essays from WonderFest that we will attempt to squeeze in over the weekend so that we can clear the decks for our coverage of the Marx Toy Convention, which begins next Friday.

For now, just bask in these cool models.

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WonderFest USA Dealer’s Room Blowout

Okay, I have to admit. I’m a bit frustrated at the slow pace that I’ve been rolling out these photo essays from WonderFest USA, which was almost two weeks ago.

Since ongoing technical issues are making it really complicated to post graphics here in PopCult, I’m going for an all-out assault.

This post will include images from the WonderFest Dealer’s Room. Next I’m going to try to round up the best of the model contest entrants that we haven’t seen yet. Then I’ll present one last post with some extra goodies.

I’m not going to caption these images because they’ve already crashed and burned this post three times, and I really want to get these out to you, post-haste.

Tom Servo, at the head of this post, was not in the dealer’s room, but I wanted to give him a spotlight. You’ll see a larger photo of him in our next post.

On to the pretty pictures…

 

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WonderFest USA 2017: Monsters Part Two

Our extensive photo coverage of WonderFest USA continues, more than a week after the event in Louisville, Kentucky wrapped up! Technical issues here at the blog have forced your PopCulteer to dole these images out in smaller batches than we had become accustomed to in previous years.

Since we’re hosting the images off-site for the time being, I’m going to push the envelope this time and see if I can get away with cramming fifteen photos in this essay.  They’ll be cool images, like the dealer selling the huge busts you see at right.

And this time around we are taking another look at the cool model kits devoted to Monsters.We’ll start in the dealer’s room and then trek on over to the model contest.

Our previous photo essays can be found by scrolling down the main page of PopCult, or searching “WonderFest” over in that little box on your right. Once we’re done, I’ll post a master list with links.

Now, it’s Monster Time!

Another dealer had this fine asortment of monsters and fiends and poets.
Another dealer had this fine asortment of monsters and fiends and poets.
We can't neglect the Kaiju, now can we?
We can’t neglect the Kaiju, now can we?
We were sorely tempted by this awesome three-dimensional representation of the classic Jack Davis illustration of Frankenstein's Monster.
We were sorely tempted by this awesome three-dimensional representation of the classic Jack Davis illustration of Frankenstein’s Monster.

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