STGCC 2012: Andy Diggle On Writing Tips, The Losers, Dr Who and CW's "Arrow"

Thanks to STGCC, local fans have been lucky to meet their share of British comics guests for the last three years.

In 2010, veteran artist of "V for Vendetta" fame David Lloyd was invited as a special guest. The following year, games/ music journalist turned comic book writer Kieron Gillen flew into Red Dot Island and showed us how to rock the convention in a nifty white suit.

This year, Red Dot Diva was glad that STGCC kept up with the Union Jack trend by having writer and former 2000 AD editor, Andy Diggle as a guest. Besides his creative talents in works like "The Losers" (Vertigo), "Green Arrow: Year One" (DC), "Shadowland" (Marvel), "Silent Dragon" with Leinil Yu and Gerry Alanguilan and the latest "Dr Who" (IDW), he also sports a sexy goatee. And Goddess be known that Red Dot Diva sure loves a sexy goatee.

Red Dot Diva got to meet Andy Diggle (and his goatee) up close at the STGCC Media Preview, together with a few other invited journalists and bloggers. In the short span of 20 minutes, he happily and very eloquently fielded several questions about the comics industry, about writing, his various  works, and his thoughts on "The Losers" movie.

Here are some of the extracts from the interview:

A First Foray To A Comic Con - in Phoenix!

There is always a first time for everything!

One of Red Dot Diva's twitter friends Lindsay, decided to dip her toes into her first comic con recently. She attended the Phoenix ComiCon on the USA Memorial Day Weekend of May 26-29, 2011.

There was a really good list of guests for the convention including Aaron Douglas (best known for his role in the "Battlestar Galactica" reboot), Kristin Bauer ("True Blood"), Nicholas Brendon ("Buffy"/ "Criminal Minds") and Star Trek luminaries like George Takei, Leonard Nimoy and fan favourite Wil Wheaton. Plus many comic-related guests like David Petersen (creator of the Mouse Guard series), Michael Golden, Eisner award-winning artist Rob Guillory and yes, even Mr. Stan Lee!

And with that fantastic guest list was the record-breaking turnout of about 25,000 attendees for this year's Phoenix Comicon.

A definitely appropriate weekend for Lindsay to pop her comic con cherry.

Here's what she recounts from that weekend:

A Chance To Get SDCC Tickets!

(24 Jun - Post amended to incorporate new link for online resale of tickets)

Desperately needing a SDCC 2011 ticket?

There is a chance one might be able to snag it off from SDCC's website when the organizers put up 1,500 refunded 4-day tickets for sale.

For one thing, Red Dot Diva wonders about the myriad of reasons which led to such a large number of refunded tickets. In any case, she is sure the hoard of Twilight-crazed fans will be all poised to snap them up from the break of dawn.

So, if one wants to grab a ticket before the sparkly vamp-lovers chew 'em all up, do follow SDCC's twitter closely. Like a hawk.

There's only an hour's prior notice given before the tickets go up on sale!

The link for getting the tickets is RIGHT HERE.

Red Dot Diva cautions that one should read the instructions carefully too!

Good luck!

Meeting Michael McMillian at Planet Comicon

Michael McMillian, pic by Sheree Miller

So...  there was this cozy comic con called Planet Comicon held at the Overland Park International Trade Center, Kansas last weekend, where a bunch of celebs and comic creators were there to meet their KS fans.

Some of the guests included Star Wars folks like Daniel Logan, Ray Park, Tom Kane, comic writer fan-fave Gail Simone, the "Bionic Woman" Lindsay Wagner.

By listing some of these guests on this blog post, Red Dot Diva knows that she's making her Twitter friend @JWalkIV consider some more regretful self-flagellation. He has been living in KS and didn't know about last weekend's convention!!

Guess @JWalkIV might have to work harder at next year's Planet Comicon so that he can bring in the convention news "live" from Kansas!

One other well-known guest who attended Planet Comicon is KS homeboy, Michael McMillian - actor from the wildly popular HBO TV show "True Blood" , and now, a comic book writer for "Lucid" and the latest "True Blood" graphic novel series.

Speedy Encounters at Austin CC

It was late last Sunday that Red Dot Diva saw a tweet from my Texan SDCC-roomie @RealFastTlkr. She had suddenly decided to head to the Austin Comic Convention the next day! And she said she was going to try to catch one of Red Dot Diva's favourite stunt guys (and ex-"Heroes" Season 4 actors) - Ray Park.

For those who are more familiar with Ray Park when he's not without make up, he's the person behind "Star Wars"' facially-tattooed villain, Darth Maul and "X-Men's" Toad, amongst many other movie characters (usually nasty, bad guys).

Red Dot Diva's other good friend @eserei27 had met Ray before at an Ohio convention and she mentioned that he was very personable and friendly to his fans. She got Red Dot Diva a Ray-autograph pic during that convention - on which, he had written her a very sweet personalized message. So Red Dot Diva heart-hearts Ray Park. ;)

Here is @RealFastTlkr's account of her Ray Park meet-up at the Austin CC!