Saturday Hot Links
Welcome to another installment of Saturday Hot Links!
Today: The 2013 Comic-Con Edition!
31 facts about San Diego Comic-Con.
Comic-Con by the numbers.
The women’s guide to Comic-Con.
11 panels not to miss at Comic-Con.
Comic-Con coverage:
Shaula Evans Hot Links Corner!
Thoughts for the young oddballs we need so badly (with a reference to writer-director Rian Johnson).
The word for “word” in European languages (cool map).
Recreating movie posters with clip art and comic sans.
Can you decipher this novel consisting entirely of punctuation marks?
Where are all the Asian rom com leads? For that matter, where are all the rom coms?
Chuck Wendig: 25 things to know about your story’s stakes.
America, Japan and the giant robots they both love.
11 filmmakers answer the question: Why do you write strong female characters?
Japanese posters of David Lynch films.
Why there are so many terrible movies on Netflix.
A feature on Asylum, the prod co that makes schock movies like Sharknado.
How female actors are rewriting Hollywood’s script.
The pop culture propaganda of Ender’s Game, Pacific Rim and G.I. Joe [movie posters].
The Hero’s Journey… explained by puppets [videod].
Vincenzo Cerami, screenwriter of Life is Beautiful, died this week in Italy at the age of 72.
Thanks, Shaula!
Complete list of the 2013 Emmy Prime Time Emmy nominations.
4 poisonous birds.
Kevin Costner, Denis Leary, Jennifer Garner promote their newest movie Draft Day [video].
The world according to Americans [map].
Movie ticket prices hit record highs due to popularity of 3D films.
Nate Silver of Five Thirty Eight blog leaving the NY Times and heading to ESPN.
Want persistence? Screenwriter writes 10 pages every day for 4 years [thanks, Nate Winslow for the link].
Reflections on suicide.
Gender swapped Star Wars images.
Do cultural critics have any value left?
11 authors who hated movie versions of their books.
Harlan Ellison isn’t dead yet.
Sony wins Midnight in Paris lawsuit over Faulkner quote.
Writing to calm and compose the injured brain.
Watch the first two episodes of the new “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” for free online.
Inside the World Snail Racing championship.
In honor of the 25th anniversary of the release of Die Hard, a brief history of “yippee-ki-yay.”
Why does music give us chills.
The 10 most creatively brutal interrogation scenes.
Amazing images of how the electric car Tesla is manufactured [video].
Psy moves from CAA to WME.
Life before air conditioning.
Chris Fenton, president of DMG Entertainment Motion Picture Group, talks about Chinese co-productions [video].
12 strange but real ice cream flavors.
6 filmmaking tips from Nicholas Winding Refn.
Interesting facts about 10 national anthems.
Quentin Tarantino and David O. Russell finalists for the 2013 Humanitas Prize.
Would you pay $30 per month for ESPN?
HBO greenlights Duplass brothers comedy “Togetherness” to series.
What’s the difference between Britain and England.
39 hidden Mickeys in Disney animated movies.
The 50 most interesting articles in Wikipedia.
Bitch Flicks: Am I the only feminist who didn’t like The Heat?
6 lesser-known terms for weather phenomena.
The top grossing indie films in the summer 2013.
Linguist finds a language in its infancy.
Extensive Wired feature on writer-director Neil Blomkamp.
5 things that make you irresistible to mosquitoes.
The absence of female critics.
50 places every literary fan should visit.
Is this the worst line in scriptwriting history [video].
5 scientific theories about what aliens might look like.
How J.K. Rowling’s pseudonym was discovered.
One man’s journey to yo-yo mastery [video].
Normally I fill this space with a Screenwriting Master Class tip, but today in honor of Comic-Con, a short personal anecdote about my own intersection with this annual event.
It’s August 1988. K-9 is filming in San Diego. I am staying in the Omni hotel with the rest of the movie crew. I discovered two things early on in about movie production. First, it’s incredibly boring. Second, if you really want to hear some interesting stories, befriend the below-the-line folks which is precisely what I did with K-9. In fact, a few of them are still friends to this day.
So with shooting done for the day, some of the crew members invite me for drinks down at the Omni bar. Several hours later and many fantastic stories from the front line of film production, and even more shots of booze, I stumble up to the hotel room. The next morning I am, of course, pretty much hungover. I make my way to the elevator with the intention of scoring some coffee to combat the effects of the previous evening.
As the elevator dings, having arrived at the lobby, and the doors open, I suddenly find myself amidst hundreds of people dressed up in costumes. Star Wars. Star Trek. Monsters. Casually sauntering around as if this is their normal routine.
I stagger around through the horde of alien beings, unsure whether I’m suffering from sort of alcohol induced delirium, and this scene from the movie Dumbo comes to mind:
I make my way to the restaurant, packed with costumed folk, and nab a waiter by the elbow.
“What the hell is this?”
“Comic-Con.”
I had never heard of it. But now I knew.
Back then, it was a relatively tame affair with events split up between the Omni Hotel and the Convention Center. Of course, it’s grown into this ‘thing’. But for me? I will always associate Comic-Con with those first few minutes of me wandering around a sea of characters, wondering if I was dreaming or not.
In the spirit of that experience, go here to see some of the best costumes at this year’s Comic-Con.
Good luck to all of you braving the convention this year! May the Force be with you!