Grok #4: Potentially Awesome
Jan 12We’re very keen on doing our part to ensure that 2009 kicks a ridiculous amount of ass. Part of this will involve homemade shirts featuring our all-time favorite fanfic fantasy pairings (watch for Jeff’s “Edward Cullen + Havok: 4-Ever Angst” tee at NYCC!). The other part is making more issues of Grok.
If you’ll recall, Grok is our little PDF zine about nerd stuff. Check out the sidebar for further explanation. Every issue has a theme: Grok #3 was “Nameless Horror,” which means everyone who read it had countless nightmares about monster ticks and the suspiciously delicious hashbrowns at the Arkham Waffle House.
For #4, we’re going a little more game-y and calling it…
Extra Life.
And! And! We want you to contribute. Write something, draw something, whatever. Check out previous issues for an idea of what we’re looking for. And remember that the theme can be interpreted as broadly or as specifically as you choose.
If interested, please drop a line to fangirl@earthlink.net, tell us your idea, and take us from “potentially” to “definitely awesome.”
Jingle Bell Grok: Genre-Related Visual Mix Tape
Dec 23The other night, Bravo had a pretty cool back-to-back double feature going on: Ghostbusters II and The Princess Bride. It aired these two movies over and over again, a repetition-happy tribute to mood-sensitive slime and “as you wish”-ing. I love blocks of entertainment like that — stuff that sort of goes together just because, that you can marinate in for hours on end. Kind of like a mix tape, but with movies and TV (that sounded dumb — yeah, neato, with movies and TV! — but you know what I mean).
So here’s my very own Holiday Genre-Related Visual Mix Tape — with quick clips from each offering. The things I’ve chosen are slightly offbeat, and yes, sometimes I’m stretching to get them to fit into the delicate matrix I’m attempting to construct. But they all say “holiday” to me and are a perfect mash-up for those woozy hours after all the food and booze and presents.
Grok #3: Nameless Horror
Dec 17
The holidays can be a bit much, eh? We’ve already spent way too many hours stuffing our faces with eggnog-flavored gagh, shoving through the mall in search of discontinued Mighty Muggs, and avoiding the handsy Skrulls that always seem to be lurking under the office mistletoe (yes, we know He Loves Us; no, we do not need a one-on-one demonstration).
And yet, we can’t help but be gripped by a certain joyful spirit and goodwill toward geeks and we want to make sure your year-end festivities are as stupendously awesome as possible. So we have a little gift for you…Grok #3!
If you’ll recall, this is our PDF zine that you can read on your computer screen or print out and tote wherever you desire. Within, you will find fiction, essays and other general hilarity dedicated to geek culture and the nerd experience. This time ’round, we went a little Lovecraftian with the theme and called it “Nameless Horror.”
Grok #3: Winter ’08, Nameless Horror (PDF)
In this issue (which, incidentally, is our fattest edition evAR and features glorious cover art by the amazing Toren Atkinson)…
One Con Glory, Part III, by Sarah Kuhn: As Julie’s tale of “sex and woe and fandom” finally wraps up, the following things occur: People chase each other. There is a very important Buffy debate. Braidbeard meets his fate. Oh, and someone Twitters something.
So This Ghost Walks Into a Bar… by Jeff Stolarcyk: Jeff shadows some professional paranormal investigators for a night and has a few close encounters of the extremely spooky kind. As some dude once said, the truth is out there.
Love, Lovecraft Style, by Matt Springer: Becky loves her Coo-coo-lulu as only a 16-year-old “world-weary veteran of the battlefield of love” can. But does Coo-coo-lulu feel the same way?
Autotaxonomy, by Samantha Rich: Choosing your internet pseudonym is one of those excruciating experiences that involves hours of pondering, teeth-gnashing, and swapping out “Y”s for random vowels. Samantha explores the pain.
So Perfect, by Stephen Graham Jones: Teenage girls. Ticks. The quest for perfection. To say anything more would be to spoil things, but rest assured: you will have nightmares.
My Tattoo, by Chris Stewart: Chris has a dirty little secret. OK, so it’s sort of given away in the title, but as with most interesting stories, there’s a lot more to it than that. Horror — capital “H” — is involved.
The Tale of the Gallant Sailor, by Matthew Walden: Long ago, when wishes still came true, there lived a father who performed his service to the world as a reactor operant on a nuclear submarine. Second class petty officer of the United States Navy, Sir!, was his rank and Northrop Glitten was his name. This is his story.
Yelp Reviews of the Arkham Waffle House, by Ivan Sian: I ordered my hash browns “scattered, smothered, and covered,” NOT “scattered, smothered, covered, slimed and coated with entrails.” OK?
Plus: filler jokes! Throwaway quizzes with funny art! Scintillating contributor bios! And another letter from your pal Fake George Lucas! Check it out…if you dare!
Marvel = Boys, DC = Girls, Me = Wha?
Dec 03As Heidi MacDonald recently pointed out, H&M suddenly has a bunch of pretty slick-looking Catwoman t-shirts in stock. I bought one over the weekend. It’s not the one in the photo — full-body shot instead of a close-up, red instead of white. Still neat.
I noticed, however, a Big Two-related bit of oddity while passing through the men’s section. No DC for the H&M-loving dudes. No Bats, Supes, etc. Instead, they get a selection of Marvel-related tees. I bought my husband a Silver Surfer shirt, wherein Norrin Radd pontificates about something super-philosophical-sounding as he glides through the cosmos.
I’m definitely not complaining — finding unstupid superhero t-shirts cut for the female body is a feat unto itself, and should be celebrated when it actually occurs. But if you’re listening, oh gods of discount trend shopping, how about some Marvel love for the ladies? I’ve been having a recurring dream about finding a girl shirt with the Phoenix logo (green and gold, please) for ages now and it has yet to manifest into reality. I would be willing to pay top dollar (which, in H&M terms, means like $16) for such a shirt!
Hearting the Twilight Fang-Girls
Nov 24
“OK,” wheezed the beleaguered usher. “Once the movie starts…no more yelling!!!”
Naturally, they didn’t listen.
They screamed when the lights went down. They screamed when the credits floated onscreen, curlicue-laden, gothy font and all. They screamed for Jacob, flowing-tressed heartthrob in the making.
“Oh, shit,” I whispered to Kelly. “I’m scared of what’s gonna happen when Edward shows up.”
Well, duh. Banshee wails, awesome in their pure, gut-wrenching hysteria.
