The thing about Comic-Con news, is, for San Diegans, it happens to be our local news. Ergo, unlike those arriving in town for the yearly pop cultural extravaganza, convention energy heats up early for us local dorks, comme Moi,. Besides telltale banners around The Gaslamp District and the Harbor, news and radio badge-giveaways, and blocked-out hotels for miles, San Diego local news is covering tidbits and factoids almost daily. (Note: Local news generally bites. Yours Truly watches the first minute solely to see if there's a wildfire, Sharknado or Cloverfield monster headed my way. Good thing, because it appears a few threats headed here in about two weeks! Further, it appears they'll be returning every Summer, at least for a few years. (WooHoo!!)

On June 30, less than three weeks out from the 2017 Con, Mayor Kevin Faulconer spoke at the San Diego Convention Center, outside Hall H, home to the most coveted of SDCC panels each year. (2017 panels incl. Game of Thrones, Westworld and Stranger Things.) There, framed by San Diego's Tourism Authority CEO, Joe Terzi, and San Diego Convention Center's CEO, Rip Rippetoe, Mayor Faulconer ingratiated himself to Comic-Con's Dir. of Marketing and P.R., David Glanzer, under obligatory blue skies and soft breezes.

The Darlings of Orange County author Jennifer S. Devore has her well-polished finger on the pulse of Southern California: O.C. beaches, Newport shopping sprees, Laguna Beach dining, San Diego Comic-Con and the Del Mar Racetrack, just to name a few locales. As this year's Del Mar Opening Day (July 17, 2013) coincides beautifully with Comic-Con Weekend (July 18-21, 2013), it seems only appropriate that excerpts from Devore's bikini-and-martini, beach-read novel, The Darlings of Orange County make the rounds this summer. With chapters based on Comic-Con as well as Del Mar's Opening Day, she proffers you wee peeks into the scandalous, saucy, salacious world of her Darlings!

Excerpt from The Darlings of Orange County by Jennifer S. Devore

The weather couldn't have been more perfect if it had been written into a novel: 84 degrees, sunny, clear blue skies, Simpsons-clouds, a light breeze and zero smog. The ocean was sparkling and depending where you were that day, one could see not only Catalina, but also San Clemente Island. The day presented every feature possible for conditions air traffic controllers and pilots called clear and a million. Of course, this was Del Mar and on a summer's day, not to mention Opening Day, nothing less could be allowed. It was probably mandated by the San Diego City Council.

In the 237 summers which have come and gone since July 4th, 1776, the date has increasingly become a juncture for white sales and auto dealer blowouts. In fact, lost amidst the mall madness and car lot carnivals is a simultaneously fascinating and pedantic period of committee meetings, assignations, rewrites, copies, messengers, vote-taking and gallons of coffee, ale and wine. As I currently scribe the fourth novel in my six-part, historical-fiction series of books, Savannah of Williamsburg, Independence Day takes on a more front-and-center appearance than usual as research takes me through the 1750s, well into the meaty burgeoning of colonial revolution.