SpaceGypsies

I’ve never had a huge love of comics. I absolutely appreciate the artistry and talent behind them, but comic books and graphic novels rarely engage me like I wish they would.  That said, I *love* comic conventions. The costuming, the art show, the pure raw passion of so many of the attendees — it’s just wonderful! And what’s even better, is that next Friday at C2E2 in Chicago, I’ll have the opportunity to meet the artists of three of the only comics to truly excite me.

Back in 1998, when I was a little babygoth, a comic-loving coworker bought me a comic book. Today’s Tiarala would explain to the clueless Tiarala of Christmas Past that said coworker was flirting, but at the time I just saw it as a sweet little gift from a guy I thought was too cute to possibly like me. Anyway, the gift introduced me to Lenore, the Cute Little Dead Girl, and I was hooked instantly. The dark humor, the adorable drawings, rich with Burtonesque creepiness but with a style all their own… it all just made me so damn happy. Roman Dirge would go on to be one of the unwell brains behind the genius of Invader Zim, but he had me at Lenore and I became obsessed.

Like what you see? Dirge's illustrated short stories are high-larious too. The Cat with a Really Big Head, and One Other Story that Isn't as Good and Something at the Window is Scratching are freaking briliant.

Jhonen Vasquez's "I Feel Sick" and "Squee" round out the trifecta of my comic book loves.

My college animation projects were all based on clippings from my Lenore books. I made advertising for Lenore books, and even made up a cereal called Noogies & Buggies based on Lenore for a digital art class. (It had little skull-shaped cereal bits and eyeball marshmallows and I would so buy all of it!) I’d kill to be able to find these old pieces, lost forever on Zip disks that played the click of death before I thought to back them up. Also, I still want the Lenore tattoo I contemplated years ago. Maybe Roman would draw me one if I asked nicely. (Probably not, but **swooon*… ahem.)

So while the unwashed masses line up for Dirge and his friend and collaborator Jhonen Vasquez to sign their Invader Zim memorabilia, I’ll be in line with my first Lenore book, sadly wilted from an unfortunate cup-of-water vs. kitten incident, and my Spooky, the Thing What Squeaks toy from Vasquez’s “I Feel Sick” series, also circa late ’90s. Not because I’m cooler than you because I knew of them back then, but because I’m not a huge Zim fan, and when I think of comics, I think of  dark purple nail polish and lipstick (never, never black), clove cigarettes, a boy who liked me and I didn’t know it, and Slave Labor Graphics.

Follow Roman Dirge on Twitter because he’s cooler than you @Taxidermied  

A small fraction of my favorite dice. You can never have too many dice.

I don’t have the long history of being a gamer geek that many with my favorite hobby seem to share. The overlap with the goth scene and gaming introduced me to the idea of it, but it was meeting my husband that sealed the deal.

Since I was a little girl I have loved storytelling, and back in 1993–1994 I played a written role-playing game over Prodigy, back when the way to get unlimited email was by signing up for free trials everywhere and sending emails that got returned to sender. (Totally hardcore)  The seeds had already been planted for when my future husband would introduce me to RPGs.

I remember the day of my first game so vividly. It was a one-shot Cthulhu game, and I played a young firestarter, a 14-year-old girl who somehow ended up the only one in the bunch who didn’t go completely insane. It was an amazing experience. That led to the first of many campaigns, and I was hooked.

My Rogue is just about to land the killing blow on the massive dragon that would end our Savage Worlds campaign.

People love gaming for different reasons, but as a creative I live for the stories. Nothing satisfies me quite as much as developing a rich backstory for a character I get to bring to life every week. I experience that character so completely. I’ve cried at the gaming table or over a written story. I’ve become so immersed in a story I lose track of the time and setting completely. My heart races during dramatic moments — like when my character leaps onto the dragon in an attempt to take him down and save the world from certain destruction, for example.

There’s no experience like it. I’ve been blessed to have had game masters who are brilliant storytellers who weave an immersive tale and can describe a setting that’s so real I feel cold when it snows, or hot when our characters are wandering through a desert. It’s like the best book you’ve ever read, coming to life before your eyes and changing constantly like a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.

And gaming conventions, like GenCon and NeonCon, well, those are a breed all their own. As with sci-fi conventions, we’re all the weird one in the office who no one really understands.

Our cat, Pippin, gets in on the gaming action.

We all explain our favorite hobby to people who smile awkwardly or make condescending comments about the nerds they knew in high school. At the gaming conventions we’re surrounded by people who understand, and who think “cool” means the same thing we do. We whip out games at a restaurant or at the bar without a thought and if people are staring, it’s because they want to know what we’re playing!

In the past few years I’ve been able to take my passion to the next level. I’m a graphic designer and art director for print and electronic RPGs, and I’m now fortunate to call some of the best writers, developers and editors in the industry my friends. The more I learn. the more people I meet, the more games I play, the more I love this hobby so completely. I’ve never met a group of people quite as creative as the gaming community — gamers and designers alike — and I know my life is richer for it.

It’s why I continue to announce proudly at work when I’m going to a convention, even though it inevitably elicits a weird look. But that’s okay. I do the same when they start obsessing over the Bears’ loss and how that affects their fantasy football stats.

Yoinked from Lazorman8 on Deviantart

In general, sci-fi fangirls (and fanboys) get a bad rap. Stereotypes exist for a reason, and the obsessive, creeped out superfan is a big problem. It’s a problem for perfectly sane fans who respect the celebrities who entertain us and absolutely for the celebrities themselves. As fans we’re tired of hearing questions about whether Joss is bringing back Firefly, or whether John Barrowman and his husband got the lucky rabbits’ feet from your very own bunny that you mailed to their home address last Christmas. We cringe when they ask celebrities for a kiss, or to sign inappropriate body parts (seriously, is any body part really appropriate?), and when they don’t follow panel rules and beg to hand Felicia Day the Penny/Bad Horse fanfic that they wrote. (Complete with illustrations. That one happened). We look at these people and think My god, I really hope they don’t think I’m like that.

Several weeks ago the SpaceGypsies decided we needed to reinforce our beliefs in our image and changed our tagline to REDEFINING THE FANGIRL. We did this for a number of reasons, many of which were highlighted in Wil Wheaton’s post-ComicCon horror story. When I saw his post I realized we should really talk about what that means to us.

But first, I’m going to commandeer my trusty soapbox and tell you a little story.

FANGIRL CRUSH ALERT: Seriously, is Ianto ever hotter than when kissing Captain Jack?

A couple years ago, I met the lovely Gareth David-Lloyd at Dragon*Con. Gareth was clearly having a rough afternoon. He seemed exhausted, tired and uninterested when I went to his table and while I didn’t let on to him, I felt really let down by the experience. It just seemed so anticlimactic, especially compared to the energetic encounters I’d had with other celebs throughout the day. I didn’t call him a dick, I didn’t try to make him feel bad for failing to entertain me, but I was bummed… until my fellow SpaceGypsies brought me back to reality.  They reminded me that he’d spent all afternoon  seated beside the squealing masses that descended upon James Marsters at the next table. ALL DAY LONG. No wonder he seemed tired, and besides, everyone’s allowed a crap mood now and again, right?

Here’s the thing, that the very smart Mr. Wheaton touched upon in his rant. Our favorite celebrities don’t owe us anything. They don’t even owe us a good mood or a warm smile that touches their eyes so we can tell they mean it. Sure it feels awesome when we get that, but sometimes it’s the end of the day and the celebrity next door on the walk of fame was just delivered an honest-to-god stormtrooper outfit by a gaggle of screaming girls who lingered for half an hour. I’d want to shoot myself after that. Seriously. No disrespect to Mr. Marsters, but dude’s got some fans… And so, Gareth, my dear, we’re cool.

We sometimes forget this in our world of the archetypal sci-fi creeper: This phenomenon of entitlement is not exclusive to geek culture. Before I wrote about fandom I wrote about music. I went to a lot of concerts, I met a lot of bands, and I got to see the desperation on so many of the fans who wanted to get close to their favorite stars. There were the women who wanted their breasts signed, and who were sure a flash of their thong and the promise of an unseemly act would get them the sexual validation they craved. There were the guys who sent in their demo who actually expected not only to be remembered by the star but to receive a critique then and there or had their hearts broken because no one remembered the CD he gave them the last time they were in town. And, always, there were the people who waited around for hours and hours for the privilege of being breathed on by their favorite star only to call him an ass because he didn’t have time to chat or *gasp* he liked another girl more. Seriously, be wary of writing this off as “a geek thing.” Under no circumstances is this sort of behavior okay.

Being the sane face of the fangirl is part of the image I’ve been proud to portray with SpaceGypsies. We all have our obsessions, our quirks, but we pride ourselves on a respect for the celebrities, their agents, and our fellow fans.

Celebrities are people. No, they didn’t ask to be hounded and stalked and creeped on just because they managed to get onto a popular show so don’t play that game. Some came to the convention to enjoy the energy of the fans, others came because gas and food are expensive and their kid needs to go to college. But they came, and that’s pretty special, and they don’t even owe us that much. Additionally, every fan is not a creeper — far from it. That said, read Wil’s post, and if you think he’s the one in the wrong, you’re part of the problem.

I’m breaking the SpaceGypsies Fangirl Rules out into another post, but really it comes down to one simple thing:

Don’t be a dick.

Nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd, and it’s actually friends who attend Capricon like a religion that convinced me to attend the little sci-fi convention that takes place in Wheeling, IL, right outside Chicago.

In addition to the promise of after-hours parties (Hello BarCon!), there were a couple additional things that drew Mythandros and I too the Con, not the least of which is a live production of Dr. Horrible’s Sing-a-Long Blog on Saturday night! A multitude of gaming events and a handful of panels (including some by special guest John Scalzi, whose credits include consulting on Stargate: Universe) have us entirely intrigued.

We haven’t been to a smallish convention like this, but with so many friends who make Capricon a must-see every year we’ve decided it’s time to finally check it out!

And in the unlikely event that it’s boring and lame, there’s always booze in the hotel bar after hours.

CAPRICON XXX1
February 10-13
Westin Chicago North Shore, Wheeling, IL

“Why don’t you sparkle?”
“Because we’re in the real world where vampires burn in the sun.”

When I saw the posters for the CW’s The Vampire Diaries, I was entirely convinced it would be a complete Twilight knockoff. Or worse: Twilight meets  True Blood: The High School Years. Even in the posters the big-haired lead looked like Not-Edward-Cullen… it seemed bad. Really bad. But thanks to Netflix, I decided to give the pilot a go. What’s an hour of my time, right?

The show follows the Salvatore brothers, Stefan and Damon, who have just returned, for very different reasons, to their birthplace of Mystic Falls. Stefan becomes smitten with a tragic high school girl named Elena (sounding familiar… give it a second) who, while she has good reason to be tragic, is actually astoundingly strong as we find out as the series develops. And that’s the thing — this show develops. As it should be on a serial drama, every episode asks more questions than it answers, but it answers a lot. I don’t want to give anything away because the reveals are SO satisfying. Seriously.

What makes this show so good? A couple of things that the aforementioned major vampire franchises are missing:

• Outstanding writing. Okay, True Blood’s got this as well, but the writing on The Vampire Diaries is simply phenomenal. The relationships make sense. The explanations and the folklore are convincing and not at all cheesy. The pacing is intense, and, *gasp* they’re not afraid to let sympathetic characters die in this dangerous world. It’s amazing.
• Chemistry. The major irony of True Blood is that I don’t feel there’s any real chemistry between Sookie and Bill, played by the real-life husband and wife duo Anna Paquin and Stephen Moyer. And while I do think the Twilight saga kind of gets the chemistry between Bella and Edward right, they’re just such unsympathetic characters (and I’m speaking as someone who actually really loves the Twilight saga films) that it just doesn’t work, again because the acting and writing is SO bad.
• Lead characters who are more interesting than the supporting cast. In both True Blood and the Twilight saga, I couldn’t care less about the lead couple. I want to know more about everyone along the sidelines. (Team Jacob!) But here, the supporting cast are truly supporting. There are some who are lovable, some who are simply despicable, and that’s how it should be. The focus remains on the leads and because the characters are so three-dimensional it’s easy to love them. You get the feeling that even with her deep feelings, Elena would get along just fine without Stefan, and that’s something pretty freaking fantastic for this genre.
• Acting. The acting on the Twilight series is terrible. And while True Blood has some major talent, the acting on the Vampire Diaries. The performances are to be admired and they’ll never get the credit they deserve because they’re on a show about vampires. That’s just sad.
• Damon. The “evil?” brother… yeah. I kind of want to eat his face. YUM.

The Vampire Diaries has far exceeded my expectations for a series, and while I’m only a few episodes in to the first season, it’s satisfying my True Blood withdrawal like I didn’t think anything could. It’s possible *gasp* that I’m actually enjoying it more…