I decided to do a set of mini interviews with people I’ve interacted with and have extraordinary backgrounds. Many I’ve met via Facebook and many I’ll meet when I attend SDCC for the first time this July. Next up is artist, Alicia Hollinger!
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Name: Alicia HollingerAge: I won’t grow up, not me!
Fave cartoon: The Simpsons, Southpark, the Jetsons
Fave books: The Holographic Universe, Catcher In The Rye, Bright Lights, Big City, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Edie -An American Biography
Fave movies: After Hours, Waking Life, Breakfast at Tiffany’s, The Wizard of Oz, This Is Spinal Tap, The Doors, Contact, Drugstore Cowboy
Fave TV Shows: Through the Wormhole With Morgan Freeman, Stargate SG-1, The Big Bang Theory, Leverage, Chuck, Castle, Battlestar Galactica, Eureka, Gossip Girl, The Twilight Zone, South Park, SCI-FI SCIENCE: PHYSICS OF THE IMPOSSIBLE, America’s Next Top Model, Lost, The Simpsons, I Love Lucy, M*A*S*H
Fave music: The Doors, Pink Floyd, The Ramones, Velvet Underground, The Airborne Toxic Event, current radio rock/alt rock, Sinatra/The Rat Pack, Early 60’s, British invasion, Psychedelic 60’s, 60’s Surf Rock, Matchbox 20, Soul Asylum
L: You’re a digital artist by day (and probably masked vigilante at night like the rest of us!) so I gotta ask…what’s your favorite piece that you’ve done and do you have a dream project you’re just waiting on time to allow?
AH: Whatever piece I’m working on at the moment is my favorite, I’m fickle that way, LOL, as long as it’s my own project. Some commissions I also really like, but others are less enjoyable when the client has something really specific in mind and I can’t use my own creativity. I’m working on several dream projects, discussed below!
L: One of your ongoing projects is Quantum Party Girls. Tell us a little bit about that.
AH: Quantum Party Girls is a concept that I came up with after a surreal night at a Playboy Mansion party. A bunch of people were in line for the bathroom, and someone said something about “time” and I blurted out for some reason (probably because I was a bit tipsy) “According to quantum physics there’s no such thing as time.” The moment I said that it was like I was transported to an alternate universe where cute socially confident guys were more interested in quantum physics than virtually naked blonde Playboy models with big boobs. All the guys immediately turned to me like I was JLo or something, ignoring all the Playboy girls and engaged in an animated conversation about quantum physics. The poor Playboy girls tried to join in the conversation with a few trying-to-seem-intelligent remarks, but were immediately shut out and ignored. I, on the other hand, had suddenly become God’s gift to men. It really felt like the Twilight Zone.
I have a tendency to attend a lot of shallow “beautiful people” L.A. parties but I love theoretical quantum physics, sci-fi and TV shows like Stargate, and I thought, why not combine the two? Part L.A. satire, part sci-fi…
Right now it’s just in it’s development stage as a transmedia project. I’m creating a comic book which will be online and in print, the characters will have their own blogs and even Facebook accounts. You can already friend one of the characters “Madison Parker” on Facebook. There is a REAL Madison Parker, so make sure to friend the one with the cartoon face! I’m really fascinated with the concept of wormholes and inter-dimensional travel so that will be the main focus of the plot, while bringing in some L.A. satire and a bit of romance. It’s still in its early infancy but I’d really appreciate it if you would LIKE QuantumPartyGirls and check out the main site.
L: Since you seem constantly doing something amazingly cool, what kind of projects do you have in the works?
AH: Besides Quantum Party Girls, I’m focusing mostly on new pin-ups, creating books of sci-fi and fantasy art and projects/commissions from clients.
L: Everyone has a science fiction property that means the world to them, be it Star Wars, Back to the Future, or even E.T. What’s yours?
AH: I have a thing for the TV show Stargate, specifically Stargate SG1. Some of the writing on the show is so quirky and funny. At Comic-Con I met and got to hang out with some of the writers and talent from Stargate SG-1 and SGU, they’re all from Vancouver, and I just LOVE the Canadian sense of humor (too bad none of it was in SGU, I think it would have lasted longer). I wanted to scream “take me with you back to Vancouver, let me work with you all and create a new incarnation of Stargate!” Going to work everyday with these people would be amazing. They’re so NOT Hollywood.
I’m also really into the concept of a Stargate. I often have dreams that I’m flying through a winding tube that looks like the wormhole in Stargate or at the end of the movie Contact. At the time, I’m also “lucid dreaming” –knowing that I’m dreaming WHILE I’m dreaming, so it’s really trippy knowing that I’m actually in bed with my cat sleeping on my feet, but here I am zooming through this cool colorful wormhole thing. A lot of my dream elements are so sci-fi and will end up in Quantum Party Girls. Oh yeah, to answer the question, STARGATE! And I guess, Contact. Oh, and the Twilight Zone. And Ray Bradbury…
L: Based on the fact you get to attend many movie festivals and even get to interview some of the stars/directors, do you have any stories that you’d like to share?
AH: Well, I have LOTS of stories, LOL, but here’s one that’s a little controversial. I was lucky enough to get into an exclusive celebrity studded Comic-Con party where literally everyone was somebody of note, except me… I was talking to an actress (that I’m not going to name) who is the lead on a current TV show, a very sweet, beautiful woman in her forties. I noticed Seth McFarlane (Family Guy) a few feet in front of us with some little bimbo who MAYBE was of legal age hanging off his arm. I pointed him out to the actress. She asked me “Do you think he’d be interested in doing a spoof of our show on Family Guy?” I said “I don’t know, you could ask him…” She was a bit shy, but I encouraged her to introduce herself. Boy, was that a mistake. Just as she put her hand out to introduce herself, he waived his hand in front of him as if she were some pesky autograph-seeking fan–there were NO fans at this party and if he really kept up with pop culture he would have known who she was! He just dismissed her in such a rude way that I was astonished and immediately bad-Facebooked about him and de-liked Family Guy… There’s also the time Pamela Anderson and Elizabeth Hurley didn’t want to wait in line for the girls’ bathroom at the Vanity Fair Oscar party so they walked into the men’s bathroom. I can just imagine the expression on the faces of the guys peeing when that happened!
L: I ask this question of everyone, so be honest: If aliens landed in front of you and, in exchange for anything you desire, offered you any position on their planet, what position would you want? I know I’d crap my pants.
AH: Photographer. I’d like to see everything and take cool photos! And psychologist–it would be fascinating to find out how an alien thinks and what their problems are. And socialite, getting to attend the hottest alien parties LOL. Wait, I have to pick just one?
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