Nightmares, Comics, and Travel Plans

Aside from waxing nostalgic for ’80s movies and updating my blog layout, there’s been quite a bit stirring in my corner of the world.

A Nightmare on Van Ness Street

Some of the most exciting news I received recently is that my film, Everything I Needed to Know About Zombies I Learned From the Movies, will be participating in A Nightmare to Remember International Horror Film Festival.


The fest takes place Saturday, June 18 at San Francisco's Opera Plaza Theater. Join us for three hours of indie shorts, trailers, and general horror movie shenanigans, all presented by Horror Hostess Miss Misery (an awesome woman I had the pleasure of meeting at Wondercon this year). If you can’t make it, please wish me luck!

Panel by Panel

In other horror-related news, I also spent a good deal of time working on my very first comic book project. I learned a huge amount about comic scripting in a very short amount of time thanks to an excellent, patient editor (Enrica Jang, who is a marvelous comic writer herself. Check out her comic Azteca).


At this point, it’s all in the (very capable) artist’s hands, and soon I’ll have a link to share. All I can say is that it involves zombies (natch) and a certain favorite storyteller of mine.

Summer Plans

As if a film festival and comic project weren’t enough, there’s some big news on a more personal front: the Professor and I are in the midst of planning our first international trip together! We’ll be spending two weeks this summer in beautiful Thailand (mostly in Bangkok), hosted by some very generous friends. It still feels very surreal, but incredibly exciting.

Photo by D.Alyoshin

We haven’t had an adventure of this caliber since…well, ever! So, any tips and tricks for these newbie globe-trotters is most welcome.

Halloween, in a Nutshell

For many folks, Christmas is the busiest holiday of the year. The baking, the decorating, the company, the spiritual observance, the activities, etc. For me, it's the Halloween/Samhain season, and this year's was a non-stop, action-packed, three week period filled with friends, food, theater, film, games, and so much more.

Let's recap some of the highlights, shall we?

Exhibit A: "At the Opera Tonight..."

The festivities began the weekend before Halloween, with a weekend trip to the state capital for the Sacramento Horror Film Festival. This was purely a pleasure trip (I hadn't submitted my film this year) to see a screening of Repo! The Genetic Opera, with cast and creators in attendance.

It was a great evening (though it was preceded by a nauseatingly bad pre-show), complete with shadow cast performances, audience participation, and a lively Q&A with Terrance Zdunich (co-creator/"Graverobber"), Darren Smith (co-creator/"Opera Maestro"), Alisa Burket ("Henchwoman 1"), and Andreja Punkris ("Henchwoman 2").

I waited in line to get autographs from them all, and was quite pleased that I didn't make an ass of myself. I usually tend to put my foot in my mouth when meeting artists or celebrities, so this was a step up!

Exhibit B: "Holy Sugar Cookies, Batman!"

Like I mentioned before, baking is integral to my Halloween season. And when I bake...I BAKE:

In one evening, I made over 100 sugar cookies in 3 different colors of dough and flavors of sugar topping: orange leaves and pumpkins with real Wisconsin maple sugar on top, white ghosts and bones with vanilla sugar, and purple-black cats and witches with purple sugar.

I think, out of all the cookies this year, I am most proud of my Batman cookies:

You see, my video game of the season was Batman: Arkham Asylum, and I had to commemorate the occasion in cookie dough. *nods seriously*

The reason for so many cookies? I made enough to ship to friends and family, share with co-workers, take as my contribution to a play-reading/potluck party, and have enough left over for my own guests at a Rock Band party. Even with all that, we still didn't finish the last cookie until two days ago.

Exhibit C: Making Halloween

Of course, what Halloween is complete without crafts?

I didn't have much time, but I did manage to get a little stitching in:

This wee ghostie was made using a free Annie Oakleaves pattern I snagged last year. I made him using back, satin, and long-and short stitches.

I tried to finish a little friend for him:

But I didn't quite make it. Perhaps next year!

Now it's time to switch gears. Though my favorite holiday is over, there's still two big, special events right around the corner. That being said, I'm looking forward to a couple of weeks of mellow-time before we kick back into holiday mode!

Eye: Zombies heading to the Windy City!

Just got the news on Thursday, Everything I Needed to Know About Zombies I Learned From the Movies is playing in the 2009 Chicago Horror Film Festival!

The festival runs September 25-27 in Chicago, IL. Not quite sure when our film is showing (or quite where the venue is), so more info to come soon!