Comicon Holiday Gift Guide 2024: Movies, Apparel, Merch & More
by Tony Thornley
Greetings and happy holidays, no matter what seasonal holiday you celebrate! Welcome to Comicon.com’s annual holiday gift guide. Whether you’re here looking for ideas for a geeky family member, for a few ideas for your personal wish list, or just to do a little shopping for yourself, you’ve come to the right place.
Welcome to our third and final entry, covering, well, everything else!
Indie Games Volumes 1 and 2 (Ablaze Publishing)
These two great volumes are a comprehensive look into the colorful world of independent video game creation. Video games have become a dominant force of Popular culture. However, the industry has faced recent struggles with AAA titles becoming bloated and overpriced. The most successful Indie games have managed to punch above their weight even with smaller creative teams and limited budgets. The graphical limitations of indie games have given rise to stylized visuals. Developers have been able to experiment with unique narratives and gameplay to deliver creative works of interactive art. Whether you’re a gamer, or a creative with an indie ethos, Indie Games is the perfect gift to celebrate the art and history of independent video games. (Tito James)
Doctor Who: 60th Anniversary Specials
The Doctor’s biggest adventure yet is available on Blu-ray and DVD this holiday season.
Yes, that is right the 14th Doctor’s adventures “The Star Beast,” “Wild Blue Yonder,“and ”The Giggle” are available in physical media formats. Perfect for those who want to preserve history and/or want the ability to ensure they are not at the whims of streaming services. Also it is a perfect series of episodes for those who are just fans of actress Catherine Tate, actor David Tennent and the late Bernard Cribbins. Finally, these episodes have special features that Disney+ might not ever have. (Benjamin Hall)
One of the downsides to the big streaming push of the last few years is the way it has disrupted the “released in theaters or on TV to physical media release a few months later” rhythms familiar to us Olds. This has meant that key pieces of, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe or the Star Wars saga exist only as digital bits, unable to be placed on a shelf alongside chapters that were put in theaters and given proper physical media releases. More importantly, it leaves these stories at the whims of capricious executives, happy to pull a series from streaming for whatever nebulous reasons (RIP to the flawed but fun Willow streaming series). That started to change somewhat last year, as Disney began releasing special steelbook collections of its streaming series in glorious 4K. With the second season of the deservedly-acclaimed Andor finally just around the corner, now is the perfect time to check out — or revisit — the series, then file it alongside the rest of your Star Wars physical media collection for all time (alphabetically or chronologically is entirely up to you). (Austin Gorton)
If your office job is anything like mine, then the gif of Homer disappearing into a hedge (from the 5th season episode “Homer Loves Flanders”) lives rent-free in both your head and your Slack channels as the go-to response for any task you’d just rather quietly slip away from performing. Now you can memorialize that sentiment via the lush desktop greenery of a Chia pet. Comes with everything you need to sprout your lush greenery in just a couple of weeks, including additional re-seedings to keep the fun going. Add a bit of nature, an extra puff or two of oxygen, and celebrate the spirit of “peacing out” all at the same time! (Austin Gorton)
My love of nonfiction about fictional stories is well-documented, and there’s little I love more than a good old-fashioned print encyclopedia to a fantasy world. Updated to include all the latest developments in a galaxy far, far away, from the conclusion of the Skywalker Saga to the Disney+ adventures of The Mandalorian and friends to the High Republic Era, the new Star Wars Encyclopedia is everything you’ll need to tell your Drengir from your Dengars from your Rothgar Deng’s, in one sleek, smartly-designed hardcover. While online resources like Wookieepedia are more living documents, able to roll with changes wrought by new stories, there’s nothing quite like pulling a thick, authoritative tome off the shelves to look something up, and even if the info inside eventually becomes outdated, it will always stand as a snapshot of the time in which it was published. (Austin Gorton)
Golden Harvest Vol. 1: Supernatural Shockers Blu-ray set
1980s Hong Kong gave the world Jackie Chan, John Woo, and Michelle Yeoh. But it also gave us a range of weird, gory, lewd cinematic spectacles known as Category III films (essentially the HK rating equivalent of NC-17 in the U.S.). Shout! Studios has compiled six of the era’s best movies in a three Blu-ray set, sporting brand new transfers and a bounty of special features. Titles include the smutty sci-fi shocker “Robotrix,” the steamy period soap “Sex & Zen” with B-movie star Amy Yip, and Erotic Ghost Story films, which are exactly what they sound like. (David Lewis)
Ho Drokking Ho – Get your Christmas jumpers, 2000 AD style!
If you’re a huge fan of 2000 AD (as I am) and a regular wearer of Christmas jumpers, then Rebellion have the perfect solution for you. Whether it’s Dredd, Judge Death, Rogue Trooper, Strontium Dog, Nemesis, there’s a fabulously festive way to bring 2000 AD to the office’s annual Christmas Jumper Day!
This year, I’m going for ‘Ho Drokking Ho’ in blue and Nemesis in a suitably vivid and eye-hurting purple and orange, with the guaranteed to confuse your co-workers tagline, ‘Be Pure. Be Vigilant. Be Merry.’
Available from the Rebellion shop and shipping worldwide. (Richard Bruton)
Peanuts stuff – because everyone needs Peanuts stuff!
Every year, no matter what, there’s always something Peanuts I want or I want to buy for someone else. Charles Schulz‘s timeless creations, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, Woodstock, and all the rest of the gang are classic characters from a classic strip that everyone loves with an absolute ton of merch out there to pick from. But this year, I’m going to show you two absolute classics, both of which are on display in our household…
For a classic Peanuts Christmas (and Thanksgiving, and Halloween), there’s nothing better than putting on the perfect animated movies for all the family to cuddle up and be entranced and taken into the world of Peanuts for a little while.
The collection includes Its the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. Guaranteed festive fun and happiness!
And secondly, while you’re sitting and watching the Peanuts animations, you can gaze over at your 24-Inch musical Charlie Brown Christmas Tree. Bare, forlorn, bedecked with it’s simple bauble and wrapped in Linus’s blanket, it’s an absolutely lovely addition to your decorations this year. Plus, the music chip plays the magnificently upbeat ‘Linus & Lucy’ song – guaranteed to brighten up any room! (Richard Bruton)
Agatha All Along merch, exclusive to Hot Topic…
Daughter of mine is a huge MCU fan, and adores Wandavision the most. Since then, even she has to admit that things haven’t been so great with some of the TV series. That is, until Agatha All Along. Suddenly, she was loving it all over again.
And that’s the reason there’s a couple of Hot Topic Agatha All Along t-shirts upstairs waiting to be gift wrapped and sent to Santa for delivery on the day.
Hot Topic have a great Agatha range, loads of tees and merch to choose from, these are the two I picked for her, but there’s a load more at the link… (Richard Bruton)
Hallmark Keepsake Darth Vader Ornament
Every year, Hallmark offers a series of Christmas tree ornaments that spans genres, from gaming to fantasy to sci-fi. You could easily break the bank thinking you need to collect every single Harry Potter ornament or the expensive Star Trek ships complete with flashing lights. Instead, though, look to the company’s new Darth Vader ornament. It’s based on the original 1970s action figure, complete with backing card. (At New York Comic Con, Hallmark offered an exclusive ornament based on the old Sand People toy.) For those of us that were OG Star Wars fans and had (OK still have) the original action figures, this Darth Vader couldn’t bring much more nostalgia.) (Tom Smithyman)
Never Open That Door Blu-ray and DVD Dual-Format edition (Flicker Alley)
Never Open That Door isn’t the first time Cornell Woolrich‘s stories have been adapted for the big screen (Rear Window is a prime example). This two-part anthology film by Argentine director Carlos Hugo Christensen is cinema at its most visually compelling and the rare anthology where all of the segments are equally good. If anything, the first segment could go on longer — you want to know what happens next while at the same time it’s the perfect stopping point. Another title for this segment could’ve been Never Has Listening To A Phone Ring Been More Stressful. The second segment is about a blind woman (Ilde Pirovano) whose son (Roberto Escalada) finally comes home but it’s not the reunion she’s been hoping for. Instead of announcing that’s she’s blind, the film lets viewers realize it on their own.
If Never Open That Door were the only film on this release that would be enough. Not only have Flicker Alley included a number of bonus features on this disc, from a documentary on Woolrich to a commentary by film historian Guido Segal, but fans are actually getting two Argentine noirs for the price of one. Originally Never Open That Door was supposed to be three segments but the running time was deemed too long. Instead of scrapping the third one, it was turned into a second movie that’s also included.
Like a cross between M and Night of the Hunter (with its fairy tale imagery), If I Should Die Before I Wake is about a young boy (Néstor Zavarce) who’s haunted by a promise he made to a girlfriend (Marta Quintela) shortly before she went missing. All of the child actors are extremely well cast, making this an edge-of-your-seat experience. (Rachel Bellwoar)
