The end of the month looks pretty busy, and this is just the readings. Stay tuned for other events.
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Saturday, August 22nd

We are absolutely delighted to welcome Elizabeth Lynn and Marta Randall in a rare appearance in the Bay Area!

Cash bar and doors open at 6:00 pm, Readings begin at 7:00 pm.

Each author will read a selection, followed by Q & A moderated by Terry Bisson. Books will be for sale courtesy of Borderlands Books. The Authors will sign in the lounge afterward.

While we have no admission charge, a $5 suggested donation goes directly to Variety Children’s Charity – drop some cash in the donation box, or buy a beer! Seating is limited – first come, first seated.

The Variety Preview Room Theatre, The Hobart Bldg. 1st Floor – entrance is between Quizno’s & Citibank, 582 Market Street at 2nd & Montgomery, San Francisco.

Rina and Jacob have been delayed coming back from Worldcon (see here for my side of the story). We have been making arrangements to make sure that the movie showing tonight happens, but I’m not 100% certain that we will be OK and I can’t contact Rina and Jacob while they are in the air.

Cheryl Morgan

Friday, August 14, 8:30 PM – Midnight
Litquake’s Goth Hop – A Tribute to Edgar Allan Poe – featuring a Twilight-write-alike/ Monster Mash-Up story contest. At The Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa Street, San Francisco.

Tickets $13.00 at the door, $10.00 in advance from Brown Paper Tickets.

August 8 – December 6, 2009
The Cartoon Art Museum
The Internet has revolutionized all forms of communication, and comics are no exception. The Cartoon Art Museum explores the digital revolution in its latest exhibition, Monsters of Webcomics, a showcase of some of the best and boldest work published on the World Wide Web.

The comics by the ten artists featured in this exhibition run the gamut from four-panel comic strips to full-length graphic novels and include comedy, drama, history, science fiction, and sociopolitical commentary. As varied as this work is, however, it represents only a very small sample of the comics available on the Web. The Monsters of Webcomics exhibition also includes a virtual gallery that will highlight dozens of additional online comics

The Cartoon Art Museum, 655 Mission Street, San Francisco.

Saturday, August 9 – 4:00 PM
The Speculative Fiction Book Club discusses Into the Forest by Jean Hegland at Kepler’s Books, 1010 El Camino Real, Menlo Park.

Thursday, August 13 – 4:00 PM
Inked Books: Graphic Novel Book Club discusses Batman: Arkham Asylum by Grant Morrison & David McKeon at Books Inc. in Palo Alto, 855 El Camino Real #74, Palo Alto.

The Night of Washed-Up Superheroes!!

Note early start time!!!

6:30PM – The Incredibles – 2004 – 115 mins. Animated – Pixar Studios – won the Hugo in 2005 for Best Dramatic Presentation – Long Form.

Mr. Incredible (A.K.A. Bob Parr), and his wife Helen (A.K.A. Elastigirl), were formerly the crimefighting elite of Metroville. Liability insurance gets too expensive, and they’re forced underground to the suburbs to live a “normal life” with their children Violet, Dash and Jack-Jack. Toiling for the man, and dreaming of the good ol’ days, Bob gets a mysterious communication summons him to a remote island for a top secret assignment. He soon discovers that it will take a super family effort to rescue the world from total destruction.

9:00 PM – The Watchmen – The Director’s Cut – 2009 – 186 mins. – Directed by Zack Snyder

Watchmen is set in an alternate 1985 America in which costumed superheroes are part of the fabric of everyday society, and the “Doomsday Clock” – which charts the USA’s tension with the Soviet Union – is permanently set at five minutes to midnight. When one of his former colleagues is murdered, the washed up but no less determined masked vigilante Rorschach sets out to uncover a plot to kill and discredit all past and present superheroes. Their mission is to watch over humanity… but who is watching the Watchmen?” Based on the amazing Hugo Award-winning graphic novel by Alan Moore.

Cash bar and doors open at 6:00 PM

There will be a short intermission between films

While we have no admission charge, a $5 suggested donation goes directly to Variety Childrens’ Charity – drop some cash in the donation box, or buy a beer!

The Variety Preview Room Theatre, The Hobart Bldg. 1st Floor – entrance is between Quizno’s & Citibank, 582 Market Street at 2nd & Montgomery, San Francisco.

Wednesday, August 5
8:00 PM – 9:30 PM – Reception follows at 9:30 PM

2009 International Space University (ISU) Space Studies Program
The Gerald Soffen Memorial Panel – What’s Next For Mars Exploration?

Building on the groundbreaking work of the late Gerry Soffen during the Viking missions to Mars in the mid-1970s, this panel will explore plans for the next generation of Mars probes. Participants will include: Hajime Yano, assistant professor, Department of Planetary Science, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science for JAXA; Jim Green, director, NASA’s Planetary Science Division at NASA Headquarters, Washington; David Southwood, director, Science and Robotic Exploration at the European Space Agency; Pascale Ehrenfreund, of the Space Policy Institute in the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University, Washington. Moderator: David Kendall, director of General Space Science, CSA.

At the NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field.

August 8 and 9 from 1-4pm
Classes will focus on cartooning, character design, and comics; designed as 2-day workshops, but singles okay too.

$100 per 2-day session or $50 for a single day ($90/$40 for members).
To register call 415-227-8666 x303 or email: education@cartoonart.org

From Comic Strips to Animation
Instructor: James Hummel
Level: Beginning/Intermediate ­ Adult
This class will talk about the transition from comic strips to the animated cartoon. We will discuss how the animation industry began and how it grew to where it is today. Then we will go through some of the basic principles of animation and talk about how animated movies, television shows and commercials are produced. Exercises will include creating flipbooks to illustrate storyboarding, key poses and in-betweening. We will also do exercises in gesture and proportion and incorporate our character(s) into a scene.

Not going to Worldcon? Fear not, there is still plenty going on in the Bay Area, including our local science heroes, the Mythbusters.
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