Anthony Letizia

Anthony Letizia has been many things through the years, including an accountant, journalist, and playwright. From June 2014 to May 2019, he served on the board – as well as treasurer – of the ToonSeum, a nonprofit museum of the cartoon and comic arts in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. While there, Letizia curated two exhibits, “To Boldly Go: The Graphic Art of Star Trek” (October 2016 to January 2017) and “Popology: An Exhibit of Pop Culture and Comics” (September 2017 to November 2017), as well as co-curated “Wonder Woman: Visions” (November 2017 to February 2018).

After a decades-long hiatus, Anthony Letizia completed his M.A. in History at Duquesne University in December 2024. He has used his history background to make a number of presentations in recent years on the ways that popular culture intersects with the real world. The list includes: “Superheroes Battle Pollution on the First Earth Day” poster presentation as part of the Comics Arts Conference at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2024; “DC Comics and August 1986” at the Popular Culture Association Conference in Chicago in March 2024; and “Green Arrow as Social Justice Warrior” as part of the Comics Arts Conference at WonderCon in Anaheim in March 2023. He also organized/moderated a panel at the Emerald City Comic Con in Seattle in August 2022 entitled “A Green Arrow History of Seattle” and made a brief “Marvel Comics History of the 1960s” presentation at the virtual Popular Culture Association conference in April 2022.

Although still an accountant by day, at night Anthony Letizia is a strong proponent and true believer in the power of Geek Culture. He can be reached at anthony@geekfrontiers.com.

 

Steel City Ghostbusters

Members of the Pittsburgh fanclub have attended numerous conventions, parades, and charity events in the region, dressed as characters from the classic 1984 supernatural comedy since 2008.

Warehouse 13 and Joshua’s Trumpet

Federal Agents Pete Lattimer and Myka Bering visited Pittsburgh during the sci-fi television drama’s third season to recover a lost artifact responsible for numerous deaths in the Steel City.

Dungeons & Dragons as Improv Comedy

In 2013, Pittsburgh actor/writer Fred Betzner launched Knights of the Arcade, with improv comedy actors playing the popular role playing game Dungeons & Dragons live and onstage.

The Final Quantum Leap

In the series finale of the classic time-traveling television drama, Sam Beckett ends up in Cokeburg, Pennsylvania, in 1953, where he meets a bartender who is more than he seems.

Captain Kirk and Carnegie Mellon University

In preparation for their book I’m Working on That, actor William Shatner and Pittsburgh author Chip Walter visited Carnegie Mellon University to learn about robotics and virtual realities.

Arch: The Steel City Transformer

Originally created for the city’s 250th anniversary celebration in 2008, the twenty-foot Transformer-like sculpture is now located on the landside of Pittsburgh International Airport.

Hemlock Grove: A Novel

Exploration of the debut novel by Steel City native Brian McGreevy, which spins classic horror narratives into a modern murder mystery involving a small town on the outskirts of Pittsburgh.

The X-Files and the Steel City

FBI Agents Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, and John Doggett made a small handful of visits to the Pittsburgh region during their X-Files investigations into the supernatural and paranormal.

Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute

Author Lee Gutkind offers an overview of the Carnegie Mellon University Robotics Institute in his book Almost Human: Making Robots Think, based on inside access to the cutting-edge facility.

Alpha Big Time

Andy Maguire, the teenage superhero known as Alpha who had his powers taken away by Peter Parker’s Spider-Man, moved to Pittsburgh in 2013 and starred in his own five-issue miniseries.

Buck Rogers in the 25th Century

The popular science fiction comic strip was first published in 1929 with the title character trapped in a coal mine outside Pittsburgh, stuck in a state of suspended animation for 500 years.

Enterprise: The Day a Vulcan Came to Pittsburgh

The television series Star Trek: Enterprise suggests that Vulcans crash-landed in Western Pennsylvania during the 1950s and briefly lived among humans, as well as visited Pittsburgh.