Brass City Comic Convention 2012

Photos from this year's Brass City Comic Con at Naugatuck Valley Community College, organized by Legends of Superheros. Bigger than last year, lots of fun stuff going on in between hunting for good deals on favorite comic books. Proceeds are being donated to Safe Haven of Greater Waterbury.

First up: costumes!

Supergirl and Harley Quinn

Superman and Wolverine

Spiderman helping Iron Man fly

Best cardboard robot costume I've ever seen!

Some general shots of the show:

As always, one of the best parts of a convention is getting to meet the creators of comic books. A few of the artists in attendance:

David Meikis working on a sketch

Cesar Feliciano drawing a fan

Roy Blakely of My Fair Hunter next to the Rumbirds banner.

T.C. Ford working on a caricature

Dan Dos Santos speaking with fans

Henna art!

Vic Preato discussing his red-shirted Stormtrooper

Maybe the best part of the show were the sketch competitions. Each time, one pro artist went up against a fan, with five minutes to draw a given subject. Great fun to watch!

A fierce competition!

Dan Dos Santos' interpretation....

...and his competition's more opinionated version.

Prof. Foster with the happy young artist after the draw-off.

There were also educational forums. Roger Rautio gave a short presentation about his efforts to create a Comic Book Hall of Fame. He has sent proposals to five major cities, looking for their collaboration in giving the HoF a home. The cities in the running are Cleveland, Chicago, NYC, Phoenix, and San Jose. An audience member (not me) suggested he should choose Waterbury. Wouldn't that be cool!

Roger Rautio (in Superman shirt) and artist Sean Russell

Audience members admiring the Hall of Fame award and famous signatures

Last but not least, we were treated to martial arts demonstrations by the Bond School of Self-Defense.

A mother-daughter team took turns taking each other down; there were several demonstrations of small kids able to defend themselves against large adults

City Fest 2012

I strolled through Library Park on Saturday during the fifth annual City Fest. The place was packed with people. The majority of tents were Christian prayer tents. There were also tents with free clothing, free food, and a free bike raffle. Musicians and other entertainers performed on the Harrub pavilion.

The line of people for the free kid's bicycle raffle.

Free kid's bicycle raffle tent. Sad to think that so many kids don't have a bicycle and that so many families are dependent on a free give-away for a very basic and common childhood treasure.

The bicycles being raffled. Helmets were included.

The Invasion Has Started in Prospect

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection announced today that the feared emerald ash borer (EAB) has been found in Prospect and might be at the Naugatuck State Forest.

You might be wondering what that means.

There are approximately 22 million ash trees in Connecticut. It is often used for firewood and for making baseball bats. The emerald ash borer kills ash trees rapidly.

The insect larvae tunnel through the trees, finally emerging from a D-shaped hole as fairly pretty green bugs.

Since being discovered in Michigan in 2002, the EAB has killed tens of millions of ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone. Connecticut is the 16th state to be invaded by this Asian insect.

Emerald Ash Borer in tunnel.
Photo by Eric R. Day, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Bugwood.com

At the moment, there's no way to stop the EAB. Scientists hope that its spread can be slowed down long enough for them to find a way to save the ash trees. If they can't, there will be no more ash trees.

For full information on the EAB,  especially for information on how to identify it, visit www.emeraldashborer.info.

There is also information on the Connecticut DEEP website.

If you see any signs of EAB, you should report it to the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station. You can email the state entomologist at CAES.StateEntomologist@ct.gov.


Meanwhile....

Today's announcement reminded me that we've lost two magnificent trees on the Waterbury Green. I think they are elm trees, but I'm not 100% certain.

When the trees started growing leaves this spring, I noticed the one to the right (in the photo below) wasn't growing any leaves. Oddly, the tree directly behind the horse fountain was growing leaves only on the half of the tree further away from the other one. Those leaves shriveled up and died.

Both trees still have a little life left near the ground, a few shoots of green leaves, but I'm sure they won't last long.

Brass City Comic Convention

Didn't have enough money for the San Diego Con? Try the Brass City Comic Convention, right here in Waterbury, the birthplace of the comic book!

The convention is hosted by Naugatuck Valley Community College, thanks to Professor William H. Foster III, who has done a lot of work researching and writing about how African Americans have been represented in comic books over the decades.

Zombies In My Backyard

WARNING: If you are squeamish about bugs, flies, fungus, or creepy crawly things, you might want to skip this post.



I spent a little time in my garden today and was surprised to find a large number of dead insects clinging to the undersides of leaves, on flowers, and even clustered on a metal wire I use to mark the edge of my vegetable garden. They are in the back yard and the side yard. I am a novice gardener, so I don't always know what is normal and what is unusual. I'm leaning toward this being unusual.

It took me a while to figure out what insect I was looking at. When I found a few that still had their wings barely attached, I realized they were all ordinary bottle flies.

How do bottle flies normally die? Wouldn't they be like houseflies, curling up in a corner?  These dead flies all have a tight grip on the leaves and wire. That can't be normal. It reminds me of the parasite that turns honeybees into zombies or, even more so, the fungus that does the same thing to ants.


Some of the flies appear to be slowly expanding, their exoskeleton cracking open. At least, I think that's what's happening. I'm not equipped or willing to start a dissection.

I tried doing a search for parasites that kill blowflies or bottle flies, and all I came up with was information about their larvae being parasites that harm birds. Then I remembered learning about a fungus turning ants into zombies, forcing them to climb upwards, then cling onto a leaf or branch with a death grip, allowing the fungus to grow inside the ant, then disperse its spores from the corpse.

As soon as I Googled for blowfly fungus, I found a photo from 2008 of a blowfly killed by fungus in Massachusetts. Mystery solved!

Further research suggests that the fungus is possibly Entomophthora muscae (or a related fungus).



For more on fungi turning flies into zombies, read

Donegal Wildlife blog (fungi in Ireland in 2008)

Fly-Killing Fungus photo (2006, no location)

New Zealand lab experiments to create zombie-making fungus in 2007 (okay, I'm sensationalizing a little; but it's so much like in the movies! Scientists develop fungus that kills flies--what happens next? Does the fungus start to turn humans into zombies? Stay tuned, and watch out for climbers!)

Biopesticide Evaluation, 2009

Dead blowfly in Louisiana, 2009

Richard III

Here are some photos from Friday night's performance of Shakespeare's Richard III in Library Park by Shakesperience Productions. The weather cooled off nicely, and there was a very pleasant breeze. The performance was great, with a very powerful ending.

There will be another performance Saturday at 8 p.m. and a final performance Sunday at 2 p.m. If you like theater, or Shakespeare, or just want to try something new, go see it.

Shakesperience will also be performing The Lion, The Witch, & The Wardrobe at 10 a.m. Sunday.

Nat Angstrom as Richard III

Before going to see Richard III, I went to a special book discussion at Barnes & Noble. Shakesperience's Artistic Director, Emily Mattina, and author Joan Szechtman discussed Richard III: Fact vs. Fiction, which was perfect as a lead-in to seeing the performance.

Cool Waters

Waterbury's new mosaic was unveiled tonight. It is VERY cool, and a huge improvement for the wall its on and a fantastic visual for everyone coming into downtown on South Main Street. So much more inviting than a blank wall.

Kip Bergstrom, Connecticut's DECD Deputy Commissioner in
charge of culture and tourism, speaking before the unveiling.

Ta-da! "Cool Waters," inspired by the Naugatuck River, which runs through Waterbury and has been a major part of the city's history, from powering factories to destroying buildings and lives when it flooded. During the speeches, we were informed that the proposed greenway along the Naugatuck River is on the Secretary of the Interior's top 100 list of projects to see happen. The future of the river looks bright.

The panels looked bigger when they were on the Palace stage. They were mounted onto the side of 90 South Main Street by Industrial Riggers. Approximately 1200 people volunteered on the project. Very impressive! As Mayor O'Leary noted, between this and the building of the KaBOOM! playground at Chase Park last weekend, this is a very exciting time to be in Waterbury. People are coming together and making things happen.

But wait! There's more!

Artists from the Freight Street Gallery decorated the building's empty storefront on South Main Street with a few Waterbury-inspired murals. Instead of blight, we now have art.

Artist Matthew Fuller in front of his part of the mural.

Rosalind Russell, looking a bit stern.

Creative lettering, and a hint of the next mural beyond.
Stop by South Main Street to see it for yourself!

Long lines of people for the food from the various vendors.
Frankie's went through 300 hot dogs in half an hour.