#NerdsUnite: The Ramblings of a Raconteuse (Comic-Con Craziness)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Helenna. We met on twitter not too long ao, and she's totes mcgotes one rad chiquita banana with a flare for all things flair! That's right, Helenna here is what we call an artsy fartsy nerd. She's a poet, into all things dramatic arts, and she's going to come on board to write each week about her love of said drama. Well not like actual drama drama, like some cat fight shit - but you get the idea. I only have one thing left to say ... HIT IT HELENNA!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Helslevy

I talked a bit about the awesomeness of Comic-Con in my last post for Talk Nerdy to Me Lover/my previous tumblr blog, and I wanted to show you some of my favorite finds from the convention.  Note to self:  bring a bunch of spending money next year because it is geek shopping heaven! 

My favorite finds?  

#1) The “Buffy the Vampire Slayer Season 8 Volume 1″ book of all of the comics bound together. 

This is really exciting for me because I haven’t started reading any of the comics yet.  If you aren’t familiar, the comic books keep going where the television series left off.  I am such a huge fan of Buffy, and Joss Whedon’s work, and I can’t wait to dig into this book!

#2) DC’s “Hawkgirl” by artist Dennis Calero 

My friend Patty J. Robinson mentioned that she had a friend in artist’s alley.  I went to go look at his work and what did I find but an AMAZING piece of artwork he did of Hawkgirl!

Now, this was a big deal to me because my buddy Alan Sizzler Kistler had mentioned me on Comic Book Resources as his actress of choice to play DC’s Hawkgirl. I knew I had to have this particular piece, and it has a place of honor in the middle of my white board at my desk where I write down my goals and dreams.

I look at this board every day for inspiration, and it’s so fantastic to have this fierce woman cheering me on…

and #3) DC Comic’s “Huntress” and Joe Benitez’s Lady Mechanika comics 

While walking around the exhibition hall I picked up a whole bunch of “Huntress” comics.  Earlier this year I was looking for Hawkgirl comics in LA, and I ran across the Huntress. While Hawkgirl is a character I’d love to actually play, Huntress is a character I’m seriously considering cosplaying as next year for Comic Con 2013.  I’m hooked on her story, and can’t wait to read more!

I’d also been trying desperately to hunt down the Lady Mechanika comics.  I’m a big fan of the steampunk genre, and had been told that these were the cream of the crop when it comes to steampunk themed comic books.  I have yet to start going through them, but I’m pretty stoked!

Now while I was on my way to the wedding I attended in Seattle after my few short days at Comic-Con, I watched a couple of fantastic documentaries: With Great Power: The Stan Lee Story, and Secret Origin: The Story of DC Comics.

Watching both docs was fab because it gives a really great comprehensive overview of both Marvel and DC, and I highly recommend both!

To say I still have Comic-Con fever is an understatement.  Even though I’d already seen Morgan Spurlock’s film “Comic-Con Episdoe IV: A Fan’s Hope” I went and picked it up from Toys R Us because it comes with Joss Whedon and Morgan Spurlock action figures.

Now who can resist that? They now have a place of honor with the other figurines on our shelf.

Yup, my Comic-Con fever is in full bloom. In fact, I’m literally planning next year’s trip to San Diego and I can’t even wait!  It feels like the anticipation I used to have for my birthday party when I was like, six years old and I knew that all of my friends would be with me to celebrate, and there would be awesome goodies there!  Yes, I feel like I am six again, and it’s the greatest feeling ever!

Until next time…

P.S. I also got this amaze balls Nerd Machine shirt at NerdHQ! Love it!!!!

#xoxo hels

tweet me at: @helslevy

browse me at: helennasantoslevy.com

email me at: contacthelenna@gmail.com

#Adventures in Randomness and Rock & Roll w @leah_cevoli

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Leah. She's pretty rad and has an INCREDIBLY random life. Like, no - for reals ... did you know she has an obsession with vampires, psychics, and tarot card readers ... and she had more sex as a teenager than in her 30s ... anddddd she even had two ex boyfriends die violently - one from a heroin overdose, and the other was murdered. Holy moly roli poli oli - that shit be cray cray. Either way, she's now here to write about her life, love, and all things nerd. I only have one more thing left to say ... HIT IT LEAH!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Leah_Cevoli

Comic Con in one word was AMAZING.

This was my fourth year attending the International San Diego Comic Con; arguably the largest gathering of geeks, nerds, dorks, and creative, talented, passionate people in the universe. www.comic-con.org

This year held a lot of SDCC firsts for me!

MY FIRST SDCC SIGNING/APPEARANCE: For this I have to give a big shout-out to Jonathon London at GeekScape. Jonathon emailed me a few days before con and invited me to bring my fellow Co-Stars from the soon to be epic-fantasy series, Legendary to a signing at his booth. After discussing it, Jonathon and I thought it would be fun to invite the whole Geek Girls Create team.

The signing was a lot of fun, and an absolute great way to start off SDCC2012. The best part about a signing/appearance, is the young girls. And I don’t mean that in a creepy way, I mean the young girls that come up to the table and share a piece of their soul with you. Their eyes light up, and you can see the energy flow of inspiration travelling thru them, as they connect with you, someone who inspires them. If I have one mission in this lifetime, it is to uplift and inspire through my stories and life adventures. And that’s one of the things Geek Girls Create allows me to do.

My first SDCC Panel:

For this I have to thank the amazing Katrina Hill.Our GGC panel was not accepted this year, but Katrina worked her magic and invited TEN amazing women onto her panel, “The Most Dangerous Women of Comic Con”. Katrina wanted to spotlight the movers and shakers in this industry, those of us who are outspoken, proactive, and positive… she organized a great group, and special shout out to our panel moderator Bonnie Burton who someone made time-stop and allowed all 10 of us ample talk time.

I was nervous, not gonna lie.2000 people in the room, on a panel where half the girls I know and the other half are mere twitter legends. But it went off without a hitch, and I found a new Karoake Pal in Clare Kramer, and a fellow Philly girl in Milynn Sarley.

I like making people laugh during panels, and ooh, and ahh… You have to be quick on your feet with a coherent answer, and if at all possible a joke. I like it. I like panels. A lot.

My first Film Project at SDCC:

I’ve recently become the Social Media Manager for an epic science fiction series of feature films, Space Command. For Comic Con, I was hired as Social Media Manager, and a liaison for all things SDCC. Signings/Appearances/Meetings/Street Teams/Parties. 

And as such, after my awesome (all about Leah), Thursday ended. The rest of Comic Con was spent working with and for Space Command.

It felt great to be part of a working team of industry professionals, hell legends (Iain McCaig is our lead character designer.) 

Space Command is an Independent Series of Feature Films, a new Science Fiction Franchise... that is making serious strides, and I am so happy to be on-board. We welcome you to take the ride with us.

Join Us
www.facebook.com/SpaceCommandMovie

www.twitter.com/SpaceCommandMov

Comic Con was filled with purpose for me. I didn’t waste time, searching the convention floor for random folks, or trying to get into the coolest parties.

I had purpose.
I had a team.
I had fans.

And I had a great group of friends by my side, who even throughout their busy schedules, ended up showing up for each other at all the right moments.

In 2008, I drove to San Diego to see the Robot Chicken panel, I had no idea what comic con was. My plan was to drive down for the panel, and drive home afterward. And instead, I tumbled down a rabbit hole. Thank you Robot Chicken for introducing me to this world of magic, mystery, and fairy tales come to life.

Comic Con 2012.. you ROCKED my world.

Thank You.

Live Love. Love Life.

#xoxo

click here to follow Leah on twitter!

#SDCC: And my date for the #WalkingDead Press event is ... (best and worst entries)

Ello all, 

Thanks for kicking it last night Danny!!!

So earlier in the week I announced that instead of bringing a random OKC date to the Walking Dead press event tonight - I'd MUCH rather take one of you fanschmastically awesome people!!! I then asked you guys to show me your brraaiinnnnsss and booyyy did you guys ever! 

Here is the best and worst entry and the announcement of our winner ... drumroll ... 

The WORST entry I received was this loverly piece of work ... 

Really .... really .... really .... 

FORTUNATELY ... the next entry wound up literally blowing me away. Check out some of the design skills from our winner Mr. Tyler Schirado!! 

Tyler Before:

Tyler After:

Now THAT is what I'm talking about!! 

CONGRATS TYLER!!! I'll see you tonight as I lick and eat yo' face off at the party!!! 

Thanks so so much for reading, and thanks so so much for the entries everyone!!! You guys came up with some pretty cool ideas!! 

Rock on everyone! Hope you all are having a great Comic Con!

I'll be over at Wired Cafe all day - but feel free to tweet me and I'll come down and say howdy! 

@JenFriel

#nerdsunite

#NerdsUnite: The Ramblings of a Raconteuse (My First Comic Con!)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Helenna. We met on twitter not too long ao, and she's totes mcgotes one rad chiquita banana with a flare for all things flair! That's right, Helenna here is what we call an artsy fartsy nerd. She's a poet, into all things dramatic arts, and she's going to come on board to write each week about her love of said drama. Well not like actual drama drama, like some cat fight shit - but you get the idea. I only have one thing left to say ... HIT IT HELENNA!!! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @Helslevy

Well, this week I’ll be going to Comic Con for the first time ever.  To say I’m excited is a gigantic understatement.  

I’m ecstatic, elated, freaking joyously jumping up and down feeling like I should run around in circles excited.  I’m Christmas morning when you are 4 years old excited, a zombie seeing brains excited, my cat getting pet by two people at once excited.  So excited I can barely type the word ex-ccccc—iiii—ttteeeddddd!!  

So why I am so crazed you ask?  

I have never been to Comic Con and for me it has always kind of been the holy grail or mystical emerald city.  I’ve been on the yellow brick road headed there for awhile, but never took the final steps to see the wizard.  And in this version, the wizard is AWESOME.  I’m not quite sure why I’ve never made it there before.  Part of it was always finances, or other obligations, and then I had this silly pact with myself that I wasn’t going to attend until I was on a panel there.  Who knows why I made that dumb rule.  But this year when Geek Girls Create wasn’t an accepted panel I was like, “hellzzz yes, I’m still going!”  

Now ironically, I have a family wedding to go to this weekend so I’ll only be there for preview night and then the full day on Thursday.

(NOTE: next year no one is allowed to get married, have a baby, even the apocalypse will not keep me from attending Comic Con for the entire length of the festivities. Actually, apocalypse during Comic Con might be the best way to ensure survival.  After all, aside from a army base where else would you find so many people with knowledge about how to survive the end of the world?)  But I digress….

So I’ll be there on Weds and Thursday!  Tweet me if you are there, and maybe in the midst of the madness we’ll run into each other, or come and visit myself and the other Geek Girls Create ladies at the Geekscape booth! Here are the deets! 

GEEK GIRLS CREATE - appearance/signing

Thursday, July 12th (11am – 12pm) The Geek Girls Create Meet Up!

 The Geekscape SDCC Booth #3919

 in attendance: Kristen Nedopak (Skyrim Parodies), Stephanie Thorpe (ElfQuest), Helenna Santos Levy (American Reunion), Crix Lee (COO GirlGamer.com), Leah Cevoli (Robot Chicken), 

And we’ll be signing copies of these, so please drop by and say “hi!”

#xoxo hels

tweet me at: @helslevy

browse me at: helennasantoslevy.com

email me at: contacthelenna@gmail.com

#Fact: My comic has been conned

OHHHHHHH MYYY GATTOOSSSSS el duderinos,

I don't think I have ever been in this much pain. Like for reals, my legs, calves, back, and bones are just ... done. Doner than done - my comic has in fact been conned.

BAHHHHH!!!

My roomster came down yesterday, and I gave her my pass to run around with today as she has never been to comic con before. Super duper awesome sauce, I'm stoked for her.

Yesterday totally didn't suck. I hung out in the press room all morning and talked fancy pants stuff - followed by getting my d-r-i-n-k on at the Wired lounge.

I was sitting there @replying on twitter and this super cute chiquita banana starts talking to me, commenting on my Spirithood! I was all ... dude, snow leopard - bam, here's my card, we have a discount code on the site if ya wanna get one!

We started talking, I asked her how the con was going for her ... then she mentioned that the Swedish duderino from True Blood was a couple yards away.

You know the Swedish dude, aka the one that looks like this ...

... yeah that one.

OMG mama wants to touch the hiney.

Gimme some of that sugaaaaaaa!!!

Holy fuckerdy, he's hot.

So, I glance over and see him, and tell her that she should totally talk to him. She seemed a bit hesitant so I told her that people respond super well to spirithoods, dudes this shit got me DANCING ON STAGE WITH PRINCE!!!, so why don't we at least try to walk over to him and maybe catch his eye.

We walk over to the special "reserved" UBER vip area, which was roped off and filled with guards - "I'm going to go for it," she said.

Alrite then, let's go! hahahahaahaha she and I literally just walked in. This little nerderino has some serious balls, man.

We stood there for a moment proud of our accomplishment, but the Swed was still the prize - and ooohhhh boy did she have her eye on it.

I glanced down at my phone while summoning up the powers of the spirithood telling her to just do it ... go for it ... as quickly as I turned my head back up, *poof* she was gone, and BAM she walked right up to his table.

I have no idea what they talked about, but I was so impressed with her courage that I snapped a picture
to freeze her epic moment in time ...

Super cute chica. She's in school and wants to be a producer one day. Dude, with balls like that man, I'd hire her in 5 years!!! Wahoo!!! Go Melanie go!!!

So, that happened. And it made my life.

Then, I had dinner with Misti, Michael, my roomie, two other Michaels, this duderino Jay, and @brandillo from twitter. Was super awesome, thumbs up to the Tilted Kilt for having the BEST NACHOS EVER!!!!!

Omg omg omg omg omfg those were epic. Their jalapenos were crisp, not soggy. Major brownie points!

THEENNNNNNNNNNNN ... the roomster and I met up with this duderino from Wired, and a chickadee involved with the TNTML pilot, and other fun stuff. We were all so over the industry BS that we all just wanted to kick it and grab a beer.

Dudes, we had this little window upstairs that we were looking out, and able to people watch. Like literally, while hanging out the window ...

 

Amazing.

We kicked it til the bar closed, then I was itchin for a doobie. We went back with the Wired duderino to get some potty pot pot, and then my roomie said she was good and wanted to just bounce. Rad! I said, whatevs works ... said bye to the Wired dude, went downstairs and literally ran into a bachelor party. Like hardcore. HAHAHA those guys were SOOO FUCKING RAD!!!!!

They tried busting my balls saying they were from Spain, played soccer aka Football. I totes called bluff after seeing their micro-expressions that weren't confirming what was coming out of their mouth - hahaha highlarious.

They then asked what I did, told them about the site, a little bit about my journey in launching it ... they called my BS, and I said naw man, here's my card. LMK if you ever need anything in social media.

We then peaced in the middle east, and 20 minutes later with LITERALLY the last ounce of my phone juice, I got this email ...

Dudes, I'm so impressed that there was only one typo!! HAHA he MUST be a nerd to be able to type with that kinda accuracy while being that ... gone.

High-larious. Such rad dudes. They asked us to kick it, but I dunno ... there were like 6 of them and 2 of us, me no likey that ratio.

We walked back about a mile to the car, and that my darlings is where we slept. We found a super nice residential area, and plopped our little fannys down for the evening. I told the roomie she could add one more notch to her hardcore belt as being a chick sleeping in a car (here are some tips on how to do it).

AHHHHH I'm not mad at life right now. Comic Con was AWESOME, but I'm definitely ready to head back home - like for really reals reals. If you wanna meet up, I'll be at the Omni hotel in the lobby until about 3, but I warn you - I am going on like 3 hours of sleep for two nights in a row ... I am the physical manifestation of death becomes her.

Nappy mcnapperson time.

AHHHHH!!! I have such a RAD week coming up!!! My new management peeps are sending me out to a whole heap load of networks for "generals" - which is basically where you meet with the suits, tell 'em your spiel, and you see if something clicks.

My story is bat shit, man. As humbly as possible ... but I have a really really really good feeling on this.

Fingers crossed. YAY LIFE!!! =)

Happy Comic Con everyone!!!!!

#nerdsunite