Daily Panel | Destroy the Mall; destroy America

The Mutant Punks attack the Mall of America in Ryan Kelly's Funrama #1.

Hey, Twin Cities | Buccaneers at the Children's Theatre Company

The awesome Children's Theatre Company always picks great plays to produce, but they've outdone themselves with this one. From now through October 21, they're doing Buccaneers by Liz Duffy Adams and Ellen Maddow. There's a fun YouTube video below with the cast and crew explaining the story, but it's basically about a girl who runs away from home to be a pirate:

When Enid Arabella learns of her downtrodden parents’ plan to send her away, she takes to the high seas, only to be captured by the tyrannical pirate Johnny Johné. Enid must summon her wit and gumption to save herself and the rest of the children of Johné’s crew. Under the most threatening of circumstances, the dragooned team of reluctant young sailors learns to form a democracy and ultimately to forgive the adults that have repressed them. This raucous world premiere pirate musical, with a score drawn from sea shanties and music from around the world, is a thrilling tale of empowerment, leadership, and justice.

Creator-owned and small businesses

I'm a big fan of the idea of creator-owned comics and self-published books. I love how the Internet and digital media help individual creators to succeed and profit from their own work. Apparently, that love of the Do It Yourself philosophy is starting to spill into other aspects of my life as well. Especially in regard to small businesses.

I hadn't really thought of it in these terms before, but a few weeks ago, our neighborhood held an event to promote area businesses of all sizes. It was called Night Out on East 7th Street and it was a lot of fun. Diane had a table to promote her artwork, so David and I walked up and down Saint Paul's East 7th Street with our friend Andy. Our neighborhood paper, the Dayton's Bluff District Forum got a picture of us, so that's us in the red circle above. You can click the photo for a closer look.

What was great about the event was that we discovered a lot of outstanding restaurants and other businesses that we didn't even realize existed. We've got three or four, authentic Mexican restaurants (including a bakery) in our neighborhood and an awesome Salvadoran place. There's an adoption shelter for cats, a couple of grocery stores, lots of clothing boutiques, and a place to get your printer cartridges refilled. We were familiar with one of the restaurants, a coffee shop, a print shop, and David's karate dojo, but that was the extent of our usual patronage on that street. We'll be paying closer attention to the other businesses from now on, meaning that the event was a great success.

I've always been a fan of comics shops and independent bookstores, so it's not a revelation to me that I should be supporting small businesses. The revelation is that it can actually be convenient to do that too. I just needed to have my eyes opened to what's around me.

Twin Cities Adventure | Terry Pratchett's Guards! Guards!: The Play

If you live in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area, you might like to know that the Mounds Theatre Community Players have been doing a series of plays based on Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Guards! Guards! is the eighth novel in the series, but the third play after Mort and The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. Unfortunately, I haven't read a lot of Pratchett (Good Omens with Neil Gaiman may be the only one), but the Mounds Theatre usually does a great job and I'm looking forward to seeing how they pull this off.

From the website:

Here there be dragons . . . and the denizens of Ankh-Morpork wish one huge fire breather would return from whence it came. Long believed extinct, a superb specimen of Draco Nobilis ('noble dragon' for those who don't understand italics) has appeared in Discworld's greatest city.

Not only does this unwelcome visitor have a nasty habit of charbroiling everything in its path, in rather short order it is crowned King (it is a noble dragon, after all . . .) Meanwhile, back at Unseen University, an ancient and long-forgotten volume -- The Summoning of Dragons -- is missing from the Library's shelves.

To the rescue comes Captain Vimes, Constable Carrot, and the rest of the Night Watch who, along with other brave citizens, risk everything, including a good roasting, to dethrone the flying monarch and restore order to Ankh-Morpork (before it's burned to a crisp). A rare tale, well done as only Terry Pratchett can.

Showtimes are 7:30 pm on Fridays and Saturdays (September 7, 8, 14, 15, 21, and 22) and 2:00 pm on Sundays (September 9, 16, 23). Tickets are $15 for adults, $10 for students and seniors, and $6 for kids under 12. Shoot me an email if you want to go and I'll let you know when we're planning to attend. It could be like a date!

Twin Cities Adventure | National Geographic's Real Pirates exhibit

My Cownt Tales cohort and Sister from Another Mister, Jessica Hickman emailed to remind me that National Geographic's Real Pirates exhibit is coming to the Science Museum on 18 February (it'll run through 3 September).

The full name of the traveling exhibit is Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship, so it focuses on Sam Bellamy's Whydah:

One of the most technologically advanced vessels of her day, the Whydah was built and launched as a slave ship and captured on her maiden voyage across the Atlantic by legendary pirate Sam Bellamy and his crew. After a few alterations and a quick hoist of the Jolly Roger, the Whydah became the flagship of Bellamy's flotilla, leading raids throughout Caribbean waters and up the Atlantic coastline.

Visitors will be able to touch real pirate gold, board a recreated pirate ship, learn to tie knots, look at pirate art (like Gregory Manchess' painting above), and talk to piratey role-players about life on the seven seas. There's even a contest (ending Friday!) to design a new Jolly Roger to be displayed with the exhibit.

Who wants to go?

Minnesota cold...on Twilight

Though you couldn't tell it from the theater crowds last Thursday, clearly I ended up in the right state. The other two places I've lived are considerably more enthusiastic about sparkly vampires than I am.

How does your Twi-hardness compare with your neighbors'?

[Infographic plundered from GoodReads]

Twin Cities Adventure: Holiday Stuff

Image boosted from Twin Cities Daily Photo.

Minneapolis and Saint Paul have a great arts community and MPR's State of the Arts blog has helpfully collected the various holiday arts goings on in one, convenient list. Due to lack of time (we haven't even been able to get out to see Harry Potter or Dawn Treader yet), we'll be limiting ourselves to Junie B. Jones in "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells," but there's lots more out there to see.

When is someone going to write a holiday musical called Jungle Bells? I need to see beautiful people in loin cloths exchanging gifts and singing carols with their animal friends.

Twin Cities Adventure: Steampunk Mystery Event

The Scarlet Ribbon Society is hosting a Steam Century Mystery Event on Saturday, November 20th at the Le Blanc House Bed & Breakfast (302 University Avenue NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413).

Tickets are $10 in advance; $12 at the door. Space is limited, so they're encouraging people to order early.

The doors will open at 5:30 pm with the mystery beginnig at 6:00. Casual Attire is welcome, but Fancy Dress is applauded.

I'm not going to be able to attend this one, but Diane and I love mystery parties. If they do another, hopefully I'll learn about it sooner and we can make plans to go.

Twin Cities Adventure: Geek Meet-Ups

If you live in the Twin Cities and enjoy nerdy activities, but either a) don't find out about them soon enough or b) don't have anyone to go to them with, I have good news. There's a Meetup Group called Geeks, Nerds, Dweebs, Dorks & Other Assorted Social Misfits whose sole mission is to get self-proclaimed nerds together for some group fun.

A couple of my family members run the group and I've volunteered to "host" meetups at comics functions like the MCBA conventions and MIX and whatever else cool that comes up. There's a lot more than just comics though, including improv comedy, scavenger hunts, karaoke, sushi crawls, and the ubiquitous Much Much More. Well worth checking out.

Graphic Novel Conference

Just got back from the first ever Graphic Novel and Comic Writing and Illustrating Conference sponsored by The Loft Literary Center and the Hennepin County Library.

It began with an entertaining keynote by Gene Luen Yang (American Born Chinese, Prime Baby, Animal Crackers). He mostly talked about his own experience breaking into comics and his experimentation with self-publishing and mini-comics before pitching to a small publisher and finally landing the kind of big-publisher deal that involves an agent and an advance. I'd already heard some of that story in a short comic he did for the Animal Crackers collection, but it was much funnier the way he told it today. And very inspirational too in his accounts of how he kept looking for new ways to make and publish comics throughout his life.

He also reinforced what I've learned from Cownt Tales: that you can't make money self-publishing your own single-issue stuff. It's cheaper today with POD, but when Yang was doing it, he was spending $3000 to publish a single issue and only made about $400 back on the first one. By the third issue, he was barely clearing $200. Again, it's inspirational that he had that kind of passion to save that much money to put towards his dream, but from a business standpoint, it never paid off. He didn't even make money once a small publisher picked him up. All of that was for love and experience.

What else I learned, after the break.

Twin Cities Adventure

I know this doesn't apply to or interest a great number of you, so I'll be sparing with this feature, but I occasionally run across cool, adventuresome things going on in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area and figured it would be nice to stick them all together.

Caribbean restaurants



Twin Cities food critic Dara Moskowitz-Grumdahl recently spent some time talking to the Current (more on them in a second) about great places to get Caribbean food. You can hear the whole conversation below, but the short version is that she talked about Caribe, Smalley's Caribbean BBQ, and Harry Singh's. At the Current's blog, there a couple of more recommendations too: Victors 1959, and West Indies Soul. I've been longing for a list like this ever since Puerta Azul closed and knowing that there's a Puerto Rican restaurant in town again (Caribe) brings me great joy.

Dara doesn't mention Kokomo's in the Mall of America, but if you can handle the touristy atmosphere, I've enjoyed the food there too.

Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Jersey Lily



Showing now at the Park Square Theatre until July 3. The website describes the play like this:

During a small matter of blackmail and missing jewels, Watson pines for Lillie Langtry, Holmes chases the infernal Moriarty, and Oscar Wilde gets some of his best lines. The wit and wisdom of Wilde, Arthur Conan Doyle and even William Shakespeare combine to offer up a delightful escapade that includes seduction and secrets, lies and lilies, mistresses and mayhem.

The Current is Nerd-Certified



Wil Wheaton gave the Twin Cities' (and probably everywhere else's) best radio station a very nice shout out. If you like modern rock-and-roll mixed with a healthy serving of the best of the older stuff, you should really give The Current a stream.