San Diego Comic Con | Good To Be A Geek

League of S.T.E.A.M. Targets Hannah & Dr. Lucy: How Rude!

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 19-09-2012

Category : E-vents, Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, Holiday, San Diego Comic Con, Travel

Tags: Comic Con, ghost, ghosthunters, Hallween, Hannah Hart, Hawthorne Hotel, League of Steam, monster-hunters, San Diego, steampunk, supernatural, SyFy

Kids, I don’t get too much mail here at The Del. Being dead and all, who’s going to send Moi anything? With the exception of occasional postcards you good pips send me here at the Hotel del Coronado -keep ‘em coming, babies!- mail call is pretty quiet around The Del for yours truly.

Still, along with the odd postcard, and some of them are quite odd, especially those from Texas, I do get unexpected packages once in a blue moon. Today, I received a small, padded envelope with a CD in it. There was no note with it, no greeting, merely a crude marking on the CD itself which read, “Consider yourself warned”.

Jeepers creepers! The return address read only “League of S.T.E.A.M.“!

“Supernatural & Troublesome Ectoplasmic Apparition Management, indeed! How rude! I have a right mind to send them a very sternly written letter. However, I am even more of the mind that my online blathering has finally called too much attention to not only myself, but my dear friend Dr. Lucy. It seems to me, we’ve got some ghost hunting types here in the hotel and, what with Hallowe’en fast-approaching, my guess is these steampunk monster hunters are gearing up for Samhain Scandals! Well, they’ll never catch me! Ha ha!

This, btw, is what those real monsters sent me. Pay close attention after the 3:00-mark.

Damn it, Lucy! I know how much you enjoyed playing with that new EOS Canon Rebel. Still, didn’t I tell you that if we were going to go play at Comic-Con, that we had to lie low? Especially in the SyFy Press Room? As dear old dad, Dr. Harvey, would say, “Oi vey, Lucy!”.

Fortunately, I shall be out of town for the Holidays: home to good ol’ Beantown and spooky Salem, Mass for some Hallowe’en haunting about the Hawthorne Hotel; and, Lucy shall visit her dear Dr. Devorkian up in Napa this All Hallows’ Eve. Let’s see the League of S.T.E.A.M. find us now! (Oh. Wait. Damn it, Hannah!) Well, at least now the League shall have to dispatch their tiresome, hyper-weaponed gnats to New England and Northern California, as well as wherever else their ne’er-do-well activities take them here in Southern California. Shame on them, nettling and tweaking the likes of Lucy and Moi! Funny enough, now those half-portions in Ghost Adventurers and Ghost Hunters International don’t seem so bad.

I think I can take the mook in the visor, but what's with the giant wrenches? Jebus!

Monster hunters take note! Perchance, you are not aware of she with whom you dare to dance! I swing a mean cocktail bag, kittens!

Hannah’s fave places to haunt online? @JennyPopNet amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore and jennypop.net

That Other Jane and Carrot Top: Tarzan Lands at SDCC 2012

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 27-07-2012

Category : Comics, Conventions, Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, Literature, Movies, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel

Tags: 2012, Admiral Richard Byrd, Alan Shepard, Amelia Earhart, article, Buzz Aldrin, Captain Jack, Charles Lindbergh, Diane Fossey, director, Dr. Jane Goodall, Edgar Rice Burroughs, ERB, Gary Sassaman, Grizzly Adams, Gus Grissom, Han Solo, Inc, Jacques Cousteau, James Sullos, Jane Porter, John Glenn, Jr., Margaret Mead, Monkeynauts, Neil Armstrong, print, publications, Sally Ride, San Diego Comic-Con, SDCC, Sir Edmund Hillary, Sir Richard Branson, Souvenir Book, Tarzan, Teddy Roosevelt, Valentina Tereshkova

For all you poor mooks whom did not make it to San Diego Comic-Con 2012, or did and possibly lost, tossed or neglected your coveted Official Souvenir Book, unaware of the gems contained therein, I feel sad that you missed out on author Jennifer Susannah Devore’s Tarzan article. You should feel bad; it was good enough to garner Miss Jenny a personal invitation to meet the one, the only Dr. Jane Goodall! Where? A banquet in Tarzana, of course! No worries, jelly beans! There’s still time to mend your silly ways.

Swing on over, grab a Sailor Jerry Banana Hammock and read Jenny’s article here!

Steampunk Jane and her Carrot Top Tarzan, Lord of the Props Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

That Other Jane, reprinted with JennyPop’s very own permission, from the 2012 Official Comic-Con Souvenir Book

(Special thanks, again, to Gary Sassaman, Director of Print and Publications Comic-Con International: San Diego)

That Other Jane: 100 Years of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Heartbreaker

by Jennifer Susannah Devore

I was so jealous. I thought she was a wimp. I was sure I’d have been a better mate.

-that other Jane … Goodall

Herein lies the innate appeal of Edgar Rice Burroughs’ Tarzan, Lord of the Apes. Be he an object of affection, admiration or competition, Tarzan falls neatly into the untidy world of animal instinct, feral existentialism and personal authority: a Lord Greystoke of the Flies, if you will.

Burroughs composed an enduring theme and a permanence of characters spawning not only a succession of film and television iterations, but also serial books and eventually comics, penned not by Burroughs himself, but a veritable jungle encampment of devotees. From Dell Comics’ cheerful adventure yarns of the 1940s, which featured a ripped, yet stick-thin version of Tarzan, to Psychology Press’ Ways of Being Male: representing Masculinities in Children’s Literature and Film by John Stephens to George of the Jungle, Tarzan has been a centenary of topic. Scholars may argue a garden of reasons why the jungle Brit in the loincloth has remained ever so popular; but the reader’s heartbeat will tell you unequivocally there exists solely one answer. Stimulation.

Certainly, the sight of a well-sculpted, 1930s Johnny Weissmuller slicing into a sheath of river or even the hot, animated Disney Tarzan of 1999 swinging on a vine (Watch out for that treeeeee!), brings a swoon to many a fan, just as Captain Jack Sparrow, Indiana Jones or Han Solo does. Be not fooled, it is not simply the silky hair flop, the cheekbones and the swagger (uh – well, it kind of is). It is primarily what brings about said-swagger and the flip of that flop which oft has a nuclear power to melt its unsuspecting, doe-eyed victims like wax. It is the hero’s confidence, fearlessness and willingness to machete his way through the jungles and bridge the rivers, only to pop back to the surface victorious and, even if a bit broken, durable enough to shake off the snakes, the leeches and the authorities to forge ahead.

Edgar Rice Burroughs, born of Mid-western stubbornness and raised on Western ruggedness weathered the literal, as well as figurative, frontier realities of a changing America at the turn of the 20^th Century. The son of a Civil War veteran and a protective yet yielding mother of six boys, two having died as infants, Edgar was the youngest of a large and prosperous family prone to enterprise, exploits and chance. From Chicago business ventures to Idaho gold dredging and cattle ranching, a young Edgar saw a world of possibilities; he certainly recognized his growing America was whatever a man wanted it to be. After a smattering and sampling of job-jobs like railway security, clerical manager, door-to-door salesman, pencil sharpener wholesaler, ditch digger and accountant, amongst others, Edgar found his future in the fertile pages of pulp fiction.

Burroughs would state later that if people were paid for writing rot such as I read in some of those magazines that I could write stories just as rotten. This was in the same spirit as, Mark Twain, claiming some thirty years previous and Hunter S. Thompson claiming some eighty years after Twain, that a lot of folks make an awful lot of money writing some really awful schlock. It appears the unifying theme was, hopefully, they might be equally as fortunate. Mark Twain summed it up best when he prognosticated about Huckleberry Finn, They have expelled this from their library as, quote, trash and suitable only for the slums! That will sell 25,000 copies for us, sure.

Screaming through his tales, like Carol Burnett’s clear-as-a-bell Tarzan yell, Burroughs’ Wanderlust and spirit for adrenaline ripped through his tales of pirates, jungles, space, cavemen, dinosaurs and, lest we forget, The Land that Time Forgot. Over the decades of his long and successful life, Tarzan would be his Goose That Laid the Golden Egg. If Tarzan book money was good, Tarzan film money was out of this world.

The first celluloid representation was Tarzan of the Apes (1918) starring Elmo Lincoln as the silent hero. Whilst this iteration would follow most closely the events of the original novel, it was Tarzan the Ape Man (1932) that would explode out of the water like a surfacing submarine to penetrate pop culture. It would give us not only a taut and toned Olympic gold medallist swimmer named Johnny Weissmuller but also, as the first Tarzan film with sound, that iconic Tarzan yell which many will cringingly attempt. Raise your hand if you never tried it while swinging from the monkey bars on the playground.

As they often do, successful writer/film types take those sawbucks and buy Hollywood ranches, Palm Desert compounds, Caribbean islands or spooky manses in the Maine woods. Burroughs bought a sprawling one of the former just north of H-town. As a testament to the zeitgeist in 1923, the residents and citizens of the L.A. suburb burgeoning around his ranch, voted to incorporate as the town of Tarzana. Just five years previous, he had already incorporated himself: a savvy and uncommon move for a writer of this era.

Adventurous in word as well as deed to the end, Burroughs served as a WWII correspondent in Hawaii, embedded with U.S. Air Force bombers and even crossing paths with his equally unflappable son, Hulbert, a war photographer. After the war, he returned to the sunny jungle of Tinsel Town. Passing away in 1950, he would miss the continuing success of Tarzan throughout the Fifties via comic books and reprints of his novels and serials. He would also miss out on the explosive rebirth of his chef d’oeuvres as the Sixties would bring Tarzan the television series and a paperback book smash that introduced “Me Tarzan, you Jane”, their son, Boy, and a charming chimp named Cheeta to a whole new generation of restless rowdies ready for anything that wasn’t suburbia.

“It was somewhere between ten and eleven that I read Tarzan and decided I would go to Africa, live with animals and write books about them,” Dr. Jane Goodall, founder and mentor of the Jane Goodall Institute, recounts in a 60 Minutes interview. One-hundred years after the initial October 1912 publication of Tarzan of the Apes in All-Story magazine, Edgar Rice Burroughs’ creations match, if not absolutely mirror, mankind’s quest for self, sufficiency, survival and stimulation … well, and the cheekbones.

From creatures At The Earth’s Core, to a Martian Princess to the Lord of the Jungle, from The Cave Girl to The Girl From Hollywood to The Mucker and Pirates From Venus, Burroughs proffers vicarious pleasures and fantasy to the desk-bound, the cubicle-trapped and the homebodies of the planet. Simultaneously, he gives hope, inspiration and itineraries to the modern-day travelers and dreamers of the world.

Wanderlust is just ein deutsch Wort away from lust. Adventure-lit hits all the right buttons. Burroughs and Tarzan sliced their own paths, just like Captain Jack, Han Solo, Grizzly Adams and each real-life Indiana Jones throughout modern history, including the likes of Margaret Mead, Diane Fossey, Alan Shepard, Buzz Aldrin, Jacques Cousteau, John Glenn, Charles Lindbergh, Sally Ride, Teddy Roosevelt, Neil Armstrong, Gus Grissom, Valentina Tereshkova, Admiral Richard Byrd, Sir Richard Branson, Sir Edmund Hillary, Amelia Earhart, all the Monkeynauts and, finally … that other Jane.

In an October 2010 CBS 60 Minutes interview, reporter Lara Logan asked Dr. Jane Goodall: Why Africa? Dr. Jane replied: Because of reading Doctor Dolittle and Tarzan. Doctor Dolittle rescues animals from the circus and takes them back to Africa. And then, Tarzan, of course. The Lord of the Jungle.

Then the subject of Jane Porter, Tarzan’s girl, arose. In a statement soaked with decades of irritation and disgust, Dr. Jane exclaimed: I was passionately in love. He marries that other, stupid Jane. I think I’d have been the perfect mate for Tarzan, don’t you?

While today we’re bombarded with everyone else’s imagination, it’s satisfying to recall an era when we worked our own, fueled simply by Burroughs’ words … and, at least in Jane’s case, the loincloth. Now that’s what I call stimulation.

Jennifer S. Devore w James Sullos, Jr. (left/president of ERB, Inc.) and Tarzan author, Tracy Griffin (right) plus a special invitation to meet Dr. Jane Goodall herself in Tarzana! Photo: JSDevore SDCC 2012

Author bio: Jennifer Susannah Devore authors the historical-fiction series Savannah of Williamsburg, as well as the contemporary The Darlings of Orange County. She is a regular contributor to GoodtobeaGeek.com under the pseudonym Hannah Hart, ghostdame of the Hotel del Coronado; her tribute to the 60^th anniversary of Peanuts was published in the 2010 Comic-Con Souvenir Book She lives on a San Diego beach with her husband, a Pomeranian and an immortal cat she believes is Binx from Hocus Pocus.

Abyssinia, cats! maybe miss jenny will tell us all how the banquet with Dr. Goodall goes!

Hannah’s fave places to haunt online? @JennyPopNet jennypop.net amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore

Adrianne Curry & RDJ Sightings, Johnny Depp & Seth Green MIA: SDCC 2012

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 24-07-2012

Category : Conventions, E-vents, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel, Uncategorized

Tags: 2012, Adrianne Curry, Barry Levinson, bbcamerica, Being Human, Boba Fett, Comic Con, Copper, cosplay, description, Disco Vader, Dr. Lucy, funky, Gail Carriger, gallery, ghost, Ghost Hunters, Hannah Hart, Johnny Depp, Jr., Mark Hamill, Parasol Protectorate, photos, RDJ, Robert Downey, Sam Huntington, San Diego, Seth Green, sexy, Slave Leia, steampunk, SyFy, Whedonopolis

“There’s an awful lot of weird, pasty people in here, myself included.” So went my recurring, silent observance throughout this year’s Comic-Con, striking oft as I flitted hither and thither through the San Diego Convention Center, like a frantic mosquito seeking an open window on a muggy, Malibu, summer’s day. The pastiness was not truly what struck me, nor was the definitive weirdness. The real oddity was, like in so many gatherings where we geeks gather en masse -Renaissance Faire, Disneyland- the convergence of and shoulder-to-shoulder conditions pressed upon so many individuals not generally prone to mainstream socializing. Moi? I haven’t left my Hotel del Coronado much since 1934. Dr. Lucy, my ghostie cohort? 1904. Judging by the bevy of pale and malleable bodies endeavouring some severely awkward social interactivity, they’ve not left their abodes since 1904 either. (Need more than just one fat Slave Leia? Dr. Lucy’s Comic-Con 2012 Gallery of Oddities!)

No caption necessary. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

On the flip side, after the initial shock of being face-to-face with strangers on a trolley and crushed side boob-to-side boob with fat Batman at Starbucks, a comforting calm washes over one and the irony of being surrounded by two-hundred thousand other Earthlings hits.

San Diego Old Town Trolley ... all aboooard! Photo: JSDevore

Suddenly the looks, stares and comments are friendly and complimentary. Instead of thinking the standard, snarky, “Hey, mook. Take a picture, it’ll last longer.”, I’m posing and flashing my Colgate smile and jack booted-gams left and right for anyone with a smartphone or a news camera. “Make sure you spell my name right!” becomes my de rigueur response, as opposed to my usual, “Grody”. (Yes, by the way, occasionally the more telekinetic of you live wires can actually see Lucy and me: Ghost Hunters types are quite adept. The stares and the infrared cameras do get to be a little boring after a while though. Costumed and fancy dress affairs tend to bring out more believers. Ergo, SDCC and Faire are perfect places for us to play without too much unwanted attention.)

Of course, once I hit the train each evening, my snark and sneers revived nicely, especially to a particularly forward sleazebag whose interest in my ruffled bloomers was creepy. Lowering my aluminum goggles down off my pith helmet and onto my face, now resembling Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka, I gave the letch a hard stare à la Paddington Bear and, pulling my skirt tightly over my Victorian bloomers, I replied, “These are for the convention only.” and turned to watch the bay the rest of the way home. Thank goodness for Lucy; she handled him deftly and politely for both of us. Her Victorian manners are far more genteel than my Flapper Girl gums.

Disco vader, Boba Fett and Starbucks? Feels like a party! Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Back at the Con though, and all those other wackadoo jelly beans in your personal space, a thumbs-up from a dapper Mad Hatter and a 360-spin from a vixen Catwoman to tell you how amazing your costume is, combined with all the other praise throughout the day, tells you you’re not quite the freak you so oft feel. When a chap from the L.A. Times chases you down for a snap, a fellow from the Houston Press says he’s been stalking you for thirty yards and wants to know more about whom designed your gear and a gorgeous Ruby Red Riding Hood compliments your corsetry, well, it makes for some strong self-esteem boosts. (Stalking though, sans costume, generally bad.)

Dude. Both your faces are looking in the wrong direction. Zowie! Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Sure, it sounds needy, feeding on compliments greedily like a truffle pig zeroing in on the hunt. Still, when a trip to Trader Joe’s or even Nordstrom can be fraught with elbow nudges and snickers due to something as simple as a parasol or an oversized hat (No, I am not going to a wedding, the races or a funeral, thank you very much.) it’s nice to be in a venue, even if crushed like a pack of nematodes, and feel like part of the gang. Even if we usually don’t want to be part of any gang.

The only downside to the Con, if one can call it a downside, Dr. Lucy and I did have to field the query, “Now, who exactly are you supposed to be?” and then followed by, “Ah. Interesting. Now, what is steampunk?” Dr. Lucy had a great, if not lengthy description. Most tended to glaze over mid-description, but I liked it.

Think Jules Verne and Victorians and what their concepts of future technology would have been, utilizing the machinery and technology at their hands, in the 19^th Century.

Blink, blink, the inquisitor would respond. I would then add succinctly:

Have you seen Sherlock Holmes, the newer versions with Robert Downey, Jr.?

Ahh! Yes, yes! Iron Man! Cool! they would exclaim, pleased with themselves. See, Lucy, people are obtuse, mostly. KISS, as the politicians say: Keep It Simple, Silly. Still not sure about this damn steampunk business? Keep a keen eye for steampunk stylings in BBCAmerica’s newest crime drama by Barry Levinson, Copper, set in 1864 NYC. Can’t wait ’til it airs August 19th? Find a bit more steampunk here.

Hannah & Lucy, Steampunk Chicks, Day 3 SDCC 2012 Photo: Eugene Powers, Whedonopolis.com

Steampunk. However you slice it. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Hannah and Dr. Lucy, Steampunk Chicks, Day 1. Photo: Maria Stefanopoulos, IngeniousTravel.com

Why, Dr. Lucy! You'll give the boys heart flutters! Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Admittedly, speaking for both Lucy and myself, we did feel a tad out of place at one point. The old pangs of being the only kid dressed up at school for Hallowe’en flooded back in waves. Fortunate enough to garner admittance into the SyFy Press Room, Lucy and I attended a Being Human roundtable interview. With the exception of one chick in a hot pink anime wig, Lucy and I were the only ones dressed up in costume. Poor Sam Huntington, a.k.a. Being Human‘s Josh the werewolf, as he sat at our table, nearly had a cardiac event upon sight of Lucy’s corseted bosom, crushing a small, plastic water bottle to subdue his carnal desires. Good for you, Lucy. At 108 years young, you’ve still got it!

The rest of the press room was filled to the brim with black-bedecked, serious journalists. A few were freindly, but the odd looks were there. (Why they were surprised, I have no idea. It IS Comic-Con.) As is oft the case IRL, nervous attempts at jokes and small talk were met with long blinks.

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone? Anyone?

In the waning hours of Day 3 of the Con, as Lucy and I sat against a wall in the Meeting Halls catching our breath, a crowd piled up in front of us as they were held off by guest control, waiting for cross-traffic to pass: a ridiculous line for a Mythbusters panel. As I watched Hobbit feet and blistering stilletos shuffle by, I caught a good portion of a conversation as a lovely and petite blue-haired fairy and a somewhat beefy Harry Potter came to stand nearby us.

Pretty, pretty pixie. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

So, is it what you expected? Harry asked of his pretty pixie.

Ohmygod! So much more! I’m already planning next year’s costume! she clapped.

What’s your favourite part so far? Harry asked further.

She thought for a moment, then replied, Remember when we went to your Mom’s that time? ‘Member we stopped by before that Halloween party? We did the Alice in Wonderland thing?

Yeah. Your White Queen costume?

Yeah. Well, nobody here has looked at me even once the way your mom and sister did that night. It feels natural, just being here. It’s amazing.

Exactly. What she said. How was your Comic-Con experience?

Dr. Lucy winds up the Belle of the Con: Miss Kelli Mae, my personal fave! Photo: JSDevore

A rare moment of downtime. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Note: Whilst we did see Mark Hamill, Adrianne Curry (beyond hot), Parasol Protectorate author Gail Carriger and Robert Downey, Jr. (Very, very hot. Sherlock, indeed.), we did not see Seth Green or Johnny Depp. Be assured, this was not from a lack of effort. Seth Green was indeed there, visiting the Peanuts booth, participating in a Robot Chicken panel and making general happy mayhem of the grounds. My final effort, a lone Tweet, is recorded for Comic-Con history:

Jennifer S. Devore ‏@JennyPopNet

Might as well seek w effort Is @sethgreen anywhere near aisle 1400 @Comic_Con ? Would love to say Ciao! #sdcc

No words. Too hot. Dig you, Mizz Curry! Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

The honour is all mine, Miss Carriger: Parasol Protectorate Purveyor. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Klingons. Not so tough IRL. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

Go ahead, try not to sing it. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography SDCC 2012

What did you get up to during Comic-Con 2012? Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

Hannah fave places to haunt online? @JennyPopNet jennypop.net amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore

Comic-Con Inside Buzz: SyFy’s Being Human, Season 3

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 18-07-2012

Category : Candid Conversations, Conventions, Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, Reviews, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel

Tags: 2012, Aidan, Anna Fricke, Being Human, Comic Con, interview, Josh, Meaghan Rath, press, Sally, Sam Huntington, Sam Witwer, SDCC, Season 3, SyFy

Ciao, kittens! Well, San Diego Comic-Con 2012 is in the rear view mirror and I can tell you Dr. Lucy and I had a ridiculously swell time! Aside from the media barrage, celebrity sightings, celebrity rumours and the over-the-top Con bags (Why so big, guys? Why?), the people-watching and cosplay stole the show. Dr. Lucy, being the mechanical tinkerer she is, took nicely to an EOS Canon Digital Rebel XT and gave us a veritable Egyptian tomb of snaps, a gallery of which I shall post soon. Today, I bring you an insider’s look into SyFy‘s Being Human.

Natch, Being Human is right up my alley. As I am wont to do, I started with the U.K. version, then warmed to the U.S. iteration. Being Human U.S. is a strikingly spooky adaptation and, being a ghostie girl myself, it only makes sense that the beauteous, lead ghost Sally is my personal, vicarious fave. She’s far lovelier and more delicate than those mooks over at Ghost Adventurers, has a great pair of getaway sticks and is spades more genteel than those wheats running Ghost Hunters International. (Note to GHI: You don’t always have to be saying something in the dark. Silence is lovely sometimes and, moreover, we know you’re there.)

Meaghan Rath and Sam Huntington, SDCC 2012 SyFy Press Room Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

Thanks to the good folks in the SyFy publicity office and press room, particularly Kelly and Blair, Dr. Lucy and I were afforded a brief, press roundtable with the stars of Being Human and their executive producer, Anna Fricke, prior to the Being Human panel discussion in the Indigo Ballroom at the Hilton San Diego Bayfront. Dr. Lucy snapped some pics and I had the opportunity to chat with Anna and the actors whom portray Sally, Aidan and Josh. Anna divulged no details about Season 3, which airs January 2013, but did offer some tantalizing teasers about where our supernatural friends are headed, come winter.

Sam Witwer, SDCC 2012 SyFy Press Room Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

“More levity”, “less dark” and “more solidarity” were E.P. Anna’s cornerstones of what’s to come. Season 2 went down some pretty dark roads indeed and the characters enacted some serious choices.

“Season 2 ended up being a very dark, crazy, bananas place where everybody had to make very life-threatening choices and decisions. Obviously, we have to see, did they get themselves out of those decisions?,” Anna offers.

Anna also admitted to more flashbacks.

“We always have flashback because we love to do the wardrobe! (laughter) It’s great to delve into the past to see where they’re coming from, what made them who they are today.”

Anna Fricke, E.P. Being Human U.S., SDCC 2012 SyFy Press Room Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

To continue, a very brief interview with Meaghan Rath, Sam Witwer and Sam Huntington:

GTBAG: Where do all the characters go this season, inwardly?

Sam Huntington (Josh): Aidan protecting Aidan. This is something we tackled this year. (laughter)

Sam Witwer (Aidan): There you go.

Sam Huntington (Josh): I think Josh’s primary goal this year on the show was to be, he’s the mother, you know? He wants to keep everyone safe. And he wants desperately to get everybody what they want. It’s uh, he’s needed to ask Aidan for a lot of help. That’s true. Because of his knowledge, because of his strength. It’s because of Josh’s newness as a supernatural being and his lack of knowledge. So uh, yeah , I think Josh has grown a tremendous amount. This season he really does come into his own, in a big way. Yeah. Yeah!

GTBAG: How do they progress? How do they grow together?

Sam Witwer (Aidan): We already know how they progress.

Sam Huntington (Josh): There’s no hope. (laughter) We have no hope.

Sam Witwer (Aidan): You know what’s great? We’ve really had a chance to collaborate with the writers this year. So, I can say with a good amount of certainty that its going exactly where I would have it. I, I love the direction it’s taking. My character gets to be around people and that allows him to be awkward and allows him to be sad and also more dangerous considering what happened last year and it’s kind of a sweet spot for the character, in terms of him being interesting. And these two guys have so much new stuff to deal with it’s ridiculous, but we can’t tell you what.

Sam Huntington (Josh): That’s the tricky thing. That’s because we were all left in such uh, you know, horrible, extreme situations last season it’s like, to say anything about what, the result of that.

Sam Witwer (Aidan): Yeah, it takes us a year and a half after the last season.

At that point, the kind yet efficient talent manager swept through and corralled the attractive trio to another table, all before Miss Meaghan could give her thoughts on Silly Sally’s forthcoming journey. What I did get, was a close-up of her smashing, heart heels!

Divine! Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

What about Aidan and his coffin, some of you may wonder? Well, all Anna would tell me is this:

“Sam is such a fine actor. We don’t want to see him in a coffin for thirteen episodes.”

Hmmm.

Hannah & Dr. Lucy, a tad nervous pre-interview: Photo by Eugene Powers, Whedonopolis.com

Hannah’s fave places to haunt online? @JennyPopNet amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore and jennypop.net

Between the Covers: Dark Horse Comics at Comic-Con 2012

Posted by Jessa Phillips aka "SultryMinxZoe" | Posted on 14-07-2012

Category : Comics, Conventions, E-vents, Entertain Me, Featured, San Diego Comic Con

Tags: Alex Ross, Brian Wood, comic, Comic Con, Dark Horse Comics, Hellboy, horror, Joseph Maddrey, Lance Henriksen, Mike Mignola, SDCC, Star Wars, To Hell You Ride, Tom Mandrake

It may be true that Hollywood has gradually taken over more and more space at San Diego Comic-Con with panels about the blockbusters in the works or the latest attempts to entertain our television viewing minds, but comics still reign. This is Comic-Con, after all.

One of the examples of comics creating a beacon on the convention floor, is Dark Horse Comics. This little indie publisher has made a big name for themselves over the last 25 years. With incredibly popular properties such as Star Wars, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Creepy, Eerie, Hellboy, Game of Thrones, Blacksad and more, their following is well earned.

Dark Horse Comics took the opportunity at Comic-Con to share a bit of upcoming news. The team has been busy, putting writers and artists to work. The result will be a very good holiday season for comic lovers!

BRIAN WOOD TO WRITE A NEW STAR WARS SERIES!

Dark Horse is no stranger to the Star Wars universe, having published the comics for some time. Brian Wood is on board to write a new ongoing series that will take us back to the classic 1977 Star Wars universe audiences fell in love with! The new series will feature covers by Alex Ross. Rumors tells us you can expect to see the new series in January 2013.

Cover Art by Alex Ross | Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics

HELLBOY IS BACK!

Perhaps you heard a rumor of Hellboy’s demise. Don’t you know no one really dies in comics? Dark Horse is bringing him back in a new series titled, Hellboy in Hell. The new series is just what it sounds like … Hellboy finds himself in the depths of hell and proceeds to do what he does best – kick a$$. Issue #1 hits shelves 12/5/2012!

Art by Mike Mignola | Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics

LANCE HENRIKSEN’S TO HELL YOU RIDE!

Lance Henriksen is making his comic debut with To Hell You Ride! Who better to write a new horror series than a horror icon. He teams up with Joseph Maddrey for the story and Tom Mandrake’s art will grace the pages. To Hell You Ride shows us why sacred burial grounds should not be disturbed when a plague ravages a small town. Issue#1 hits shelves 12/12/2012!

Cover Art by Tom Mandrake Courtesy of Dark Horse Comics

You’re Having Fun Wrong: SoCal’s Fave Five Geek Attractions

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 10-07-2012

Category : Conventions, Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel

Tags: activities, Being Human, Comic Con, Conan, Disneyland, geek, ghosts, Han vs. Greedo, Hotel del Coronado, Huntington Library and Gardens, indoors, Miss Hannah Hart, panels, Renaissance Pleasure Faire, San Diego, southern, summer, SyFy, tickets, Warehouse 13, Xyon Koreen

Some are born Geek, some achieve Geekness and others have Geekness thrust upon them. For those of us whom are verily Geek-at-Heart, we shall not be shedding the title as quickly as a West Hollywood hipster sheds his iPad the moment Apple bids him so. Whilst many will claim the title of Geek, as to be Nerd/Dork/Geek/Wonk is très chic, it is a bonkers-dangerous, double-edged sword, kittens. We may live blissfully in our own little, dorky biospheres; yet we are easy targets, like a wounded dolphin, or the only wheat dressed up like a pilgrim the Wednesday before school lets out for Thanksgiving Weekend.

We are Geek. Photo: San Diego Air and Space Museum archives

From sea to nerdy Cameron-submersible sea, forest to dorky Bigfoot forest, Skywalker Ranch and beyond the solar flares, this proudly pale populace has some serious ideas about what is fun and what is not. Summer can be a tough time for us, what with the sun, the outdoors and the prospect of a proper, dress-up holiday still months away. Never mind all that; we know what makes for real summer fun and with all due respect to the rest of you, to quote The Big Bang Theory‘s Dr. Sheldon Cooper, “You’re having fun wrong.”

Summer can be a bit of a free-radical situation for us: left to fend for ourselves amidst the plains and savannas of a deconstructed season, fighting against the harsh summer sun and the expected, traditional, normal, outdoor activities of the average, summer reveler. In adult-life, as in school, just because it’s summer, doesn’t mean the wedgies cease. In such situations, it is only natural to seek the like-minded. When the broad landscape is dotted with the frequently unavoidable herds of roaming, aggressive, beefy, sunny, beachy, geek-squashers it is often necessary for the more fragile, the proverbial 98-pound weaklings, to gather and move in clusters. The sand-kickers can’t get us all if we move as one.

If it is entirely plausible that you could spend a joyful afternoon at Peet’s Coffee having a serious debate about whether Han or Greedo shot first, you just might find the following summer alternatives to beach volleyball, backyard BBQs and 5K mud runs great fun indeed. I cannot advise on alternatives in your backyard, but as a Cali Girl, I will gladly walk you through some of my Golden State’s finest, oft air-conditioned, cerebral, summer dork attractions.

Xyon Koreen knows. Han DID shoot first. Photo: Twisted Pair Photography, SDCC 2K12

San Diego Comic-Con: Certainly a toss-up, as to whether this should take the number one or two spot. In the end, it had to be crowned as supreme. Comic-Con is Mecca for con geeks the world over, even the new breed of geek: the poseur. C-C has become the new Studio 54. Few at the 1970s, iconic, NYC discotheque probably actually loved disco. Today, it’s questionable how many Comic-Con attendees even read comic books, let alone have a passion for the medium. Still, decades after Richard Alf et al gifted the Geek World with Comic-Con and after all the poseurs have moved on, when The Big Bang Theory runs its course, the real fans will still faithfully flood the San Diego Convention Center each July, giving the San Diego Fire Marshal four sleepless nights every summer.

Disneyland: Like Salieri to Mozart or Sean Penn’s Emmet Ray to Django Reinhardt, were there no Comic-Con, Disney would clearly reign on this list. If you’re fortunate enough to have an annual passport, chances are good you can’t get enough of Star Tours and its fifty-some possible scenarios, The Haunted Mansion, Indiana Jones, a Johnny Depp-frosted Pirates of the Caribbean and browsing ad nauseam the Capodimonte-laden glass shelves of Main Street’s Disneyana. We Disney devotees do enjoy the occasional, audible snort of derision at new attractions and additions and love to regale newbies and family first-timers with behind-the-scenes Park trivia (especially those of us whom worked there). Overall, it is our church of sorts and if you don’t like Goths, stay away mid-September through January, for The Nightmare Before Christmas overlay at The Haunted Mansion is really, honestly, to die for, kids.

Renaissance Pleasure Faire: This one’s the original, yon friends. It’s usually over before summer solstice hits, but you’ll find plenty of other faires up and down the state. Yet, prithee, this is the Hamlet of Renaissance festivals. Oft simply called “Southern” or “Ren Faire”, it’s been around since what feels like Queen Elizabeth I and Sir Walter Raleigh were playing footsies behind hogsheads and if you’re well-acquainted with Faire, then you know the tacit rules of conduct: no polyester, no real names, no Victorian Gary Oldmans from Dracula, keep your tongue in character and do not ask us if our costumes are hot. It’s almost always 100 degrees and, with the exception of our cleavages, we’re swathed head-to-toe in leather, velvet, suede and fur. What thinkst thou? Faire is no place for steampunk and there’s also an internal, heated and on-going debate about Captain Jack Sparrow, because he’s a “made-up pirate”. Of course, most of the pirate guilds are themselves comprised of made-up pirates. I give you geek.

Are you Faire enough? Photo: Twisted Pair Photography

Conan: Deserving of a Larry King suspenders & glasses/Arnold sausage snap combo-pantomime, this day trip can’t be beat, even by the Masturbating Bear. Whether you’re a lucky local of beautiful downtown Burbank or saving up your game tokens for a Golden State sojourn, a Conan taping is probably the second best taping you can attend in The Valley. Tickets are free, but the online lottery is hit ‘n miss. Still, if you can nail a date and don’t mind being in Burbank on a weekday, you’ll be better than just about everybody back home on the farm.

Huntington Library & Gardens: Word nerds, book geeks and art history-snarks, this is your perfect afternoon, except Tuesdays and only from 10:30-4:00 in the summer, 12-4 otherwise. Of course, if you want to miss traffic getting out of the Pasadena-area, you’d best try to be out of the parking lot by 2:30, 3:00 tops. Home to a Gutenberg Bible, an Ellesmere manuscript of The Canterbury Tales, scores of early-Shakespearean papers, Audubon folios and a selection of 18thC. French and English decorative arts that would make Sofia Coppola swoon, the quiet and hidden treasure of L.A. museums is clandestinely tucked away in upscale, residential San Marino, an old money suburb of Pasadena. If you’re drawn to English incunabula, powdered wigs, French Lace roses and think Joshua Reynold’s Sarah Siddons as Tragic Muse is just downright hot, then you’d better get going. Traffic will be a total nightmare in about forty minutes.

Clearly, because we are Geek, I rest assured many of you will disagree with my list, if only to dispute its hierarchy. Moreover, I expect others will rant and rail over omissions and inclusions. Please, do share. Like learning my Hotel Del ghostie cohort, Dr. Lucy is as bonkers for Carl Barks comic books as I am, it’s always a thrill to learn where more of my own kind, ghosts or non, roam at will, without threat or fear of a good swirly.

Abyssinia, cats!

Hannah’s fave place to haunt online? jennypop.net @JennyPopNet

Hannah Hart’s Sweet San Diego Comic-Con Goody Giveaway

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 27-06-2012

Category : Anime, Comics, Conventions, E-vents, Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, Movies, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel

Tags: American Dad, Arrested Development, Bill Amend, Bob's Burgers, Children's Hospital, Comic Con, contest, facebook, Family Guy, Foxtrot, giveaway, Gore Verbinski, Happy Days, Helena Bonham Carter, Henry Winkler, Johnny Depp, King of the Hill, Loren Bouchard, Matt Groening, San Diego, Savannah of Williamsburg, schwag bag, Seth MacFarlane, Souvenir Book, Spongebob Squarepants, The Big Bang Theory, The Lone Ranger, The Simpsons, The Walking Dead, true blood, twitter, Vampire Diaries

All right, Boyzos and Betties, unless you’ve been slumped over a Pacific Beach bar for the last three months -Very possible in P.B.- you know Comic-Con is nigh and yours truly, Miss Hannah Hart, ghostdame of the Hotel del Coronado, is headed there with proverbial bells on. (Actually I’ll be donning ruffled, Victorian bloomers and a pith helmet: no real bells.) Whilst it may seem Dr. Lucy, my Hotel Del ghostie cohort and SDCC partner-in-crime, and I are going for a good old fashioned, G&T-fueled, steampunk, dress-up party, we’re really doing it all for you. Really.

Photo: ParkaBlogs

For all you mooks whom wanted to go, but couldn’t make it, either because you were unsuccessful in nicking a badge through the Con’s wonky, mad, digital dash for online purchases, or it was just never in the cards for you to get to America’s Finest City this summer, I shall be your big eyes and perky ears throughout Geek Mecca.

Directly from the San Diego Convention Center floor I shall be Tweeting and Facebooking only the choicest gossip and sweetest pics: hot Manga girls, celebrity sightings, bonkers cosplay, even that guy who absolutely should not be wearing Spandex. If it’s worthy, I shall cover it. If I’m lucky and can squeeze into a panel or two, I might even be able to get you some dishy goodness on the likes of Bob’s Burgers, The Walking Dead, Children’s Hospital, The Simpsons, True Blood, Spongebob Squarepants, American Dad, The Big Bang Theory, Vampire Diaries … phew. You know what? Take a peek here at the full list of TV panels for 2012; just far too many to reference. If I could corner anyone for you, who would it be and what would you ask them? Tweet me @JennyPopNet or @GoodToBeAGeek and let me know; I’ll do my best!

Moi? I’ll have my eyes peeled for the likes of Seth MacFarlane (American Dad, Family Guy), Matt Groening (The Simpsons), Loren Bouchard (King of the Hill, Bob’s Burgers), Bill Amend (Foxtrot), Henry Winkler (Children’s Hospital, Happy Days, Arrested Development) and the entire Once Upon a Time cast and writers’ crew. Witness my love for Once here! Although, I do have to say that if the rumours are true, according to Variety, The Lone Ranger may be hosting a panel, possibly featuring Helena Bonham-Carter, Gore Verbinski and Johnny Depp … well, I think we all know the outcome if this happens. Dr. Lucy! Pack the smelling salts!

Best of all for you jelly beans, I’m giving up the goods! Not those goods, ya wet smacks. Con goods! Now, pay attention:

2 Grand Prize Goodie Bags Incl. one official Comic-Con Souvenir Book, autographed by author Jennifer Susannah Devore on her article, That Other Jane: 100 Years of Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, Heartbreaker , plus a collection of goodies from random floor vendors as well as some official Comic-Con Schwag Bag contents. (Note: very few writers’ and artists’ work appear in each year’s book. Getting a signed one is a rare treat indeed. Keep yours mint; Jenny’s getting bigger by the day! Fan-wise, that is.)

3 Goody Giveaways per convention day A goody is one promotional item from random convention floor vendors. I don’t even know what these are, yet! I’ll be Tweeting them live from the floor. Trade shows and conventions are chock full of awesome tidbits ranging from coffee mugs and comic books to games and anime key chains. Who knows?!

How to win? Easy Peasy! Just Tweet or FB the following during the SDCC dates of July 12th-July15th!

2 Grand Prizes:

One Facebook Fan: “Like” Savannah of Williamsburg on FB and post a quote from one of Jennifer Devore’s Savannah of Williamsburg books. (Don’t have a book? Get a free Kindle or Nook sample at Amazon and BN.com. Every quote gets you an entry!)
One Twitter Pal: Follow @JennyPopNet and Tweet a short quote from any of Jennifer Devore’s Savannah of Williamsburg books.

Daily Goody Giveaways: Follow @JennyPopNet with a Tweet containing #SavannahofWilliamsburg and #SDCC, or “Like” Savannah of Williamsburg on Facebook and post a Comic-Con greeting on her wall!

Already a follower on Twitter? Already a Facebook fan? Sweet! Then all you have to do post a quote, Tweet a hashtag and wish Dr. Lucy and me luck on tracking down Johnny Depp! (Wish Johnny luck, come to think of it!)

Photo: Nico Genin

See what we shall endure for you? Well, you and Johnny. Photo: ParkaBlogs

Abyssinia at the Con, cats!

All prizes to be mailed out after SDCC. All winners shall be selected at random from qualified entries. In the event of any dispute whatsoever, I will be the final arbiter of final judgement under any circumstance. There is no cash value. As a condition of entry, entrants are expressly prohibited from making any claims whatsoever. No third party shall bear any responsibility whatsoever in relation to this promotion, including but not limited to syndicates, partners and affiliates. This contest is held solely by jennypop.net. This contest is held solely for fun. Have fun!

Hannah’s fave places to haunt online?

Jennypop.net, @JennyPopNet amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore and jenniferdevore.blogspot.com

San Diego Comic-Con: Tarzan, Peanuts and Just a Touch of Chainmail

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 13-06-2012

Category : Comics, Conventions, E-vents, Entertain Me, Featured, Geek Out, Geek Rants, San Diego Comic Con, Travel

Tags: 100th anniversary, 2012, Charles Schulz, Comic Con, cosplay, costumes, Dracula, Edgar Rice Burroughs, extortion, ghost, Hannah Hart, Hotel del Coronado, hotel rates, Jane Goodall, Lucy Westenra, Peanuts, San Diego, Souvenir Book 2010, Tarzan

Cheers, babies! It’s that bonkers-beautiful time of year again. Summer’s mere days away and Comic-Con’s a mere month away!

Cheer up, guys! You're in America's Finest City! Photo: Parka81

No one is more excited than yours truly … well, okay. I imagine there are some nibbling their fingernails a tad more than I. After all, part of the appeal of our Comic-Con is that it’s in glorious San Diego. I get to live here year round, kids, haunting my dilly of a Hotel Del. If you’re zinging your way here for the Con and it’s your first time in San Diego, we welcome you, one and all! Need some priceless, insider tips on all the SDCC how-tos? Check the SDCC Expert for Baby’s First Comic-Con. (Find the Expert also @SD_Comic_Con )

Yep, ’tis no place in Cali quite like San Diego. Even the dearly departed Godfather of Comic Books, Richard Alf, knew that! Sunnier than San Francisco, cheaper than Santa Barbara, friendlier than L.A. and cleaner than Anaheim, why wouldn’t we welcome the world? Whilst you’re in town, may I heartily suggest Nerdcore Night at famed The Ruby Room in Hillcrest?

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Lifestyle Photo: Parka81

If you’re still looking for a hotel, I feel true pity, ya mooks. Whilst an average $560.00-$730.00/night seems lofty at my Hotel del Coronado, it’s a regal steal compared to some of the fleabag dumps near the airport: real slimy, 1-star m-m-m-motels charging upwards of $569.00/night during the week of SDCC!!! That should be criminal. It’s easily extortion and trust me, I lived in Beantown during Prohibition. I know all about mob behavior. If you have a room at all, huzzah for you!

No, Lucy. Not Dracula. Photo by Twisted Pair Photography

Costume update, by the by: Dr. Lucy and I are pretty much all set. We’ve decided on a steampunk theme; she twisted my fragile ghost arms. She shall be the lovely and vivacious Lucy Westenra of Coppola’s Dracula. Moi? Lady Euphemia Greystoke of Stonington: traveller and archaeologist extraordinaire. I’ve found my 1920s, Cleopatra, chainmail headpiece and Lucy has been mending and modernizing some of her fine Victorian skirts. We are both in grave need of goggles, though. A very serious issue.

In celebration of the upcoming convention, I thought it would be fun to share an article from the 2010 Comic-Con Souvenir Book. Written by my pally Jennifer Susannah Devore, it’s a contemplative and philosophical look at Charles Schulz and the then-60th anniversary of Peanuts. (As a side note, Jenny’s just learned she’s being published once again in this year’s 2012 Souvenir Book with an retrospective of 100 years of Tarzan, Edgar Rice Burroughs and a nod to Dr. Jane Goodall … zowie, does that gorilla girl hold a grudge!

Get to the article already! We love Charles Schulz! Photo: Parka81

For your pre-Con reading pleasure ...

The First Beagle on the Moon

by Jennifer Susannah Devore

Reprinted with permission from Jennifer Susannah Devore,

from the 2010 official Comic-Con Souvenir Book

I think I could learn to love you, Judy, if your batting average was a little higher.

-”Just Keep Laughing”, pre-Peanuts Charles M. Schulz

Charles M. Schulz did not create a mere comic strip, a cast of characters to be listed on high school drama department playbills for eons to come; like all sustainable strips, the Writer-Artist-Creator gave us a neighborhood: a safe place where loyalty, security, friendship and a comfortable sense of continuity and familiarity are still unfailingly there for us. The Peanuts gang has been that other group of our friends, always ready to hang with us at a moment’s notice and at regularly scheduled mornings, especially Sundays. Similar to Shakespearean figures, the Peanuts gang has also been, as any psychologist with an ounce of humor and levity will tell you, a microcosm of humanity. A bevy of neuroses, borderline personalities, leaders and followers, Schulz, like the good Bard, nailed it all straight on the round-headed noggin. The psychology of Peanuts, not to drain the comic pool only to replace it with academia, pervades each and every “illustrated laughing square”.

No doubt, the young Schulz did not set out to create a controlled study of freckled subjects and lab beagles with sunglasses and tennis rackets; nevertheless, he did and you’d be hard-pressed to find a Psych 101 textbook without some reference to Charlie Brown’s martyrdom syndrome or Lucy’s narcissism. Blah, blah, blah, the kind reader may mock, but it is real humanity that is inherent in these characters. It is the nucleus of its success. The psychological endgame matters because in the beginning, and eventually that end, all creators start from the premises of what is known and, more importantly, what is felt.

If writer-artists give us some clue as to their failings, fears and fantasies within their oeuvres, then sports (baseball in particular) girls (darned, elusive redheads), loyalty and honor (Snoopy always comes through despite his egotism) were clearly on Sparky’s short-list. Charlie Brown’s undying dedication to his ball team, his tenacity and faith amidst rained-out games, Lucy’s “The sun was in my eyes”-excuses and dozing beagles-at-bat is a fortitude so many desire, yet oft do not posses.

The stomach-churning inner diatribes and teeth-grinding insecurity is thankfully, cathartically played out on-stage, as it were, in Charlie Brown’s (and Charlie Schulz’) quest for the affection of a little red-haired girl, even going so far as addressing the very adult, very 3-D distrust and heartache of jealousy, that love has been taken by a best friend: Linus, to wit, in It’s Valentine’s Day, Charlie Brown. Charles Schulz’ real-life and nonreciprocal marriage proposal marks the launching pad of Charlie Brown’s everlasting expedition of unrequited and, despondently, un-returned love.

The fear of not being accepted, of not belonging is universally shared, regardless of what the aesthetics and sartorial effects may try to loudly declare. Searching the mailbox for that proverbial Halloween party invitation, learning it was a mistake, then going anyway is a Trick-or-Treat bag fraught with snakes and evil clowns: What if I’m not on The List? What if I am on The List? Who will talk to me? What if I’m left all alone? What if they make fun of my costume?

The fear of not receiving a single Valentine in class, and in front of everybody no less, the dread of an empty mailbox and heart at Christmastime, the cold, autumnal loneliness of being the only one whom truly believes in the Great Pumpkin; these comic worries are so real that the chest-pounding is audible, the butterflies are so visceral we can only cringe and endure, waiting nervously for the certain, happy ending. Sadly, it is not always so certain, though. The ending of Snoopy, Come Home is so gut-wrenchingly awful that it is suffered through only because of our own, Charlie Browniest belief that everything will be okay. It is not, in the case of said film. There is no good outcome, there cannot be; everybody loses, big time. To that end, everybody has heart and soul that trudges forth no matter what. This is why we continue to love, adore and cherish our Peanuts gang.

Be it Snoopy’s devotion to Lila, the dying girl, in Snoopy, Come Home, Snoopy’s devotion to his supper dish, Linus’ unrelenting conviction for the Great Pumpkin and, deeper still, Sally’s dedication to Linus and his mission, it is all so human, so carbon-based. Family or friends, it matters not with Peanuts. As is often the case in real-time, digital worlds or the land of ink-and-watercolor, friends are often family, and family, good friends. The Browns and the Van Pelts are core, bound by blood; but that is not pivotal, being bound by blood. Snoopy and Woodstock, Charlie Brown and Linus, Peppermint Patty and Marcie, Lucy and herself, Schroeder and his Piano, Sally and her Easter shoes and her Sweet Baboo: these are the real bonds, the vital relationships that keep Peanuts going year after sixty years.

In the vein of a youthful William Shakespeare, Matt Groening or Seth MacFarlane whom all wrote of the communities they knew, the people and their foibles they shouldered through life, good and bad, lovely and horrid, Charles M. Schulz presented us with pencil and ink versions of ourselves: our ids, egos, superegos and alter egos. He gave us characters and friends upon whom we knew we could count through any rained out game, school exam or major holiday, even when It’s Presidents’ Day, Charlie Brown.

Above all, there is honor. Consider that, akin to so much great “children’s” literature, young-adult fiction, superhero tales, classic fairy tales, adapted fairy tales, graphic novels, comic strips and animated series there exists no ethical enforcement, save one’s own internal gauge and moral compass. It is universal, from Cinderella and Snow White to Snoopy and Spongebob Squarepants, that parents are either handily out-of-frame or conveniently ineffective; adults of any walk and educators of every sort are primarily a concept and rarely given a name, a face or, in Peanuts’ case, even a voice. Law enforcement is a rare impression lest it appears in an almost supernatural state of purity and perfection, like Scully and Mulder or Police Commissioner Gordon. The heroes cannot get away from themselves and must answer to their own merit of principle. There are no citations, no court dates, no weekend restrictions or media groundings. There is no law, no order, only the inner voice and scruples of the very good and, where it relates to our Peanuts, the very, very admirable and steadfast fraternity of fast and eternal friendship. The lasting appeal of Charlie Brown and Charles Schulz is that they are us. As Lucy states so wisely, “Charlie Brown, of all the Charlie Browns in the world, you’re the Charlie Browniest!”

The Charlies and we are in the vital and primitive hunt for love, camaraderie and faithfulness. They and we are scared to death that nothing will happen and equally so that everything will. The round-headed kid, the barber’s son and we are all optimistic to a fault, likened to Spongebob in our unending and Bikini Bottom-deep belief that everything and everyone will be just fine. They and we are all flawed superheroes, or at the very least, we strive to be.

A special thanks to Gary Sassaman, Director of Print and Publications Comic-Con International: San Diego

Abyssinia on the Con floor, cats!

Who's going to the Con? Are you? Photo: Parka81

Hannah’s fave place to haunt online? JennyPop.net , jenniferdevore.blogspot.com and @JennyPopNet

Huzzah! Gamer Girls’ Watering Hole: Nerdcore Night at The Ruby Room

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 21-05-2012

Category : Conventions, E-vents, Entertain Me, Featured, Game On, Geek Out, Geek Rants, Good To Be A Gamer, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel, Uncategorized

Tags: Action Chick, Adreinne Curry, Assassin's Creed, Aubree Miller, Bellatrix Lestrange, BioShock, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, Chad Deal, Civilization, Comic Con, cosplay, Gaming, Gears of War, geek gathering, ghostdame, God of War, guys vs. girls, Hannah Hart, harry potter, Heroes VI, Hillcrest, hot gamer chicks, Hotel del Coronado, Katrina Hill, Mass Effect, Nerdcore Night, Once Upon a Time, Ruby Red Riding Hood, San Diego, Snow White, TheGamerGirls.com, Zelda Skyward Sword

”This is a war they started and, by God, we’ll finish it.” -former Britsh P.M., Margaret Thatcher

NorCal Gamer Grrls: Touch Chicas. Photo: Gary Dev

Vulcan ears, steampunk corsets, film-accurate weaponry, hot gamer girls and hard-boiled hooch. Slosh it all into a legendary, San Diego fun zone and you’ve blended up a tangy, spicy, smoking hot extravaganza. No, not Comic-Com, but that is coming soon, kittens. (BTW, yours truly will be on the floor and covering it live for the good folks here at GoodToBeAGeek! Costume? Still up in the air. Any ideas? I’ve narrowed it to Bellatrix Lestrange, Morticia Addams, Snow White or Ruby Red Riding Hood: the latter both of ABC’s Once Upon a Time. Drop a line here or @JennyPopNet and let me know which character you’d prefer!)

Speaking of Ruby Red, there’s a bonkers-wild nightclub right here in my own backyard, just moments from my haunt at the Hotel del Coronado. Welcome to The Ruby Room. Mis en scène amidst the ever active, far-too-hip-for-thou, Hillcrest crawl of downtown San Diego, The Ruby Room offers not only a hardcore, real drinking atmos, but also a nerdcore, real gaming atmos. Hang up your cloak and check your blasters; it’s The Ruby Room’s very own Nerdcore Night. It’s not Comic-Con, but it’s a damn fine tease.

As with many a social movement, Nerdcore Night was born out of a frustration of social-marginalizing and a need for unity amongst a growing, yet still underestimated subculture of a subculture. The case in study? Gamer girls, oft maligned by the gamer boys they’ve so frequently pwned. Nerdcore Night was divined by Miss Aubree Miller, a partner in the eclectic TheGamerGirls.com, a geek girl-oriented, lifestyle website encompassing more than the domain implies: music, entertainment, conventions, cosplay, art and design, fashion and so much more nerdy, girly goodness. The hook? These Gamer Girls are bonkers-hot!

Now, all you Modern Millies, riddle me this. Why call attention to such optics? Why feed today’s insensitive, insulting, brutal, throw-away, aesthetics machine? I’ve been fighting sexism since long before I died in 1934, and in Hollywood, to boot. Murder! That’s some serious skirt-chasing around the desk! From what I can tell, you contemporary chickadees carry a lot of huevos in your Louis bags. You know you’re red hot, no matter what mold you do or do not fit. You’ve got a confidence not seen since the Roaring Twenties ditched those Edwardian stuffed-shirts. You’ve got it in spades, and then some, and don’t seem to care a whit who likes it. So, why waste time proving something to that microband of worthless, useless, infantile, misogynist, insecure, fink gamers?

Lauded and gender neutrally-revered dorkettes like Katrina Hill, Adrienne Curry and Jill Pantozzi know they’re aces-beauteous. While mathematical, symmetrical beauty might be the first visual cue you get on these three, it’s definitely not the last thing you’ll remember about them. Amongst this geek girl triad exists an amalgam of journalists, writers, authors, models, TV personalities, comic book aficionados, film theorists, personal band-strategists, wicked WOW gamers, whip-smart businesswomen, fragile hearts, irreverent, humourous, kind, protective and loyal Earthlings. These broads might understand and shrewdly calculate the value of their charms to bring in unique fans, readers and viewers; but similar to a Harvard or William & Mary legacy, just getting beyond the hallowed brick walls doesn’t cut it. Once they’re being scrutinized, these ladies have to deliver, from the brain as well as the hip.

Left to right: Katrina Hill, Action Chick; Jill Pantozzi, The Nerdy Bird & Adrienne Curry, Mistress of the Dorks Photo courtesy of Katrina Hill

Still, all you other dames, isn’t that quiet beauty of yours, the fact that you know you’re pretty, plus so much more, enough to carry yourself like royalty, no matter where you trod? Haven’t all you Millenium muffins come far enough by 2012 that proving you’re a looker to a bunch of greaseballs and strangers online doesn’t matter a hill of beans? Apparently not in the gaming world. Miller says this facet of technology and entertainment is still flush with “female gamers who feel animosity from male gamers.”

According to Miss Miller, in a May 2012 interview with Chad Deal for San Diego Reader, “Whenever a girl beats a guy over, say, Xbox live or whatever, a ton of messages immediately start piling in about how you must be a fat stoner loser chick to have beat them at a game. Boys are petty. We use actual female gamers on [TheGamerGirls.com] who are hot to prove these kinds of boys wrong. Honestly, girls just want gaming equality.” (Please, feel free to read the whole interview, Nerdcore Night – A Safe Place to Geek … but, come back, okay?!)

I don't think this is sanitary. Photo by Jason Anfinsen

Jessa Phillips, keen pally, hard-line gamer girl and editor-in-chief of GoodToBeAGeek.com follows and covers gaming passionately: most notably, her Good To Be A Gamer weekly podcast with fellow geek David Lucier. Miss Jessa has had wild experiences with sexism in the gaming world and is cuckoo for Nerdcore puffs. She digs the concept of a night where chicas can get together, talk shop, listen to some tuneage, drink and not worry about some rude boy in Singapore, Bangalore, Seattle or Sack-of-tomatoes slinging personal insults and misogynist hate like cream pies in a Laurel & Hardy flick. Jessa knows her stuff, so when some dude calls her a hack, he’d best step off unless he’s complementing her Hack n’ Slash gaming style.

Playing since Nintendo hit the shelves, Jessa is bonkers for first-person shooting (FPS) and not frightened off by the violence amidst her fave games which, according to her, “also incorporate some amazing world building and storytelling”: God of War, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Gears of War, Mass Effect, BioShock and Assassin’s Creed. Just because she’s a gamer patootie, she’d rather not be identified as such.

“I do not believe that women who play games need to be singled out as a specific market segment. Developers should not be making games aimed to draw in female gamers. We are, regardless of gender, gamers. The difference between me and another gamer is the games we play. That is all,” Jessa states.

Even so, she’s suffered from unwarranted sexism. Seemingly innocuous, when pre-ordering the original God of War, she was questioned and quizzed by the store clerk, certain she was buying for a man in her life, certain “a woman would shy away from the graphic violence and sexual mini-game this title promised.” That was simple ignorance and most likely lacking any malice. Her first experience with down home, good old-fashioned, blatant sexism? Enter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

“I was not so naïve as to use a gamer tag that would immediately give away my gender. However, as soon as I spoke my gender was known and it was all over. I will admit, I am not the most skilled gamer, particularly when it comes to shooters. That being said, gameplay has never been my problem. The constant debasing verbal vomit some players spew at the idea that a woman is in their game. A woman can only bear so much trash talk and when she attempts to defend herself, is instantly label a b*tch which only furthers the issue. It is the targeted mean-spirited attitude towards female gamers in online multiplayer gaming that turned me away from the online space and into a single-player gamer.”

Jessa’s feeling a little better about online gaming as days go by; more women are entering the field of play and more men are even coming to the defense of women getting a verbal bullying. She also has a final bit of advice for the loser whom deigns to dis her during her next round, “So I get pwned by a better player, maybe even targeted due to my gender. I’m a big girl, I can take it. Being the man trashing a women who just pwned you with your friends standing by? Just makes you come off as weak.”

Again, don't mess with NorCal grrls. Photo: Gary Dev

Surprisingly, our very own Dr. Lucy is a rabid gamer girl and a dish, to boot. TGG, still looking for gamer models? Sure, she’s a Victorian gal at heart (died at The Del in 1904, in case you’re new here), but she shows up very nicely on camera, best with full-spectrum, infrared, HD cams. Full disclosure: sometimes she only appears as bright orbs … but, what a set of orbs!

Ever since D&D was gifted to RPGs in the 1970s, and then a later introduction to Mech Warriors she’s been a gaming, ghostie girl. Although she can’t always be seen, she can make a presence when she really wants to. Eventually, she moved on to Renaissance Faire; the men can be just as annoying, but her Old School ways fit in better there.

“I’m not into Resident Evil or the highly competitive shoot-em-up games like Halo or intensive online reality games like WOW,” Dr. Lucy confided to me by the hotel pool one night. “I do however still have my Super Nintendo and tons of ‘old school’ games like Mario Bros and every Zelda game ever made. That has to be my favorite platform game of all time. I have gotten a new platform like Wii just because the new Zelda game came out.” (Where does a Victorian ghost find such games, plus a Wii, my skeptical friends might wonder? Craigslist and BestBuy, of course.)”The games I play now are Zelda Skyward Sword, Heroes VI, and Civilization. The game I am saving up for now is Diablo III, and was just released this week!”

Whether it’s Faire, Zelda, Civilization or her long-ago, Victorian parlour games of Whist, Cribbage, Crambo or Hot Cockles, Lucy maintains boys will be boys.

“Heaven help anyone who ‘lets me win’ or gets all condescending!” she went on after yet another poolside-absinthe. “As for sexism, men ALWAYS think they know best and it does leak over into gaming. I find it entertaining when people who don’t know me try to categorize me. They usually get it wrong and reveal more about themselves in the process than they perceive about me. I know people need to stereotype others to a degree to feel comfortable so it makes me value those people who are capable of recognizing and appreciating people for who they are and those with the ability to recognize that all people evolve and are multifaceted.” Well, not all people, Lucy. Have you watched The Jersey Shore on your Kindle lately? Ick.

In the end, after all the womens’ studies, political hashing and academic posturing, Nerdcore Night is just damn good fun. Similar to Disneyland, Renaissance Faire, Comic-Con and FOX’s Animation Domination, it’s a few carefree hours to congregate with fellow goobs and let off some steampunk. Nerdcore Night is a girls’ night out and even though that seems a little dated in and of itself, it’s become a nice, universally nerdy haven. For, even though it started as an IRL meet-up for San Diego-close gamer chicks, it’s happily become an all-inclusive, guys and dolls, hipster doofus et al function: geeks, nerds, dweebs, gleeks, word nerds, orch dorks and so on. Hail dorks, well met! If you recall, I covered this pandemonium of geek culture previously, White & Nerdy checklist and all. Into which category do you fit?

Whatever you do call yourself, however or with whomever you identify, you’re welcome at The Ruby Room, any night of the week. Bring your hip game, though; Hillcrest ain’t Kansas and it ain’t Dr. Lucy’s weekly Hot Cockles … although, I imagine there’s a bit of that, not to mention some Squeak, Piggy, Squeak going on somewhere in the club.

By the by, for the rest of you cats whom tend to booze ‘n cavort sans cape and sword and just want a good Irish whiskey, Kentucky bourbon, I.P.A. or BOGO penny wells, The Ruby Room serves up a wide swath of divertissements: vintage burlesque –sadly, no Dita Von Teese, yet-, live bands, righteous DJs, art shows, charity functions, fashion soirées and themed karaoke nights. Whether you wield a French corset dagger or sport a slick set of Zildjian drumsticks in your back pocket, chances are excellent you’ll find a Ruby Room bash that suits you and your motley crew nicely. As the good folks at The Ruby Room humbly claim, “Not trying to be everything to everyone, but everything that is us.” Awww.

“Ladies don’t start fights, but we can finish ‘em.” -Mlle. Marie Bonfamillle, The Aristocats

Destination: San Diego. Warp speed, Captain! Photo: Rabbot

Abyssinia, cats!

Hannah’s fave place to haunt online? JennyPop.net , jenniferdevore.blogspot.com and @JennyPop

The Proper Deets:

@theRubyRoomSD

The Ruby Room

1271 University Ave.

Hillcrest, San Diego, CA 92103

619.299.7372

The Simpsons 500th Episode: At Long Last, Mr. Groening

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 25-02-2012

Category : Comics, Entertain Me, Geek Out, Geek Rants, Reviews, San Diego Comic Con, Television, Travel

Tags: "I Love Lucy", 30 Rock, Al Jean, All in the Family, American Dad, Arrested Development, Cheers, comedy writing, Conan O'Brien, delivery and timing, Family Guy, Groucho Marx, Jerry Seinfeld, Joe Marks, Laurel and Hardy, M*A*S*H*, Matt Groening, Matt Selman, Mike Anderson, Red Skelton, Ricky Gervais, Seinfeld, Steve Martin, The Three Stooges, Tina Fey, vaudeville, will arnett, Woody Allen, writers

Cheers, all you Hannah readers! You cats also know I love my animation and I was thrilled to see nestled snuggly in my HuluPlus queue The Simpsons 500th episode: At Long Last Leave, S23E14. Five-hundred episodes, in this flighty and fickle culture? Mitt ‘em, kids! What a feat!

Hannah's Simpsons avatar. Click to make your own!

There’s a simple reason The Simpsons has surpassed just about every comedic expectation and mile marker unwittingly set during its twenty-three seasons. To date, it’s a triple threat as the longest-running cartoon, sitcom and scripted prime-time production in American television history. Creator Matt Groening clearly achieved his “vague idea of invading pop culture” when he set about inventing a jaundiced version of his real-life nuclear plant father in the fairy tale burg of Springfield, U.S.A.. Only Groening and the writers know the true secret of the show; but I, purely as a fan, have my own theory. What a shock, Hannah has a theory. Well, here it is, babies … it’s timing!

The animation wunderkind-cum-wunderkonig remains relevant and relative after decades of the pop culture pendulum swinging this way and that, actor/producer negotiations, competing animation and the never ending need for a new couch gag. Still, the show sallies forth gallantly not merely because of an endless string of puns, zingers, quips, gambols, japes and jibes but because of the flawless delivery of said-craft. Comedy isn’t just the writing. Recall what grinds my gears about writers reading their own words?

Writing is a talent, performing comedy is a talent: few posses both. True comedy is about relativity and what must appear to be an effortless gift. Woody Allen, Tina Fey, Steve Martin, Conan O’Brien, Ricky Gervais and Jerry Seinfeld can deliver their own jokes, without equal. The delivery has to be lightning-quick like a snap of Indy’s bullwhip: no stutters, no stammers, no pauses and no hesitation.

Check comedy through the ages. I’m sure there was a dingy Neanderthal, or an Australopithecus who knew naturally what to do with the termite stick to bring the rest of the clan to a howling good time. To that end, give Will Arnett a termite stick and just wait for the yuks! The Greeks were funny, I’m pretty sure; but, I don’t know about the Egyptians. They seem like a tough crowd, even today. Shakespeare’s comedic lines were ribald and blue and they were handed over lickety-split to the rowdy audiences without a break or a beat, lest they received a rotten tomato upside the backside of their pumpkin pants. In my day, Vaudeville was king and, similar to an Elizabethan crowd, those rowdies were neither forgiving nor patient. They wanted a hard pratfall, a smart jive or, if the jokes were bad and music off-key, boobies. In the 1920s and ’30s the likes of Red Skelton, Laurel and Hardy, Joe Marks, The Three Stooges and Groucho Marx delivered it all, minus the boobies, on a silver platter … tripping à la Dick Van Dyke over the ottoman in the process.

Even in the television age, from its dawn to the present, take a gander at your finest examples; the older ones still resonate and the contemporaries have all the hallmarks that will carry them through to comedy eternity: I Love Lucy, M*A*S*H*, All in the Family, Cheers, Seinfeld, Family Guy, American Dad, Frasier, Arrested Development, 30 Rock … all deliver a joke about every ten seconds, all without missing a beat. Quality and successful comedy is not only knowing your audience, but hitting a high note about every other line. Like a game of Whack-a-Mole, just keep up the pace. Nobody cracks a one-liner out of the park like Homer, Lucy, Hawkeye, Archie, Woody, Jerry, Stewie, Roger, Niles, Gob or Liz.

San Diego Comic-Con 2010, The Simpsons panel: Mike Anderson, Matt Selman, Al Jean, Matt Groening photo: Ewen & Donabel

The Simpsons has it all, in spades: preternatural writing, talent and timing. The writers and artists clearly have a comfort level with and amongst each other that has gelled into a sublime and facile pulchritude over the years, like Raquel Welch or the narrative fiction of Steve Martin. The Simpsons‘ writing is pithy, witty, sharp, topical, blessedly geek-oriented and simply superb; but it’s the easy flow that elicits the elusive belly laugh. Whilst flipping through comic book boxes at The Android’s Dungeon or attending one of Professor Frink’s symposia, the jokes bring a time signature of hoots and guffaws in perfect 2/4 tempo and snappy, unrelenting duple quavers of hilarity.

Even in the much-hyped 500^th episode, that laugh quotient shines through, although more like beats of intermittent sunlight on an overcast beach day, rather than the blazing summer sun we’d greased ourselves up for so eagerly. Yes, the 500th episode was good if not excellent; and the Julian Assange tease left many wanting, like a busty and bodacious burlesque stripper with her damned, huge, feather fans. To the end, similar to a first car or grade-school puppy love, we shall always feel a warm fondness for Lisa, Homer, Bart, Marge, Maggie, Comic Book Guy and the rest of the Springfield citizenry. They don’t have to be knee-slapping funny every time we meet and we’re okay with that.

Think about the zaniest egg you know. Do they work at it, or do the one-liners just lurch up at regular intervals, like waves on the beach or heart palpitations at a 1912 Coney Island Bathing Beauty Brigade? Do they “tell jokes”, or are their organic responses to the environment of everyday conversation quick and brutal snaps, like a frog on a fly? For my money, it’s that precious timing and the no sweat, at least to us, delivery. Was there a caveman Afarensis named Bill with a termite stick and, if so, was he funny? Probably. There had to be one. Comedy didn’t actually start with The Simpsons … it just feels that way.

Hey! Puns are lazy writing, jerk! -Krusty the Clown

Abyssinia @JennyPopNet!

Hannah’s fave places to haunt online? https://www.amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore and jenniferdevore.blogspot.com

Making Comic Books Respectable … You’re a Good Man, Richard Alf!

Posted by Hannah Hart, Ghost Dame of the Hotel del Coronado | Posted on 09-01-2012

Category : Conventions, E-vents, Featured, San Diego Comic Con

Tags: comic book, Comic-Con International, comics, cosplay, dancers, dorks, fantasy, fashionistas, gamers, geek, geeks, goobs, goths, Happy Days, hippies, Kearny High School, Ken Kreuger, Mike Towry, modern, Mrs. C, Mrs. Cunningham, mythology, nerds, pin-ups, pop culture, preppies, punks, Richard Alf, San Diego, San Diego vs. L.A., singers, skaters, slackers, surfers, vintagistas

Ain’t no place nobby like San Diego, babies! I knew it when I transplanted from Boston during Prohibition, Lucky Lindy knew it when he test flew the Spirit of St. Louis here before making tracks for Paris and a geeky teen named Richard Alf knew it when he convinced fellow geek Sheldon Dorf from Michigan, not to mention Ray Bradbury, that America’s Finest City could also be America’s Comic City.

Smile, you’re at Comic-Con! Photo: Parka81

Not only does this swell apple have the keenest weather anywhere on this dizzy planet, but it’s also got a vibe that attracts, nay welcomes, the most creative, odd and inventive of funky souls. Whether you’re a tech industry torpedo, a bio-tech wiz, a jazzin’ musician, a visual artist, a jolly good writer or just all-around loose cannon, San Diego is waiting for you with open arms! Goths, geeks, punks, dorks, goobs, gamers, nerds, hippies, preppies, fashionistas, vintagistas, dancers, pin-ups, skaters, singers, slackers, surfers (I dig those Carlsbad surfers, I must say. Zowie!) and ghosties alike … San Diego makes room in its sunny and mild heart for all. Even America’s Mom lives in America’s City: Marion Ross of Happy Days, a.k.a. Mrs. Cunningham lives the quiet life on one of our crazy-beautiful beaches. What more comforting arms than that of Mrs. C? Been thinking about kissing off your burg and heading for the the sparkling limelight of L.A.? Skip it. Try San Diego: cleaner water, better coffee, snazzier bars and sunnier folk. Plus, we S.D. girls are plenty friendly and tend more toward the au naturel look. Ya keen?

So, what better place to invite all the geeks, the world over, to the biggest geek fest ever? San Diego Comic-Con is back in town, kids! I get myself to Comic-Con every year; being a ghostie girl, that’s easy beans. In fact, I’ve been there since the first big event in 1970 when one Richard Alf, Kearney High Schooler and a Detroit-transplant named Sheldon Dorf, after meeting via one of Alf’s regular ads in the back of Marvel comics to buy and sell comic books out of his parents’ garage, set up in town at the U.S. Grant Hotel: first attendees included sci-fi writer Ray Bradbury and comic book artist Jack Kirby.

San Diego Comic-Con Mural Photo: Jason Persse

Initially dubbed San Diego’s Golden State Comic-Con, this three-day gathering was the birth of what would eventually become the wildly costumed, Hollywood-frenzied, world-media covered, global wingding more in line, business-wise, with France’s MIP and MIPCOM media conventions than a community garage sale and meet-up for comic geeks and their wares. Later knighted San Diego Comic-Con International, it and our fair city are now synonymous with comic geeks, fantasy and wicked hot cosplay the world over. They also now produce SDCC’s baby sister: WonderCon. Tim Burton and Steven Spielberg may not have been at the earliest shows, but I was!

I did a brief fly-by the year Alf took advantage of his matriculation as a U.C.S.D. music student and moved the Con to campus,even renting dorm rooms to attendees for “discounted rates”. Murder! What a keen kid! No wonder he ended up in advertising and stocks. Tell me Campus Con wasn’t bonkers! Comic dorks, college scrubs and, unfortunately for their study needs, a meek Montessori group found themselves housed alongside each other in cramped quarters one week back in the early ’70s. Since then, if it’s a biotech dork dressed like The Flash or a college kitten dressed like a hot preschooler, it must be summertime in San Diego.

Even though Alf and his fellow founders delved into other passions throughout the years, Comic-Con would remain cognizant of its nexus. Savvy? At the 2009 show, Richard Alf, Mike Towry, Sheldon Dorf and Ken Kreuger were saluted and honoured by Comic-Con International. Eerily, all but Towry have now since passed away; the honours came too late and none too soon. San Diego State University had even been in the midst of researching the phenomenon that is SDCC and talking with Alf and Towry about their early days for S.D.S.U.’s Comic-Con Tales when Alf took ill.

“Sky’s The Limit”, Lindbergh Field Photo: San Diego Int’l Airport archives

Now, while I’d never met Richard Alf personally, I’d certainly seen him about town on occasion. Heck, I’ve been here since the 1930s; I’ve seen everyone on occasion. Plus, no one could miss those Central Casting, nerd glasses and beaming smile of the 6’6″ Alf! Last year, just prior to the commencement of the 2011 Con, while checking out all the pre-show jitters around town, I buzzed a dedication ceremony at the airport for San Diego’s newest tribute to the visionary mind. Running gleefully along San Diego International Airport’s pedestrian walkway hangs a mural titled The Sky’s the Limit, dedicated to the city’s aviation and cartooning history. Sweet kazoo, a city that appreciates animation! Snoopy, as the Red Baron, and Shel Dorf himself grace the mural’s colourful, historical tale. Who was there to help commemorate this embrace of flight and funny? Richard Alf and Mike Towry themselves.

By the way, babies, I wish I’d had the ability to shutterbug as easily over the decades as you do today. Luckily for all of us, there were folks who did have such abilities and I refer you to the Richard Alf memorial website brought to you by the pips at The Museum of Modern Mythology and Pop Culture. You’ll find loads of snazzy snaps of the first Comic-Con Souvenir Book, the legendary Alf V-dub Bug and keen snaps of young Richard, Mike, Shel and more.

You’re a good man, Richard Alf. Rest in peace. Last year’s Comic-Con was just wild! This year’s is looking even finer than that! Thank you, Mr. Alf.

By the by, you can read Jennifer Devore’s (Hannah’s alter ego and a Comic-Con geek of the first level) 2010 SDCC Souvenir Book article on Peanuts (cited by TIME magazine, no less!) and her 2012 article on Tarzan (which garnered her a Meet & Greet with Dr. Jane Goodall!).

Abyssinia, cats!

Hannah Hart’s fave places to haunt online? JennyPop.net amazon.com/author/jenniferdevore & @JennyPopNet

At the Con: San Diego Comic Con with Tron: Legacy

Posted by Erin Willard aka "Loster21" | Posted on 04-08-2010

Category : Conventions, E-vents, Entertain Me, Movies, San Diego Comic Con

Tags: 3D, Bruce Boxleitner, Comic Con, convention, film, Garrett Hedlund, Jeff Bridges, Joe Kosinski, light cycle, Michael Sheen, movie, Olivia Wilde, San Diego, SDCC, Sean Bailey, Steven Lisberger, Tron, Tron: Legacy, video game

Comic Con. What an experience! Some go for the gaming, some for the cosplay, some for the comics, but I go for the tv and movie panels. For me this year, the most anticipated movie panel was for Tron: Legacy.

It was great starting the Con in the legendary Hall H, the largest venue at SDCC. The first panel (to my mind, the warm-up act I) was for the animated Megamind, and appearing on its behalf were Will Farrell, Tina Fey, and a cardboard cutout of Brad Pitt. The panel was fun and the clips gave us a chance to try out our True 3D glasses, which worked really well even though my seat was not the best. Good to know if you find yourself in a crowded 3D theater.

Next up, though, was what I had been waiting for . . . Tron: Legacy. The panel was moderated by Patton Oswalt, who was entertaining, and whose comment, “it’s been 27 years since the 1st Tron. Those who saw it in the theatre raise your walkers” has now been forgiven.

If you are concerned that TRON: Legacy is a remake, be at ease. It is, in fact, a sequel – a what-happens-next, although “next” is a few decades later. The inclusion of Jeff Bridges and Bruce Boxleitner should assuage any fears you may have. If, on the other hand, you never saw the original, get thee to Netflix immediately. TRON is a classic, made in the early days of video games and personal computers. It is interesting to note that, in spite of appearances, no computer animation was used in the making of that film; all animation was hand-drawn, including the “light” on the skinsuits.

The panel was comprised of Director, Joe Kosinski; Producers, Sean Bailey and Steven Lisberger (from the original TRON); and cast members Jeff Bridges, Garrett Hedlund, Olivia Wilde, Michael Sheen, and Bruce Boxleitner.

One of the most interesting bits of info released was that this sequel will include the Jeff Bridges of today interacting with footage of Jeff Bridges at 35. Included in the new promotional clip, which premiered during the panel, was a brief moment with the 35-year-old Bridges, and it appears that in order to make the production appear seamless, they’ve superimposed footage of his face (from earlier footage) onto an actor in the current production. It will “be interesting to see how well this works in longer clips. As with all things TRON: Legacy, I’m hopeful.

Unlike the original, computer animation abounds in this sequel. Although, interestingly enough, the lights in the skinsuits are actually lights, not hand-animated or computer-generated. The look of the movie is, of course, nicely “tech-y.” The use of True 3D really did add to the experience by drawing you into the environment. So, I would recommend seeing the film in that venue, if possible, or even better, in a newer IMAX theater.

One of the best question-and-answer exchanges of the panel was from a fan to Olivia Wilde (whose character’s motivations are as she says, “ambiguous”). She was asked by an apparently adolescent fanboy if working on a movie about video games made her more interested in video game players. Roars of laughter and cheers. But she replied with an enthusiastic “Yes!” and explained that she really had not played video games in years . . . not since Duck Hunt; but had started playing them again because of the movie and has become a big fan of the games and of the players. She went on to say that she loves Comic Con because the fans are knowledgeable, enthusiastic, and intelligent. She is wise.

The last bit of news is that they are in discussions about re-releasing the original Tron in an “exciting new format.” Any guesses? No further info was available, but hopefully things will be nailed down shortly, to give everyone a chance to see that very excellent movie before the sequel is released.

The panel and the fans were equally excited about the new film, and I cannot wait. Mark your calendars for the US premiere on December 17.

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Between the Covers: Dark Horse Comics at Comic-Con 2012

You’re Having Fun Wrong: SoCal’s Fave Five Geek Attractions

Hannah Hart’s Sweet San Diego Comic-Con Goody Giveaway

San Diego Comic-Con: Tarzan, Peanuts and Just a Touch of Chainmail

Huzzah! Gamer Girls’ Watering Hole: Nerdcore Night at The Ruby Room

The Simpsons 500th Episode: At Long Last, Mr. Groening

Making Comic Books Respectable … You’re a Good Man, Richard Alf!

At the Con: San Diego Comic Con with Tron: Legacy

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