#rccc14

Our convention season has come to a close and we couldn't have asked for a better way to end the year than with Geek Girl Con 2014. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our booths at Rose City Comic Con and Geek Girl Con this year to show support and excitement over PANOPTIC! If you picked up one of our limited edition printed teasers, sound off your thoughts!

So, what's next? We've gotten great feedback on our printed teaser so far and are still planning for PANOPTIC to launch as a free-to-read webcomic during the first half of 2015. We are so excited to share more of the universe within PANOPTIC and introduce the full cast of characters driving the story. We will keep an age-diverse audience in mind and do our best to represent a world with greater racial, cultural, gender, sexual, and body diversity. Especially as queer, multiracial people of color ourselves, we are always striving to include more complex and accurate representations of marginalized identities in science fiction.

We are posting updates here on our blog throughout the journey so check in with us often for works in progress, behind the scenes, illustrations, goodies, and more! 

As always, thanks so much for your support! Oh, and one more thing...

Smile. You're on camera.

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This adorable kid on the floor stopped me because she wanted to know where I got my Powerpuff Girls bag (the vendor that sold me a tie, randomly enough) and then she wanted to know about everything that was in it, which by that point included an empty coffee cup and several prints, all of which she commented on, well, adorably.

Maybe it was just because I didn't go to any actor panels or because the actors on average weren't as famous as with larger cons, but RCCC seemed to have a very artist-centric setup, which was great. Artists took up only slightly less of the show floor than exhibitors and vendors of other stripes. Although I got really inexplicably tired by the end of Sunday, I'm glad I made the effort I did to talk to more artists and creators. Case in point: I met Laura Lee Gulledge, who wrote a graphic novel I'd gotten from my library and really liked. And there were a ton of other cool people and hidden gems everywhere.

Also: panels! I only went to a handful, but the ones with Matt Fraction and/or Kelly Sue DeConnick reminded me again of why comics are so cool. There was one Sunday on the politics of identity that was a) hilarious b) should have gone on for another hour and c) explained how comics when done right can be a vehicle celebrating difference and enhancing representation and challenge visual defaults in a way that text-only fiction can't. Among other things.

Expanding on the Matt Fraction panel from Saturday (which was of course deliciously meta), part of his thinking process as I understood it is that text is so unimportant or perfunctory that a lot of times it's just getting through a fight scene or other necessary bit of setup to some other piece, so you don't really need to know what people are saying. So rather than going through the motions of threatening speech, he'll throw in a "bro" or a (derogatory patriarchal epithet), which at least pulls you out of it and makes you think a bit. And text like (screaming) / (more screaming) / (oh god, the screaming) can actually be more effective than an attempt at onomatopoeia because of that instant, spooky detachment.

If you're not quite ready for the con to end, join us for the wrap party hosted by Sock Dreams. Party starts at 8:00 PM tonight at the Bossanova Ballroom at 722 East Burnside. All 21 and over congoers are invited to attend. Join us for one last party for some dancing, mingling, and a Sock Dreams cosplay fashion show! Hope to see you there!

For a con in its third year, it is both huge and well-organized. Nice!

It's bloody hot in Portland, and while I felt moderately guilty about switching out to normal clothing after three hours at the con, I'm so glad I did.

As soon as I find a picture of retired Wonder Woman, it's going up here. She was a delight to watch and fully deserved the cosplay win.

I got to the con sadly late and was distracted from most of the panels by the usual smorgasbord of booths and cosplays, but I made the effort to attend the Matt Fraction panel and I'm so glad I did. He was wry and hilarious and full of thoughts on comics and deconstruction and Pizza Dog, and his kids love the Lego Movie's Batman.

The slideshow at his panel deserves its own bullet point. It was so great, the crowd just gasped and oohed at about every slide.