Red Dot Diva Announces Local Writer Wayne Rée as Guest for Second Facebook Livestream

Last month, in an era where most people are staying at home because of the COVID-19 pandemic, Red Dot Diva decided to launch a Facebook livestream, hosting a zine launch party with local writer Joelyn Alexandra.

The live event turned out to be more fun and interactive than expected, as their friends joined the two online discussing about Joelyn's new “UNSTABLE UNIVERSE”, a fictional world that is set to expand from the graphic novel UNSTABLE FOUNDATIONS, published by COSH Studios in 2019. There were hiccups like awkward sound echos, and ‘uh-oh where did Joelyn disappear to’ moments, but the live session felt casual and cosy, as if a bunch of friends dropped by to yak about geeky stuff.

For the second installment of Live with Red Dot Diva, she has roped in fictional writer Wayne Rée, to talk about “HORRORS, REAL AND OTHERWISE”.

Red Dot Diva Kicks Off Facebook Livestream - Launch Party of Unstable Directions with Joelyn Alexandra!

Red Dot Diva is excited to kick off her first livestream, which will be hosted on her Facebook page on 27 June, at 1 PM Singapore time.

The “Uncovering Unstable Universes” livestream event is a launch party for a new zine called UNSTABLE DIRECTIONS by local writer Joelyn Alexandra.

Joelyn writes mainly urban fiction, and her stories have been published by Two Trees, Math Paper Press, Ethos Books, and Buku Fixi. She also managed her own self-published indie zine, Pulp Toast, with saw a run of 4 issues that contained "snackable stories" about gaming, non-heroes, and the human condition. She has also participated in talks and writing workshops at various events, including Singapore Writers Festival, Read! Fest 2018, All In! Young Writers Festival, and Singapore Comic Con.

STGCC 2016: Booth Highlight - Diva Speaks to Indian Artist Vivek Goel, Founder of Holy Cow Entertainment

Red Dot Diva finds it exciting when foreign comic book publishers decide to exhibit their wares in Red Dot Island. When she found out that Vivek Goel , one of the first time exhibitors at STGCC 2016, was linked to an Indian publishing company called Holy Cow Entertainment, and she began look up for their books on the Internet.

Oh, and what a treasure trove that was!!

Most of the residents of Red Dot Island are not totally unfamiliar with the vivid colour, smells and stories of the Indian people, as they have been part of our history and racial landscape for centuries. However, what the locals see or hear relating to the Indian culture is only the tip of the iceberg.

So, to see how Vivek Goel, the founder of Holy Cow Entertainment, take core Indian-centric tales and reach out to modern readers in this digital age, is a wondrous and beautiful to behold. The sample pages of their books on the publishing house's social media are filled with dynamic story panels and staggeringly beautiful art, not unlike those who might see on the structures of the Hindu temples dotting Red Dot Island.

Red Dot Diva had a highly enlightening interview with Vivek Goel, to find out more about his journey in the comic books medium, his company and their publications.

At Kinokuniya: Local Writer Wayne Rée's Not So Tiny Q&A Panel

2014 has been a wonderful year for Red Dot Diva because she got to know a few more interesting humans of the geek tribe. And with a chosen particular few, she got to interact with them even more, making her life a very interesting ride outside the humdrum of a cubicle-based day job.

One of these geeky souls is Wayne Rée.Yes, the exuberant one with the rocker-like tattooed biceps, silver-tinged hair and sexy beard. For visual reference, Red Dot Diva is helpfully providing a pic taken during STGCC 2014. That's Wayne, on the left, happily flexing his biceps. Heh heh.

Together with fellow-writer/artist-in-crime Gene Whitlock (the even crazier one on the right), they have each released their first books with small publisher Math Paper Press (an imprint of Books Actually) at STGCC. For Gene Whitlock, it was a madhouse anthropomorphic caper called "The Unsavoury Alphabet". As for Wayne, his creative output was a quieter and very insightful book consisting of a collection of 11 short proses entitled "Tales From A Tiny Room".

At Kinokuniya's relocated main store two months ago, Wayne held a not-so-tiny Q&A session that was ably moderated by 1/3 Here Be Geeks, Peter Lin. The main topic of discussion was how Wayne got his first book "From Concept to Print".

A.J. Low - the Writers of "Sherlock Sam" - on Food, Books and Mysteries

A locally published children's illustrated detective fiction book series has captured the hearts and imagination of many young readers recently.

The adventures of precocious 10-year-old "Sherlock Sam" and his trusty sidekick robot, Watson, were penned by "A.J. Low". 

Instead of just one person, the moniker "A.J. Low" belongs to two personalities - an adorable husband and wife team whose real names are Adan Jimenez and Felicia Low. Both USA-born Adan and homegirl Felicia have quite a few years of experience working in bookstores, and "Sherlock Sam" is one of the creative results of their shared love for books and geek-pop-culture. 

Together with illustrator drewscape and homegrown publisher Epigram Books, the team has made "Sherlock Sam" a jaunty, often tongue-in-cheek tale of mystery-solving - Singapore-style.

Q&A With David Abramowitz - Screenwriter of "War of the Worlds: Goliath"

From ancient immortals to aliens and detectives, David Abramowitz has been writing for various projects in the competitive Hollywood industry for over 30 years. This includes an internationally much-loved fantasy TV series called “Highlander”.

The veteran screenwriter, who has a deep interest in Norse mythology and war stories, recently went steampunk-alien-invasion with a new 3D animation movie called “War of the Worlds: Goliath” (WoTW:Goliath). 

“WoTW:Goliath” is a creative collaboration between Malaysian-based media company Tripod Entertainment and various American creators like director Joe Pearson, a veteran of animation, co-founder of Tripod and owner/ president of Epoch Ink Animation and Executive Producer Kevin Eastman (CEO, Heavy Metal). Plus a list of well-known genre voice actors - Peter Wingfield (Highlander/ Caprica/ Sanctuary), Adrian Paul (Highlander), Adam Baldwin (Chuck/ Firefly), Mark Sheppard (Supernatural/ Leverage/ BSG), Elizabeth Gracen (Highlander) amongst many others.

This animation film is an epic about the fight by a group of multinational soldiers from war machine Tripod Goliath, in their fearless attempt to ward off the relentless Martians returning for a second round of invasion.

And all the characters in “WoTW:Goliath” would not have voices if there wasn't an interesting story to tell.

Red Dot Diva - who loves things cerebral - had to find out what made an experienced writer like David tick:

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.

"Space, MN" Gets Freaky And Ready

Lovers of non-superheroes tales and conspiracy theories, or simply creepy things, would enjoy an upcoming graphic novel called "Space, MN".

There is something very weird going on in Space lately. And its small town cops are trying their best to figure out what is the cause of all these. As expected, there are nosy journalists and wily politicians involved in the fray. And as the story progresses, it all begins to reek of something ominous and things get as mysterious as the Cheshire Cat.

Speaking about cats... Red Dot Diva thinks she has probably come across one of the creepiest in "Space, MN". *shudder*

If one could recall, Red Dot Diva had an interview with one of the creators Shawn DePasquale, in April earlier this year. At that time, the novel was in the process of being coloured. (Read the previous interview and some preview pages here.)

These Are Asian Werewolves, Lah!

Last Thursday night, a small cozy bunch of readers gathered at an East-side neighbourhood restaurant called The Garden Slug to give support to local writer J Damask's (@jolantru) digital book launch. The urban fantasy book is titled "Wolf At The Door" and published by Lyrical Press.

The Garden Slug was a snug little restaurant in a rather secluded location, so Red Dot Diva was quite surprised to see that there was already a rather busy group of diners on a mid-week.

It was definitely very nice to meet J Damask for the first time that night. Damask was really excited about the book's launch and admitted that she was nervous and happy at the same time.