Nerd Nite No. 62: SEPTA! Comics! Max Headroom!
Here’s the lineup for this first July Nerd Nite:
Anita Davidson, “Proposed SEPTA North-South Route 49”
Proposed Route 49 is a new SEPTA bus route that aims to provide improved transit connections for the communities of Brewerytown, Fairmount, and Grays Ferry to the growing jobs and health resources in University City. In this talk, Anita Davidson will go through some of the analyses SEPTA has done to come up with the current proposal. This will hopefully also help to demystify some of their planning process.
Bio: Anita Davidson is currently an operations planner for the City Service Planning department at SEPTA. She left Philadelphia briefly to study maps in DC, but quickly came running home to my gritty city of diverse neighborhoods and functioning public transportation (well, outside of this week at least). While not riding on buses and being a SEPTA Am-badass-ador, she hangs out at woodshops, and all of the restaurants in South Philly.
Kelly Phillips & Claire Folkman, “Drawing on Imagination with Dirty Diamonds”
From our weirdest fantasies, our darkest dreams, our brightest creations, and all the figments of our imagination, we challenged female comic creators from around the world to reveal what goes on in their brains, and we’ve assembled them into a new comic anthology! Join us as we read from the book and talk about imaginary friends, collaborating on fan fiction, the mystique of pro wrestling, becoming a ghost story, and much, much more!
Bio: Dirty Diamonds is an award-winning all-girl comic anthology based out of Philadelphia, edited and published by Kelly Phillips (creator of “Weird Me”) and Claire Folkman. The goal of Dirty Diamonds has been to give the women of comics a dedicated outlet for telling their stories, and artists from around the world have contributed their semi-autobiographical comics over the years. Celebrating their fifth anniversary, they were recently the recipients of the Philly Geek Award for Comic Creators of the Year, and they are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to fund the publication of Dirty Diamonds #7: Imagination and to pay all of the artists that contributed their work to the book.
Chris Cummins, “20 Minutes Into the Future: The Curious Case of the Max Headroom Broadcast Signal Intrusion”
On November 22, 1987, Chicago television viewers were confounded when a broadcast of Doctor Who was interrupted by a strange pirate TV signal in which a man dressed as Max Headroom began ranting for 90 seconds about everything from local media to soft drinks. It was creepy. It was odd. It was amazing. Not to mention, highly illegal. This hijacking of the airwaves was a federal crime, but to this day the person or persons responsible have never been caught. Having long been obsessed with the case, Nerd Nite Philadelphia co-boss will delve deep into this incident, examining what it might have all meant, its possible relationship with the phreaking/hacking subcultures of the 1980s, and look at the possible culprits.
Bio: Chris Cummins is a Philadelphia-based writer and comics historian who regularly contributes to Den of Geek and Uproxx. He is also the producer/host of Sci-Fi Explosion, a cosmic cabaret of craziness that explores the wacky world of science fiction. You can follow him on Twitter at @bionicbigfoot and @scifiexplosion.
PLUS! Music by Emily Mineo!
The details:
Doors open at 4pm. Show at 7:30pm. We recommend you get there early to ensure getting a good seat!
$5
Wednesday, July 6th
Frankford Hall
1210 Frankford Avenue
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