Saturday, 13 June 2015 00:29

IDW & SDCAG: Historic, Visionary, Hoppy

Cheers, kittens! As the SoCal comic convention season is in full-swing (You remember Wednesday's Bad Night at WonderCon, don't you?), my con cohort at Twisted Pair Photography and I are getting ready for San Diego Comic-Con 2015 (SDCC); in that process, we are partaking in a wee bit o' pre-con cavorting. Fortunately for us, Yours Truly has contacts; they might be in books, they might be in comics, they might be in beer. You don't know.

So, as it pertains to our most recent pre-conning, I have a query for you. What do the Library of Congress, IDW Publishing and San Diego Comic Art Gallery have in common? A vision of posterity, crackerjack curators, an historic backyard and a brewery within walking-distance. Two of these pip organizations have set up shop in a gloriously gorgeous San Diego community and, happily for all, they're both sitting pretty next to Stone Brewing beer garden.

Comics bulwark IDW, founded in 1999 by Ted Adams and Robbie Robbins, has grown so big in its britches, those britches have been let out to accommodate an 18K+ sq. ft. workspace in the posh yet chill, waterside neighbourhood of Point Loma. Think Range Rover-meets-Roxy, Brooks Bros-meets-Billabong, Nautica-meets-No Shirt, No Shoes, No Problem. Situated serenely along the San Diego Bay and America's Cup Harbor, housed in one of the original barracks at the Naval Training Center (NTC) at Liberty Station, the cavernous, 1921 Spanish Colonial Revival edifice makes great digs for a Vans-and-RayBans kind of entity like IDW.

Ushered in by Prohibition, 1920s San Diego was two-parts business, one-part good times. In 1921, the NTC commenced construction and by 1923 began rustling to life as a hive of naval activity. Having just come out of WWI, protection along the Pacific, offensive and defensive, seemed a good idea. Initially a training base for one-sixth of the U.S. Naval fleet, the compound soon came to house military classrooms, residential quarters, tactical training fields and everything the Pacific fleet needed to prepare for come what may. Come it did. By WWII's peak years, the NTC was home to more than 33K sailors. (I can't say the wartime Betties of San Diego had a problem with that!)

Today, the NTC is a far cry from its initial intentions. By the 1990s, Liberty Station was maneuvering away from military endeavours and into real estate. Now, it functions as a center for the arts, entertainment and business: retail, churches, beauty and wellness, hotels (Marriott, Hilton), golf (Loma Golf Club), leased office space, banking (Navy Federal Credit Union, natch), fitness, dining, culture, museums and so much more. What your great-grandfather saw as a campus for national secrecy and necessary aggression, you may now see as a weekend destination for Starbucks and SDCAG, SoCal Fly Fishing Outfitters and Capoeira Brasil (Ponytail! Ponytail!) or California Ballet and Sushi Mura. Cap off your jaunty day with a pint at Stone Brewing and a run for Longboard Chips and New Zealand water at Trader Joe's, and you've got the new normal at Liberty Station. It's like Sarah Jessica Parker took great-grandfather's Naval-issue peacoat and stuck a giant, pink, silk rose on the lapel. The original bones are still there, but now it goes better with a Zara cocktail dress than a mop and bucket, you know, for dancing and swabbing decks whilst belting out Fred Astaire-style nautical chanties with your fellow sailors.

That's a nice story, but what about IDW, Hannah?, the fair reader gently prods. To continue ...

Notable as the fourth-largest comic book publisher in America (Disney Comics, The X-Files, Orphan Black, My Little Pony, etc.) IDW carries comic gold in its inimitable portfolio: twenty-five Eisner and Harvey Awards, more than eighty NYT Best-sellers, hundreds of freelance artists around the globe and, solely in 2014, more than 700 unique, analog and digital, titles. Additionally IDW dabbles in tabletop and hobby games, stickers, posters and other collectible merchandise. With all this street cred, not to mention being Liberty Station's largest tenant, you'd think they must be a bit haughty and unapproachable, like Hillary Clinton or that big German girl who works at Ruby's on the pier. Yet, no.

IDW is about as mellow and laid-back a group of folk you'll meet in publishing. If IDW was a Muppet, it would be Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem. (Sam the Eagle would not approve of hot yoga being taught on-grounds.) If IDW was a time of day, it would be Happy Hour: affable, a good value and always ready to tell a tall tale. Like any good tale, there need to be visual aids; and that's how San Diego Comic Art Gallery (SDCAG) adds to the party.

Installed on the bottom floor of IDW's digs, in Barracks 3, the SDCAG opened to the public June 5th, 2015: "designed to educate and engage the local San Diego community and the region of Southern California with the sequential comic book and graphic arts". Owned-and-operated by IDW, the gallery houses an analog, research library (appt. only), artist-in-residence program (coming soon) and, for you Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT) aficionados, the Eastman Studio: a permanent installment of TMNT co-creator/artist Kevin Eastman's home studio and personal memorabilia collection. Throughout the year, SDCAG will install exhibits featuring a bevy of artists knee-deep in comic lore. The inaugural exhibit? Kevin Eastman and his TMNT.

With San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) just around the corner, geographically and temporally, (San Diego Convention Center, July 9-12, 2015) IDW/SDCAG have positioned themselves smartly for a pop-culture, coming-out carousal. As the cosplayed hordes descend upon America's Finest City, they shall find that besides The Old Globe, S.D. Air and Space Museum, S.D. Museum of Art, S.D. Natural History Museum and Hooters (For a lot of you mooks it's the closest you're going to get to San Diego boob.), the S.D. Comic Art Gallery will serve many of your artistic, and geeky, needs. To serve those more primal needs in Maslow's Hierarchy, SDCAG is fortuitously located right next door to Stone Brewing World Bistro and Gardens: an 11K+ sq. ft., glass-stone-and-wood re-purpose of what used to be the NTC mess hall. Hello, sailor! Buy a girl a stout and some crispy Brussels sprouts?

On June 4, 2015, the night before their grand opening, IDW/SDCAG held a VIP event, to present the art gallery on a more intimate level to those closest to the effort. That night, along with Ménage à Trois and J. Lohr wines, an oh-so-hoppy IPA flowed generously, provided by Stone. It's just good fence-building, proffering beer to the new guy on the block.

Whether it's an Arrogant Bastard, a Double Bastard, a Crazy Ivan or a Border Psycho, a quaff of Stone is always a great mingling lubricant. So, just in time for San Diego's greatest mingling event, IDW/SDCAG and Stone Brewing Liberty Station are celebrating con-season with Hop-Con, the w00tstout Festival: "Our annual celebration of nth-degree beer geekery".

Launching Wednesday, July 8, 2015 (same night as SDCC Preview Night), if you jelly beans can swing $40-$100/person, you can drink-and-geek with Aisha Tyler, Wil Wheaton, Kevin Eastman and the upper echelon of Stone brewerdom. To boot, you can be of the first to imbibe the "2015 Stone Farking Wheaton w00tstout". Want more special beer? According to an inside source, there might be a Kevin Eastman/Kris Ketcham collaboration beer which might be called "Twisted Turtle w00tstout". (Call 619-269-2100 for more info. on advance tix and event specifics.)

But, Hannah, what about the Library of Congress?, you ask wearily and patiently. Allow me to elucidate  ...

In 1800, amidst legislation which would move our new country's capital from the progressively sophisticated Philadelphia to the swampy backwoods of Washington, America's second president John Adams (1797-1801) understood the dire need for a local, congressional reading room, research facilities and library for this new nation. Moving merrily along its way, August 1814 saw Adams' library come to a fiery end as the British set our Capitol aflame. (Good thing we're all friends now.) Upon this news, then-retired, third president Thomas Jefferson (1801-1809), and Adams' BFF, proffered his precious, voluminous, private library at Monticello as a replacement. Jefferson's collection and all that would be added to it over the years would become America's library: the Library of Congress.

Visionary like Jefferson and Adams, IDW/SDCAG understand that, even though the comic arts seem all too present and contemporary, at times even fleeting, wondering when this wild, geek, pop-culture rocket will free-fall back to Earth, history always needs a paper trail, even digital history. When tomorrow arrives, mankind always thanks those whom were ambitious enough to preserve the past. (Plus, if you've been watching Wayward Pines, you'll know that even in the year 4065, First Generation will need something to read. Why not Jem and the Holograms or Mr. Peabody & Sherman? Although, I would suggest against 30 Days of Night and Rot & Ruin. Those might be too realistic in WP.)

Adams, Jefferson, IDW and SDCAG also know America needs just the right word-nerd to curate the past and present, for the future. John James Beckley served as the first Librarian of Congress (1802-1807) under the Jefferson administration. In keeping with a national level of know-how, Harry L. Katz, former Head Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Library of Congress, will serve as the first curator of SDCAG. He now calls San Diego home. (Psst, Harry. The Starbucks at Liberty Station is a beautiful and breezy switch from the one you're probably used to at Seward Square. Still, it's hard to beat the small, window-table facing the streetlight on Penn. Ave., on a snowy D.C. morning. Enjoy our palm trees and ocean air, good sir!) Oh, breweries within walking distance of the LOC? A couple of Gordon Biersch, Capital City Brewing Co. and District Chophouse and Brewery. Yeah, D.C. is a far better walking-town than San Diego.

Kids, here's an insider's tip: San Diego is one hell of a town and you'll never grasp it in one long weekend. You can try though! Start by getting up early; you can sleep when you get home. Then, grab a quad shot over ice at Starbucks or Peet's and hit the terra-cotta tiles heading in any direction! If you're in town for Comic-Con, out for a sunny getaway from Beantown or the Big Apple, or if you're just a local doof like Moi looking for more stimuli than Big Steve's Comic Kitchen can give you, drop by the SDCAG, year-round. When you're done, treat yourself to a tantalizing brew in Stone's sunny, stony, garden bistro. It's your summer, kittens; do something fun with it.

Abyssinia on the Con floor, kittens!

 

Aside: A v special Thank You! to Denton Tipton and Rosalind Morehead at IDW, and Gary Sassaman at CCI, for a wonderful SDCAG opening event! Cheers to all!

Visit JennyPop every Con season for all of her Official SDCC Souvenir Book articles and full, Con coverage. w her fave, Con-cohort: Twisted Pair Photography shutterbug, Eslilay Evoreday.

Follow @JennyPop: Insta and Twitter for year-round geeky goodness and visit her Amazon Author Page

 

Published in Miss Hannah Hart

”This is a war they started and, by God, we’ll finish it.” -former Britsh P.M., Margaret Thatcher

Vulcan ears, steampunk corsets, film-accurate weaponry, hot gamer girls and hard-boiled hooch. Slosh it all into a legendary, San Diego fun zone and you’ve blended up a tangy, spicy, smoking hot extravaganza. No, not Comic-Com, but that is coming soon, kittens. (BTW, yours truly will be on the floor and covering it live for the good folks here at GoodToBeAGeek! Costume? Still up in the air. Any ideas? I’ve narrowed it to Bellatrix Lestrange, Morticia Addams, Snow White or Ruby Red Riding Hood: the latter both of ABC’s Once Upon a Time. Drop a line here or @JennyPop and let me know which character you’d prefer!)

Speaking of Ruby Red, there’s a bonkers-wild nightclub right here in my own backyard, just moments from my haunt at the Hotel del Coronado. Welcome to The Ruby Room. Mis en scène amidst the ever active, far-too-hip-for-thou, Hillcrest crawl of downtown San Diego, The Ruby Room offers not only a hardcore, real drinking atmos, but also a nerdcore, real gaming atmos. Hang up your cloak and check your blasters; it’s The Ruby Room’s very own Nerdcore Night. It’s not Comic-Con, but it’s a damn fine tease.

As with many a social movement, Nerdcore Night was born out of a frustration of social-marginalizing and a need for unity amongst a growing, yet still underestimated subculture of a subculture. The case in study? Gamer girls, oft maligned by the gamer boys they’ve so frequently pwned. Nerdcore Night was divined by Miss Aubree Miller, a partner in the eclectic TheGamerGirls.com, a geek girl-oriented, lifestyle website encompassing more than the domain implies: music, entertainment, conventions, cosplay, art and design, fashion and so much more nerdy, girly goodness. The hook? These Gamer Girls are bonkers-hot!

Now, all you Modern Millies, riddle me this. Why call attention to such optics? Why feed today’s insensitive, insulting, brutal, throw-away, aesthetics machine? I’ve been fighting sexism since long before I died in 1934, and in Hollywood, to boot. Murder! That’s some serious skirt-chasing around the desk! From what I can tell, you contemporary chickadees carry a lot of huevos in your Louis bags. You know you’re red hot, no matter what mold you do or do not fit. You’ve got a confidence not seen since the Roaring Twenties ditched those Edwardian stuffed-shirts. You’ve got it in spades, and then some, and don’t seem to care a whit who likes it. So, why waste time proving something to that microband of worthless, useless, infantile, misogynist, insecure, fink gamers?

Lauded and gender neutrally-revered dorkettes like Katrina Hill, Adrianne Curry and Jill Pantozzi know they’re aces-beauteous. While mathematical, symmetrical beauty might be the first visual cue you get on these three, it’s definitely not the last thing you’ll remember about them. Amongst this geek girl triad exists an amalgam of journalists, writers, authors, models, TV personalities, comic book aficionados, film theorists, personal band-strategists, wicked WOW gamers, whip-smart businesswomen, fragile hearts, irreverent, humourous, kind, protective and loyal Earthlings. These broads might understand and shrewdly calculate the value of their charms to bring in unique fans, readers and viewers; but similar to a Harvard or William & Mary legacy, just getting beyond the hallowed brick walls doesn’t cut it. Once they’re being scrutinized, these ladies have to deliver, from the brain as well as the hip.

Still, all you other dames, isn’t that quiet beauty of yours, the fact that you know you’re pretty, plus so much more, enough to carry yourself like royalty, no matter where you trod? Haven’t all you Millenium muffins come far enough by 2012 that proving you’re a looker to a bunch of greaseballs and strangers online doesn’t matter a hill of beans? Apparently not in the gaming world. Miller says this facet of technology and entertainment is still flush with “female gamers who feel animosity from male gamers.”

According to Miss Miller, in a May 2012 interview with Chad Deal for San Diego Reader, “Whenever a girl beats a guy over, say, Xbox live or whatever, a ton of messages immediately start piling in about how you must be a fat stoner loser chick to have beat them at a game. Boys are petty. We use actual female gamers on [TheGamerGirls.com] who are hot to prove these kinds of boys wrong. Honestly, girls just want gaming equality.” (Please, feel free to read the whole interview, Nerdcore Night – A Safe Place to Geek … but, come back, okay?!)

Jessa Phillips, keen pally, hard-line gamer girl and editor-in-chief of GoodToBeAGeek.com follows and covers gaming passionately: most notably, her Good To Be A Gamer weekly podcast with fellow geek David Lucier. Miss Jessa has had wild experiences with sexism in the gaming world and is cuckoo for Nerdcore puffs. She digs the concept of a night where chicas can get together, talk shop, listen to some tuneage, drink and not worry about some rude boy in Singapore, Bangalore, Seattle or Sack-of-tomatoes slinging personal insults and misogynist hate like cream pies in a Laurel & Hardy flick. Jessa knows her stuff, so when some dude calls her a hack, he’d best step off unless he’s complementing her Hack n’ Slash gaming style.

Playing since Nintendo hit the shelves, Jessa is bonkers for first-person shooting (FPS) and not frightened off by the violence amidst her fave games which, according to her, “also incorporate some amazing world building and storytelling”: God of War, Call of Duty: Black Ops, Gears of War, Mass Effect, BioShock and Assassin’s Creed. Just because she’s a gamer patootie, she’d rather not be identified as such.

“I do not believe that women who play games need to be singled out as a specific market segment. Developers should not be making games aimed to draw in female gamers. We are, regardless of gender, gamers. The difference between me and another gamer is the games we play. That is all,” Jessa states.

Even so, she’s suffered from unwarranted sexism. Seemingly innocuous, when pre-ordering the original God of War, she was questioned and quizzed by the store clerk, certain she was buying for a man in her life, certain “a woman would shy away from the graphic violence and sexual mini-game this title promised.” That was simple ignorance and most likely lacking any malice. Her first experience with down home, good old-fashioned, blatant sexism? Enter Call of Duty: Modern Warfare.

“I was not so naïve as to use a gamer tag that would immediately give away my gender. However, as soon as I spoke my gender was known and it was all over. I will admit, I am not the most skilled gamer, particularly when it comes to shooters. That being said, gameplay has never been my problem. The constant debasing verbal vomit some players spew at the idea that a woman is in their game. A woman can only bear so much trash talk and when she attempts to defend herself, is instantly label a b*tch which only furthers the issue. It is the targeted mean-spirited attitude towards female gamers in online multiplayer gaming that turned me away from the online space and into a single-player gamer.”

Jessa’s feeling a little better about online gaming as days go by; more women are entering the field of play and more men are even coming to the defense of women getting a verbal bullying. She also has a final bit of advice for the loser whom deigns to dis her during her next round, “So I get pwned by a better player, maybe even targeted due to my gender. I’m a big girl, I can take it. Being the man trashing a women who just pwned you with your friends standing by? Just makes you come off as weak.”

Surprisingly, our very own Dr. Lucy is a rabid gamer girl and a dish, to boot. TGG, still looking for gamer models? Sure, she’s a Victorian gal at heart (died at The Del in 1904, in case you’renew here), but she shows up very nicely on camera, best with full-spectrum, infrared, HD cams. Full disclosure: sometimes she only appears as bright orbs … but, what a set of orbs!Ever since D&D was gifted to RPGs in the 1970s, and then a later introduction to Mech Warriors she’s been a gaming, ghostie girl. Although she can’t always be seen, she can make a presence when she really wants to. Eventually, she moved on to Renaissance Faire; the men can be just as annoying, but her Old School ways fit in better there.

“I’m not into Resident Evil or the highly competitive shoot-em-up games like Halo or intensive online reality games like WOW,” Dr. Lucy confided to me by the hotel pool one night. “I do however still have my Super Nintendo and tons of ‘old school’ games like Mario Bros and every Zelda game ever made. That has to be my favorite platform game of all time. I have gotten a new platform like Wii just because the new Zelda game came out.” (Where does a Victorian ghost find such games, plus a Wii, my skeptical friends might wonder? Craigslist and BestBuy, of course.)”The games I play now are Zelda Skyward Sword, Heroes VI, and Civilization. The game I am saving up for now is Diablo III, and was just released this week!”

Whether it’s Faire, Zelda, Civilization or her long-ago, Victorian parlour games of Whist, Cribbage, Crambo or Hot Cockles, Lucy maintains boys will be boys.

“Heaven help anyone who ‘lets me win’ or gets all condescending!” she went on after yet another poolside-absinthe. “As for sexism, men ALWAYS think they know best and it does leak over into gaming. I find it entertaining when people who don’t know me try to categorize me. They usually get it wrong and reveal more about themselves in the process than they perceive about me. I know people need to stereotype others to a degree to feel comfortable so it makes me value those people who are capable of recognizing and appreciating people for who they are and those with the ability to recognize that all people evolve and are multifaceted.” Well, not all people, Lucy. Have you watched The Jersey Shore on your Kindle lately? Ick.

In the end, after all the womens’ studies, political hashing and academic posturing, Nerdcore Night is just damn good fun. Similar to Disneyland, Renaissance Faire, Comic-Con and FOX’s Animation Domination, it’s a few carefree hours to congregate with fellow goobs and let off some steampunk. Nerdcore Night is a girls’ night out and even though that seems a little dated in and of itself, it’s become a nice, universally nerdy haven. For, even though it started as an IRL meet-up for San Diego-close gamer chicks, it’s happily become an all-inclusive, guys and dolls, hipster doofus et al function: geeks, nerds, dweebs, gleeks, word nerds, orch dorks and so on. Hail dorks, well met! If you recall, I covered this pandemonium of geek culture previously, White & Nerdy checklist and all. Into which category do you fit?

Whatever you do call yourself, however or with whomever you identify, you’re welcome at The Ruby Room, any night of the week. Bring your hip game, though; Hillcrest ain’t Kansas and it ain’t Dr. Lucy’s weekly Hot Cockles … although, I imagine there’s a bit of that, not to mention some Squeak, Piggy, Squeak going on somewhere in the club.

By the by, for the rest of you cats whom tend to booze ‘n cavort sans cape and sword and just want a good Irish whiskey, Kentucky bourbon, I.P.A. or BOGO penny wells, The Ruby Room serves up a wide swath of divertissements: vintage burlesque –sadly, no Dita Von Teese, yet-, live bands, righteous DJs, art shows, charity functions, fashion soirées and themed karaoke nights. Whether you wield a French corset dagger or sport a slick set of Zildjian drumsticks in your back pocket, chances are excellent you’ll find a Ruby Room bash that suits you and your motley crew nicely. As the good folks at The Ruby Room humbly claim, “Not trying to be everything to everyone, but everything that is us.” Awww.

All the deets:

@theRubyRoomSD

The Ruby Room

1271 University Ave.

Hillcrest, San Diego, CA 92103

619.299.7372

Published in Miss Hannah Hart