Hub in the Media
Here you can find some articles, videos and other snippets related to the Hub that have appeared in the media.
All Hell Breaks Loose I
Angela Lee (Age 21, Australia)
June, 2009
Imagine spending the weekend with not one but TWO of the hottest demon hunters on television. For a select portion of dedicated Supernatural fans, it was a fantasy come true when stars Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins came to town, and Portrait was there amongst all the action.
It was a chilly Autumn day in late April, but nothing could deter the excited spirits of several hundred fans in Sydney, Australia, lining up to enter the Hub Productions "All Hell Breaks Loose" Supernatural convention for the weekend. Just the mere thought that it was only a matter of time before they finally got to step through the doors and see their favourite actors Jensen Ackles, Jared Padalecki, and Misha Collins, kept these excited fans' adrenaline running.
Once through the doors, the weekend was spent watching Supernatural episodes on the big screen, spending money on kick-ass merchandise at dealer stalls, partaking in charity auctions with the guys, and laughing hysterically until our sides ached during their question and answer sessions. For the more fortunate fans, there was also the chance to meet the guys and have their photos taken and receive their autographs. For the even more luckier fans, there was also an exclusive cocktail party that the actors made an appearance at, as well as afternoon tea with the guys.
Having flown in the day before the convention and having not quite adjusted to the time difference or the jetlag, the guys were remarkably a joy to be around for the fans - taking the time to interact with the fans upon various opportunities throughout the weekend. If the guys were tired or crabby from the travelling, they certainly didn't show it, practically lighting up the stage with their anecdotes and playful ridiculing of each other and had the fans eating out of the palms of their hands.
But enough about the telling, what you guys want to know is what exactly the boys were like right? Although the new guy on the show, Misha Collins who plays the angel Castiel, seemed right at ease over the weekend. He had no qualms teasing his co-stars - in particular Jared Padalecki - claiming that to stay fit, he [Misha] has not yet turned to plastic surgery to get a nice six pack unlike Jared. The audience roared with laughter when Jared suddenly appeared on stage and stormed up to Misha, pretending to sock him one. (Misha was kidding about Jared and plastic surgery by the way). Misha's a pretty funny guy, joking about Castiel's magical laundry and sewing skills since Castiel is always wearing the same trenchcoat yet it still looks impeccably the same every episode all season. There were also in jokes about ponies, sombreros and Castiel being a bit of a wuss. Laughter aside, it was really nice to learn more about Misha as a person too.
Now what can I say about the gorgeous Jared Padalecki apart from the fact that he is like a big hyperactive cheeky kid. Seriously! He was always moving while he was on stage, whether it be waving his arms about or spinning around on the swivel chair that he was sitting on - he seemed very amused by the latter. ""I love when he comes on stage because I have to do nothing. This little ball of energy. Maybe not so little yeah. Ginormous. Lurch," remarked Jensen Ackles during their joint talk on the Sunday. Jared also had a ball snacking on the bag of "Fantales" in front of him - a chocolate covered caramel sweet, and spent a lot of time during his Saturday panel picking out the remains in his teeth. Hee!
Jared is quite the mischievous one, cheekily causing trouble and taking pride in it. When asked "If you could date any female character on Supernatural, who would it be?", he replied "Dean Winchester", causing the audience to crack up into hysterics. But on a more serious note, Jared did partake in a charity auction at the end of his talk, where he donated a T-Shirt to charity that he drew on and wore. In true Jared fashion, he wiped his face with the shirt as means of enticing the bidding to go higher and causing females of all ages in the room to hyperventilate with desire. In the end Jared's shirt - which included a self portrait he drew of Sam and Dean from the episode "Bedtime Stories" - sold for AU$1200, with the proceeds going to the Starlight Foundation a charity that grants wishes for seriously ill children in Australia.
While I'm more of a Jared girl myself, I won't deny that Jensen Ackles is just as handsome up close and personal and quite the Texan charmer. An interesting tibit that Jensen shared with fans about the season four premiere "Lazarus Rising", was that the scene where Dean claws his way out of his grave after being sent to hell, it's actually not dirt or soil but crushed Oreo cookies. Yum! Unfortunately, Jensen forgot to put in his earplugs when filming, and so he had Oreo crumbs stuck in his ears for about a week!
Like Jared, Jensen also auctioned off a t-shirt for the Starlight Foundation and boy did the bidding get fierce! It just kept rising and rising - the audience was stunned and so was Jensen. When bidding finally settled down, the shirt sold for a whopping AU$4100. Like Jared, Jensen also drew on the shirt and wore it.
The joint talk between Jared and Jensen on the Sunday was one of the big highlights of the weekend. It all started with Jared gatecrashing Jensen's individual talk and ended with Misha gatecrashing the guys' talk but hiding out in the audience and asking in a disguised voice "Is it hard playing brothers when you are lovers in real life?" (that was totally a joke by the way!). Once Misha joined Jared and Jensen, there was a lot of playful bullying courtesy of Jared and Jensen. But Misha was a good sport and took it all in his stride and hammed it up as well before they began more t-shirt auctions like the previous day. There was a lot of shenanigans taking place on stage during the auction to say the least, but let's just leave it at that shall we? This time around, Jared and Jensen stuck with a more simpler t-shirt design. Standing next to Jared, Jensen wrote on his shirt "I'm with stupid" with an arrow pointing and his onscreen brother. While Jared wrote "I donated $____ to charity and all I got was this t-shirt". Both shirts sold right on or just over the $3,000 mark, with the proceeds going once again to the Starlight Foundation.
All in all it was a great weekend, filled with plenty of laughter. The fans had a lot of fun, and I'd like to think the guys did too.
See this article at the Portrait Magazine website.
Drawing strength from life among comic superheroes
(An article about our good friend Nicola Scott)
'It was this hot chick in a great outfit, throwing people around" … Nicola Scott, drawing for Secret Six at home in Potts Point, on the appeal of Wonder Woman.
Photo: Dallas Kilponen
June 17, 2009
A Sydney artist who loves Wonder Woman is making a mark, writes Mark Juddery.
NICOLA SCOTT knows how to do sexy. The Sydney artist, one of the rising stars of American superhero comics, came to prominence for her work on Birds Of Prey, a popular DC Comic about a mostly female team of superheroes. "Pretty hot chicks," she laughs, proudly.
In less enlightened times, when comics were blamed for practically every perceived problem of youth, Scott could well have been accused of drawing idealised women to fulfil adolescent male fantasies.
"I think that's how a lot of them are created and designed," she says. "And I do stylise my characters. I do make my superhero characters, female or male, tall. I give them longer legs. I give them longer necks. On purpose, we've made them sexy."
The world of superheroes, she believes, is a mostly innocent place - and that's as it should be. "Superman shouldn't be sexy. If he's been drawn sexy, he's been drawn wrong. Batman can be a little sexy, but you don't want to put him in high-cut pants. Nightwing [formerly Robin] is allowed to be sexy because he's younger and he's single and he's not one of the Trinity."
By "the Trinity", she means Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman, who have been DC's three flagship characters for over 60 years. And Wonder Woman?
"Well here's the thing," says Scott. "She's allowed to be sexy because she's a woman in a bikini, and there are a lot of male readers; but I don't think Wonder Woman is meant to be sexy. She's beautiful and has a flesh-baring outfit, but I don't think she should stand like she's sexy."
Wonder Woman is Scott's favourite superhero, the one who led her into comics. A handful of Australian artists have broken into this very competitive business, but Scott, 37, is probably the most successful so far.
She is not what you might expect. As a child she was never a fan of comics. Her love of superheroes stemmed from television, especially the 1970s Wonder Woman television series starring Lynda Carter.
"It was this hot chick in a great outfit, throwing people around, and I just thought that was awesome," she says.
For years Scott planned (and trained) to be an actor. She was a familiar face on-screen from age 25, when she was old enough to do alcohol advertisements.
"I was doing every advertising campaign under the sun for about three years. It's not terribly satisfying if you're seriously trying to be an actor."
At 29, working full-time in hospitality, she was determined to do something else with her life. She considered another childhood skill: drawing.
"I thought: 'I like Wonder Woman. I'd be pretty happy drawing Wonder Woman all day, every day'. And as I was thinking that, I thought, 'Oh my God, there is somebody in the world, right now, getting paid to draw Wonder Woman. It's actually a job'."
In 2001 she did did her first professional comic book for a superhero title, The Watch, published locally by Phosphorescent Comics. The Australian market was too small to make a living so she tried her luck drawing for US publishers.
"It was so clear to me that that's what I should do," she says. "I went into it thinking, 'I'm going to do this', rather than 'I'm going to see if I can'. When I was told, 'You'll have to go to America', I just got a ticket to America and I went."
Scott visited conventions, including the world's largest, Comic-Con in San Diego, with "a really crap portfolio".
"It took me three days to start showing it to people because I was really overwhelmed by how big the convention was and how many people were walking around with a portfolio."
Soon she was drawing Star Wars stories, published by Dark Horse Comics. Then she hit the big time: DC Comics, one of America's "Big Two" comic publishers, where she has built a solid reputation. DC usually teams her with Gail Simone, an American writer and former hairdresser.
"I can do action and I can do it pretty well, but it's not one of my strong points," Scott says.
"My strong point is character, which is why Gail and I are such a good match. She has a strong point in character and dialogue. She knows my strong point is character so we work to enhance that."
As an all-female writer-artist combo (a rarity in comics), it is no surprise they did Birds Of Prey, whose large recurring cast included almost every major female superhero on the DC payroll - except Wonder Woman.
Simone and Scott left Birds Of Prey last year, and despite strong sales, the title was cancelled a few months later. They now work on the critically acclaimed Secret Six, a romp about a bunch of anti-heroic (yet superhuman) mercenaries. It has a greater gender balance than Birds Of Prey, but Scott's intricate artwork is still a highlight.
Superhero comics have a reputation for simplicity, but with 22 pages a month (apart from ads), this is a full-time job - and a well-paid one. Scott is content among the superheroes, and one of these days she might even draw Wonder Woman.
See this article at the Sydney Morning Herald website.
Star Trek 2011: Command & Conquer
FOR 415 die-hard Trekkies, it was a case of life - but not as they knew it.
Star Trek legend William Shatner, known for his role as Captain James T. Kirk on the TV show and film series, was in Melbourne yesterday for a Trekkie extravaganza.
He was joined by Scott Bakula, who played Captain Jonathan Archer in Star Trek: Enterprise.
The pair were in Melbourne for Command and Conquer, an event at The Spot Basement Theatre at the University of Melbourne.
JG Hertzler, who played Klingon General Martok; Robert O'Reilly, who was leader of the Klingon Empire as Chancellor Gowron; and Dr Selar actor Suzie Plakson, were also at the event, organised by The Hub Productions. Plakson played many Star Trek roles.
The day featured the actors on stage for anecdotes from the hit show, as well as a meet-and-greet session, the sale of rare collectibles, trivia and auctions.
Event co-ordinator Carissa Avenhouse said a Klingon rap song was among the highlights, but Shatner received a standing ovation and Bakula was hilarious.
"For a lot of people, this is a dream come true," Ms Avenhouse said.
Shelley Hadfield
WILLIAM Shatner was in town yesterday, but for those who saw him, he was simply Captain James T. Kirk. He was appearing at a Star Trek convention, a weird and wonderful experience designed for fans of the cult television series. The Command and Conquer event, held at Melbourne University, gave Melbourne's Trekkies the opportunity to get up close and personal with their sci-fi heroes. Some came in full Star Trek regalia, but all shared an unnerving passion for the universe created by American Gene Roddenberry. Shatner was the day's drawcard. During a question and answer session, the crowd listened reverentially, spellbound by his every word.
TOM MINEAR
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