Photo Count: 20 today (56 overall). Not as good as last year (where I was up to the 70s by now), but I am also in a lesser widely-known comic book (Chobits). But David Mack did take my picture.

Yes, I said that correctly.

So I went to Comic-Con in my Chi outfit again today, but I went to find David Mack specifically and say hello. It's kinda cool that 1) I will have a context to speak to him outside of Comic-Con since he's participating in the speaker series this November and 2) he said he remembered me from last year, which may have been a lie if it had been from anyone else, but somehow I suspect David Mack wouldn't do something like that. Anyway, yeah, I got totally embarrassed talking to him about why I'm going to teach Kabuki whilst in my Chi outfit, but then he asked if he could take a picture of me, so I said okay. I hope it's a good thing. David Mack is not only one of the nicest people at Comic-Con, he's just one of the nicest people ever. Since I'm teaching, and I have 14 students enrolled, he gave me free copies of several books (enough for all 14) and then signed the stuff he gave me. He is such a sweet, sweet man.

Panels I went to today: a preview of the Watchmen; the cast and creators of Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog including Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion and Neil Patrick Harris (I had a huge crush on Nathan Fillion--he was the only reason I started re-watching Desperate Housewives--but now I have a huge crush on him). From Dr. Horrible we went to a panel on 24, to which Keifer Sutherland was in attendance, baby! Then I participated in the Comic Arts Conference: Comic Studies Forum where we discussed the current state of comics studies in America, where we'd like to see it, and formulated projects in order to help us obtain those goals. It was really informative and I'm really happy to have met fellow "educated fanboys/fangirls" as we deemed ourselves. I was the person taking the minutes--which I have never done, but I volunteered to do it although I'm not entirely sure what "taking the minutes" means, except to say that I should take notes on what was said, which I had planned to do anyway.

So, I may not be in the Masquerade. I had been planning on it, I sent in a photo of my costume around May 15th. But I never heard back, but last Monday I got a call that I could be in it--what they really meant was that I could be on stand-by. I thought I was guaranteed a spot, but apparently it's first come, first served, and I forgot to drop my paperwork off at the Masquerade desk yesterday.

I'm supposed to find out by noon tomorrow if I can be in the Masquerade, but that's after an hour long orientation at a prime time in the morning: 11:00-12:00. Tori Amos has a comic book out, Comic Book Tattoo, that David Mack contributed to by the way--and the Masquerade orientation overlaps it for like half an hour! So I'm #31 on the standby list. I'd rather go to the Tori Amos/David Mack panel. So, I think the Masquerade is just going to have be a 2009 goal.

Labels: comic-con, cosplay, david mack, Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, Joss Whedon, masquerade

( 2comments )

at July 27, 2008 7:04 PM  Natalia said...

Here's the article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080728/en_nm/comiccon_dc;_ylt=ApuBatOFqJwtluTnwFE2mges0NUE

 

at July 27, 2008 7:04 PM  Natalia said...

I love reading about your Comic-Con adventures. Glad to see you're having such fun!

Here's a link to an article I found interesting. What do you think about the idea that Comic-Con lately has marginalized the comic book vender/collector?

 

I met and spoke to my following idols: J. Michael Straczynski (Midnight Nation, Babylon 5), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Gale Ann Hurd (producer of The Terminator and Aliens), Lucy Lawless, Kevin Smith today dressed like this:



Photo Count: 36 (this is how many people have asked for my picture).

Let's see, so I told J. Michael Straczynski that his advice to "follow the fear" in writing has helped me tremendously since last year, and, in following the fear, how do you write about your favorite subject matter (like zombies, cyborgs, or, ya know, Spider-Man--which he has done) and he said you try to tell your story in relation to the mythology and you can make up the mythology as you go.

I told Robert Kirkman that I was using The Walking Dead in the class I'm teaching this fall! He said, "Cool!" and gave me a thumbs up, and I asked the rest of the panel--which included Jim Lee (All-Star Batman & Robin), John Cassaday (The Astonishing X-Men), Matt Fraction (Casanova), Mike Mignola (creator of Hellboy), Robert Kirkman (The Walking Dead), Colleen Doran (A Distant Soil), and Grant Morrison (Final Crisis)--what would they think about a Comics Culture Department at the university level and Colleen Doran said, "It's about time!" And there was a lot of applause. And then I asked is there anything we should keep in mind while we analyze these texts and Matt Fraction said to remember that comics are a different medium than film, so it requires a different approach than film theory, and so we need to develop a new language and grammar with which to properly analyze comics.

I went to a Scream Like A Girl panel today (with the above idols Gale Ann Hurd, Lucy Lawless and Kevin Smith) where everyone was asking Jamie King and Lucy Lawless questions, but Gale Ann Hurd (who has been and is vitally important to strong female characters being featured in sci-fi films) was not being asked anything--plus the questions being asked were not really relevant to the theme of the panel in my opinion (which was supposed to celebrate strong female lead characters in sci-fi/fantasy/horror). So I went up and asked Gale Ann Hurd a question: In her films like The Terminator and Aliens, the main female characters always incorporate aspects of femininity into the characters, but I wondered if Gale thought today there was a trend to masculinize the female characters or if they are able to retain their femininity. Kevin Smith said it was a really good question. Lucy Lawless said it was an "erudite" question and Gale gave a really great example of Sarah Connor growing between Terminator 1 and 2. I felt proud.

At this panel, 100 random people would win two tickets to the Scream Awards and 1 person would win being on TV at the Scream Awards. If you had a yellow sticker on the back of your button, you won 2 tickets. If you had the one red sticker, you got to be on TV during the Scream Awards.

I was the one person.

So, in total, I won 6 passes to Spike TV's Scream Awards (they're going to fly me out from New York for it) and I'm going to be on TV. We're going to work out the details later of what I'll do... but man... it's gonna be so cool. Last year, Robert Rodriguez, Quentin Tarantino, Neil Gaiman, Bruce Campbell, and well, everyone who is cool was there. I'm totally excited.

What am I going to wear??

Labels: Add new tag, comic-con, day 1, san diego, scream awards

( 5comments )

at July 25, 2008 3:52 AM  Mike said...

Wow, that's bloody lucky. Congratulations!

 

at July 25, 2008 3:13 PM  Lorie said...

That sounds amazing. And only the first day! You've said before that you have really good luck with drawings, raffles, etc., haven't you?

 

at July 26, 2008 12:03 AM  jillydreadful said...

It's insanely cool! But I've been thinking about it on and off all day long today and I'm totally freaking out!

But I do have strangely good luck with drawings, this is true. I must have been a really good person in a previous life.

 

at August 6, 2008 7:53 PM  Chandra said...

I think you should dress loli. :)

 

at August 7, 2008 12:18 AM  jillydreadful said...

You do? I think so, too...

 

[caption id="attachment_429" align="aligncenter" width="167" caption="pixie me"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_430" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="pixie me too"][/caption]

I'm actually really happy with my haircut. You just can't tell because I hate smiling in pictures because of my teeth. I feel like my teeth ruin every picture ever taken of me. Which is annoying because B's family had some JCPenny studio pictures taken when we were back in Michigan--which is an entirely different story in and of itself, namely a) I hate posed photographs because they always look fake and b) photographers are always telling me to smile like I mean it, I do mean it. I smile wit my eyez a la Tyra Banks. What photographers really mean is smile with teeth showing. And I hate my teeth.

Anyway, yeah. So to recap: love my hair. Hate my teeth. Today is my last day at home and I've been busy all day long, even now I'm doing laundry and I have 46 minutes before the loads are dry and I have to fold them. But I still need to finish some sewing on my costume. Blah.

Comic-Con tomorrow! Woo!

Labels: pixie haircut, real life

( 3comments )

at July 23, 2008 12:37 AM  Mike said...

Hey, you just updated. Anyways, I think your new haircut is cute. I also know how you feel about the smiling thing. Email me back sometime when you actually have some free time!

 

at July 23, 2008 3:14 AM  jillydreadful said...

I plan to! But these last couple of weeks have been so crazy! I didn't even have time to fix a contact problem (1800contacts sent me the wrong prescription and I need them to exchange it, but I don't know when I'm going to be able to do it.) It's 3:13 a.m. and I just finished my Chobits costume for the Masquerade at Comic-Con... and I still have to pack just regular items for the trip. My back is killing me...

 

at July 29, 2008 9:46 PM  natalia said...

Your haircut ROCKS! I miss you so much! You're gonna kick ass as an amazing teacher! It sounds like you've already planned some sort of speaker series?!? You should totally write about the experience. How do you get one started? How do you convince people to speak?

 

Now showing for a limited time (read: free) until midnight tonight! A Joss Whedon/Everyone-Joss-Whedon-Ever-Worked-With-or-Is-Related-To-Production

Oh yeah, and I got my hair cut today. I'll post pictures, but only if you watch Dr. Horrible first.

Labels: Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog, entertainment, Joss Whedon, nathan fillion, neil patrick harris

( 3comments )

at July 20, 2008 6:49 PM  Lorie said...

I watched some of it last night, and I just wasn't as entertained by it as I expected to be from what I had heard about it. Maybe I just wasn't in the mood for singing. Because I'm not inherently opposed to musicals, but I didn't feel like sitting through it when they burst into song.

 

at July 20, 2008 10:17 PM  jillydreadful said...

That's a shame. I happened to really love all the songs because it's exactly the kind of style I'm trying to go for since I'm trying to write a zombie musical. (Not kidding.)

 

at July 21, 2008 12:47 PM  Natalia said...

Jilly!!!!

Thank you SO much for sharing this! I LOVED it! So much fun! I can't believe they let us watch it for free! Yay for the internets! :)

Now... where's those pics, eh???

 

My stuff was picked up by the movers today.

I'm sorry to everyone who has e-mailed or Facebooked me over the last couple of days. I've been kind of overwhelmed with the stuff I need to do before I leave. (Like getting David Mack to speak at the lecture series I'm helping to put together!)

Anyway, yeah, I'll be back to normal communications soon. Basically, Lindsi had the baby. I'm completely bummed about leaving. And on Saturday, B bought me a cake from Sweet Lady Jane (a Los Angeles institution) and then we're seeing The Dark Knight with my family who's driving up to see me.

Here's something cool. I'm moving from a neighborhood with a Walkability score of 89 to a neighborhood with a Walkability score of 89. But the Friends neighborhood kicks my neighborhoods in the teeth with a perfect 100/100.

Labels: real life, walkability

( 1comments )

at July 20, 2008 6:54 PM  Lorie said...

Hmm...my neighborhood only gets a 35. And it should probably be a bit lower, except the site seems to think the Big Ten Party Store is a restaurant instead of, you know, a party store. I'm still content with my walking-distance library, though.

 

[caption id="attachment_420" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="For B's Birthday, I made him a cake in the shape of a Wii-mote."][/caption]

Labels: cake decorating, cool, real life

( 3comments )

at July 15, 2008 12:44 AM  Mike said...

That's pretty awesome and tasty looking. But for the record, that's a Classic Controller, not a Wii-mote.

 

at July 15, 2008 5:24 AM  Lindsi said...

Great job, I want some!! :)

 

at July 15, 2008 11:39 AM  jillydreadful said...

It *is* the Classic Controller. When I described it to B, I even said the Classic Controller. Rookie mistake!

 

I have always wanted short hair. Most of my friends in L.A. only know me with short hair, actually. But, when I was a teenager, my hair was past my butt and it was constantly sat on it (not only by myself--cringe) and got it caught in car doors (in eighth grade, kids threw those seeds covered in burrs in my hair). I suffered it all because I thought it was cool to have Princess Leia length hair. But I discovered that it really was not.

I'm going to be totally honest. I first really loved short hair on Meg Ryan.

See, look how cute!

Meg Ryan, circa Addicted to Love

Meg Ryan, circa French Kiss/City of Angels

I dreamed of having hair this short, but my mom refused to cut my hair. When I was seventeen, I finally just put my hair in a ponytail and took some scissors and cut about two feet of hair off my head and took it to my shoulders. My mom cried. And I think she still has my ponytail. Which is a little creepy.

I thought the only way a short hair cut looked good, though, was on blondes, and I wasn't that committed. So I never really pursued it.

This January, though, I went the shortest I had ever gone, where the back was a little shorter than the front, and basically the whole back of my neck was exposed to my hairline. My haircut was cool, but unfortunately it was not a cool a-symmetrical Vidal Sassoon-type style.

The reason I mention hair is: I am leaving. For a year. And I'm thinking about going pixie.

While I'm pretty determined to never let a love interest limit my life choices, I've always been kind of scared to go pixie since I'm married and boys tend to like long hair. B has gotten used to my short hair and he likes it, but I know if he had the choice, he'd keep me long. I feel as though I've compromised quite fairly for a while with the short hair.

I'm going to be gone a year, so if I want to go pixie, now's the time right? I realize I'm still going to see B--but he won't have to look at it every day, which makes me brave.

And I have been falling in love with some of the pixies I've been looking at:

But I'm starting to wonder if only really beautiful women can rock that out? I mean, I am so not Alyssa Milano, Michelle Williams, Selma Blair, Natalie Portman, Elisha Cuthbert or Holly from Make Me A Supermodel.

I need to make my decision relatively soon. I want to get my hair cut this weekend, or maybe next Friday at the latest. I've been thinking about this haircut for several years, so it's not a hasty decision. I have a stylist that I've been going to for a year and a half that I really trust.

So what do you think? Could I pull off the pixie?

Or should I stick with something longer, but cool like what Christina Ricci has going on. (I really like the top one.) Plus, I think she and I have a similar face shape (kind of wider at the cheeks and more pointed chin), so it's easier for me to imagine myself with this kind of hair. Plus, it's not that different than what I have now.

I don't know... I need input. Especially from people who know me, ya know, in real life.

To be quite blatant: I don't really care about your personal taste. "Girls with boy hair suck!" or "I wouldn't want short hair myself," are the kinds of comments that are not useful to me. "Your face is not pretty enough to carry a pixie haircut" is the kind of comment that would be useful. Harsh. But useful.

I can deal with harsh.

Labels: christina ricci, hair cut, hair style, meg ryan, pixie, real life

( 10comments )

at July 9, 2008 8:13 AM  charlie said...

"but unfortunately it was not a cool a-symmetrical Vidal Sassoon-type style."

I don't think you're allowed to say this in a post about pixie cuts without then referencing "Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby."

Sorry. It's the rules.

(And I would love a pixie on you. Your facial structure is actually not 100% unlike Holly from Make me a Supermodel.)

 

at July 9, 2008 11:07 AM  jillydreadful said...

You are sweet. :)

You are right, though. But now every time I hear or say Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby, I think of Cassandra from Cycle 5 and how much she cried and I start to get simultaneously annoyed and giggly and I lose my train of thought.

...

What was I saying? Oh yeah... But thinking about Cassandra, I actually wonder if it’s more about confidence than beauty. I think you really have to want this haircut and confidence has to back that up. And maybe I’m not particularly pretty--seriously, this is not a fishing for compliments thing, it's just the way it is. I've seen pictures of my mom and dad growing up and they were these beautiful creatures and I'm just kind of, ya know, whatever--but I am sure that I’d have the confidence because it is something I've been wanting for years.

 

at July 9, 2008 3:45 PM  Natalia said...

I think a pixie cut would look good on you. I say go for it. If we can't experiment with our look now, when can we?

 

at July 9, 2008 3:48 PM  Natalia said...

P.S. I think you're underestimating how sexy a short haircut can be.

P.P.S. My mom did the same thing when I first cut my hair. ;)

 

at July 9, 2008 4:27 PM  Jilly said...

Ha! I wonder if all moms are like that. How old were you when you got your first haircut that wasn't by one of your parents? I was 18.

I like the idea and freedom of experimentation, especially since we're young and we're not professors yet, so it's not like we're getting pigeonholed yet. But one of the things that keeps ringing through my head is Susan (yes, our Susan), whenever she sees me, says she doesn't recognize me because I'm always changing my hair. She's never said it as though it was a bad thing, so there's no disdain in her voice, per se, but it never seems like it's a good thing. (Which is weird because I saw her like four times this semester and I only had one haircut this year, so I wasn't quite sure how to interpret it.)

 

at July 10, 2008 11:01 PM  Natalia said...

I don't think you need to worry about people not recognizing you. Yes, if you were asking about plastic surgery, I'd say that people might not recognize you, but it's just hair. Do something fun with it. If you don't like it, it will always grow back.

That's my two cents. :)

P.S. I believe I was 17 or 18 when I had my first professional haircut too. We're so alike!

 

at July 10, 2008 11:02 PM  Natalia said...

P.P.S. Ever thought about dying your hair? I haven't done it myself, but I'm curious to hear if you've considered it. A cool color might be fun to try as well, or if you decide not to go the pixie route.

 

at July 12, 2008 4:23 AM  Mike said...

I think the shape of your face will work well with that haircut. Even if it doesn't, what's the worst that could happen? You have a bad haircut for a few months? And whether you were fishing for compliments or not, a beauty requirement is not something you need to concern yourself with.

 

at July 12, 2008 10:41 AM  jillydreadful said...

My Mike! I haven't stalked to you ages! I miss you! (See e-mail I just sent.)

As for the haircut: I am going to do it. My appointment is on Wednesday. The way I figure it: Hair grows. Mike and Nata are right.

If I don't like the haircut, then I'll be one of those hat women.

 

at July 21, 2008 12:56 PM  Natalia said...

Your public wants pictures of your new 'do! PICTURES! PICTURES! PICTURES!

 

My niece is supposed to be born today!

Woohoo!

(This is the one I'm actually excited about. Can ya tell?)

Labels: real life

( 1comments )

at July 14, 2008 9:59 PM  Natalia said...

I never saw a follow-up on this. Is she born yet?

 

Then I do believe I have found one in Guillermo del Toro.

"Undeniably, I am in love with monsters, the way Fellini was in love with a particular type of human," del Toro told The Associated Press, recounting how the Italian filmmaker would wander the streets of Rome in search of the right faces to put on screen.

"The same plasticity is searched for by me in the monster realm. There is a great word, which is teratology, the study of monsters. I have a teratological fascination with these creatures. The inventory of them grows and grows with every movie."

Be still my palpitating heart...

Labels: Guillermo del Toro, movies

( 2comments )

at July 8, 2008 11:30 PM  Natalia said...

I hear Guillermo del Toro is a big Rush Limbaugh fan. Just kidding!! XOXO

 

at July 9, 2008 12:46 AM  Jilly said...

You are so mean! ;)

 

Rush Limbaugh signs huge new radio deal: Talk hosts reportedly claims nine-figure signing bonus, $38 million salary

Why is this man still making money by being in the public?? Why aren't people shunning this bigoted, douchey asshole? (It takes a special brand of human being to be douchey, as well as an asshole...)

I mean, seriously!

Come on!

Labels: fuckin' rush limbaugh, news

( 0comments )