By Ashley Schultz A SuperFan Visits SuperCon! This subject is a little off topic for my column, but dedicated to all those that know, “with great power comes great responsibility.” I was able to attend “Supercon” in Raleigh, NC, and it turned me into a blubbering mess. “Supercon” is a three-day festival for fans of pop culture, superheroes, science fiction, fantasy, anime, cartoons and video games. I was able to meet some of the amazing actors and contributors to shows and games I grew up loving! There was something for everyone there, and provided for an amazing weekend. I am just gonna tell you a little about my weekend! I was set to leave Friday, July 14th at 9:55am on a MegaBus from Union Station to go to Richmond, to meet my boyfriend Stephen, and due to one of many cats knocking my phone off my charger, I missed my bus. Then, with my luck, the next bus got cancelled. Luckily, my boyfriend, who lives in Danville, VA, had his best friend, Jarrod, that lives in Richmond, who was also coming with us to “Supercon”, drive two hours to come pick me up at Union Station. We spent many hours in the car, blasting music, and talking about who we were excited to see at “Supercon.” We finally made it to Richmond, grabbed some food, and headed our way to Raleigh. We got to Raleigh, checked into our hotel, and decided we would go down to the hotel bar and end our night with a good beer! When we arrived at the hotel bar, we saw people dressed in cosplay, which is the practice of dressing up as a character from a movie, book, or video game, and were in heaven – “nerd fandom” to the extreme! We were tired,…
By F. Lennox Campello If you follow my blog then you know that one of the things that I love doing is exposing art scammers. If you are an artist, and you have a web site or your email is anywhere in the web, then you probably receive one of these a week. The email usually goes something like this: Hello, I would like to make an order for some works. Do you ship internationally? Let me know if payment is accepted by Master card or Visa card, or bank wire transfer, or international money order. Often there are also grammatical errors in the email – that’s an usual tipper, but even when elegantly composed, and if you respond to the email, the scam nearly always marches along the following path: They want to pay you by check, but they want you to wire them some money back from the “over payment.” Usually the scammer tells you that they’re overseas, but have someone in the USA who owns them money, and they’ll have that person mail you a check, and they want you to take the artwork’s price and the shipping price from that check, and then wire them the excess. They offer to pay via credit card, which of course are stolen cards and may even clear your bank, or Square or PayPal for a day or two. They’ll volunteer to pay for all shipping to their country (usually overnight), and pre-pay the import duties on the card. A few days later, you’ll get a note from your bank telling you that it was a stolen card. If your artwork is already on the way and delivered, you may be hosed – if not, contact the shipper immediately. They will mail you an international money order, and the fakes…