I am sorry...did you say ladykiller? What's that about?
Ladykiller is rocking the Casbah – or the pop culture industry. Whatever you prefer to call it. The integrated marketing company is taking Emerald City Comicon by storm in March by spotlighting hit brands The Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Night Vale as they team up for a weekend of epic proportions in Seattle.
I’m sorry. Did you say “ladykiller”?
“Yeah, I get that a lot – but I dare you to try to forget my company name,” says Danielle Davis, founder and self-proclaimed Chief Casbah Rocker for Ladykiller. Ladykiller faithfully serves the pop culture and gaming industries by providing integrated marketing campaign strategy and execution for such brands as The Thrilling Adventure Hour, Welcome to Night Vale and formerly the free-to-play FPS, HAWKEN.
“I’m all about celebrating the magical area of the Venn Diagram where fandom and theatre collide. Personally, I think the cross-over is much larger than people might initially think. Why do I think this? Well, I’m a perfect example as a proud theatre dork myself! And I view all cons as a theatrical performance of sorts – one that is fully participatory from exhibitors to attendees. Look at the increasing popularity of cosplay. When devising a marketing strategy, I view the cons as a unique, connected, delightful performance in which my clients star.”
Emerald City Comicon is a huge and wonderful diverse con that takes over Seattle March 28-30, 2014. Ladykiller jumped at the opportunity to design and produce The Thrilling Adventure Hour and Welcome to Night Vale campaign and entertain the masses.
Not only will both brands to be featured by Emerald City as guests for panels, signings and appearances, but on Saturday, March 29, Ladykiller is also producing a huge live show at the Moore Theatre as both podcasts COMBINE for a highly anticipated cross-over event. In the words of Thrilling Adventure Hour co-creator Ben Blacker, “…like Secret Wars or that time that chocolate met peanut butter or when Richard Belzer’s character from Homocide appeared on the X-Files.”
The Thrilling Adventure Hour has enjoyed immense success recently. They are a staged show and podcast on the Nerdist network in the style of old-time radio in which actors you know and love from television, comedy, animation and film dress nicely and enact all manner of genre-based comedy segments. The show has been performing sold-out monthly shows in their home theatre, the Coronet in LA, since 2005 with an impressive cult following. In 2012, Joe LeFavi of Quixotic Transmedia, launched a highly successful Kickstarter campaign expand into other media. The overwhelming support funded the publication of their top-selling graphic novel, released by Archaia Entertainment at San Diego Comic-Con in July of 2013. It has already been named as one of the top 15 graphic novels of 2013 by USA Today. To celebrate, Thrilling Adventure Hour hosted a Graphic Novel Exhibition at the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco, also produced by Quixotic Transmedia. The Kickstarter campaign will also fund their upcoming Concert Film and Web Series.
Co-created by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker, a writing duo boasting ten years of creating awesomeness together, the show features the WorkJuice Players and a wide array of special guests. Past guest have included Nathan Fillion, Patton Oswalt, Alan Tudyk, Jason Ritter, Neil Patric Harris, Ed Helms, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zachary Levi, Alison Brie, Danny Pudi, Chris Hardwick, Molly Quinn, Andy Richter, Patrick Warburton, Dave Foley, Colin Hanks, Adam Baldwin, Amber Benson… Well, you get the idea – pretty much a Who’s Who of Hollywood and nerd culture. Guests for the upcoming Seattle performance have yet to be announced. But Ladykiller can confirm that there are plenty of surprises in store.
When Ben Acker and Ben Blacker were asked about the team effort, they said, “We are enormous fans of Welcome to Night Vale and are excited to combine forces with them. We’re planning some fun, silly, scary, spooky doings for everyone to see and hear and also feel. Most gratifying for us is the coming together of like minds who like to like each other.”
And there could be no more natural of a pairing for The Thrilling Adventure Hour than your “other” favorite podcast, Welcome to Night Vale. Welcome to Night Vale is a podcast in the style of community updates for the small desert town of Night Vale, featuring local weather, news announcements from the Sheriff’s Secret Police, mysterious lights in the night sky, dark hooded figures with unknowable powers, and cultural events. Imagine NPR combined with Twin Peaks and you’re somewhere close to the strange and highly addictive mix of eery podcast entertainment. Over the summer, the twice-monthly podcast was the #1 most downloaded in the world (yes, the world).
The show is created by Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor and features the vocal talents of Cecil Baldwin. Welcome to Night Vale are currently in the middle of a sold out west coast tour performing live shows of the podcast in Portland, LA, San Francisco, Las Vegas and San Diego. And more dates are being announced quite frequently on their website. With inexplicably viral Twitter and Tumblr support, the mysterious podcast has recently announced an upcoming novel to be published by Harper Perennial slated for a 2015 release.
One story, two creative teams, the WorkJuice Players, voice of Night Vale radio Cecil Baldwin, and some very, very special guest stars promise an epic evening of live theatre entertainment that will undoubtedly blow the minds of attendees on March 29 in Seattle. Tickets are available now here.
Ladykiller is beyond jazzed to continue to mix fandom and theatre in a way that con attendees appreciate and is looking forward to future announcements of new projects in this realm – including more collaboration with The Thrilling Adventure Hour over 2014.
While patiently waiting for Emerald City, Ladykiller is concentrating on organizing a charity event in Seattle to raise money for an artist grant to be awarded to an up-and-coming, local graphic novel/comic artist. The winning artist will chosen by event attendees via vote. More information can be found on the Ladykiller website soon.
“I want to support the artists of Seattle” says Danielle. “It’s amazing how many folks are drawing, story-boarding and collaborating with others in local cafes in hopes of being a published graphic novelist someday. My goal for this event is to rally the community in support of these local artists – and give the lucky winner some runway to keep working on their dream. I’d love to give someone that opportunity. And who doesn’t want to attend a fun party for a good cause?”
Media Inquiries: Please contact Danielle Davis
