Wes Smoot 2/5/24 Wes Smoot 2/5/24

Flame Con, the World’s Largest Queer Comic Convention, Announces Tenth Annual Expo

Tenth Anniversary Expo to Take Place in New York City at The Sheraton Times Square Hotel on August 17-18, 2024

New York, New York – February 5, 2024 – Flame Con, created and produced by the LGBTQ+ non-profit Geeks OUT, celebrates its tenth anniversary this year. The tenth annual Flame Con expo will take place on August 17 - 18at the Sheraton Times Square Hotel in New York City. Featuring a comics, arts and entertainment expo and showcasing creators and special guests from all corners of the LGBTQ+ community of fans, the two-day venture will include thoughtful discussions, exclusive performances, cosplay and more.

Tickets for the con are now available HERE.

“For years, the constant refrain we’d hear attending other conventions was ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if..?,’ says Nic Gitau, President of Geeks OUT. “‘Wouldn’t it be cool if… there was a safe space for LGBTQ+ fans to connect?’ or ‘Wouldn’t it be cool if… there was a show that proved audiences were hungry for unapologetically queer storytelling?’ Over the last ten years Flame Con has become a home for queer fans, championed queer stories, and celebrated queer creators as their careers have sparked and exploded. We're grateful for a community that's grown exponentially each year and we're excited to gather the best of LGBTQ+ comics and pop culture once more, in what will be a standout 10th anniversary show."

Flame Con is excited to announce Molly Knox Ostertag as the first of its special guests for this year’s expo. Molly Knox Ostertag is the acclaimed ABA Indies and New York Times bestselling graphic novel author-illustrator of The Deep Dark, The Girl from the Sea, and the Witch Boy trilogy: The Witch Boy, The Hidden Witch, and The Midwinter Witch, as well as a writer for animation. An animated musical adaptation of The Witch Boy has been announced by Netflix.

To celebrate the expo and its special anniversary, Fireball: The Official Flame Con After Party will be held on Saturday, August 17 at Hell’s Kitchen’s Industry bar. The event will be hosted by Megami, cast member in the current season 16 of RuPaul’s Drag Race.

Get tickets for the tenth annual Flame Con and the Fireball After Party HERE.

Last year’s con featured many queer-oriented vendors, creators, and special guests including Maia Kobabe (Gender Queer: A Memoir), Terry Blas (Rick and Morty, Steven Universe), Alyssa Wong (Star Wars: Doctor Aphra, Batman: Urban Legends), and Stephanie Williams (Nubia and the Amazons). Among the panels and presentations held last year were “Demystifying Game Design,” “How to Make Your Independent Queer Comic,” and “What A DRAG!: A Panel on Drag and Cosplay.” The expo also featured a live edition of host Connor Goldsmith’s CEREBRO podcast and a special LGBTQ+ comedy showcase with a lineup that included Calvin Cato (Netflix) and Veronica Garza (MTV, NPR).

“Flame Con is always my favorite convention of the year!,” says Josh Trujillo (Blue Beetle, Hulkling& Wiccan), Flame Con guest and comics writer and designer. “It’s a unique opportunity to meet with friends, peers, and fans in a more intimate setting. The stories we share as queer people can be so personal, and it means the world to know that readers connect with it.”

GLAAD Award-winning author and film programmer Anthony Oliveira (Steven Universe) shares, “Flame Con is easily my favorite comic convention. Nowhere else feels so much like home. It feels like someone took all the best parts of a con and just kept those, like if you made a whole con out of the weird queer section of every other expo’s Artist Alley!”

Tickets to Flame Con are available through Eventbrite and will feature daily and weekend passes, as well as passes to the official 2024 Flame Con party. Tickets can be purchased at flamecon2024.eventbrite.com.

Exhibitor table sales dates will launch later this month. Stay tuned for announcements.

For more information on Flame Con, please visit www.flamecon.org and for more information on Geeks OUT, please visit www.geeksout.org

Wes Smoot 4/25/23 Wes Smoot 4/25/23

Billy Eichner and Dyllón Burnside Join Unleashed LGBTQ Live Event - September 2023

Joining a Powerful Lineup of Talent, including Antoni Porowski, Indya Moore, Shangela, and other Industry Leaders making Noise in the LGBTQ+ Market

DALLAS — APRIL 25, 2023 — Unleashed LGBTQ, a first-of-its-kind conference and entertainment festival creating a space for brands, artists, and LGBTQ+ professionals to connect, is thrilled to announce new talent joining its lineup, including Billy Eichner and Dyllón Burnside, for its first live and in-person Unleashed LGBTQ 2023 conference, taking place at Gilley’s in Dallas, Texas, from September 22 - 24, 2023. Unleashed event organizers also welcome iHeartMedia back as media partners to activate the programming as the official audio partners for the festival’s first ever in-person event.

"Our first live, in-person, event is going to create a synergy between talent, the business community and the entertainment industry in a way no LGBTQ+ event has ever done before,” said Founder, Wesley Smoot. “Companies sending representatives to our event will be able to take advantage of all opportunities available, whether it’s for educational purposes, networking or entertainment, LGBTQ+ professionals or others focused on allyship, will reap the benefits of our educational and entertainment-based lineup. We have dedicated an entire area to workshops for attendees to learn new skills from today's thought leaders and we’re confident companies sending entire departments to Unleashed LGBTQ 2023 will have a more informed, supercharged team that will be lightyears ahead of other brands.”

Each day at Unleashed LGBTQ will begin with educational topics — from workshops and panels discussing business (advertising, marketing, DEI), society (non-profit, advocacy), and personal (financial planning, continuing education) development – and will feature high-tech brand activations and experiential marketing installments throughout the venue, before transitioning to entertainment that will include screenings, drag shows, stand-up comedy, and musical performances. Attendees will be enriched by professional development and networking opportunities through the Unleashed LGBTQ event app (developed by WebEx/Cisco) and at specialized mixers and unique branded activations through the award-winning Freeman event services.

The growing lineup of talent will include:

● Billy Eichner Co-writer and Star of Bros (Universal Pictures), Billy on the Street, The Lion King (Disney), American Horror Story (FX), Difficult People (Hulu)

● Antoni Porowski Emmy-Award Winning Show Queer Eye (Netflix), Host of Easy Bake Battle (Netflix), Author of Antoni in the Kitchen & Antoni: Let's do Dinner

● Indya Moore Emmy Award-Winning Show POSE, Yves Saint Laurent Cosmetics, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom

● Shangela Emmy Award-Winning Shows We're Here (HBO), RuPaul's Drag Race, & RuPaul's Drag Race All Stars (MTV)

● Dyllon Burnside Emmy Award-Winning Show Pose,Emmy Award-Winning Show POSE, Emmy-Award winning PBS docuseries PRIDELAND, Golden Globe nominated limited series MONSTER. GLAAD & HRC award recipient

● Daniel Franzese, Mean Girls (Paramount Pictures), Ru Paul's Drag Race (MTV), Looking (HBO)

● Kelly Ann Winget, Founder & CEO of Alternative Wealth Partners, Over $1B in private equity raised, Host of The Wealth Alpha podcast, and Author of Pitch the Bitch (April 2023)

● Brian Sims, Former Penn State Rep., LGBTQ+ Advocate & Speaker, Managing Director of Government Affairs & Policy at Out Leadership, Board Member at Campus Pride & GLSEN

● Naomi Green, MBA Speaker, Marketer, Professor, and Transgender Advocate

● Ashley Brundage, President & CEO of Empowering Differences, Author of Empowering Differences, Transgender Advocate, Former DEI Vice President at PNC Bank, Mother

● Dr. Carlton Thomas, Gastro-Intestinal Medical Doctor, Social Media Sensation, Contributor to Men's Health Magazine, LGBTQ+ Consultant to the White House & the CDC

● Matt Skallerud, Founder & President of Pink Media, Host of #iLoveGayToday, former President of IGLTA, Award-Winning Online Marketer connecting businesses to the LGBTQ+ consumers

● Vicky & Charisse Pasche, Co-Founders of Dapper Boi – body-inclusive and gender-neutral apparel – Marketing, Sales, and Entrepreneurial Experts, Wives and Mothers of Twins

● Stacey Stevenson, CEO of Family Equality, Co-Founder of The Changists (Law Firm Consulting), LGBTQ+ Activist, Speaker, Mother of Two

● Gary Sanchez Sr., Director of Community Impact at Visit Dallas, Former Chairman at North Texas LGBT Chamber of Commerce, Chairman at Chamber Foundation

● Brad Pritchett, Award-Winning Marketing Executive, Chief Experience Officer at DMA (Dallas Museum of Art), Host of The Good, The Brad, & The Ugly podcast

Unleashed LGBTQ is also partnering with the iconic Alamo Drafthouse to host screenings of new LGBTQ+ content from streaming services, movie studios, and television networks. Independent filmmakers can submit works for Unleashed LGBTQ 2023 Film Festival at:

https://www.filmfreeway.com/unleashedlgbtq

Unleashed LGBTQ, LLC is proud to have received support, endorsements, and/or grants from the following organizations: DTPID (Dallas Tourism Public Improvement District), Visit Dallas, North Texas LGBT Chamber of Commerce, NLGCC (National Gay & Lesbian Chamber of Commerce), & IGLTA (International Gay & Lesbian Travel Association).

Other partners include Gilead Sciences, iHeart Media, equalpride, and Kelly Ann Winget.

About UNLEASHED LGBTQ, LLC

Unleashed LGBTQ, a space for brands, entertainers, and LGBTQ+ professionals to connect, will host its inaugural, live event September 22nd - 24th, 2023, in Dallas, Texas. Attendees can learn about the latest products, services, and campaigns debuting in the LGBTQ+ market in a fun and interactive environment. Unleashed LGBTQ provides premier networking opportunities for professionals in a variety of industries. Unleashed LGBTQ will host speakers, panels, and performances from some of the biggest names in LGBTQ+ culture, including film, television, music, and business. Stay tuned for additional Talent announcements.

Tickets are currently on sale on the event website here: https://www.unleashedlgbtq.com For more information on partnerships and company group rates visit: www.unleashedlgbtq.com

CONTACT:

Nicole Rodrigues

NRPR Group for Unleashed LGBTQ

Nicole@nrprgroup.com

424-421-9610

To request press credentials email:

press@unleashedlgbtq.com

Wes Smoot 10/19/22 Wes Smoot 10/19/22

Jake Wesley Rogers Interview | Austin City Limits

Interview by: Wesley Smoot

Jake Wesley Rogers. If you don’t know the name already, you will. He’s an absolute powerhouse— singer, songwriter, showman, and a master on the keys. At 25 years old, he’s done Madison Square Garden (opening for Panic at the Disco), has been a musical guest on The Ellen Show, and currently has a track featured on the major Universal Pictures rom-com, Bros. His lyrics transcend generations with a kind of depth you’d find hard to believe is coming from someone his age.

I got the chance to chat with Jake Wesley Rogers at Austin City Limits.

Pinkies up, now sip!

Jake Wesley Rogers by Chad Wadsworth for ACL Fest 2022

Weslo: Howdy ya’ll, this is Wesley Smoot (Weslo) with Unleashed LGBTQ, in Austin, Texas at ACL– today I get the chance to sit down with Jake Wesley Rogers. How’s your ACL?

JWR: Hey! It’s very hot. Literally. But it has been so much fun.

Weslo: So freakin’ hot. Texas heat!

Well the crowd obviously loved your performance. What are your thoughts on Texas, besides the heat?

JWR: Well, I'm from Missouri, so I understand what it means to come from a complicated place, but I’m always astounded by how much love there is, even in a state where there is a lot of bullshit going on.

Weslo: It’s a big state with lots of fabulous folks, I’m glad you get to see there are all kinds, plenty of like minded people.

JWR: Of course. You sometimes have to remind yourself, we’re everywhere and we’re not going anywhere. So, I’ll always keep coming back.

Weslo: Please do.

I have to talk to you about the movie Bros with Billy Eichner. One of my favorites of the year, not just because it’s a gay film, but it’s just so well done. You have a song featured in the movie— your single Hindsight. What’s it like having your music on such a groundbreaking film?

JWR: It was mind-blowing to hear my song in a movie theater and be part of such a historical film. I would actually call it a surreal moment for me.

Jake Wesley Rogers & Wesley Smoot in Media Tent at Austin City Limits 2022

Weslo: So you’re on the cover of The Advocate this month, it seems like you’re well on your way to becoming a LGBTQ+ icon. How does that feel?

JWR: I don’t want to speak for anyone. I can only tell my story, I do that on purpose. Tony Morrison says “The function of freedom is to free someone else” so I think if I show up, even if I’m not feeling confident, tell my story, the hope is to allow anyone to feel free to be themselves, because that makes everything better.

Weslo: I agree 100%.

I know some LGBTQ+ artists might not care to be labeled or pigeon-holed as a gay artist, I’m sure with you, there’s a lot of crossover with other demographics.. I mean, you have been opening for Panic at the Disco. Have you seen your fanbase grow with the non-LGBTQ+ audiences?

JWR: I'm always surprised how many straight people are at my shows. I think my favorite thing about being queer is that it shows very explicit on the outside. But we all feel different, excluded, even if only to some degree. I think we’re the superheroes that have no choice but to show it.

Weslo: Well you really go into that with your song Pluto. Which I love by the way.

JWR: Yes! Exactly, and thank you. That is very much what the song is about, using Pluto as a metaphor, as the outsider. And just giving everyone permission to embrace it because I think that’s how things change, when everybody realizes we have this tendency to hide something. It’s the queer life. We’re accustom to it and learn it at such an early age. But not only us, everyone feels that on some level, we’re just the lucky, fabulous, beautiful ones that get to show others that it's ok. It’s ok to be free.

Austin City Limits 2022 | Jake Wesley Rogers | Photo Credit: Jakob Wandel

Weslo: Inclusion is incredibly important. I think ACL, it’s organizers, and bookers do an amazing job bringing in queer artists. I have been able to see so many over the last few years. Did you get to see anyone here? Lil Nas X? Boy George, Izzy Heltai?...

JWR: Sadly, because of the tour, no. We have been doing red-eyes to come in and make these events. Usually I come in, play, and go to bed (laughing). So I’m sad I missed Lil Nas X but hoping to catch Kacey Musgraves tonight.

Weslo: That will be a great show.

You covered I’ll Stand by You by The Pretenders. You did it magnificently. It has millions of streams… Do you plan on covering any other artists' songs in the future?

JWR: That’s a great question.

We have been covering Welcome to the Black Parade (My Chemical Romance) on the tour. But we’ll have to see. I enjoy singing so many… I’ll keep you posted.

Weslo: Your outfits for live shows are Everything! What inspires you in picking your wardrobe? Are you inspired by other artists?

JWR: This outfit I’m wearing now is like a red dandy number inspired by the movie The Velvet Goldmine, it’s like an unofficial David Bowie bio pic and there’s this one scene where a character is wearing this dandy outfit — I did a photo shoot for Vogue, they had me wear something similar, and when i wore it, I felt I had been there before. So I wanted to make something, something to recreate that feeling.

But you know before every tour, I think about what I want to wear, feel like, and present to my fabulous audience. But yes, I’m proud to say all the costumes from my tours are made by queer designers— which is always very exciting to me. I love a great collaboration between creative minds.

Weslo: I love that.

Many queer artists I see perform to tracks in the background. You not only have a full band but you are also slaying it on the piano. Has that always been the vision?

JWR: When it comes to music, for me personally, it’s always been me and the piano. I don’t think that will ever change. As far as having a band to perform with, it just feels right to me.

Weslo: Well, I really appreciate you taking the time to talk with us. You’re an amazing talent and we wish you all the success. You have our full support.

JWR: Thank you for that, I appreciate you as well.

Make sure to check out Jake Wesley Roger’s new EP LOVE

The EP includes two brand new songs “My Mistake” and “Call It Love” along with previous releases, “Modern Love,” “Lavender Forever,” which he performed on ELLEN, “Dark Bird” and the most recent “Hindsight” from the Billy Eichner film Bros.

Wes Smoot 2/23/22 Wes Smoot 2/23/22

Dad Throws Teen Party to Celebrate Her First Period.

Ok, not exactly, but not-not exactly.

The Karuk Tribe (Northern California) have long performed a ceremony called a Ihuk. Not familiar?, neither was I. Ihuk is a coming of age celebration for a young girl’s transitions into womanhood following her first menstrual cycle. Not something many girl’s might want announced, let alone celebrated with friends and family.

But why is the subject of menstruation taboo?

Long Line of Ladies is a documentary short directed by Rayka Zehtabchi and Shaandiin Tome. While both fairly young, they’re no amateurs to filmmaking.

Rayka Zehtabchi is an award-winning director. In fact, her film Period. End of Sentence (available on Netflix) made her the first Iranian woman to win an Oscar. Shaandiin Tome has some bragging rights of her own. Her award-winning, break-out short film "Mud (Hashtł’ishnii)" premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in 2018.

Loves it.

We got the opportunity to ask some questions to these accomplished and talented directors about their new documentary short, Long Line of Ladies, being featured this March at SXSW 2022.

Pinkies up, now sip!

Directors: Shaandiin Tome & Rayka Zehtabchi

What inspired you to make this documentary?

This documentary has been a long time coming. On Rayka’s side, this short doc is almost like a reprise, but with a different approach, on menstrual equity in communities. Her short documentary Period. End of Sentence., was an exploration into a community that treats menstruation as taboo. With the help of The Pad Project, there was the wish to make something that was more of a celebration rather than a detriment. On my (Shaandiin’s) side, I have been in the space of Indigenous Film and Media since I’ve started my career. So, I’m always on a trajectory of finding ways to uplift and make the Indigenous narrative known and celebrated.

How did you first hear about The Karuk Tribe and Ihuk.

Rayka did a lot of research, I think weeks or months, of exploring different communities that celebrated menstruation. She found a website that was a recent documentation of the Ihuk ceremony by Ty’ithreeha Allen; it was from her perspective, having recently gone through it. Rayka reached out to Pimm Allen (her mom) and then found out that she had another daughter, Ahty, that was about to go through her ceremony. So, the stars aligned in such a lovely way for us to begin meeting with the family and finding ways to listen and understand more of their story.

Was it a culture shock to see something that is not openly discussed be celebrated?

Speaking more for myself (Shaandiin), it wasn’t as much of a culture shock. I am Diné (Navajo), and we have a similar coming of age ceremony called the Kinaaldá. However, because of boarding schools, my family wasn’t as established in tradition, and I opted out of mine because of how intimidating I thought it was. I think if I saw something like this when I was younger, it would have inspired me to take pride in who I was at the time and delve deeper into what it meant for me to be a young Diné woman. It’s astonishing to see a family that is so in tune to who they are and how they pass knowledge to their children; I think a lot of what people might see as a culture shock isn’t necessarily just how menstruation is talked about openly, but how the whole community is so much different than what we see in a western culture.

What do you hope this documentary helps accomplish for young girls and the public’s perception of menstruation?

Ahty should be the one to answer this question. She is the reason this whole project came together, and all because she wanted to put a positive image out there of what it means to be a young woman coming of age. Rayka and I have talked about it a lot where we wish we could grow up again, knowing what we have learned from this process. Overall, this documentary helps create a perspective of how a whole community comes together to uplift a woman, and she isn’t able to go through this process alone. I think that speaks for what a lot of young women are hoping for at this time in their lives; it’s not an individual taking. It takes a strong community.

Any upcoming projects we should look out for?

We are always working, haha. But we actually have a similar journey in wanting to go back to our originating passion of film, narrative! We have been on a fortunate journey of being able to document life in front of us, but we also both love to craft worlds and find expression through them. So hopefully, we will both be working on narrative projects (but if I had to bet, Rayka will have something out sooner than me!)

So let's hear it for the girls!… and these accomplished young filmmakers who took it upon themselves to share a culture and tradition that celebrates, uplifts, and makes women feel seen, respected, and included. Let’s see to it that one day conversations like these will be normalized. Period.

Long Line of Ladies premiered at the 2022 Sundance Festival and is scheduled for SXSW 2022:

March 13, 2022, 11:30 AM Rollins Theatre at The Long Center

March 14, 2022, 9:00 AM Online

March 17, 2022, 6:45 PM Alamo Drafthouse Lamar D

Wes Smoot 2/16/22 Wes Smoot 2/16/22

Film Review- FLEE

by Arnold Wayne Jones

By its very nature, Flee is the kind of movie that risks being reductively shuttled into the category of novelty, if not outright gimmicky: It’s a documentary, but it’s also animated (portions are intercut with life-action footage), though it uses tons of live-action footage; it touches on about a half-dozen hot-button topics, from a same-sex relationship to a same-sex relationship including a Muslim to a story about a refugee (same guy!) and he’s a refugee from the Mujahideen in Afghanistan to Russia, two countries where unrest has dominated the news for a year. Why, if it were a fiction film, they’d’ve cast Daniel Day-Lewis and let him walk away with a fourth Oscar. (They might even make him a paraplegic with a speech impediment, just to seal the deal.) The fact it is the first film ever to receive three “best film” Oscar nominations – Best International Film (it’s in Dari and Danish, as well as English and few others), Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature (it’s only missing Best Picture) – could brand the guilt-watch movie of the year.

That would all be a shame, though. Try to look beyond the circumstances that almost defy you to say anything negative for fear of being canceled by the Woke Police, and see instead its bona fides: Flee is an exceptionally powerful, but emotionally accessible, film – in turns heartfelt, heartbreaking and heart-warming.

Flee tells the true story of Amin (voiced in the dubbed version by executive producer Riz Ahmed), looking back on his innocent childhood in Kabul before life went to shit. As a 6-year-old, Amin would think nothing of putting on his sister’s dress and playing in the streets, and though he wasn’t sexually active, he knew he was attracted to men. That made him stand out among the traditional Muslim culture, one where, as Amin recalls, “gay people didn’t exist. There wasn’t even a word for them – they brought shame upon the family.” Without the vocabulary or context to give shape to his feelings, though, he just settled in to life, a kid largely untouched by the civil war that raged along the countryside. Eventually, though, the politics and violence would hit home.

One of the subtle achievements of the film is how the hand-drawn animation marries with the gentle tone to conjure the authentic, quotidian experiences of an extraordinary boy living out an ordinary boyhood that was anything but ordinary. Like John Boorman’s Hope and Glory, Steven Spielberg’s rendering of J.G. Ballard’s Empire of the Sun or more recently Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast, Flee captures the twinging melancholy of a dire situation as seen from the perspective of a callow but sensitive child unable to grasp the pending tragedy. But it layers on the component of sexual awakening to this slightly familiar trope, and shows it with delicate verisimilitude. In the present-day scenes, the affection between Amin and his fiance Kasper are sweetly loving; in the past, his comically regretful recollection of his attraction to movie muscle men like Jean-Claude Van Damme will flash familiarity to every former gay boy who knew his nature before he had the words for it.

Amin and his family eventually escape Afghanistan, but their precarious immigration status, harrasment by authorities, unscrupulous human traffickers and Amin’s burgeoning sexual awakening and concomitant shame make for a horrific tale of modern survival while simultaneously reinforcing the resilience of spirit, even as the situations become increasingly dire. We know it is ultimately a triumphant tale – after all, Amin lived to tell it – but it burrows deep before then, echoing the well-worn sentiment in the gay community that family is the one you make for yourself, and that it does get better.

The slightly staccato anime style recalls Miyazaki’s wistful memory films, while the “shots” where the filmmaker/interviewer is shown behind the scenes joking with Amin (behind the scenes of an animated film? Whaaa?!) and sometimes abstract images give the film its disarming meta-ness. A meta-docu-cartoon? If it sounds twee, the effect is anything but. Flee transcends its simplified logline to be something profoundly emotional.