• Muni’s Central Subway was closed overnight Friday after a car crashed into the tunnel at Fourth and Bryant streets around 10 pm, with service resuming at about 9:30 am Saturday. [NBC Bay Area]

• Valley Fair Mall shooting witness, Cristian Rodriguez — who gave himself the impromptu nickname, “Mexican Spiderman,” describes his efforts to help people escape the mall bowling alley during the chaos by breaking a window with a bowling ball. [Mediaite]

• A new lawsuit alleges that Meta has a “17x” policy, which enables sex traffickers to post sexual solicitation or prostitution-related content up to 16 times before being suspended. [Bay Area News Group]
• The death toll from the horrific Hong Kong apartment complex fire is now at 146 as the number continues to rise. [Associated Press]
• Bay Area Cosplay fans have been turning out in full force at the annual Fan Expo convention — there’s still a chance to walk the red carpet Sunday at 2 pm. [Fan Expo/Instagram]

Image: Leanne Maxwell/SFist

Sid and Marty Kroftt themselves will be on hand in the East Bay this weekend, with cosplayers competing for cash prizes, in a celebration of retro TV shows like H.R. Pufnstuf and  Land of the Lost that will be anything but a routine expedition.

Children of the 1970s will recall that there was no finer time of week than Saturday morning, when you’d park in front of the TV set hours before your parents would awake and indulge in a series of psychedelic live-action, large-headed puppet shows like H.R. Pufnstuf, Land of the Lost, The Bugaloos, and Electra Woman and Dyna Girl. These were the creations of Banana Splits veterans and sibling duo Sid and Marty Kroftt, who are both very much alive, and will both very much be at the historic Orinda Theatre on Saturday for Krofft Kon, a celebration of all things Sid and Marty Kroftt.

“Come meet your favorite stars that you watched each Saturday morning while eating a bowl of cereal from your TV tray. (yes, cereal will be served),” the event says in a release. “The day will include episodes, Q & As, lectures, costume contest, trivia games and allow you to meet the stars from your favorite Krofft shows.”

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Yes yes there will be celebrities from yesteryear and such, but obviously the 8 p.m. costume contest is going to be the marquee event of this convention. There will indeed be cash prizes, with $200 going to the winner, $100 for second place, and $50 for third place. Though as organizers note, “Costume must be made and not store bought.”

You may not recognize the names of the celebrities who’ll be there in person, but if you're of a certain age you sure will remember their characters. These include Wesley Eure, Kathy Coleman and Sharon Baird (Land of the Lost), Johnny Whitaker (Sigmund and the Sea Monsters), Butch Patrick (Lidsville), and Ellis Joy (The Bugaloos).

The evening culminates with a screening of the 1970 feature film Pufnstuf. Mama Cass Elliot is in it!

Krofft Kon is Saturday, May 21, 11 a.m.– 10 p.m., at the Orinda Theatre; 4 Orinda Theatre Square. Tickets here.

Related: SF Finally Gets a Comic Con, Kicking Off Today [SFist]

Image: @TVPOPCON via Twitter

Way more smartphone pictures than usual were snapped on Sunday at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, as more than a dozen cosplay specialists tricked themselves out to represent works on display at the SFMOMA or the artists who created the works. SFist was on hand to get pictures of these highly art-iculated cosplayers as they delighted the Sunday MOMA crowd, to find out why they did it and how they pulled off their various costume feats.

This was the second guerrilla cosplay takeover at the SFMOMA in recent months, a scheme hatched by Rheanna Bates who is seen above as Lichtenstein’s Wonder Woman. “I came in July with my dad, and we had a really fun time blowing on the Calder mobiles, posing taking bites of the apple statue, and making fun of the Ellsworth Kellys and all that stuff,” she told SFist. “I thought it would be really fun to come in costume and be a little more interactive.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

“I thought it would be fun to get people posing with the art, interacting with the art, impersonating the art, being the art,” she said. “And it’s really fun for museum goers who just aren’t expecting it.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Some came fully decked out as iconic individual works of art, like the above fellow Bill who was Piet Mondrian’s “Broadway Boogie Oogie”. “It was an improvisation of electrical tape and some face paint and some white clothing,” he explained. “It’s simple yet elegant and was fun to make.”

Image: Stephen Gordy

Former first lady turned Warhol print Jackie O popped in to pose next to her famed Warhol screen. “I’m actually machine made,” Ms. O told SFist. “If you’ll notice, some of my lines don’t perfectly match up with the colors. That’s a natural byproduct of the machine printing process, a rather tragic consequence of modern art and consumerism but delightful to the eye.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Even Dali posed with Dolly. (Get it?) “Dali is a big influence as someone who was devoutly himself, and took great pleasure in being himself,” said Mystic Midway founder Barron Scott Levkoff, in full Salvador Dali attire. “I think embracing the role creative identity has to play in brightening up our daily lives is an act of courage in these outraged times.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Some of the splashy apparel was an homage to a certain genre. “The brushstrokes in my costume are inspired by Jackson Pollock,” said the above-posing Emily Pierce. “I’m wearing a local designer, Weston Wear, and I just had all of these pieces in my costume closet and put them all together.”

Image: Joe Kukura, SFistr

This event was completely unofficial, and no future cosplay takeovers are in the works among these SFMOMA fans. But there may be other interactive art events in the months to come, so keep an eye on the SFMOMA events and exhibitions calendar for other fun, wacky, or Dieben-corny happenings.

Image: Joe Kukura, SFist

Image: Stephen Gordy

Related:A Retrospective Of Bruce Conner's Mesmerizing Work Is Now At SFMOMA

The ratio of nerds to official Comic Cons has always been out of whack in San Francisco, where we cosplay every day but have never had a full-on Comic Con (just WonderCon!) held in the city. That all changes today with the opening of the first San Francisco Comic Con (September 2-4) at the Marriott Marquis. And we’ve broken down the festival’s most mint-condition celebrity appearances, cosplay contests, significant panel discussions and lightsaber battle opportunities that you can stand in line for while reeking of b.o. because you were up gaming all night.

Celebrity Stars
Some last-minute cancellations have dimmed the star factor here with Jason Momoa (Aquaman, Game Of Thrones) canceling because of a film shoot conflict, and Krysten Ritter (Jessica Jones, Breaking Bad) suffering from a sudden infection that we hope does not indicate a zombie outbreak.

But everything is proceeding precisely as foreseen for appearances by Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine of Star Wars), Jenna Coleman (Doctor Who), and Manu Bennett (Spartacus, Arrow). All will appear both Saturday and Sunday, with the Q&A’s being livestreamed online. The stars will also sign autographs and pose for pictures, but you better believe it’s going to cost you $50-80 a pop.

Image: Cosette Paneque via Flickr

Cosplay
This Comic Con has a very strong lineup of big-deal cosplayers like Jessica Nigri, Heather1337 and more (their Q&A livestreams at 1 p.m. Friday). But cosplay will be taking place at all corners of the convention, with cash prizes on the line in the categories of TV/Movies,Comics, Video Games, Anime, Star Wars and the Kids division.

Image: Warner Bros. Animation

Significant Panels
The voice of Daphne from the rebooted Scooby Doo cartoons (Grey DeLisle) highlights the panel Cartoon Voice Actor Q&A, plus there are dozens of other notable panels like Mrs. Pac Man: A Panel of Women Game Developers, Simpsons Trivia, and Body Image Diversity in Comic, Cosplay and Pop Culture.

Image: Greylock via Flickr

Lightsaber Battles
Unlike certain lightsaber events, the lightsaber events at Comic Con will be highly organized and carefully thought out, with instructional and battle sessions like Sport Dueling with Lightsabers, Translating Traditional Sword Into Lightsaber Metastyles, The Art of Storytelling with Lightsaber Stage Combat.

San Francisco Comic Con runs today (12 Noon - Midnight), Saturday (10 a.m. - Midnight) and Sunday (10 a.m. - 5 p.m.) at the San Francisco Marriott Marquis (780 Mission Street, at Fourth Street)

Unless you’ve been living in a $500-a-month crawlspace, you know that Star Wars: Episode VII opens nationwide today and had West Coast premieres last night. Though we were denied access to press screenings, SFist was on hand for the premiere at the official grand opening of the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, where nerds, geeks, droids and Sith-as-fuck Star Wars fans posed for these photos and shared their Jedi-level cosplay secrets.

Chewy looks a little crunchy in the photo above, but it's his Slutty Chewbacca outfit from Halloween. "I wanted to be Han Solo, and I told him, 'you can be Slutty Chewbacca,'" said Chelsea Paris, the Han Solo in the middle. "Girl costumes are always really slutty. You go to be something normal and you can't. All they have is the slutty version. So you have you make your own costume if you want to be not-slutty."

Image: Joe Kukura

"Han Solo had to hand-sew this," Ms. Paris quipped, in a joke that plays better phonetically than in print.

Image: Joe Kukura

Alamo Drafthouse owner Tim League warmed up the crowd before the premiere. "This movie may be terrible," League announced. "This movie may embarrass me."

Image: Joe Kukura

Fans were treated to special limited edition comic books and the Drafthouse played an awesome reel of vintage Star Wars clips before the movie started. "This is part of Alamo business as usual," League told SFist. "We do a pre-roll for every movie. Every single movie. We'll curate something for every movie that plays."

Image: Joe Kukura

But the cosplayers were the real stars of this Star Wars premiere. "Slave Leia? I don't have that in my closet," said Kelsey, another female Han Solo. "These are my work pants. It's just red duct tape from Walgreen's on pants from Banana Republic. I ordered a military vest but it didn't come in. Cosplay problems."

Image: Joe Kukura

"Jawa is about the lowest-effort Star Wars costume possible," said Cory Osburne, the Jawa above. "You just get a cheap costume robe, a ski mask and you tape over some flashlights [for the eyes] and there you go."

League shared a great story with us about his first Star Wars viewing in 1977. "I went to go see Star Wars with my mother," League remembered. "I ordered a popcorn and a very large drink. I drank the whole thing. It got near the end of the movie and [the Rebel X-wings] were approaching the Death Star. I really, really had to go to the bathroom."

Image: Joe Kukura

"I didn't want to leave the movie because I was completely into it," he said. "So I made the decision to just wet my pants, which I hadn't done in a really long time. I didn't tell my mother. Then we were walking out and she saw what I had done and she took me to the ladies room to change my pants."

"In retrospect, I think I made the right call."

Fans wetting themselves with excitement can see Star Wars: The Force Awakens in both 2D and 3D at the Alamo Drafthouse and at theaters across the Bay Area

Related:Top Five Local Spots To Get In That Star Wars Mood Without Having To Travel To A Galaxy Far, Far Away

Source: the ever-brilliant Jim Herd at the Anime Costume Parade.