Diva's 2012 New TV Series Recap Part 2 - Still Trying to Fall In Love With "Arrow"

The CW is well known for shows that target the younger audiences, with many of them focusing primarily on adolescence and young adulthood - like "The Vampire Diaries", "Gossip Girl", "Veronica Mars", "One Tree Hill", "Smallville", "Supernatural" and more.

Some of these shows get cancelled after a number of episodes, several of them continue on for multiple seasons, and a few become cult hits.

Naturally, with the kind of target audience that the CW is able to capture, the network seems best-suited for comic-based stories. "Smallville" lingered for a good 10 seasons and with that gone, the CW and comic fans were twitching for something new to fill that space.

In comes "Arrow", with the promise to please those who were looking forward to a series based on the DC Comics vigilante superhero, Green Arrow aka playboy millionaire by day, Oliver Queen. 

Diva's 2012 New TV Series Recap Part 1 - "Revolution" and "Elementary"

This fall's TV season yielded a slew of new shows that were seemed to be mostly modernized reboots and weak, rather uncreative remakes.

Red Dot Diva was fortunate to be at SDCC Preview Night to catch early screenings of five new shows. They included CW's much-hyped "Arrow" based on the DC superhero Green Arrow, NBC's post-apocalyptic tale "Revolution" and ABC's supernatural drama "666 Park Avenue". And as reported earlier in a blog article, she was not impressed with all three of them.

During then and now, other TV new series have premiered - like "Elementary" - the very Americanized version of Sherlock Holmes, and a shiny reboot of the 1980's cult classic of the same name "Beauty and the Beast". There are more shows of course - "Vegas", "Last Resort", "Hunter", "Nashville" - just to name a few. But Red Dot Diva, with her busy schedule, was only able to carve out niches of time to catch some of them.

Here is her first review recap of the new 2012 Fall series -- four months later.

Singapore Zombie Walk: When Zombies Stumble About at Clarke Quay

Clarke Quay. The favourite drinking hole of many and a crowded weekend nightspot.

And just a few hours ago, it was infested by close to 130 undead beings participating for the first Singapore Zombie Walk.

When the horde of zombies began making their shuffle across Reed Bridge and around the many clubs there, most of the living seemed repulsed yet excited about being this close to the undead. Others simply looked utterly confused at their sudden appearance at the glitzy tourist trap.

Along the way, the number of cameras wielded by passersby and active Zombie Empathizers like Red Dot Diva was countless. One amused tourist sitting at a restaurant was overheard saying to his partner, "Look at all the people with cameras. They are part of the zombie procession too!"

NYCC: Diva Shares Her Convention Tips (Part 2)

Just less than a week, and the second largest comic convention Stateside will be happening!

NYCC 2012 kicks off at Jacob K. Javits Convention Center next Thursday on 11 October, with tons of cool comic, anime and pop-culture guests. This year's event is a sold-out show with expected attendance of over 100,000, so do be safe and get prepared for a human crush.

And if you are new to New York City or any comic convention, Red Dot Diva hopes some of these tips might prove to be useful.

(For Red Dot Islanders heading to NYCC, she hopes you have checked out her pre-convention, travel planning tips in this blog article!)

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:

Singapore Zombie Walk: The Zombie Apocalypse Is Coming!

You've seen it happening at other places.

Broken store windows. Empty towns; strings of cars left abandoned on a highway. A bloody trail.

Is that a ...... .... O_O

Then... the low moans. And the sounds of shuffling feet coming closer.... closer....

It is drawing near, people. The Zombie Apocalypse will hit the shores of Red Dot Island in 32 days and counting.

Are you one of the Zombies? A Zombie Killer? Or are you a Zombie Sympathizer?

To ensure that there's a balanced viewpoint on all sides, Red Dot Diva dug around and found a Zombie (SG variant) Representative, who was willing to spill its guts to the general public. All behind the safety of a communication device, of course. And the help of her trusty Zombie Moan Translater.

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NYCC 2012: An Alternative to Comic-Con?

This is the 7th year of New York Comic Con (NYCC).

The event is run by the good folks at ReedPOP (whose local setup, by the way, also runs Red Dot Island's STGCC). And from all bets, attendance numbers for NYCC 2012 is set to garner another record high.

Considering the recent "mainstreaming" of what used to be the geekier side of pop-culture, the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center will be jam-packed with noobs and old-timers come October 11 to 14th 2012.  Fact is, the three-day and four-day tickets have already been sold out a couple of weeks ago. And NYCC has never quite "sold out" this much, this early before.

Sigh. Signs of the times.