Issue 40: Star Trek Celebrations, QCon, a new pilot, and a new pitch!
Okay, listen closely…
Can you hear us breathing?
That’s maybe too close.
NEW STUFF
Hope folks enjoyed our Star Trek Celebrations essay on the queer history of Star Trek! It was a joy to write and so flattering to be asked, but it was really tough because space was very limited! We had only two pages at the back of the issue, and only around 500 words. It’s really tough to convey so much information on a sixty year-old franchise with over 900 hours of stories, in that few words.
If you read it, we hope you liked it!
And we’ve still got a few copies of Star Trek Celebrations left in our ko-fi shop if you want to grab one… including new (we literally just got them in yesterday!) but very limited quantities of Cover B (Kelvin timeline Sulu), and the rare 1:15 and 1:25/no logo Mariner and Jennifer covers, seen above!
The lovely folks over at PRISM comics, who we always do signings with at local SoCal comic conventions, did a really nice interview with us leading up to QCon, which will be in West Hollywood’s Plummer Park on June 20. It’s SoCal’s only queer comic con, it’s only for one day, and it’s free!
Ollie Kaplan
Right now our QCon schedule looks like this:
11:30 am-12:30 pm: Tilly on the Trans and Nonbinary Creatives panel in room 2
1-2 pm: Both of us signing at the PRISM booth
5-6 pm: Both of us on the Queer Eye on Star Trek panel in room 2
Our final confirmed Qcon schedule will be in the next issue!
We’ve set up a few signings for SDCC so far. One is with IDW, and we hope they’ll have early copies of the Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming trade paperback available for it. It releases just a couple weeks after the con, so fingers crossed they get books in hand early and can have them for the show. Either way we’ll be there signing!
Also, we will have some signings with Mad Cave/Maverick for Just Another Summer. They’re also going to try to get the book in early for SDCC, as this one releases only a week after the con! But even if they don’t have them in time, they said they’ll have other stuff for us to sign… prints, bookmarks, posters, who knows! Something like that.
And we’ll also have a few signings at the PRISM booth, though they haven’t started setting those up yet.
Oddly, we’re only scheduled to be on one panel right now. That may change, panel moderators are changing their panelists all the time leading up to the con as people’s availability changes or what have you. But right now, we only have the one, and that feels really weird! Except…
We’ll also have a short panel for Long Away, after the film screens as part of SDCC’s International Independent Film Festival!
We still can’t say when or where the screening and panel will be, but we can tell you that Griffin Kelly, Justin Lawrence Barnes, and Jessie Earl will be on the panel with us! SDCC usually releases the full schedule a few weeks before the con, so we should have those details for you by mid-July!
Don’t forget that Long Away will also screen in the FP Arts Short Film Fest in Scotland, from June 25-27. If you go, not only can you see our film and all the other nominees, but you’ll get to vote for their audience award! Get tickets below!
Also! Our roller derby league, San Fernando Valley Roller Derby, will be in the West Hollywood Pride parade this weekend! WeHo is like the queer capital of California, so this is pretty big. Tilly will be skating and Susan will be walking, so if you’re in Los Angeles, come celebrate trans and queer people with us! And if you’re not in LA, you can watch a livestream of the entire thing!
AND NOW –
You know what’s coming next, from now through mid-August… it’s a reminder to please pre-order the two graphic novels we have releasing that month!
Just Another Summer, our queer trans YA romcom, available in paperback and hardcover!
And Star Trek Voyager: Homecoming, the complete series collected in a trade paperback!
Matthew Rosenberg
WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON
Brainstormed a bunch of ideas for the new pilot concept we had, and then started on a loose outline.
Also, accidentally, have half an idea for a new pitch based on a conversation with had with a fairly big name comic artist last weekend. We’d met before and got to chatting again, and turns out she’s a huge fan of something we are also huge fans of. And that “thing” is, like… half the pitch. It’s just an idea, but if we can find a story to dress it in, we’ll maybe run it by her and see if she’d like to work on it. Hoping she says yes, and not just because the idea of it is fun, but she’s a lovely person and a fabulous artist, and it’d be a dream to work with her.
Otherwise, we’re still waiting for our book agent to get back from medical leave, waiting to hear back on a pitch, and waiting to hear back on Tilly’s big “mystery” proposal, and trying to find more editors we can pitch projects to.
And though we don’t often mention it because it’s not something we are working on, our manager is constantly scouring for staffing opportunities on tv shows, but there’s just very little out there right now (this has been the story of the past six years or so, for a whole variety of reasons). The industry is not in great shape! But hope springs eternal, because if it doesn’t there will be consequences! Do you hear us, universe? Get your shit together!
TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE
It was all NICOLE MAINES all the time! Or at least on all Trans Tuesdays between the last issue of this newsletter and now. You know her as Dreamer from the CW’s Supergirl show (among many other shows and movies), and she now writes Dreamer for DC comics! We had her on to talk all about the character and her career as an actor and writer, in anticipation of the Justice Leage Dream Girls limited series! There’s one new issue out every week this month, and the first came out today. It’s the first time two trans women have written a superhero book starring two trans characters, it’s huge. Go get it, both to show DC and the entire industry that there’s a market for trans stories, and because you want a really good sci-fi superhero story!
Tilly Bridges
Nicole then returned for another episode about THE CONSTANT FIGHT that is existing as a trans person, in a world designed to punish us and uplift cis people. It’s so much worse, and so much more, than you think. If you’re cisgender, you especially need to read it.
Tilly Bridges
RECOMMENDATIONS
We’re not entirely caught up on this show yet, but we’re already in love with it. It’s a horror comedy, but unlike some others in the genre that focus more (or only) on the comedy, this is genuine horror. It will freak you out and then make you laugh immediately after. It’s a wild ride, and a perfect blending of two genres.
It reminds us a lot of a show that quickly became one of our favorites… and we were sure we recommended it before, but after going back and checking the past year’s worth of newsletters, we somehow didn’t?!
Listen. Life is a lot. If you’ve got any slack, please cut us some.
Well! Now we know what we’re recommending next issue.
In any case! Widow’s Bay is a delightful spooky funny time!
THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH
One thing you need to know about Dirtbag Henry is that he loves roses.
No no no, he loves them.
We have to pull off all the leaves, and even the little green flappy bits right under the petals, or he will eat them. And even then, he will eat the petals if we’re not keeping an eye on him.
Roses are not toxic to cats, which is one of the reasons we get those flowers and not others. So what’s the problem?
WELL.
You see.
Every time Henry eats any part of a rose…
He barfs it up.
And then goes right back to eat more roses.
He is a cat of one mere overtaxed brain cell, and he learns nothing. Ever. He’s also stubborn as hell and will do whatever the heck he wants no matter what you think, although sometimes because of what you think, when he knows it will make you mad.
And so he will continually keep eating roses, and making himself sick, quite literally ad nauseum.
We tell you all of this only because…
Computer, enhance grid B-3!
Damn it computer, we said enhance!
Yeah, we’re on to you, buddy!
You can see how happy he was that his nefarious plans to ennauseate himself were now spoiled.
But in news of things our cats love…
This is Izzy’s bag, and she loves it.
It’s one of the soft kind that’s made from recycled plastic (we got this one from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory that has an open campus you can wander around once a year!) and we’d brought some groceries in with it.
Izzy is not usually one for bags, or even boxes, but something about this one just captivated her. She loves to be in it, to attack it, to rend its flesh from its bones, to hunt her toys we put inside it. It’s very full of holes now, but it makes her happy, so.
That’s her bag. And she loves it.
WHAT’S IN THE BIG TIME?
The paid version of issue 40 is all about not siloing queer and trans people off by themselves when you’re putting a convention panel together, and the damage that can do. Inclusion is important, actually!
There’s also the first page of an old comic anthology short we did, a kinda gritty ‘70s crime story called Morrow. It’s definitely an artifact from another time.
Sign up for it at birdguestbroadcast.com and help us pay rent and eat food and stuff!
THE END
Still hire us to make Robo Waitress Assassins. Or so many other things.
We just wanna write stuff for you.
And also we’re cool and funny and kind. Okay thanks.
SOCIALS
Tilly Bridges
Susan Bridges
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