Tag: Mainframe Entertainment

Mainframe Entertainment Digitizes the Comic Con Experience

Image may contain: text that says 'MAINERAME MAINERAME LIVE COMIC ONLINE APRIL 25-26 CON MainfameComicon.com'Having the Comic Con blues? Was San Diego’s online event not enough? Mainframe’s event kicks off today and everything will take place in real time. This experience is for fans of comics, pop culture, wrestling and more. All panels can be attended by fans for free, by visiting https://www.mainframecomiccon.com.

The convention experience will also include artist alley shopping and live comic book auctions. All donations made to Mainframe Comic Con will support the Hero Initiative, the first-ever federally chartered not-for-profit corporation dedicated strictly to helping comic book creators in need.

“The current health crisis has resulted in the cancellation of conventions and fan events worldwide, leaving the fandom community eager for something new, while remaining in the safety and comfort of their own homes,” said Mainframe Comic Con Co-Creator Chad Ramsden.

This event’s live format allows for audience questions and fan interaction with their favorite celebrities and comic creators. Fans can also purchase private celebrity meet & greets–which may very well be the norm for events until the world has proper safety measures in store to allow for real contact.

Media guests include cast members of AMC’s NOS4A2, cast members of the iconic Justice League animated show (Phil Lamarr, Clancy Brown, George Newbern, Michael Rosenbaum, Carl Lumbly, Susan Eisenberg, Maria Canals-Barrera & Andrea Romano), Clancy Brown Ozark‘s Lisa Emery, and Batman‘s Robert Wuhl. Comic book creators include Brian Bendis, Sophie Campbell, Al Ewing, Matt Fraction, KellySue DeConnick, Jock, Tom King, Jonboy Meyers, Paolo Rivera, Mark Waid, and Chip Zdarsky.  

Panels will feature publishers including AHOY Comics, Albatross Funnybooks, AMA, Archie Comics, Heavy Metal Magazine, Humanoids, IDW, Magnetic Press, Source Point Press, and Top Cow, and showcase projects including THE BUSINESS OF INDEPENDENT COMIC BOOK PUBLISHING and INSIDER ART.

“Mainframe Comic Con is the biggest virtual convention space ever created, with four separate panel halls, each streaming 16 hours of live, Q&A panels,” said Mainframe Comic Con Co-Creator Chuck Lindsay. “What’s exciting is that fans will have the ability to go from one panel to the next with no lines. And if you miss a panel like The Walking Dead Cast Party, featuring more than twenty members of the cast coming together for a first-of-its-kind online dance party, you don’t need to worry, because all Mainframe Comic Con panels will be posted next week on YouTube.”

 

 

 

 

 

Thoughts on Reboot: The Guardian Code 20 Episodes & On The Great Escape

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Surprisingly, the second half (season) of Reboot: The Guardian Code (RtGC) is a vast improvement over its weak start. The narrative takes an air of an espionage thriller and a binge watch of all twenty episodes show a grand design which I am enjoying. Canadian broadcaster YTV aired all the episodes and is still airing them, while on Netflix, two seasons exist. Shades of Disney’s TRON colour the digital landscape, and that’s only because this film introduced me to the idea of becoming part of the digital universe is possible; the spirit of the user remains in every bit of code they create. Those pulses of energy within the machine is life too.

Throughout other shows, these ghosts in the machine are real. In cyberpunk literature, this idea is nothing new. When considering RtGC has three agencies interested in acquiring this technology–the Sourcerer, Megabyte and the Department of Internet Security–their interests are not for the greater good. They are not out to mend or defend.

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YTV’s June 4th, ReBoot with The Guardian Code Reviewed

Had ReBoot: The Guardian Code been titled anything else, this television program would not have been so derided.

null15By Ed Sum
(The Vintage Tempest)

Had ReBoot: The Guardian Code been titled anything else, this television program would not have been so derided. This series is available to most fans to see on Netflix worldwide. In Canada, YTV has exclusive rights and no firewall can stop crackers to use a VPN service to see the series online. It will soon broadcast on June 4th for those living north of the 49th who do not as technically savvy.

By not making this new chapter part of a much-beloved part of animation history would give this product a better chance for love. Also, the fact this series borrowed a lot from Code Lyoko did not help. This series did not do justice to those who loved ReBoot, the original series, like myself. Nothing is followed up on. A few real-world details connecting the past to modern day are offered, but nothing is said to explain how computer programmers know about the Guardians. This backstory is the only reason I’m going to continue watching.

Some decades have obviously passed. The location of Mainframe is revealed to be located in the basement of a school, and this fact strikes me as odd. I do not expect such a computer system which is home to Bob, Dot and Enzo to exist there. Perhaps the system they discovered is a backup server; the real one is lurking in some forgotten hallway at Electronic Arts Burnaby.

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In Conversation With Actor/Musician Garry Chalk

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By Ed Sum (The Vintage Tempest)

Garry Chalk is one of those actors who created the voice of many of my favourite characters in animation in the 1990’s. As the voice of Turbo and Slash in Mainframe Entertainment’s Reboot and later Optimus Primal in Transformers: Beast Wars / Machines, I really liked how he put his all into those characters. Back then, the Internet was not available and I had to depend on keeping an eagle eye and sharp ear to the credits to recognize what he appeared in. Little did I know he had a vast and rewarding career in film, television and theatre before coming onto the animation scene.

When I spoke to him about his more recent work, especially in O. Corbin Saleken‘s Patterson’s Wager (which is getting screenings in upcoming film festivals around North America and is on VOD), this performer said, “I’m not one of those kinds of method actors who look for characters in other people. I develop what’s within me and who I am and put me in that situation. I know myself better than anyone else. There’s a whole emotional gambit to consider, but in every one of them, there’s a facet of what you’re going to make the character be. So the core essence of any character [I play] is me with a bunch of additional circumstances to shape my response.”

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Mainframe Entertainment Gets Reboot

Proof of this devotion was recorded by Michael Benyaer at Mainframe Entertainment’s Reboot panel during the recent Edmonton Comic and Entertainment Expo.

RebootCastIt is glorious news and perhaps news that dedicated fans have long been waiting for. Mainframe Entertainment, who were responsible for such hit TV series as Beast Wars: Transformers (Beasties in Canada), Weird-Oh’s and Shadow Raiders (War Planets in the USA) is being rebooted.

Now known as Rainmaker Entertainment, the company will use the Mainframe Entertainment name as their television arm. Said Michael Hefferon, President and Executive Producer of Rainmaker, “We are excited to focus our television production activities under the Mainframe brand. We believe this announcement emphasizes Rainmaker’s commitment to the production of animated programming for television.”

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