DC Comics Leaps Into STGCC 2011 With A Few Surprises!

The Red Dot Island may be small. And our conventions may be very much niche-based and less crazy than those held in the USA.

The locally-hosted conventions like ComiFest and Anime Festival Asia tend to serve the sizeable anime and manga crowd here and around the region instead of running a more generic pop-culture program.

Still, with a continued focus on a mix of East and West, Red Dot Diva thinks that the Singapore Toy, Games and Comic Convention (STGCC) 2011 has managed to get some pretty cool "Western-comics" guests this year.

Being so far-flung from most Westernized pop-culture hubs, she is always grateful when those who hail from USA, Canada or UK are willing to travel such long distances to our Red Dot Island, just to meet their Asian fans. That shows *a lot* of heart.

For one thing, it seems that DC Comics will be back at STGCC 2011 in a bigger way than before! DC has been a strong supporter of STGCC in the past years and last year, happy fans got to meet Gail Simone and Ivan Brandon.

Pic Credit: Paul Levitz

This year, the totally epic DC Comics-related announcement was for STGCC's latest Guest of Honour - the legendary Paul Levitz! Paul, who was President of DC Comics from 2002 - 2009, is best known for his work including Superman and "The Legion of Super-Heroes". He also wrote the "Justice Society" series in the late 1970's.

Pic Credit: Paul Levitz

Paul is now Contributing Editor at DC Comics, and one of his recent books, "75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking" was released in 2010. At the Eisner Awards held at San Diego Comic Con last night, "75 Years of DC Comics: The Art of Modern Mythmaking" was awarded Best Comics-Related Book! Congrats, Mr Levitz!

"It's been a lifetime pleasure to have fans across the world," said Mr Levitz. "And I'm excited to be travelling to the furthest comic convention I've ever gone to in order to meet some of them."

So don't miss the rare chance to meet Paul Levitz - a veteran creator in the world of comics with over 300 works in his name - at the Walk of Fame and DC's booth during STGCC 2011.

Talking about booths, DC Comics will also for the first time in Asia, set up a dedicated booth at STGCC! Red Dot Diva hasn't been given much details about the booth yet but the organizers have hinted of an exclusive comic, glimpses of upcoming DC toys, and "other surprises". Well, she is always ever-ready to be surprised!

As for Marvel, their list of STGCC guests has already been announced earlier on, but there are even more artists who will be coming for the convention!

Asian fan favourite and frequent Red Dot Island visitor, the chatty and friendly Marvel artist, Harvey Tolibao, will be back at STGCC. Red Dot Diva has reported earlier that Harvey drew the variant Merlion cover of "Captain America #1" by Ed Brubaker and Steve McNiven, but he is also doing something extra at the convention!

Harvey will launching his special edition of his first sketchbook entiteld “Viscocity”. The full-colour sketchbook has a 16.5 x 8.5 fivefold spread cover and will feature pages of the best and most popular comic book characters drawn by Harvey! Another collectors' item not to be missed.

Check out the "teaser trailer" for Harvey's sketchbook:


Fellow Filipino Marvel artists, Stephen Segovia and Carlo Pagulayan, will be accompanying Harvey as STGCC guests this year too. Stephen has worked with various publishers before including Top Cow's "Tokyo Knights" and Dynamite Entertainment's "Battlestar Galactica". Recently, Stephen worked on Marvel's "Ultimates vs Ultimates Avengers" with Leinil Yu.

Carlo has his works featured in Marvel's "X-men Unlimited" and "Planet Hulk". He is also getting his hands into sculpting and is working with Bowen Designs to release a Planet Hulk mini bust.

Another guest who will be making a first-time appearance at STGCC is toy designer and founder of Dead Zebra Inc, Andrew Bell. Andrew is the creator of many quirky designs like Google's official Android figurines and "The Creatures in my Head" collection of monsters. Red Dot Diva loves the weird and quirky, so she is definitely marking Andrew as someone she will be stalking at STGCC. (Ssshhh, do not tell him please!)

Then, on the more Asian side of things, there are many guests for the anime/ manga fans to squee over:

- Kishida Mel, illustrator for "Atelier" and character designer for the popular anime "Hanasaku Iroha"
- Itou Shizuka, voice actress, who has a slew of anime voicing works in her name
- Tadaaki Jacky Dosai - Chief Editor of Cosmode Magazine, Japan's top cosplay magazine, and a well-known name in the world of cosplay. Together with Kipi, Jacky will also be one of judges at the Cosplay@STGCC.
- ZANEEDS - 4-member crew who are known for their Vocaloid Songs and are regularly featured in anime/ video game music.

Now, do note that VIP Tickets have been SOLD OUT. But one can still buy the other tickets in a myriad of ways. Click STGCC's website for more info!

With just about a month to go, things seems to be gearing up in a typically Singaporeanly-rojak fashion. So much so that Red Dot Diva thinks STGCC 2011 (20-21 August) might turn out to be a cozy-fun, eclectic affair this year after all!

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Specially for those non-local folks:
Rojak - A salad like dish consisting of cucumbers, pineapples, beancurd, peanuts and sweet dark prawn paste. Also means being messy or jumbled up in an irregular fashion.