English Entertainment
Experiential & gaming zones, animated & online events mark Comics Convention
MUMBAI: Alto Bengaluru Comic Con saw a huge turnout of fans cosplaying along with Special Guest appearances, amazing fans experiences and awesome sessions! Comic Con India hosted city’s biggest pop culture event over the weekend at KTPO Convention Centre. The show hosted a spectacular lineup of events including special international guest appearances, exclusive experiential & gaming zones, artist alley, fans sessions, cosplay, book launches and much more.
“It was yet another exciting year in Bangalore, the fans were amazing!, shared Comic Con India founder Jatin Varma. Famous international personalities like Todd Nauck, Artist, Amazing Spider-Man, Teen Titans Go, Dr. Who, Nightcrawler; Joe Harris, Author, X-Files Comics & Jim Demonakos, Founder Seattle’s annual Emerald City Comicon, author of The Silence of Our Friends attended and took special sessions at BCC 2016.
Maruti Suzuki was not only the presenting sponsor for the show, but also set up the biggest Art & Gaming zone ever at a Comic Con show.
Cosplay (Costume Contest), another major attraction at Comic Con India, continued to give prizes to people in great costumes. Comic Con India had created 5 categories to increase one’s chances of winning gifts. Each day, one winner was chosen from each of the five categories:-1. Comic book/graphic novel 2. Animated Series/Movie 3. Manga/Anime 4. Sci-Fi/Fantasy and 5. Gaming. 5 Cool Cosplayers got a voucher of Rs 2500 (each) for their Spirit of Cosplay.
Also, both days, One lucky winner out of the chosen 5 won INR 50,000 (Cash Prize)! And a chance to enter ‘Indian Championships of Cosplay’. The Winner of ‘Indian Championships of Cosplay’ will compete and represent the country at the Annual Crown Championships of Cosplay at Chicago Comics & Entertainment Expo!
Comic Con India’s partners set up Exclusive Experiential and Gaming Zones at the event. It featured two awesome gaming Zones. Nodwin ESL Gaming Zone & Amazon Battlefield One & FIFA 17 Zone. Amazon Battlefield One & FIFA 17 Zone hosted a slew of gaming activities.
Nodwin ESL Gaming Zone hosted ESL India Premiership, which was a mix of online and offline tournaments, monumental prize pool, daily content, celebrity showdowns, cosplay competition and many more. Fans were part of the second leg of the offline tournaments of the ESL India Premiership, where the champions of last three Starter Cups competed on a bigger stage, for more prize money and larger audience. These champions will battle it out in the Masters which is the season finale event to take place in December at Alto Delhi Comic Con 2016.
One of the other main attractions of the event were the Baahubali Zone & first of its kind Wand Master Training Booth (By Warner Bros). At the Bahubali Zone, the team from the super hit Franchise showcased their “Transgenic Content” for fans at the show. At the Wand Master Training Booth, people learnt to use wands to create official spells and got the video of their experience too.
Not just that, other exclusive Experiential Zone at the event included AXN Zone. It had lots of fun engagements. Fans got to witness some of their favorite characters like Sam & Dean, Sherlock, Heisenberg, Dexter etc come alive.
An “Artist Alley” exclusively featuring artists from all over India and Bengaluru was set up at BCC 2016. Here fans got an opportunity to interact with awesome artists, illustrators, designers working for comics and related fields. The alley featured artists like Saumin Suresh Patel, Reshmi Chandrashekhar, Prasad Bhatt, Rajeev Tamhankar, Nikita Das Gupta, Leena Swamy, Ayan Nag, Varsha Kodgi, Milanpreet, Madhuvanthi Mohan and many more.
Well known creators like Akshay Dhar from Meta Desi Comics, Vivek Goel from Holy Cow Entertainment and Shamik Dasgupta from Yali Dreams were there too! For the sheer love for Comics, 13 new Comic Book titles got launched at the convention.
The launches were, Doc M by Kalapani Comics, Durga: Legends by Vimanika Comics, Space Junkies by S K Comics, Rumi Volume 2 by Sufi Comics, Karma & 13 Days by TBS Planet, Mallory by Red Streak Publications, The Age of Immortals by Holy Cow Entertainment, Mighty Girl by Graphic India, LoSs4A2 by Kuma, Jataka Manga by ICBM Comics, Sirji Comics – Volume 2 by Sirji
Comics & Rakshak by Yali Dream Creations.
At the convention, fans got to buy merchandise from the best and most exclusive International merchandisers. Also, there were exclusive Indian merchandisers including Planet Superheroes, The Souled Store, Frog, PosterBoy, Greenrock, Macmerise, Bombay Merch, MC Sid Razz, Anime Pop Mall, Wacom, Comic Con India Store, G2A.com and many more.
The main participants at the event were — Harpercollins Publishers India, Campfire Graphic Novel, Viz Media By Simon & Schuster, Graphic India, Vimanika Comics, DC, Darkhorse & Vertigo Comics By Random House India, Dorling Kindersley India, Red Streak Publications, TBS Planet, Sirji Comics, ICBM Comics, Holycow Entertainment, Yali Dream Creations and many more.
English Entertainment
Warner Bros. Discovery shareholders approve Paramount deal
Investors wave through a $111 billion megamerger but deliver a stinging, if toothless, rebuke over half-a-billion-dollar goodbye packages
NEW YORK: The shareholders said yes to the deal. They said no to the cheque. At a virtual special meeting on Thursday that lasted barely ten minutes, Warner Bros. Discovery investors voted overwhelmingly to approve Paramount Skydance’s $111 billion acquisition of the company — and then turned around and voted against the lavish exit pay packages lined up for chief executive David Zaslav and his fellow outgoing executives.
Not that it will make much difference. The compensation vote is purely advisory and non-binding. The Warner Bros. Discovery board can, and almost certainly will, pay out as planned.
But the symbolism stings. It is the second consecutive year that WBD shareholders have voted against the executive compensation packages, and this time they had good reason. Zaslav’s exit deal is, by any measure, extraordinary. Under the terms filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, he is set to receive $34.2 million in cash severance, $517.2 million in equity in the combined company, and $44,195 in continued health coverage — a total of at least $550 million. On top of that, Warner Bros. Discovery has agreed to reimburse Zaslav up to $335 million for taxes assessed by the Internal Revenue Service on his accelerated stock vesting, though the company says that figure will decline depending on when the deal closes. As of March 11, Zaslav also held $115.85 million in vested WBD stock awards — and last month sold a further $114 million worth of WBD shares.
Shareholder advisory firm ISS recommended voting against the compensation measure, citing “problematic” tax reimbursements to Zaslav and the full vesting of his stock awards.
Zaslav will be bound by a two-year non-competition covenant and a two-year non-solicitation of customers and employees after the deal closes.
His lieutenants are not walking away empty-handed either. J.B. Perrette, chief executive and president of global streaming and games, is in line for $142 million, comprising $18.2 million in cash severance and $123.9 million in equity. Bruce Campbell, chief revenue and strategy officer, will receive an estimated $121.5 million, including $18.8 million in severance and $102.7 million in equity. Chief financial officer Gunnar Wiedenfels is set for $120 million, made up of $6.6 million in cash severance and $113.1 million in equity. Gerhard Zeiler, president of international, will get $82.6 million, including $11.9 million in severance and $70.7 million in equity.
The deal itself, clinched in February after Netflix declined to raise its bid for Warner Bros., still needs regulatory clearance from the Justice Department and European authorities. Several state attorneys general are also weighing legal action to block it.
Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, was unsparing. “The Paramount-Warner Bros. merger isn’t a done deal,” she said after the shareholder vote. “State attorneys general across the country are stepping up to stop this antitrust disaster. We need to keep up this fight.”
If it does go through, the combined entity would be a formidable beast, bringing together Paramount Skydance’s stable — CBS, CBS News, Paramount Pictures, Paramount+, BET, MTV and Nickelodeon — with WBD’s portfolio of HBO, Max, Warner Bros. film and TV studios, DC, CNN, TBS, TNT, HGTV and Discovery+. Paramount has said it expects $6 billion in cost savings from the merger, which is Wall Street shorthand for mass layoffs on a significant scale.
The ten-minute meeting was presided over by chairman Samuel Di Piazza Jr., with Zaslav, Campbell, Wiedenfels and chief communications officer Robert Gibbs in virtual attendance. Di Piazza was bullish. “We appreciate the support and confidence our stockholders have placed in us to unlock the full value of our world-class entertainment portfolio,” he said. “With Paramount, we look forward to creating an exceptional combined company that will expand consumer choice and benefit the global creative talent community.”
Zaslav echoed the sentiment. “Over the past four years, our teams have transformed Warner Bros. Discovery and returned the company to industry leadership,” he said. “Today’s stockholder approval is another key milestone toward completing this historic transaction that will deliver exceptional value to our stockholders.”
Paramount Skydance struck a similar note. “Shareholder approval marks another important milestone towards completing our acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery,” it said in a statement, adding that it looked forward to “closing the transaction in the coming months.”
The shareholders have spoken on the merger. On the pay, they were ignored before the vote was even counted.
