Issue 33: Voyager Homecoming TPB, the Joy Who Lived, and casting!
Stop, hey, what’s that sound?
We live in Los Angeles, so…
95% chance it’s a hellspawned leaf-blower.
NEW STUFF
Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming’s trade paperback, that collects all five issues in one volume, is up for preorders! It releases in August, so go tell your comic shop you want one, or preorder it from any bookstore! Only $17.99!
Steve Foxe
Another review of Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming issue 5 came in, and it’s a corker from Scifi Pulse giving it a 9.6/10!
“This is a really satisfying conclusion to the story… ends with Janeway delivering a powerful speech to 8472… juxtaposed with a series of touching panels showing the Voyager crew reuniting with their family and friends.”
Ian Cullen
Also this article went up on Screenrant, and while their stuff is usually wild speculation making an entire article out of nothing, this one was somewhat better… regarding us breaking up Seven of Nine and Chakotay in Homecoming.
Shaun Corley
There’s more we want to say about that, which will be in the Process Stuff section in the paid version of this edition of the newsletter.
Annnnd hey, drop by our ko-fi shop if you’re looking for single issues of Homecoming, we’ve got copies of all issues in one cover or another, and some complete five-issue sets remaining, along with bookplates, paperback, and hardcover copies of Begin Transmission: The Trans Allegories of The Matrix.
WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON
Our original pilot reading of Robo Waitress Assassins as part of the Joy Who Lived trans theater festival in Los Angeles was shifted around, so look for it April 5 at 12:30 pm pacific! It’ll still be at the Hudson Theater here in Los Angeles, and live-streamed. Ticket info will be coming soon!
We’ve been busy going through all the actors who submitted to our reading, and doing the difficult work of casting the rest of the characters (outside of our leads Griffin Kelly and Jacks McLaughlin, who signed on before it was even picked up by the festival).
And it’s such a fun thing to do, and we love sending the “congratulations we’d love to cast you in our show!” emails! It makes people so happy!
The counterpoint to that is you absolutely cannot cast far more people than you can, which means we have to gently let down a whooooole lot of people. Actors deal with rejections just as much (if not even more) than we writers do, it’s all part of the job. But it still sucks to have to send those rejections and disappoint people.
Our script for the Systemic volume 2 comic anthology was accepted and became a beautiful unicorn… a script that came back from the editor with zero notes. Even more, he said it was beautiful and made him cry, so we’re feeling pretty dang good about it.
Our artist for it has already done a bunch of character design work, and will be off to layouts soon. Hooray.
We sent pitches that were requested by the editor consulting for a company (which is a weird way to say it, but we probably shouldn’t say more about it at this stage). Cross those toes for us.
And our new pilot script sits there waiting for us, making us feel guilty for not getting back to it yet.
This is the problem when things don’t have deadlines! They always get pushed a little in favor of the things that do.
But we’re gonna get there!
Eventually.
TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE
Our TRANS REPRESENTATION IN 2025 MEDIA report continued through parts 2 and 3, discussing television shows. There’s some good rep, some really weird rep, and some pretty questionable/bad rep. Covers Clean Slate, Doctor Who, Hacks, Heated Rivalry, Ironheart, Last of Us, Loot, Murderbot, Only Murders in the Building, The Pitt, Pluribus, Poker Face, and more!
Tilly Bridges
Tilly Bridges
RECOMMENDATIONS
Shrinking is a bit of an odd show for us. Sometimes it’s really funny, but every once in a while the humor can lean a little mean, which isn’t a thing we love.
There’s also the somewhat problematic way it deals with therapy, as a show about therapists. Some of it has been maybe unintentionally harmful at times, because “a guy who likes to break the rules at his job to go the extra mile for his clients” is a very different thing when you’re talking about mental health. We’re not the most qualified ones to speak on that, but it’s definitely something to consider.
But seeing Harrison Ford play a sweary, grumpy old crank is an absolute delight. And he’s doing some really tremendous acting in it, too. The whole cast is lovely, but Ford makes it worth the price of admission all on his own.
THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH
Sometimes, yes sometimes, the dirtbag can actually be cute.
Whereas always, yes always, Izzy’s the cutest thing you’ve ever seen.
WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?
Big Time issue 33 goes deep about stepping into a pre-existing world, and how the story you want to tell may change things. And that’s okay, as long as you don’t disrespect everything that came before. And we’ve got the audio commentary on the second half of Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming issue 5, featuring all those character reunions folks have waited decades to see!
Sign up for it at birdguestbroadcast.com and help us pay rent and eat food and stuff!
THE END
Make something beautiful today.
Maybe that’s a story, or a drawing, or a piece of music.
Or maybe it’s an email telling someone you care about just how much you love them.
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