Run for your lives, local mortals! 'Tis time! 'Tis time! San Diego Comic-Con (SDCC) is here, again, kittens! Whilst Summer is my least fave season (Moi, aka, authoress Jennifer Susannah Devore, needs her Autumn days and Sbux PSL!), July is a glorious month indeed! Comic-Con, the reigning monarch of all comic book/pop culture conventions takes flight July 19 - 23, 2018 at the San Diego Convention Center. Once again, Yours Truly will be there with my fave con cohort and shutterbug, Eslilay Evoreday of Twisted Pair Photography and Sea Gypsy Costume Designs. As this Summer tradition remains a constant, some aspects of the game are ever-changing. Now, the game is afoot!

"Normality" reigns once again: only the corset welts remain and, thankfully, those are fading fast. (Beach parties are never far off around here; always lurking in the shadows, like Homey the Clown with a sock full of nickels in a dark alley. Ka-pow! Guess what? You're going to a luau, girl! Damn it. Where's my parasol?)

San Diego's annual invasion of dapper Doctor Whos, mysterious Batmen, chubby Lolitas and steampunk Poison Ivys has ceased; the marauders having retreated to their workaday lives and quiet homes, wherever those might be. (In fact, roughly fifty per cent of those homes are right here in San Diego, based on attendee registration info.) No one throws a Con quite like America's Finest City and the financial handshake between Comic-Con International (CCI) and the City of San Diego is hearty, healthy and mutually-beneficial.

In case you didn't pick up a copy at San Diego Comic-Con, never made it to Comic-Con, or never intended on going, but love reading JennyPop's work ... voila! Reprinted from the official 2014 SDCC Souvenir Book. Enjoy!

Am I Mortal? You Are Now: 20 Years of Hellboy, and Counting

by

Jennifer Susannah Devore

Here, Sheldon. I pulled the new Hellboy for you. It's mind-blowing!

-Stuart Bloom, The Big Bang Theory

Being human is a pain in the ass: heart-shattering emotion, physical limitations, that unrelenting shoulder-tap called mortality. Any wonder the knell of immortality, even human-hybrid versions, is so alluring? Not simply a fantasy world of superheroes keeping it tight and right, the mass appeal is a micro-fantasy of vicarious athanasia, preternatural strength and invulnerability: forever swinging on that top branch. Sure, weakness abounds, even for the eternal: religious vestiges, beheadings, spells, Kryptonite, wooden stakes, domestic beer. Still, ruination-odds are worth the eternity-payoff. Conversely, what a quandary it is when immortals bemoan their gifts, even forfeiting them to join the Muggle world. Who knew pancakes, cigars and television were so bewitching?

Aaaaaaand ... awaytheygo! San Diego Comic-Con 2014 (July 24-27, 2014, San Diego Convention Ctr.) is officially commenced! Preview Night, Wednesday night's unofficial kickoff for industry pros, press and others, has come and gone, and whilst crowds may not have peaked to the expected numbers for Friday and Saturday, the crush inside the San Diego Convention Center was as tightly packed and palpably amped as any Con day in recent recall. From the moment one stepped out of the steep, summer humidity and into the blessed, blasting air-conditioning of the Conv. Ctr., there was an energy one could feel through one's soul, like the floor was made of millions of excitable tribbles. It was as though everyone there, from jaded industry pros to Baby's First Comic-Con, was just happy, and amazed, to even be there.