STGCC 2015: Creative Strokes From Global Beards (Gene Whitlock/ Wayne Rée) at Artist Alley

Beards have made a come back. They are getting a lot more attention lately. They even get themselves into all kinds of hairy situations - like travelling around the world, fostering international geek-lationships and even publishing books!

Two sets of Red Dot Island-based beards will be making a combined appearance at the coming STGCC 2015 at Marina Bay Sands next month. Under the banner of GLOBAL BEARDS, they are very eager to show off their dark and handsome hirsuteness by peddling their books, artwork.. and other stuff at Artist Alley Booth AA98.

Showing great restraint from stroking these hardworking beards, Red Dot Diva spoke to the two dudes - Gene Whitlock and Wayne Rée - whose faces the beards call home for several years.

Last year, the beards of both Gene Whitlock and Wayne Rée were part of a cohort of writers based at Book Actually's The Comic Strip. Gene-beard had produced a mischievous noir-style detective story called "The Unsavoury Alphabet", and Wayne-beard had written "Tales From A Tiny Room", an absorbing anthology of unique stories.

It will be most interesting to see what kind of the crazy creative synergy the pair will come up with in this year's STGCC!

Want to find out what's in store at GLOBAL BEARDS? Here are some details to tickle your curiousity!

FCBD 2015 - Two Local Shops; So Much Swag!

FCBD (Free Comic Book Day) is the kind of special Saturday where all the geeks are out in full force, visiting their favourite stores and hunting down free comics.

This year, Red Dot Diva and her friends went to two places - the Kinokuniya main store and local favourite, GnB Comics.

Kinokuniya opens at 10 AM, but the FCBD waiting line started more than 2 hours earlier! Out from the geek gang, Sarahcoldheart and Maxsterism were the earliest, with Jas joining them about half an hour later.

Red Dot Diva missed her bus and was nearly caught in a heavy downpour, and arrived at the store at about 8:40 AM. By then, there were already about 25-30 people in line.

Countdown to BooksActually's Comic Week, FCBD and STGCC 2015!

Craving for more geeky bonding time with local creators and comic book readers?
Or are you just waiting for another excuse to amass more books for your growing graphic novel collection?

Red Dot Diva recommends that you mark your calendars for these three upcoming events this year!

1. Comic Week at BooksActually - April 10th

Local independent book store BooksActually will be holding Comic Week next Friday, April 10th, 7 PM at their 9 Yong Siak Street premises.

Starz' "Black Sails" - It Just Keeps Getting Better (and How to Get your Piratesexual Game On)

So you love pirate stories? However, if you are the not watching "Black Sails", you're missing out something entertaining on your TV screen. Especially so, if one is tired of cartoonish over-the-top characters and more of "the-same-the-same" from the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise.

Cable network Starz' "Black Sails" provides the viewer with smarter mindmaps of each pirate's motivations. The series, created by Jonathan E. Steinberg and Robert Levine, is mostly about Captain Flint's past, before his famous adventures and the gold he found was regaled in Robert Louise Stevenson's book "Treasure Island". Together with other famous badasses of the sea, like Charles Vane, Calico Jack, Benjamin Hornigold and Anne Bonny, most of the series unravels in the island hangout of Nassau.

Red Dot Diva was invited for the series premiere at SDCC two years back, where before it was screened, musician Bear McCreary performed the rousing "Black Sails" theme song with his band. It was awesome. McCreary's theme song as well as the accompanying gorgeously artistic title credits is something to behold on their own.

Despite the series being hailed as Michael Bay's high-budget pirate show, Season 1 of "Black Sails" started out slow, like the lull of a low tide, where creatures started to emerge from their little hidey holes to show their true colours. A lot of time was spent on character building but Red Dot Diva assures that it's all worth it, when the series shows that it was not afraid to have one or two of your favourite characters killed off ala GRRM, the action also kicks up several notches toward the end when Flint makes a valiant bid for the Spanish gold.

STGCC 2014: Spotlight on Gene Whitlock - Diva Uncovers the Shady Background About "The Unsavoury Alphabet"

Aussie illustrator Gene Whitlock aka Danger Gene is a very well-known acquaintance of Red Dot Diva. For one thing, they keep bumping into each other in the same geek circles and locations. Not literally, of course. Gene's wondrous beard and hair (*flick*) does not allow that to happen.

What does happen though, is that their encounters are always fun and full of laughter. So it is with much immorally ambiguous pleasure to throw the Red Dot Diva pre-STGCC spotlight on Gene, who will be launching his book "The Unsavoury Alphabet" at BookActually's booth called "The Comic Strip".

(For more details on BookActually's first foray in STGCC, do read this previous article!)

Here's the (VERY) lowdown from Gene Whitlock about "The Unsavoury Alphabet":

STGCC 2014: Bicepstuous Booths #1 - BooksActually Exhibits for the First Time and will Feature a Bunch of Local Creators

STGCC is less than a month away (eeks!) and Red Dot Diva is super-anxious to meet the new and returning biceps who will be in town for the island's #1 pop-culture event.

This week, she will be starting a blog series called "STGCC's Bicepstuous Booths" which will highlight some of the artistic arms and creative minds who will be making their appearance at the convention. So that it will be easier, especially for newbies or those who will be attending the convention for only 1 day, to hone in straight to the sexy. Diva so nice, right?

By the way, Red Dot Diva is also proud to announce that the Glam Bloggers' Alliance from last year - Andre Chee (aka Red Dot Dude), Agent W and Edward from Toysetc - will be back in full force to create more snarky havoc than before. Do say hi to any of them if one spots them perv-ily-tweeting online or sneaking around on the convention floor!

Red Dot Diva's STGCC Bicepstuous Booths blog series kicks off with well-loved local indie book store BooksActually.

The book store is popping its local pop-culture convention cherry by setting up a sizeable booth called "The Comic Strip" at #H21. The booth will feature local creators with comics and genre-related works released by BooksActually's publishing arm, Math Paper Press.