Holiday Goodies Now At Dragon's Den!

As the holidays get closer, we of the Dragon's Den have gotten numerous requests to show exactly which food items we have in stock that make good presents or stocking stuffers.   So, here's our recomendations for great holiday snacks that will make everyone smile!First off, we have a huge amount of European and Japanese candies for sale...if you need to know exactly what is in each one, simply scroll all the way to the bottom of the post, where the items are listed alphabetically.


Our Smarties, Milkybar Buttons and Fruit Pastilles are in tubes, the Revels and Maltesers are in like-sized boxes. Each of these candies are the perfect size for stockings, or for a smaller Channukah gift.

For the older family members, we have Edinburgh All-Butter Shortbreads, and the very sought-after Oatfield Emerald Caramels. Both are very chewy and rich, wonderful for more discerning palates.

Of course, we know there are other options for the chocolate lovers. We not only have the Milkybar white chocolate Advent Calendars, but Cadbury Coins and the assorted chocolate Cadbury Roses!

And what would a real Christmas be without the Christmas Cracker?  We have two different brands, the Santa & Snowmen for youngsters, and Luxury Crackers for the older children (or anyone!).

If the person on your list enjoys Japanese snacks more than European ones, we've got you covered there too. Not only do we carry various types of Pocky flavors...

We also have the very popular Hi-Chew in 4 or more flavors. We also carry Calpico & Ramune sodas.

Last, but certainly not least, we have the powerful 4-8 hour novelty energy drinks made by gamers, for gamers. Have a World of Warcraft or D&D player who needs a small gift? Grab them a Mana or Health Potion. Know someone who's easier to find on Facebook than the real world? Get them a Facedrink. Just have that impossible to shop for person who loves novelty?  We have your answer; Get them a Love or Luck potion!

Want something else for the holidays? We carry a LOT more snacks than what is pictured here. Need Mario, Sonic, Gears of War, Star Trek or Ghostbusters candies? We have them.  Need Cadbury Creme eggs, Ribena Blackcurrent juice, Tru Blood soda or Green Apple Tango? We've got that too.  Want to see everything we have?  Stop on by, and pick up some delicious foods!

-Stasi "Dengirl" King

PICTURED ITEMS
-Fruit Pastilles = small round sweets that have a jelly-like consistency due to the gelatin they are made from, and are covered with sugar. They contain fruit juice and have no artificial colours or flavours, and come in five flavours: strawberry, blackcurrent, lemon, orange and lime.
NOT VEGETARIAN, CONTAINS PORK GELATIN.

-Smarties = are a color-varied sugar-coated chocolate, very similar to M&Ms in America.  The chocolate is a richer variety than what is typically found in the USA, and has 8 colors rather than 5.

-Milkybar = a white chocolate created by Nestle, it has a creamier texture than most US chocolates.

-Revels = chocolate coated candy with orange creme, raisin, toffee, or coffee creme centers.

-Maltesers =  are a ball of malted honeycomb center, surrounded by milk chocolate.

-Royal Edinburgh Shortbread = made into smaller 'fingers' of shortbread, this classic treat uses the original recipe that has won 9 awards. Made with real butter, they are a step above store-quality.

-Oatfield Emeralds = Much chewier than other caramels, these have an almost toffee-like texture. They are rich and chocolatey with a light coconut taste mixed in.

-Cadbury Roses = a selection of individually wrapped Cadbury's chocolates. Flavors are; Tangy Orange Creme, Brazilian Darkness, Dairy Milk, Caramel Velvet, Golden Barrel, Hazel Whirl, Strawberry Dream, Country Fudge and Hazel in Caramel. Each is in an easily distinguishable foil of various corresponding colors.
-Cadbury Coins = a small package of silver and gold foil covered discs of Cadbury's milk chocolate.

-Christmas Crackers = two different kinds are available at our store. Though each has a small 'cap' inside to make the distinctive "cracker" sound, the Santa & Snowmen Crackers 10 Pack has a joke, stickers and .  The Luxury Crackers 12 Pack has a joke, a paper crown, and a small toy or prize.

-Pocky = long, thin shortbread-like cookies covered in chocolate, strawberry, caramel, mint chocolate, almonds or dried strawberry pieces. Extremely popular among anime groups!

-Morinaga Hi-Chew = small 'bricks' of incredibly chewy fruit-flavored candies, they are a favored sweet in Asian countries. Flavors include Strawberry, Green Apple, Melon and Peach.
NOT VEGETARIAN, CONTAINS PORK GELATIN.

-Novelty Energy Drinks = all made by Harcos Labs, these 50ml drinks provide numerous vitamins (including gratuitous amounts of B6 and B12) to give you 6-8 hours of pure energy. Some caffiene, but no sugar so you won't 'crash' later. The Mana Potion has a tangy citrus flavor, Health is apple/cinnamon, Love has a sweet strawberry taste and Luck is a tart green apple.  Facedrink is the newest of the bunch, and has a hard-to-place tropical/fruit flavor.

As always, please pay attention to your own dietary needs or restrictions when enjoying the snacks we carry here at Dragon's Den!

This week in comics: Bendis, Rob Liefeld, Being Awesome & More

Some days I come home, and find that the comic book industry has released little news of note. And then there are days like Tuesday.

* Brian Michael Bendis will leave the Avengers books next year. I cannot tell a lie: I love many of Bendis' early works. Fortune & Glory was great, Ultimate Spider-man (especially the first arc) was stunning and Sam & Twitch was much, MUCH better than any Sam & Twitch comic had a right to be. Plus, I had a letter published in the letter pages. Why? Because I'm awesome, that's why.

But his Avengers run... uhhh. Not my thing. Too much talkey, not enough 'splodey. Plus, it doesn't feel like an Avengers book, it feels like Marvel's Greatest Heroes Team-Up. I'm a traditionalist, what can I say. I think Spidey isn't a team player and Wolverine going off and killing people in Uncanny X-Force makes it hard to figure out how he can actually be on The Avengers and not get, y'know, arrested. And look, I can see how some people like looking at Spider-Woman, but come on... I can only take so much Jessica Jones. I mean, Jessica Drew. Wait, wasn't Jessica Jones based on Jessica Drew? So how are they both in the b-

Never mind.

I will give Bendis credit for one thing, though: Luke Cage is not a C-lister anymore. He made Cage a player. It is one of the few successful pushes for a minority character at Marvel in the last ten years.

So, Bendis is leaving. Someone else will be taking over. It's a change that's overdue, and I'm happy to see it happen. Given the downward spiral that have been the store's Avengers sales for the last 6 months, I don't think I'm in the minority on this one.

* ONCE UPON A TIME on NBC is by some of the LOST writers. Confession: I'm a huge LOST fan. HUUUGE. That said, I'm also a FABLES fan. It looked to a lot of people that NBC had ripped off the great Vertigo comic. So, what did Bill Williamson, creator of Fables do? He did an interview at CBR, telling people to lay off. What a guy.

Go. Read.

* I've been bad. I shouldn't talk about it, 'cause if I give away my secrets, you won't come to the blog and read my posts. Which is funny, because I write two entries a month, if I'm lucky.

I've been a bad comic manager. There's this comic that came out a month back, and I've been making people read it. Not buying it, but reading it. In the store. And it's... well, it's not your average comic. It's part sci-fi, part parody, part love story and part world-breaker. Reading this comic, will warp your mind. It will change the way you see things. It will alter your perception of reality.

Most importantly (and really, this is the main point), you'll put the book down, ask me "Why... why?" and then put your head in your hands and sob while I laugh hysterically at you. Amanda will laugh too, if she's around. She's like my little padawan of sadism. I'm so proud of her.

So, by all means, please go read OUR LOVE IS REAL.

(Just so there's no confusion, this is not a book for anyone under the age of 18. Oh, and I love it.)

* I like the idea that The Den is a place to get away from politics, religion, the real world, and other hot topic issues. We're an escape from the real world. At least, that's the way I like to think of it. I know, it's a crazy idea and I'm nuts for bringing it up, but that's the kinda guy I am: Nuts. Awesome. And slightly sadistic, in case you couldn't tell from the previous item.

Where was I? Oh yeah. Politics. So, as some of you might know, a couple people here and there have been getting together for sleepovers in a couple cities across the planet. And by "couple", I mean "thousands" and by "sleepovers", I mean "Occupy". See what I did there? I was sarcastic and you didn't see it coming. I told you I was awesome.

So, there's an Occupy Comics book coming out. It's not something that will be offered by our distributor, but the talent included in the project is stellar. It's one of those fancy-shmancy Kickstarter things.  Go take a look, and maybe pledge a couple dollars towards putting it together.

* This indy project caught my eye. I have no idea who any of these creators are, and who is publishing it, but I want:

Death Sentence

* In the ongoing debate about the role that digital comics plays in the comic industry, there's been a lot of conversation about "digital day-and-date", and whether digital comics will end up putting comic book stores out of business. I'm not going to lie, I get a little concerned sometimes that ten years from now, everything will be electronic and noone will come in to yell at me that they didn't get their Deadpool comic that week. I don't think comic/games/popculture stores are going to disappear, but I think there's some darwinism at play here: The stores that make themselves a destination for the customer, will get the tall green dollars. Those that don't, won't.

But then there's the creator side. What's it like to be a comic creator, watching the industry grudgingly move towards digital day-and-date? How does that tie into sales over the last few years?

Brian Wood, writer of DMZ, Northlanders, and the soon-to-be-published Wolverine mini-series, writes on his Tumblr about some of these topics, in lieu of the brou-haha that erupted around Dark Horse's digital day and date policy over the weekend. and a couple loud-mouthed retailers, about Dark Horse's digital day-and-date policy. Wood is always very honest about his work and his career, without taking shots at others. This is a great read for anyone who enjoys hearing about the "other" side of comics, as well for any future creators out there.

Highly recommended. Make with the clicky.

* And last but not least... Rob Liefeld. I don't know that there's a more polarizing figure in comics. Is he crazy? Is he a genius? By all accounts, he's the nicest guy you'll ever meet, and loves comics. I mean _loves_ comics. A buddy of mine had him in for a signing at his west coast store, and swore to me that Liefeld was the best salesman he'd ever had; The guy was pointing people towards great books left and right, many of which didn't have Liefeld's name on them.

But the internet loves to hate, and every time an article or interview pops up online, the comments section goes wild with "he can't draw feet" or "That pose looked awesome in 1995" or other low-quality snark. All that said, he's gotten 4 issues of The Infinite and 4 issues of Hawk & Dove out on time in the last 4 months. Any other Image founders even coming close to that?

So, in the spirit of fairness, I invite you to read this longish blog posting on Liefeld's site, where he talks about his work in the 90's, the time off he took around the turn of the century, and what it was like, several years later, to go online and find out that he had become one of the most hated artists in all of comics. It's fascinating and more than a little honest, to see inside the head of one of comics' most intriguing figures.

Reading that makes me want to fly him out for a signing. I wonder how many people would show up?

"How to beat the Haters" by Rob Liefeld

Quarriors! Rise of the Demons Review

So I'm a little behind on reviewing some new expansions and games, but when I saw this one came in I had to crack it open and check it out.  I was so excited to see Quarriors when I was at Gen Con that I had to pick it up then.  I had heard that there was going to be an expansion before the holidays, but I had not had a chance to grab it. 

Opening the small black and green box reveals a small rules insert.  The rules add-on to the game are fairly simple and are about half a sheet of paper.  Below that there are new dice and new cards.  There are 20 new dice and 19 new cards.  The new dice come in three different varieties, including a Corrupted Quiddity (10 dice), Demonic Overlord (5 dice), and Corruption Spell (5 dice).  The cards offer some fantastic new variants to old favorite creatures as well as some new to this set cards.  The old favorites from the original game are all "Corrupted" versions and use the original dice.  For the original monsters there 10 cards, and for the new Demonic Overlord there are 4 different cards.  The Corruption spell also has 4 different levels.  The most interesting card is the Corrupted Quiddity.   It is the first die to give you the chance to get a 0 for Quiddity on the roll... so you can roll and get nothing!

Well I'm looking forward to sitting down and playing this expansion with my play test group, as they are always up for a game! They loved the original and a chance to play with some new spells and monsters will get them excited to play again!

Sean "Striderlotr" Banks