Comic Book Collecting Melbourne

🍽 Social40+ Dinner Club Collection | Octoberfest Closing Party

# **🍽️ Dinner Club with a mit einem kleinen Twist (*with a little twist*)** Good food always brings people together and our Dinner Clubs do just that! Onto our forth Dinner Club and we are truly excited for this one. Tickets are limited to 25 only so do get in quick to avoid missing out. This isn’t just dinner. It’s finding genuine new connections whilst celebrating the end of the Octoberfest with live entertainment, plenty of steins and alot more than just sauerkraut and pork knuckles. Is this event relaxed and subdued? Probably not. Is it better than a Saturday night watching Netflix? Hell yes! Our host will help introduce everyone to get the conversation flowing, making it easy to come along solo, or with a friend. This event has a $10.00 event attendence fee per person which helps Social40+ keep growing. Purchases of food, and beverages are at your own cost and additional. **ℹ️ Event Details** 🍷 Monthly cuisine changes - German for Octoberfest is on the menu 🍴 Discover Melbourne’s best restaurants 💬 Easy conversation with likeminded people 👋 Come solo or bring a friend ❤️ Leave with a full stomach and new connections N.b. This event has an attendance fee of $10.00 that keeps Social40+ building and sustainable **\* This fee can be paid via PayID using email address [info@social40.com.au](http://info@social40.com.au,) alternatively bank transfer with details sent prior to the event.** Your next favorite restaurant and new person might be the one you discover with Social40+

Book swap brunch meet up

October 2026 - Cat's Cradle

Hello book lovers, Our book for October 2026 is "Cat's Cradle" by Kurt Vonnegut A brilliant science-fiction satire from one of the best writers of the twentieth century Dr Felix Hoenikker - a father of the atomic bomb - has another creation. Far more dangerous than that which levelled Hiroshima is ice-nine, a chemical that could freeze the world’s oceans solid. The search for Hoenikker leads first to his three children, each in possession of the chemical, and then to the Republic of San Lorenzo, a mysterious island in thrall to a bizarre religion. First published a year after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cat’s Cradle is shot through with a nauseous anxiety about the nuclear apocalypse. Yet Vonnegut’s darkly hilarious dissection of apathy and selfishness on the edge of the abyss speaks clearly to our own environmental angst and to the fragility of civilization. https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780241467985/cats-cradle--kurt-vonnegut--2020--9780241467985

LESBIANS LEAP FROM THE ARCHIVES 1970-2000 gallery exhibition

Melbourne Horror Book Club

Come and join our friendly group of horror fans as we talk about horror books and movies. You don't need to read or watch everything to come and participate! I kindly ask that everyone purchases dinner and/or a drink to cover the room hire costs. If you're new, we meet in the function rooms on the left hand side of the dining area. The books and film for this meetup are: **Contemporary Book** Victorian Psycho by Virginia Feito **Classic Book** Necroscope by Brian Lumley **Film** Teenage Sex and Death at Camp Miasma

October Book Club: Always Home, Always Homesick by Hannah Kent

Fabulous 70s: a Celebration of Melbourne Fashion with curator floor talk

Shepparton Art Museum (SAM) - Archibald Prize Exhibition - 7 going

Origami and Chocolate

Join us for a relaxing time of folding together at the Ratio chocolate factory in Brunswick! Bring a fun origami project to fold and share, all while sipping on delectable hot chocolate! Standard origami paper will be provided. We just ask for a gold coin to help with group expenses.

Sketching at Bundoora Homestead

Hey Guys, For this event, we'll be sketching at Bundoora Homestead. A Queen Anne Federation styled, heritage home built in 1900 on Wurundjeri grounds by John Matthews and Vincent Smith. The property had previously served as a family home and repatriation facility before being refurbished as a public gallery in 2001. **Meetup Details:** We'll be meeting at the centre entrance at **11:00am** before making our way to the Cafe (adjacent to the exhibition entrance.) I've booked a table for 11 people. You guys can chill, draw, have something to eat/drink, and soak in the view of the Mansion gardens before viewing the exhibition upstairs. Or if you want, do it the other way around. *If you're looking to eat something substantial, I highly recommend having lunch beforehand as the cafe only serves light refreshments* **Public Transport and Parking:** **Route 86 tram** You can get off either at **Mt Cooper Dr** or **Greenwood Dr** to get to the homestead. **Mt Cooper Dr** (quicker route in my opinion) * Turn **Right onto Mt Cooper Dr** * Turn **Left at Boadle Rd** * Turn **Right on JV Smith Street (no through Road)** * **Walk Right on Snake Gully Dr** till you see a **wooden gate**, the main entrance is accessible from there. **Greenwood Dr:** * Turn Right onto Greenwood Dr and continue straight down the pathway near the cricket grounds till you see the homestead. **Parking:** * Parking is located directly in front of the venue and it's free :) Looking forward to meeting you guys there :)

October Book of the month - Dungeon Crawler Carl

Book Club: [Dungeon Crawler Carl](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/211721806) by Matt Dinniman What if the apocalypse didn't end with a whimper or a nuclear blast, but with a galaxy-wide broadcast and a glowing corporate notification? In Dungeon Crawler Carl, Matt Dinniman weaves a wildly inventive, darkly hilarious, and surprisingly layered story about survival, corporate exploitation, consumerism, and finding humanity in the most absurdly inhumane of circumstances. The novel follows Carl, a normal guy whose life is upended when an alien corporation flattens Earth to clear space for an intergalactic reality game show. Left with nothing—not even his pants—except his ex-girlfriend’s prize-winning Persian show cat, Princess Donut, Carl has no choice but to step into the world-spanning, 18-level dungeon to stay alive. Forced to battle mutated monsters, psychotic rivals, and rigged game mechanics, Carl and Donut must learn to play for an audience of billions of alien viewers who treat human tragedy as prime-time entertainment. At the heart of the story is an unlikely partnership. Carl transitions from a reluctant survivor into a calculating, defiant folk hero, while Donut gains sapience, a growing vocabulary, and a fiercely loyal fan base. As they navigate deadly floors filled with exploding goblins and drug-dealing llamas, the boundaries between a tactical game and a horrifying reality blur. The dungeon becomes more than just an obstacle course; it becomes a brutal mirror reflecting the worst excesses of corporate greed, media sensationalism, and a society that turns suffering into content. Dinniman combines relentless, laugh-out-loud comedy with a genuinely chilling critique of modern capitalism and systemic cruelty, creating a story that is both wildly entertaining and unexpectedly poignant. Dungeon Crawler Carl explores how people hold onto their morals when a system is explicitly designed to reward brutality, how trauma is masked by humor, and whether it is possible to beat a game that was never meant to be won. Discussion Points * How does Dungeon Crawler Carl use humor as a coping mechanism for trauma? Where does the line blur between laughing at the absurdity and confronting the actual horror of the situation? * What does the relationship between Carl and Princess Donut reveal about loyalty, companionship, and chosen family under extreme pressure? How does Donut's character evolution challenge traditional tropes of animal sidekicks? * The dungeon is fundamentally a televised reality show. How does the novel critique our own society's obsession with ratings, clout, views, and turning real-life suffering into public entertainment? * How does Carl's definition of heroism change as he descends deeper into the dungeon? Is his defiance a genuine threat to the system, or just another form of entertainment for the elites? * What role does the System AI play in the narrative? Is it merely a background game engine, or does it develop a personality and agenda that complicates the ethics of the crawl? * How does the novel handle moral compromise? The dungeon rewards ruthlessness and penalizes compassion—how do Carl and other crawlers try to maintain their humanity in a system rigged against them? * In what ways do the corporate structures of the Borant Corporation mirror real-world monopolies, bureaucracies, and unchecked power dynamics? * How does the loot box and leveling mechanic act as a metaphor for consumer addiction and the illusion of upward mobility? * Were there moments where the tonal shifts—swinging wildly from laugh-out-loud slapstick to devastating tragedy—caught you off guard? How did that affect your reading experience? * Ultimately, is Dungeon Crawler Carl a story about helpless subjugation to an uncaring universe, or does it offer a genuine message of hope and resistance against impossible odds? If your group enjoys discussing dystopian power structures, sharp satirical social commentary, LitRPG/sci-fi tropes, unconventional found families, and stories where heroes fight back against rigged systems, Dungeon Crawler Carl offers an absolute mountain of material to unpack. It is also a fantastic entry point for exploring how modern speculative fiction uses absurdity and gamification to hold a mirror up to our own world!

ACMI All About Eve with Bette Davis