Womanthology (cross-post)

**This was originally posted on my writing blog, but I wanted as many people as possible to see it so I'm posting it here as well.**


I'm feeling so many emotions right now. I'm elated, triumphant, hopeful and awed.

Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics. Womanthology is an anthology graphic novel created entirely by women for Charity. The purpose of the book is to showcase the works of female creators of every age and experience levels.

The Graphic Novel will majorly consist of many short stories interpreting our theme for this volume; "Heroic". We'll also have interviews and how-to's with some of the industry's top female pros, as well as talks with young girls who someday want a career in comics.

I can't remember how I stumbled onto this project but I'm SO excited about it. They've gotten on board a bunch of new/indie comic book creators, but they've also had some big names join in. Two that I'm super duper excited about are Gail Simone (famous for a buttload of things but my favourite work of hers is Welcome To Tranquility) and Fiona Staples (who worked on Mystery Society, which I have to review soon because it's a seriously great comic book that ticks nearly all my boxes). I plan to check out the works of the other contributors when I can.   

Not only will this be an amazing book, but it's giving to charity and showcasing the talent of female creators! They've paired some newcomers with the seasoned pros, to give the new ladies some more experience, which will (fingers crossed) lead to more industry opportunities for them.

Their Kickstarter  (a website dedicated to helping fun creative projects) opened yesterday, with the goal of $25,000 for a print run of 1500 books. I logged onto Twitter this morning and a little over 24 hours later... $36,000 has been pledged. This is more than I, and those involved, could ever have hoped for. When I sat down to work out how much I could pledge, I had imagined that in the final days of July, I'd be anxiously watching the numbers crawl up to the final goal.

But it's not over. More money = more books and maybe even a second anthology. Even if you don't care about that, the rewards being offered for pledges are AMAZING and Renee is adding more as more pledges come in. Even if you don't give a shit about women in comic books, the profits are going to charity.

I urge you to check out their website and learn more about this project. If this stirs you, even just a little, go over to the Kickstarter page. Even $5 will help this amazing cause, and if you want a guaranteed copy of the anthology, pledging is the way to do that.

This is not what I ordered.

DISCLAIMER: I bought these comic books with my own money and I am entitled to have my own opinion about them. These are casual diagnoses based on my reading anywhere from one to ten issues. I have neither the funds nor the patience to wait very long to see if a series 'gets better', and as a consumer I believe in excercising my right not to put money into products I view as substandard in meeting my needs.

How hard is it to find a comic book which features:
1) Strong female protagonists or at least main characters, who are:
2) Not scantily clad.
3) Not the main character's love interest.
4) Actually has some women on the creative team.


Apparently it's this hard:

Danger Girl

• Title character is sexually harassed by the villain.
• Gets the butt of her jeans ripped off halfway through the comic.
• No women on the creative team.

Side Chicks

• One character hit on by 'client'.
• Other character hit on by random guy in the street.
• Skintight, cleavage-y costume for one, other one gets...
• Shredded shirt.
• No women on the creative team.

Heroes for Hire

• I actually couldn't tell you what happened in the first issue of this comic, it was so badly-written and the layout was so horrible, I couldn't even follow the action. They tried to introduce way too many characters. All I really took away from this was yet another few exoticised, scantily clad female superheroes and yet another comic book with no female prescence on the creative team.

These are just series I've read myself. The failure of mainstream 'women marketed' comic series is pretty legendary. Marvel Divas put most potential female customers off by sheer force of its dumb title alone. The failure of X-Women is pretty much legendary on the internet (yeah let's get a guy who draws EROTICA for a living to draw the superheroines in our marketed-for-women series!)


Here are some series that meet some of my criteria, but still need work before I'd call them truly egalitarian:

Artifacts (my review of #0-2 here)

• Genuinely strong female protagonist, who is driven by love of her daughter who is kidnapped in the first issue so that's NOT a spoiler. But she doesn't completely fall apart when this happens, which is great since she's a cop.
• However when she's kitted out with her superpowers, it becomes a skin-tight suit deal which her boobs bulge out of. 
• This comic features Aphrodite IV, a kickass cyborg with green hair. And do you know what's halfway through the comic book? A PANTY SHOT OF THE CYBORG. Why?! Just why?!
• As far as I can tell, no women on the creative team.
• Apart from those things, this is a pretty good comic series with a really solid mythology background.

Zatana

• She walks around in a leotard and fishnets.
• However, they do have a female artist on the team.

Executive Assistant: Iris (my review here)

• Love the premise.
• Hate her outfits.
• No women on the creative team.
• Having only read the first issue I'm still skeptical about this one - it could either be great or horrible. I'm also skeptical to learn that Aspen are releasing a bunch of other series along this line, featuring a bunch of different assassins with different flower names. I saw the promo images and LOVE SO MUCH that each woman is a different ethnicity, so I'm definitley willing to give them a go when they're finally out.

Suicide Girls

• Strong, diverse all-female line-up.
• Looks to have women on the creative team.
• Rather cliche storyline and dialogue.
• Did not like the nude pin-ups in the back of the comic book. Especially since some of them weren't even drawn. WTF? I get that this may be an important facet of the Suicide Girls movement, but it honestly put me off buying issue #2.

So I don't feel like selling off all my comics and going back to novels for good, here are a few series which, although they don't meet all 4 points, give me real hope that one day the comic book industry will finally grow the fuck up, stop looking at comic books as their precious little boys' club and become more inclusive. These are the ones I will be continuing to spend my money on.

Kill Shakespeare (my review of #1 here)
This comic has an all-male team, but I love what they've done with the character of Juliet. She is a strong, capable female who sticks to her guns and doesn't take crap from anybody. However she's not just a dude with tits - she still reads as a woman, without the need for revealing clothing. Super props to these guys for creating a solid female character.


Chew (my review of Vol. 1 here)
The main female character in this series is not very present, and she is the main character's love interest, and it's an all-male creative team, BUT... she's a really awesome character who isn't defined by Tony's love or even interest. She's an interesting, complex character in her own right and I'd really love to see more of her in the series (keep in mind I'm way behind in this one!) 

Changing Ways (my review here)
Justin Randall gave himself two female characters that couldn't be easily sexualised - one was a heavily pregnant woman and the other is a young girl. However, both of these characters had distinct personalities and were both beautifully strong. Even heavily pregnant, this woman was kick-ass. Literally! I can't wait to see how Jesse turns out in the sequel. I have a feeling she's got her momma's strength.


Mystery Society
Ok, so this breaks one of my cardinal rules - the main female character is actually married to the main male one, but then again, I'm up to issue #4 and so far there are three more main female characters. Oh, and a robot. However, the art (which I really like, by the by) is done by a lady. So the main female character wears actual clothes and looks like an actual real female person! I love the relationship between the husband and wife in this series - it's evident that their marriage, as well as their crime-fighting awesomeness, is a team effort where they're both as valuable as each other. No female sidekicks or, conversely, henpecked husband jokes here.

Ruse (my review here)
The main female character is also the narrator for this comic. She is stubborn and witty, and keenly aware of the limitations that her Victorian society and her hellish partner, the "world's greatest detective" place upon her. I freaking love the tagline of this comic, and it has a female assistant editor (yay!). The fact that it's set in the Victoria era means there realistically can't be too much T&A, which is really, really, oh my god so nice.




Series I have yet to try:
Lady Mechanika
Velocity
Gotham City Sirens
Morning Glories
Tank Girl
Madame Xanadu
I Kill Giants




It just makes me so angry and frustrated that I can't read a fucking comic book without being forced to overlook unrealistically proportioned, scantily-clad female characters who are 1-D personality wise at best. How can I identify with that? How can I enjoy reading and looking at that? I'm not completely opposed to a little T&A in the occasional comic. BUT WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE IN EVERY SINGLE ONE. And what the fuck is it doing in the comics which are supposedly for women? What planet are Marvel and DC living on, that they think every woman wants to be reading about women with giant breasts whose clothes fall off every five seconds and jghoirieuhwenjrfpsodjfcpsidhfp3wu579w87ruisdkcfbhqwas';KL:A:qy2

*headdesks repeatedly*

Sorry.


If you can reccommend any comics to me that meet any of my criteria, pleeeease oh please do. If you disagree with any of my assessments then please feel free to share your thoughts in the comments.

An open letter to all indie sellers who aren't GlitterSniffer Cosmetics

I was visiting the Glittersniffer Complaints Facebook page today when an exchange unfolded that had me almost literally headdesking. I'm posting it in sections, because my laptop monitor is teeny weeny and the relevant comments were a bit lower down.

It went on, and is probably still going, but I honestly didn't want to read any more. It has become infinitely clear to me that a lot of people don't actually care what goes into the things that they buy, use or even eat. Apparently, customer service is also a negligible part of buying, too!

I don't know about you, but I like to know a bit about companies that I buy from, especially online. I want to make sure that not only am I getting quality product, but that I am supporting good business practices. I dislike the idea of A) throwing my money away, or B) enabling somebody to continue ripping people off, lying to and harming people. Even if I've never had a bad reaction to a seller's products, or had bad CS, or a 'missing' parcel... I want to know about it. I want to ensure I'm encouraging good business practising with my spending habits - the only really effective way to do so, in some cases. Ignoring other people's bad experiences is short-sighted, and in my opinion, incredibly selfish.

In light of this, I wanted to write an open letter of gratitude to all of the honest, genuine, hard-working indie companies out there - more than I could name in this post, as I haven't tried them all yet.

Dear companies:

Thankyou for observing FDA regulations, for always being upfront about your ingredients and giving options to those people who are allergic to common ingredients like talc and bismuth, or those who don't want to use beeswax and carmine.

Thankyou for knowing WHAT is in your products and WHY. Thankyou for all your research and experiments and hard work in making the best and most unique products you can.

Thankyou for wearing gloves, sterilising your instruments and packaging your products carefully.

Thankyou for shipping things on time, and for updating ALL your customers when you can't because of extenuating circumstances.

Thankyou for listening to your customers - combining orders, making new products, altering old ones, making custom listings, giving advice, changing the way you do samples.

Thankyou for taking criticism gracefully and using it to help improve your company, rather than taking it personally and reacting badly.

Thankyou for combining your creativity, vision and skill with sound business sense, ethical practises and a solid understanding of what makes good customer service.

Thankyou for replying to emails, convos, tweets and making us feel like we are important to you.

Thankyou, above all, for being trustworthy.

*    *    *

I'm also going to plug the Sparkledex again. Blogging  has become a vital part of the online community - no matter whether you're buying make-up, bath stuff, embroidered pencil cases or silicone phone cases. You're almost always stepping into the unknown, buying a product you've never seen in person from a complete stranger over the internet. Blogging helps take away that uncertainty, and give you a better idea of what you're getting yourself into. Unfortunately, most bloggers don't have unlimited income or time with which to blaze the trail constantly.

The Sparkledex will allow us to pool our resources when it comes to the indie MMU and B&B sphere. We can collect material, pointing the way to places where potential customers can get the information they need, to make a decision they are happy with. If you've recently reviewed a company, go add your review to their page! Or if they don't yet have a page, make one. Many hands make light work, and a full Sparkledex is a happy and useful Sparkledex (many thanks to VijiiS who edits like a boss and has made all the current Company pages look amazing).

Also I want to shout out to Frances, who runs the GlitterSniffer Complaints blog and Facebook. She is a patient, determined soul who really stood up for all of the GlitterSniffer casualties. It look like (I have my fingers very tightly crossed) that there's some real progress going on there, and that there might at least be some resolution for those who got caught in the mess, if not restitution for everyone who was affected. Please know that for every person still blindly following Lela and supporting GlitterSniffer, there are dozens more who support and sympathise with you.

Review: Serenity, The Shepherd's Tale

Image from Darkhorse.com

I have been waiting nearly 4 years for this comic, and reviewing it has taken me nearly as many months. The character of Shepherd Derrial Book was one of the biggest mysteries of the Serenity/Firefly franchise. The premature cancellation of the series meant that the fans would never know why Book was a skilled fighter, what led him to the Abbey, or what it was on his ident card that caused the Alliance to hurry him into medical treatment when he was injured.

This project was back-benched for a while as Joss Whedon worked on Dollhouse (also cancelled), Dr. Horrible (where is mah sequel?!?!) and his various movie projects (Cabin In the Woods, the Avengers). Finally Joss decided to pass the project onto his equally-ridiculously-talented brother Zack (Jed was responsible for the recent Dr. Horrible graphic novel which I also plan on reviewing).

Fair warning: I'm coming at this comic from the perspective of a GIANT fan who is attempting to be fair and impartial. Keep in mind, though, that you need to see both Firefly and Serenity for this comic to make sense, let alone mean anything to you. This is NOT a comic for non-Browncoats.

Art
The art on the previous comics - Better Days - was really lovely. It was realistic without being too realistic and portrait-esque. It was as though the artist had looked at the actors and then more... drawn the characters rather than trying to copy the features of the cast.

The art on this comic is much too raw and unfinished. Due to the flow of the narrative and how it shifts through time, I had SO much trouble identifying characters who re-appeared. Their faces aren't defined enough. The colouring is gorgeous, for sure, and the art isn't bad per se... it's just not really suitable for such a fast-paced, emotional and at times confusing story. It comes across as blotchy and cartoonish, in a situation where there are questions that the fans desperately want answered, and by god it's a serious matter. The art didn't fit at all.

Lettering/dialogue
The dialogue of the franchise is quite unique; Joss Whedon imagined a post-Apocalyptic society where America and China had become the last two superpower nations in the world. Everybody spoke a mixture of English and Chinese. There is absolutely no Chinese in this comic, which I was a little disappointed by.

I can't fault the dialogue in any other aspect, and the lettering is neat and unobtrusive.

Storyline/characters
The major way in which this comic is let down in this area is the pace of the story. Basically they've tried to explain Book's whole mysterious past in a series of flashbacks. It's quite disjointed and choppy. The comic starts with Book's death scene, which is absolutely heart-wrenching and perfect. Then it cuts to him leaving the abbey, and it does sound like him, how he speaks and thinks, and the way he'd conduct himself. Obviously I can't comment on how 'young Book' sounds because this is the first we've seen of him. I trust Zack Whedon's writing, I just really wish Joss had given him, and Book, some more breathing space in this one.

I get that Joss is heartbroken by the cancellation of Firefly - the fans are too! Instead of exploring the world that could have been, using comics instead of TV, this graphic novel feels like some table scraps thrown to some too-loud fans. It looks and feels rushed, which is something Book did not deserve at all. I know there's no way that we could have seen his whole life in a novel - that would have been a gargantuan task and we probably would have been waiting even longer to see it... but it would have benefitted so much from a different format/narrative flow.

Summary
As I said to my friend and fellow fan, after we'd both read the comic: this is better than nothing, but I was expecting so much more. If you're a hardcore fan, of course you're going to buy it. However I can't help feeling a little bit disappointed at the meager amount of information and the jarringly spread-apart narrative.

Cat-astrophe, Kittehgeddon, Needlegate

If you follow me on Twitter you've probably read about most of this already. It's such a bizzare story, and such an important and little-known issue that I had to share it. Plus, who doesn't like cute cat pictures?

This is my cat. Her name is Mei Mei, which means 'little sister' in Mandarin (yes, that's a Firefly reference).

note: that is not my computer, I'm a PC girl.

On the 22nd of April, Mei Mei swallowed a 2.5cm sewing needle, with 7cm of thread attached.

I don't know if you know - I sure didn't! - that the thread was actually more dangerous to her digestive system than the needle. The needle wasn't sharp enough to puncture anything, but thread can cause bunching in a cat's intestinal tract, which means the damaged portion will have to be removed. Cutting into the intestines has two pretty big risks post-operation; either the intestines will not join together properly, or the bacteria inside will migrate to the abdominal cavity and cause a pretty bad infection.

Very luckily for kitty, I realised what had happened a few minutes after she ate the needle. It being midnight, I had to do a frantic Google search to find the nearest emergency vet clinic. About an hour later, a very tired boyfriend, myself, and slightly freaked out kitty (she hasn't been in a car for about two years and didn't like it one bit) arrived. She was whisked away for an x-ray, and I attempted to remove some of her hair from the sleeves of my jacket. I looked like I was slowly transforming into a yeti, it was pretty ridiculous.

 don't be fooled by the cute face, her 'FUR ATTACK' is infamous.

The vet confirmed that she had indeed swallowed the needle. She wasn't in any pain or distress so we concluded that she'd be ok to wait until morning, when we could take her down to our regular vet and organise surgery, since that was going to be a bit cheaper.

Arrived home at 3am. Boyfriend left. I fell into a fitful sleep, rising again at 7:30 so I'd be able to call the local vet when they opened at 8am.
Me: "Do you have any appointments open today?"
Receptionist: "A few, what's the probem?"
Me: "My cat swallowed a sewing needle."
Receptionist: "OH. Well in that case, don't worry about an appointment, just bring her in as soon as you can."

Shortly after 8:30am, we arrived. Kitty went straight in for x-rays (so they knew where to go) and then surgery. Around 2pm I got a call from the vet saying that the surgery had gone really well.
"The needle and thread got stuck in a fairly large hairball in her stomach," the vet said. "There was no stomach or intestinal damage at all." I laughed and promised to never complain about her hacking up furballs again. Another phone call an hour later confirmed that she had come out of the anaesthetic really well.

The whole ordeal cost a ton of money, which was not fun since my parents are on holiday. I ended up paying quite a bit for x-rays and consultations on my debit card (thank GOD for my new job) and luckily, the vet take payments over the phone, so I was able to use the credit card dad left me for grocery shopping to pay for the actual surgery.

 kittybutt!

So the moral of the story - apart from "keep needles away from pets" - is OH MY GOD PET INSURANCE IS YOUR FRIEND.

There are actual companies that specialise in pet insurance. I reccommend looking it up. We could have saved sooooooo much money and stress by having it. This is probably the worst medical problem we've ever had with a pet. I mean, one of our dogs has developed a cataract over one eye, but that's not life-threatening, and he's no worse off because we couldn't afford to get it removed. In fact, most of the time I forget he's half-blind. It doesn't affect him at all. However, leaving the needle in Mei's stomach could have killed her. I am so grateful I figured out what happened. It sounds far-fetched, but it's actually a really common occurance.

If you have pets, and you don't have a spare three or four thousand dollars lying around... get pet insurance. Seriously. Just do it. Also learn how to give pills to animals. It took me nearly a week to be able to give her medicine by myself; I have to force them down her throat since apparently they taste so bad, no food could disguise them sufficiently for her to eat them ground up in any way. Also she scratched me AND my boyfriend - the first time she's ever scratched anyone, ever. I'm so glad she finishes her course of antibiotics tomorrow. Two pills twice a day = unhappy kitty and unhappy me.

post-surgery kitty  

(those white bits on the bottom of the collar are from her spitting up pills. fun times)

 she is REALLY hates that collar

(Overdue) review: Changing Ways

Two things that I just don't really like, no offense to the things or to other people who may like them:
1. Photorealistic art
2. Horror and/or suspense

This graphic novel contains both of them.

I've already written about how the cover of this graphic novel caught my eye, and how I nearly went away without it, but my boyfriend (who, I might add, doesn't even read comics) saw the look in my eye and promptly bought it for me.

You're probably now expecting a tale of woe, or at least mediocrity, but... I LOVE this graphic novel.

art
As I mentioned before, the art is photo-realistic. One of the problems I have with some very cartoonish art (especially in uncoloured webcomics) is that I have a hard time telling minor characters apart. Each character in Changing Ways is so distinct and beautifully rendered. Expressions, body language, clothing - all distinct and lovely to look at.

The colour palette is expressed in the cover. I LOVE continuity between cover art and comic art! Each spread is consistent to the scene - inside under artificial lighting is a yellow glow. Outside in the rain is a cold, dark blue-grey, almost monochrome. Tail-lights, sunset, fire and blood are all red, a faded yet vibrant shade, like a watercolour. I want to frame every other page. You cannot appreciate how truly gorgeous this is until you read it.

Yes, because it is a horror story is has some 'gory bits', but they're just so... I don't want to say 'tasteful' because that just sounds dumb. It's done well. Not cartoonishly graphic like in Nemesis, but not in squeamish 20's fade-to-black style either. It's just kind of "hey, that happened, it was kind of gross, but we're moving on with the story now".

 

That last panel is one of the ones I wouldn't mind having framed and on my wall. Isn't it amazing?

story/characters
Now, Justin Randall wrote this as well as doing all the artwork. But don't let that deter you - this is most definitely NOT one of those comics you buy just for the artwork (as gorgeous as it is). The story itself is mysterious and chilling. Justin assured me at Supanova that "it's not a zombie or vampire story", so any hackneyed horror fans will be safe picking this up. That said, this is a very relationship-and-character driven story. The mains have very distinct personalities and the way that they all interact is so realistic. There's plenty of dialoge but it doesn't overwhelm the art/action. The bubbles are clear, but unobtrusive, and it's always clear WHO is talking. There is a little first-person narration which is done in small, black boxes with red borders. Again - clear but unobtrusive.

The pacing in both the dialogue and the narration is masterful. The panels without text have amazing body language/facial expressions to hold the mood and the story. All sound effects are done in this awesome sketchy, hand-written style with the appropriate colourisation for each panel.

I cannot freaking wait for the sequel.

Simple, honest, realistic dialogue.

conclusion
Buy it, read it, love it. Even if you don't like horror, even if you don't like photo-realistic art, even if you're a hardcore superhero comics devotee. It's over 100 pages, a proper graphic NOVEL, so it'll keep you going for a while. And going back for another read. And another. And another. And cursing Justin Randall for taking so damn long with the sequel!!!

You can see some sample pages here if I haven't convinced you with my babbling. You will totally spoil the novel for yourself though.

Disclaimer
All images copyright, owned by and belonging to the amazing and fantabulous Mr. Randall.
 
I paid for this graphic novel with my own- er wait, no I didn't! Hehe. I also got a copy for free, which is something I'll do a post on later.

The Hub Productions Presents: OMGSTARGATE

One day while browsing in one of my favorite comic book shops, I noticed a flyer with the indubitable Chris Judge on it. Enough to get anybody's attention. Whilst I'd never heard of the company involved, they were claiming that CHRISTOPHER JUDGE and CORIN NEMEC were coming to PERTH in AUGUST.

That also got my attention.

So on Sunday, armed with GPS (to not get lost) and DVDs (to maybe get signed) my boyfriend and I trundled down to The Hub's location to see the shiny people. If you have not been introduced to the Stargate franchise yet... well, I'd say it's a pretty safe bet that you're not into scifi. It's a staple of the geek diet. It contains lasers, mythology, hot aliens, weird aliens, explosions, a bit of romance, a lot of humour, and it boasts the badge of "longest running sci-fi series" (the Star Trek franchise doesn't really count because each series was seperate). There's a reason it went on for 10 seasons and the spawned two spin-offs and a plethora of movies, people!

My camera being what it is (crappy and broken), and me still getting used to my new Blackberry, I did not manage to get any decent photos :( sorry dudes! If you're curious for a more informal blow-by-blow, I tweeted frantically during the actual event. Most of it went to the con feed which can be found at #sg1ozcon.

I was totally unfamiliar with the location that the con was being held at, so I had no idea what to expect when, thermos flask of coffee in hand, I threw myself into my boyfriend's car at 11am on Sunday morning. It was being held at a small conference center near Curtin Uni - small being the operative word. Where we were in row E, I found it hard to see the speakers onstage over the tops of people's heads. I felt really sorry for people sitting in the back, espeically the few kids that I saw around.

The event was nowhere near as militantly organised as Supanova was. We wandered around for a bit, before I finally found an event staff member to ask where we should pick up our tickets (we paid online and because we only bought them the weekend before, it wasn't enough time for them to be posted out). There was really not a lot of signage around the foyer - when I say 'not a lot', I actually mean 'there wasn't any'. We milled around and looked at all the merch while we waited for the official start time. They had some really great stuff - I so wished I had saved more money as there were signed shirts, signed FIREFLY photos and a really awesome photo from the 200th episode, of Vala, Daniel, Mitchell and Teal'c in the Wizard of Oz costumes, and signed by all four of them. I can't remember how much it went for exactly, but it would have definitely been around $200.

The staff are at the event were quite friendly, though disorganised. During the welcome speech, Corin Nemec came out to say hi. He said we had a great city which I giggled at because Perth is so small and boring! Because the photo sessions were estimated to take a while, they put on a Stargate episode - one of my faaavourites, Window of Opportunity.

We were told that, while we were discouraged from asking any 'inappropriate questions'during the Q&A sessions, "Chris Judge will answer anything." Boy, they weren't wrong! Literally the first thing Chris said was about farting. Anyway, I'm getting off-track!

Basically, the way the day went was:

1. Photo session with Corin Nemec ($40).

2. Duo photo session ($80).

3. Photo session with Chris Judge ($40).

4. Q&A with Corin.

5. Auctioning off a date with Corin. This was a half-hour, chaperoned drinks affair. All proceeds to the Starlight Foundation.

6. Short break for lunch.

7. Q&A with Chris (which ran 20 mins overtime, he is SUCH a character).

8. Auctioning off a date with Chris, which did NOT happen in Adelaide, hahaha!

9. Charity auction of signed photos and various props, again all proceeds to Starlight. 

10. Raffle draw.

During the photo sessions they played some fan-favourite Stargate SG-1 episodes, which I thought was a good idea, buuuut they still could have handled things a little better there. I mean... these tickets were $75, and we were sitting watching old episodes?! It could have at least been, I dunno, some interviews with Corin and Chris, some behind-the-scenes stuff, even some footage from the Adelaide con? 

Corin's Q&A was pretty good, he is very funny. I did get the feeling that not a lot of people knew much about his work outside of Stargate and Parker Lewis. I'll admit I'm one of them! So the questions were mostly Stargate-related. There was one about Supernatural, and a few generic sort of ones. 

Highlights of Corin's session, as briefly mentioned in my twitter feed:

*The most bizzare rumour Corin's ever heard about himself is that he loves laser tag. He's had it mentioned several times and he has no idea where it comes from, because he actually doesn't like laser tag!

*"Life is a mystery sandwich - and I'm hungry!"

*It was actually Corin's idea to bring a banana on the ship in "that" scene with Teal'c! Hahaha.

*Jonas was going to be on Atlantis :( hearing that made me a bit sad. How awesome would interactions between Jonas and McKay have been?!

*He wouldn't say no to a guest  spot on Sanctuary.

*"Which character on Stargate would you have liked to play, besides Jonas?" [immediate reply] "Teal'c! I'd be a skinny, white Teal'c."

*Corin likes to paint! I wanted to ask him if he'd ever had his paintings in an exhibition, or wanted to, but unfortunately I didn't get time.

Corin went for $316 - there was this fairly young teenage girl who kept increasing the bid by .50c increments once it passed $200, it was hilarious. Eventually the auctioneer and the other bidders just let her have him. It went for ages!

Chris Judge. Oh my. He is a dirty, dirty man! Fart jokes, penis references, joking about Bra'tac hooking up! I tweeted the most during his session, there were all these quotes and moments I wanted to capture.

*Chris actually changed his diet to be able to 'fart better'... and as such, one day of shooting they had to clear out the control room. For half an hour. The crew got in trouble from MGM because it delayed shooting!

*Chris re: his new show Rage of Angels, "I'm gonna be naked all the time!" [I do not know how accurate that link is, but if it is accurate, I am beyond excited because Michael, Jay and and Alexis are three of my favourite Stargate men. Ok, well, they're all my favourite, but this looks like such a cool concept!]

*Discussion on the evolution of Teal'c speaking voice.

*Imitation of Amanda Tapping. Hilarious. Example of how he would drag out two lines so he had more to do ("The birds..." "What birds?" "Exactly. There are no sounds whatsoever"). Witnessing the change back and forth from Teal'c to Chris Judge was absolutely amazing.

*Chris, um, likes codpieces. 'Nuff said!

*A fan asks a question from his brother. Chris sees that he has a page of questions with him. Chris brings the fan onstage and  starts to read out and answer the questions. Chris sees that the fan has been taking notes (presumably for his brother) and starts to read them out. Chris is laughing and compliments the boy on his note-taking, "You better be doing well in school!"

*Chris tells us a story about being surrounded by reporters, all asking him generic 'actor's questions', and then suddenly a female reporter asked him what the size of his... [audience erupts into laughter]. "Kids, my shoe size." Fan's note about this story? "Reporter asks him the size of his dot dot dot!"

*The Jaffa armour could only be washed once a year. EWWW!

*Someone's phone rang. Chris answered it and wished the guy on the other end good luck on his test!

*On voice-acting: "It's great because you don't have to shower, or shave, and you can just be fat... and your voice still sounds exactly the same!"

Chris did talk for about five minutes about the utter lack of roles for black men in Hollywood, hence his reaction: "I decided to write my own", hence Rage of Angels [some much more accurate and recent info there]. Chris said that he was quite offended to hear that 2010 was apparently 'the most diverse' year for movies and TV pilots. Chris said out of 200 pilot episodes he'd read, only 4 had significant roles for black men. He said any scripts he sees have "already gone by Denzel, and Will, Samuel L. and Larry Fishburne, and have been scrapped but my agent thinks he should send me the script anyway!"

There was lots more, but you had to be there, and some of it was really quite dirty!

Chris Judge had apparently decided he was feeling left out and wanted to be auctioned off too. About $350 into the auction, he took his shirt off. He actually ran down our row and did a G-rated lapdance for the lady who had just bid - so I can tell you that not only was I about 5 metres from a shirtless Chris Judge, but he has a pierced navel! Chris went for $500. Lucky, lucky woman. My boyfriend had actually told me he was going to bid, but our collective limit was about $300 since he paid for tickets and I'd bought him a good-quality leather wallet (it was our four year anniversary on Wednesday). We were sad.

The merch auction was pretty fierce, with costume pieces, signed scripts and awesome signed photos. We didn't stay for the raffle as we hadn't bought a ticket and it was 5pm. 

Tl;dr

Chris and Corin totally made the con. Compared to Supanova... well, honestly I was a little bit disappointed with this con. At Supanova, you didn't have to pay loads to come away with a great experience. The Hub Productions chose a really bad location with negligible facilities (all we had for refreshments were two vending machines and a coffee van). I did pay the $40 for a photo with Chris. A signed photo with both actors would have cost me $160, and I wasn't really keen on paying that. Supanova was much, much better organised, had a way better location, and had much more to it. This con was more of an "I have lots of money to throw around" sort of thing, as I noted to my boyfriend in the car. 

I did have a good time at the con, but unless they get really great stars back (and I have a lot of time to save up for it), I'd rather wait for Supanova next year, and if there's a good line-up, (*coughFeliciaDaycough*) get VIP tickets, than attend another Hub Production event.

JulNoWriMo day 7 + LOTD + er, stuff

Write-in, day 7.

Location: Il Cibo, Fremantle

Il Cibo gets ****/***** as a write-in location. I would have given them a higher score if they'd had more power points! They had good music (if a little distracting to a few of our group members), great coffee, good food and really nice staff. I'd definitely go back for a non-write-in meeting.

Attendees: 5 (including me). Two of our proposed attendees didn't turn up.

Wordcount: 11,869 by the time I got home. Yay!

I had the most amazing day today, it was seriously incredible. It started out with me being really worried about how far behind I was on my word count - over 3,000 words. I wasn't sure what Il Cibo was going to be like, and I'd only heard from Elimy so I was rather afraid we'd have a small turnout. While we only had one more person than last week, it was a really good session. I worked through my first block! Yay! I'm both exhilarated and exhausted, so I'm going to sum up the day with pictures and short sentances.

My superboots are getting a lot of wear! They're really comfortable and I just love them.

 

The coffee I had was amazing. Seriously, I would go back to that cafe for another one of those soy mochas, and that's saying a lot since it took me a full hour of train time to get there!

Word-count explosion!

G bought me a smiley-face cookie.

Compliments on the train about my beret, which I got from Lillian's blog sale a while ago.

Wore AL Rocks! jigsaw feeling for the first time in a while. One of my favourite greens.

I stayed behind at the cafe for a bit to charge my laptop. The waiter who'd been serving us came over and asked what we'd been doing. I told him a bit about JulNo and he seemed pretty interested. He came back to the table with a copy of Dot Dot Dash and lent it to me. It's an independant publication based out of Curtin Uni. It looked gorgeous, and Elimy had just been talking to me about it! She showed me her copy of the latest Kill Your Darlings today, too. I hope to have at least submitted, if not been published in one of those two magazines by the end of the year. They're both amazing and I can see I'll be spending a lot of money collecting back issues.

This could well be the plait/ear/neck of a future PUBLISHED writer!

So stoked I'm finally caught up with my word count. I hope all you other JulNos are doing well, and that the rest of you non-crazy people are having an enjoyable July. There is a book review scheduled to post tomorrow morning, and I got a tube of ELF's mineral eye primer in the mail today, so expect a review of that (hopefully) before the end of the month. 

Before I forget, I've started reading a new webcomic, Johnny Wander. It's completely autobiographical, and has little slice-of-life snippets, but I'm finding it really cute and sweet. Something nice to distract me for a bit when I'm all JulNo'd out for the day. This is my favourite one so far, but it was a close call. Many moments of "oh wow, I wish I'd been there" or "I could see some of my friends/family doing that". (Oh ok, this is my other favourite one. Of right now. I'm still reading. Don't pressure me!)

-Jade

Supanova, day 1

Um, wow.

I had been tossing up whether or not to post anything about my Supanova experience, but I have had the BEST day today. Firstly, I got books signed by Marianne de Pierres (who recognised me from Supanova '08!), Christian Tamblyn, and Rob Kaay (who gave me a free poster). This was my goal for Supanova, really. Forget the big TV stars, writing is my passion, and these three are Australians who have been published, who are inspiring, and who are good at what they do! Marianne went to a university not far from me, a fact I cling to when I hear snide remarks about my arts degree. Christian and Rob both released their books only recently. I will be posting reviews of Rob and Chris' books when I get a chance to enjoy them properly. I grabbed them just in time to read all of Rob'sand most of Christian's, before I got them signed.

I stopped by the Borders booth to 'get my sign on', and I was absolutely privelaged to have a chat with each of my Aussie wricons. Marianne and I talked about the importance of writing regularly, the insanity of Karen Mill's writing pace, Kylie Chan's in-depth knowledge of Japanese mythology, and her awesome new hair. She is such a lovely lady and a regular con-goer. She said I must ask lots of questions in her panel tomorrow :)

Christian, oh wow! I told him I was a bit bummed I hadn't been able to finish his book yet, as I wanted to discuss the whole thing with him. He told me to drop him an email when I finished it, and let him know what I thought! I was stunned! He is currently working on a sequel to Dragon of the Second Moon, which I was very glad to hear. As a very newly-published author, he still has a 'day job' (engineering planes!) so a few people asked him in the panel how he goes about balancing that. I was really happy to hear he liked the cover they'd put on DOTSM, as I have heard horror stories about covers (Jenny Fallon has some funny ones). He was really friendly and chatty, and I enjoyed talking to him.

Rob is... well, he's definitely embraced a trans-media perspective. His book is available as hardcover, paperback and PDF on his website. He is in the middle of releasing a podcast version of his book. He is doing it slowly, bit by bit, because he's taking almost an old-school radio approach to it. Firstly it's HIM reading, not a random actor, and because of his musical background Rob writes music and sound pieces which are underlaid with the book being spoken. The whole effect is really different and it took me a bit of time to get used to it, especially since the music was a bit too loud in the live reading. Rob and I had an awesome chat about what might happen in a sequel, whether or not the book would translate to a movie well (he is actually working on a screenplay version!) and I suggested he look into the idea of making a webseries version. He was really keen to know more, but obviously he was busy doing signings and stuff, so he gave me a poster and said, "I'm really interested, could you shoot me an email?" I friended him on Facebook and basically told him to look into A Very Potter Musical, The Guild and Dr. Horrible. Again, love how open these guys are to feedback, and general conversation from fans!

Being able to talk to these amazing, talented people, not only as people but as artists who are genuinely interested in your perspective on their work was an amazing experience. I came away from that booth in an absolute daze. As an Australian who has a passion for the entertainment industry, it's so comforting to know that national and international attitudes are changing, that I won't have to move away to the US to prosper creatively.

I stopped at a little both labelled "Gestalt Publishing" during one of our non-panel times, and caught the eye of one of the guys there. I said, "Ok, I'm seeing some great artwork here, but I know nothing!" so he told me about Gestalt and their product. Turns out, they're a Perth-based comics and graphic novel publishing company, which I was really excited to hear. They had work from their more prominent artists there, including an anthology showcase called Flinch, containing short comics by twenty different Gestalt artists. I grabbed that right away, and there was this gorgeous, eye-catching volume sitting on the table:

image taken from Gestalt's website.

My boyfriend saw me eyeing it off and before I knew it, he'd grabbed that AND Flinch out of my hands and bought them for me. I even scored the last signed copy of Changing Ways! Justin Randall wrote and drew this beautiful, creepy volume. He lectures at Curtin. I'm seeing a trend here (do I need to transfer?!). I will be reviewing this graphic novel once I can figure out how to describe it. I haven't finished it and already I want everyone I know to read it. It's simply stunning. There was another comic there called The Example which sounded really interesting. I may have to go back for it tomorrow (since I technically didn't spend any money today, haha) and so I can gush over Justin in person. If you think that cover is beautiful, you won't be disappointed by the art inside. The writing absolutely does it justice, too. If this guy isn't an international star in five years, I will be very surprised and disappointed. He's seriously THAT good. The story's like... ah, I'm too tired to describe it. It can wait for a proper review.

We managed to get some pretty impressive celebrity guests in this year, including Mark Lutz, Charisma Carpenter, Summer Glau, Eliza Dushku, and Dichen Lachman. A nice big Whedon-y string. Today was the first three names on my list, and it was pretty good. Mark's turnout was small, which was really sad because he was the most engaging of the lot! He is a very, very funny man! He talked about squirrels, women's deodorant and his love of April Fools. I will be paying for an autograph from him tomorrow, on my Lorne tribute comic. Someone asked him about Andy in the session. Someone who obviously hadn't done their homework, and put it the worst way possible, ugh. Mark retained his composure, very professionally, and continued to be funny after that but I was pretty annoyed on his behalf. Having someone ask you if you were 'close' to your best friend who died a year ago doesn't really make for a fun convention experience.

Summer Glau was so adorable. I think she was a bit overwhelmed at how many people we packed into the too-small panel area. Charisma had already mentioned being 'warned' about how small Perth is and not to 'expect too much'. It was great being able to see/hear the two beautiful "Joss girls" in person, but to be perfectly honest, I enoyed Mark's session more. Because it was a lot smaller I got to ask a few questions, and because I know about his background on and off Angel, at one point he asked me if I'd been talking to his mother! I had to laugh at that. It was mostly because I was asking about his movie Victor, which wasn't aired in Australian cinemas.


There was a lunar eclipse tonight, on top of all that awesomeness. I tried to get a photo but it's freezing outside, and my camera was not behaving. I didn't get any good photos of con stuff today either! Ah, well.

Here's to day 2!
Jade.