UC Santa Cruz Arts Chancellor David Yager and Artistic Director of Shakespeare Santa Cruz Marco Barricelli were pleased to announce that SSC will survive another season. After concerns that the program would be unable to balance its 2009 budget, the theater group is preparing for its 29th season.  Yager and Barricelli held a conference call at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, Oct.13, 2009 to announce the good news. Visit goodtimessantacruz.com for more about this and other UCSC updates in GT’s newest blog, News from the Hill, which will dole out university-related news and features each week.

Look around the rink at any roller derby practice and you’re bound to see women of various ages, usually mid-twenties through mid-forties, and it will be safe to assume that the majority have experienced a coming-of-age event in her life, whether as part of a cultural, religious or familial celebration, or a more casual social event. Ask enough questions at the right time during an after party and you’ll hear details of bat mitzvahs, quinceañeras, confirmations or sweet-sixteens. Dig deeper, or buy a round of shots, and you might hear about other rights of passage that might not include members of the immediate family, guest lists, or places of worship, but may have necessitated covert activity, recovery time and/or bail.

What these momentous events usually have in common is that they generally take place before the age of reason (I’d like to think that’s approximately twenty-six), and that they change the participant into wiser women, when all is said and done and the dust eventually clears.  Look around the rink again. Out of the forty or so women skating, there are twenty or so who are facing yet another coming-of-age event in her life, at a later age than any of them ever expected: her first roller derby bout. In front of people. Real live people. Strangers, friends, family, co-workers and neighbors. And she’ll be wearing less clothing than she might wear to bed.

Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks will offer locals a hands-on chance to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake by leading a hike deep into the heart of the Forest of Nisene Marks State Park, to the epicenter of the Loma Prieta earthquake, on Oct. 18. The guided hike will take participants off the beaten-track to locations where evidence of the 1906 and 1989 earthquakes can be seen. The event is a fundraiser for Friends of Santa Cruz State Parks. Visit ThatsMyPark.org for more information. (Or see page 28.)

With so many super-hero movies dominating the silver screen this past decade it can be easy to forget that comic books have a lot more to offer than just a bunch of shredded up, scantily clad men and women running around beating on each other. I'd even argue that the idea of comic books as a genre unto itself is more than misleading as a comic book can be ANY genre it chooses. Westerns, Horror, Romance, you name it. This also applies to cinematic adaptations with Whiteout and The Surrogates currently in theaters being two perfect examples.

With that in mind I thought it might be fun to compile a top five list (because come on, who doesn't love lists?) of movies that you may or may not know originally found their way into the world through the pages of a comic book.