The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films presented the 2018 Saturn Awards on June 27.
The Saturn Awards Organization is part of The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films which is a non-profit corporation founded in 1972 by Dr. Donald A. Reed. The organization is dedicated to honoring film and television genre entertainment.
Tana Mongeau wanted to throw an alt-VidCon. Instead, she threw a Fyre Festival redux.
Mongeau is a YouTuber. She has 3.5 million followers and her name might sound vaguely familiar if you’re at all versed in the surprisingly engaging world of vegan YouTube drama. VidCon is an annual YouTube-centric convention organized by brothers and YouTube royals Hank and John Green. Tanacon is the event that Mongeau organized — and named after herself — last week in California.
Tanacon was inspired by Mongeau’s self-professed dislike of VidCon. In a video you can watch if you have an hour and eighteen minutes to kill, Mongeau explained she would not be attending VidCon this year, citing drama over not being designated a featured creator at the event. And so, Tanacon was born. And, in a way, so Tanacon died. The event was barely six hours into its first day when it was shut down by officials for overcrowding, sending thousand of teens — many who had been waiting hours outside in the sun — into a tizzy. A dehydrated tizzy we can now recount for you to gleefully relive from the relative comfort of wherever you’re presently posted up. (We can only assume it’s not still the parking lot of the Anaheim Marriott Suites.)…
…The fan horde did not take well to the event cancellation. “After the lady said it was canceled, everyone started screaming, complaining, and cussing her out,” 13-year-old Alyssa, who bought a VIP ticket and waited six hours to be turned away empty-handed, said. “Everyone ran to the registration tent and threw the merch … pop sockets, Tanacon bags, stickers, Tanacon condoms, badges. This led to everyone destroying everything.”
Mongeau eventually came outside to calm the crowd. This, reader, will you believe … also did not end well, as evidenced by clips of screaming fans, phones raised above their heads with cameras at the ready, running through the parking lot to spy their queen….
When we picked the date last year it was a different date range then we normally pick. It was the date closest to the previous few years of Fandomfest. The Omni is a great hotel and we wanted to have it there this year.
Unfortunately several things happened. The date we chose made it very difficult to get vendors and bigger named celebs for that date because there were 6 other big conventions on that date.
So many of our normal vendors had already paid and booked other shows for that date. That made it difficult to procure vendors which helps to pay for everything.
Another reason is the pre-sale tickets were at a lower rate then ever. The guests we have chosen to bring in to the event weren’t a big enough pre-ticket purchase draw for the fans.
Putting these shows on costs money. A lot of money. The idea is to have an idea of the excitement for your guest list and the pre-sales are a huge way for us to gauge that in our plan.
We worked with the great people at The Omni to try and find another date there at their beautiful facility but they are completely booked all the way into 2019.
So we are excited to announce that we are working to reschedule and instead of bringing one show in the summer we are going to bring 2 events to better serve you guys. We know we hear all the time how expensive the shows are getting with the autograph prices and the photo op prices as well as admission. We think the time is right to have shows that don’t cost the fans as much money.
All of us love meeting our favorites from our Superhero Movies or favorite TV Shows out there but lets face it, it can get expensive.
Daniels says they’ll “be refunding the few ticket purchases and vendor booths” starting on June 30.
(3) STILL EARTHBOUND. It was an open secret that the launch of James Webb Space Telescope would be delayed again; now it’s just plain open. The schedule now calls for a launch on March 30, 2021. Once launched, the JWST will be inserted into a solar orbit at the Earth-Sun L2 point.
The James Webb Space Telescope (sometimes called JWST or Webb) is an orbiting infrared observatory that will complement and extend the discoveries of the Hubble Space Telescope, with longer wavelength coverage and greatly improved sensitivity. The longer wavelengths enable Webb to look much closer to the beginning of time and to hunt for the unobserved formation of the first galaxies, as well as to look inside dust clouds where stars and planetary systems are forming today.
NASA has again delayed the launch of its next-generation space observatory, known as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the space agency announced today. The telescope now has a new launch date of March 30th, 2021. It’s the second delay to the program’s timeline this year, and the third in the last nine months.
“We’re all disappointed that the culmination of Webb and its launch is taking longer than expected, but we’re creating something new here. We’re dealing with cutting-edge technology to perform an unprecedented mission, and I know that our teams are working hard and will successfully overcome the challenges,” NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine said in a video statement. “In space we always have to look at the long term, and sometimes the complexities of our missions don’t come together as soon as we wish. But we learn, we move ahead, and ultimately we succeed.”
Segun Akinola has been announced as the sci-fi show’s new composer, and he’s in for a challenge almost as significant as hers: reinventing one of TV’s best-known theme tunes. The British-Nigerian musician’s unveiling continues the trend for bringing in fresh blood all around for the show’s new era. Composer Murray Gold worked on all 10 series of the revived show, winning acclaim for his blockbustery orchestral scores – despite many fans complaining they became invasive and overbearing.
Akinola, an alumnus of the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and part of 2017’s Bafta Breakthrough Brit programme, could prove an altogether different prospect for a remodelled show. Could fans look forward to hearing something a little more pared down, modern and minimalist?
…Yet his latest challenge sets the bar high. Composing soundtracks for all 10 episodes of Whittaker’s debut series might provide the lion’s share of his workload – but he is also tasked with providing a ‘fresh take’ on the show’s theme music. That’s one of the most iconic elements of Doctor Who – just like the show itself, it’s always changing while remaining, broadly, the same.
Composed by Ron Grainer, the eerie, warping titles first emerged in 1963 in an arrangement now synonymous with Doctor Who’s renegade spirit….
(5) TRAVEL BAN CONSEQUENCES URGED. In the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision upholding Trump’s travel ban, several leading sff figures voiced a new resolve to deprive the United States of future Worldcons. Patrick Nielsen Hayden’s Twitter thread starts here. Adam Roberts carried on the theme in his Twitter thread, and Paul Cornell ratified it.
(6) CHRISTOPHER STASHEFF REMEMBERED. The daughter of the late Christopher Stasheff gave an interview about the author to the Champaign, IL News-Gazette.
A daughter of the prolific author who brought literary depth to the science fiction and fantasy genres with books like “The Warlock in Spite of Himself” said he used the people of Champaign as his muse.
“He gained inspiration from the people around him,” said Eleanore Stasheff, whose father, Christopher Stasheff, died June 10 at age 74.
“He always believed home is where the heart is, which is Champaign,” she said. “He found beauty anywhere we were at, but to him, people were more important than nature.”
(7) HEART OBIT. Frank Heart (1929-2018), a U.S. engineer who led the team that built the Interface Message Processor, heart of internet precursor ARPAnet, died on June 24 aged 89. The New York Times recalls his achievements: “Frank Heart, Who Linked Computers Before the Internet, Dies at 89”.
Data networking was so new that Mr. Heart and his team had no choice but to invent technology as they went. For example, the Arpanet sent data over ordinary phone lines. Human ears tolerate low levels of extraneous noise on a phone line, but computers can get tripped up by the smallest hiss or pop, producing transmission errors. Mr. Heart and his team devised a way for the I.M.P.s (pronounced imps) to detect and correct errors as they occurred.
(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS
Born June 27 – Tobey Maguire, 43. Spider-Man films of course.
Born June 27 — J.J. Abrams, 52. Executive Producer of Alias, Lost: Missing Pieces, Star Trek, Lost, Fringe, Star Trek Into Darkness, Almost Human… Well you get the idea.
Born June 27 – Samuel George Claflin, 32. Performer, the Hunger Games film series, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Snow White and the Huntsman
(9) COMICS SECTION.
John King Tarpinian spotted a Return of the Jedi joke in Brewster Rockit.
Though the epic monster fight was the main spectacle of the movie, it also managed to have a plot too. Well, sort of. The movie follows a dying Pharmaceuticals company whose executive is trying to get business by gaining traction on TV. Obviously the best way to get TV viewership is to send two of your employees to a small exotic island in search of giant monsters you can exploit. So that’s just what they do, discovering King Kong in the process. An awesome fight breaks out between King Kong and a giant octopus, for some reason, and after a much too long “exotic” dance sequence from the island’s “natives” King Kong drinks some special juice and falls asleep.
Here’s a little thread I just sent. I still haven’t heard back from Cisca Small after emailing her twice this month about whether #DragonCon intends to invite John Ringo. According to Ringo he’s been invited. If that’s true I’ll be withdrawing my participation as an Attending Professional. I don’t have the luxury of pacifying, appeasing, or normalizing these decisions with my presence. I’m sure a number of authors who aren’t people of color or women will find all kinds of justifications for why it’s ok to attend but still call themselves “allies”. Just know I don’t buy it. I understand though, selling a few copies of your books is more important than letting a Con know that who they invite says everything about who they are.
Coleman also wrote a Twitter thread, which starts here.
More than six months after the theatrical release of The Last Jedi, just about every aspect of the backlash against it has already been argued and debated to death. But that hasn’t stopped old arguments appearing in new formats.
Last week, we saw an almost certainly fake campaign “raise” millions of dollars to remake a film that earned more than $1.3 billion at the box office. This week, we’re seeing a “manifesto” written by “We the fans of Star Wars” go viral several weeks after it was originally posted. The emergence of the post, which didn’t get that much traction when it was first posted, is almost solely so people can mock it.
The creators of the manifesto believe that “those in charge of a Franchise derives its power as a creative force from the consent of the fandom of that Franchise.” The creators take umbrage with the direction that Lucasfilm has gone since being purchased by Disney and the perceived “misguided political agenda” that it’s pursuing with the new films. It includes grievances against The Last Jedi and the newer films as a whole, characterizing the films as desecrating the legacies of characters we’ve known for decades. And they certainly have an issue with people assuming that they’re racist, sexist, or part of the alt-right for disliking a movie.
“To these ends, we pledge our merchandise, our honor, and our wallets,” the manifesto stated in its final line.
For the historians among us, this June 3 Twitter thread contains both the manifesto and a flag (complete with explanation of all its symbolism).
Blue: The Legends continuity has a vast, ???????????????????????????????? fanbase full of theorists, artists, writers, programmers and more who would help it succeed once again. #AllianceToRestoreStarWars
— Dumb Moth Kaeli |????|????????| ?? (@AzulaAr) June 3, 2018
In the Devil’s West trilogy, Laura Anne Gilman has given us an imagined history of the United States — one that feels nearly as true as facts, both crazier and more reasoned than our Old West reality. Silver On The Road defined that world. One where the Devil — the actual Devil, smelling warmly of whiskey and tobacco, dressed in a prim cardsharp’s suit — holds dominion over everything in the United States west of the Mississippi, and defends it and its people from the predation and influence of Washington, Spain, the French and all of the East. From a town called Flood, he makes his deals and sends his chosen out into the world — one of them being Isobel, a teenaged girl, raised at the Devil’s knee and then sent forth (along with her mentor, Gabriel) into the Territory as his Left Hand. She is the Devil’s cold eye, final word and, when necessary, his justice.
Before Cheo Hodari Coker began plotting Season 2 of Netflix‘s “Luke Cage,” he had to address the elephant in the room.
Actually, it was more like a snake in the room. A Cottonmouth to be specific.
Coker, a director, writer and producer who can frequently be found on social media answering both positive and negative questions and comments from viewers of his works, had frequently seen comments online saying that the killing of Season 1 villain Cottonmouth (Mahershala Ali) was a huge mistake.
There was a method to Coker’s perceived madness. One reason he gleefully accepted working on “Luke Cage” in the first place was his love of superhero comics. Coker still remembers vividly how he felt the moment he read the 12th issue of “Alpha Flight” (published by Marvel Comics in 1983), when legendary comics scribe and artist John Byrne killed the character Guardian.
“When (Bryne) killed Guardian I was verklempt,” Coker told The Washington Post. “I wanted to bring that kind of thing to Marvel television. I wanted to kind of do what Hitchcock did with ‘Psycho,’ because it was a big deal to kill Janet Leigh. And so, that was the thing. Cottomouth in that structure was always going to die. Even though people liked him a lot.”
In the latest intense and unnerving teaser for George R.R. Martin’s upcoming sci-fi/horror series, Nightflyers, a young girl seems to recite some sort of incantation while we’re treated (if that’s the right word) to brief flashes of the rest of the cast in tight, dark spaces looking concerned, being set on fire, being dragged across the floor by some unseen force, and running for their lives. It’s all pretty terrifying, to tell the truth.
[Thanks to Jim Meadows, Chip Hitchcock, Mike Kennedy, JJ, IanP, Martin Morse Wooster, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, Andrew Porter, Rev. Bob, Nickpheas, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Worldcon 76 has released the 1943 Retrospective Hugo Awards Voter Packet, a collection of finalists for the 1943 Retro-Hugo Awards created to assist Worldcon members in making informed decisions when voting on this year’s Hugo Awards.
All the files are PDFs, and many are simply PDF documents containing links to the works either at the Internet Archive, Fanac.org or eFanzines.com.
As the committee explains:
Not all works shortlisted for the 1943 Retrospective Hugo Awards appear in the Retro-Hugo Voter Packet due to challenges with obtaining rights to distribute them.
Members of Worldcon 76 can access the 1943 Retro-Hugo Award Voter packet and vote on the 1943 Hugo Awards using the PINs emailed them by the committee.
Novel
Six nominees, none in packet
Novella
Six nominees, four in packet
“Hell is Forever” by Alfred Bester [link to the Internet Archive]
“Nerves” by Lester del Rey [PDF]
“The Compleat Werewolf” by Anthony Boucher [PDF]
“The Unpleasant Profession of Jonathan Hoag” by Robert A. Heinlein [link to the Internet Archive]
Novelette
Six nominees, one in packet
“The Star Mouse” by Fredric Brown [PDF]
Short story
Six nominees, three in packet
“Etaoin Shrdlu” by Fredric Brown [PDF]
“Proof” by Hal Clement [PDF]
“The Sunken Land” by Fritz Leiber [link to the Internet Archive]
Dramatic Presentation – Short Form
Six nominees, none in packet
Editor – Short Form
Six nominees, none in packet
Professional Artist
Six nominees, none in packet
Fan writer
All nominees in packet
Art Widner [links to 13 items at Fanac.org]
Arthur Wilson “Bob” Tucker [links to 20 items at Fanac.org]
Donald A Wollheim [links to 5 items at Fanac.org]
Forrest J Ackerman [links to 19 items at Fanac.org]
Harry Warner, Jr. [links to 17 items at Fanac.org]
Jack Speer [links to 16 items at Fanac.org]
Fanzine
All nominees in packet
Futurian War Digest [links to 9 issues at eFanzines]
Inspiration [link to 1 issue at Fanac.org]
Le Zombie [links to 4 issues at Fanac.org]
Spaceways [links to 6 issues at Fanac.org]
The Phantagraph [link to cover of 1 issue at Fanac.org]
Voice of the Imagination [links to 7 issues at Fanac.org]
[Thanks to Joe H. and Kevin Standlee for the story.]
Why I am Advocating for a Best Translated Novel Category
By Chris M. Barkley:
Author’s Note: Like Jo Van Ekeren, I am a member of a Hugo Awards Study Committee, which was formed last year at Worldcon 75 in Helsinki, Finland. The views expressed in this editorial are solely mine and may not reflect the views and interests of anyone else serving on the Study Committee or anyone connected with any Worldcon, past or present.
My first encounter with the Hugo Awards began back in high school in the early 1970’s when I stumbled upon a copy of The Hugo Awards Volumes One and Two, edited by Isaac Asimov. Up until I cracked open this particular anthology, I had only been a casual reader of fantasy and science fiction. Reading it plunged me into a literary whirlpool that I have reveled in and loved ever since.
When I started thinking about proposing changes to the Hugo Award categories in 1998, I had no idea how to proceed. I had attended fifteen Worldcons but I had attended only a single Business Meeting, and that was only because I was passing where it was being held one afternoon and a friend grabbed me and asked me to vote on something of vital importance. I went in, raised my hand when asked and did so and went on my merry way without knowing what I had just supported.
At Chicon 2000, I became a regular attendee and over the years learned how to cajole, advocate, persuade and validate my points of view. I did learn quickly to develop some thick skin as my early efforts were mercilessly stonewalled and ridiculed on a regular basis.
Through the tireless efforts of myself and other dedicated fans, we made significant changes to the Hugo Award categories and all of them were for the better, in my opinion.
But, as time has gone by it has become evident to some (including myself) that we should take a serious look at all of the categories to see if ambiguities could be removed from the language in the WSFS Constitution, redefining, improving, eliminating or suggesting new categories altogether. The Helsinki Business Meeting commissioned such a Study Group last summer and I happily volunteered.
At the moment, the group is gearing up to reach a consensus to issue a report in time for Worldcon 76 in San Jose.
On June 9, I presented the idea of a Best Translated Novel to the group. I did so because I believe that it is time the World Science Fiction Convention become a truly global award of cultural distinction.
Of course, the group on the whole had its concerns about establishing a new category. On the whole, I would say that we are not in favor of turning the Hugo awards into the Grammys with a nearly endless parade of sub-categories and narrowly defined special interest awards.
Well, imagine my surprise when I opened the June 14 edition of the Pixel Scroll and saw tweets from Rachel S. Cordasco and Claire Rousseau espousing the very same idea! Needless to say, I was very excited to see this and contacted them to enthusiastically pledge my support.
But there is a problem; as Ms. Van Ekeren rightly pointed out, even though we are less than two months way from Worldcon, the time frame for discussing it in advance and scheduling it for a formal debate at the Business Meeting is less than desirable at this point. We are, in essence, the gatekeepers of the Hugo Awards. And while I relish this vital role, I have often been frustrated by the somewhat glacial pace of the process and the sometimes overwhelming sense of caution the members of the Business Meeting immerse themselves in.
Be that as it may, I am quite confident and certain that this proposal will be assigned to a study group, will be roundly debated in the coming year and an amendment will be presented at the Business Meeting in Dublin.
The very first World Fiction Convention in 1939 was held in New York City and it has been documented that the original intention was to have the convention named as homage to the World’s Fair in Flushing Meadows. And as time has passed, and innovations and technology have made our community more global, it just makes good sense to extend the good will and honor of being nominated for or winning a Hugo Award to the rest of the world. Because we, as a community, must show that the Worldcon isn’t just a traveling genre party for English speakers, but the whole, wide world. As an analogy I offer the example of the Academy Awards; a Best Translated Novel is just like offering the equivalent of the Best Foreign Film category.
For decades, the Hugo Award was mainly dominated by writers from the United Kingdom and North America. And while we called ourselves members of the World Science Fiction Society, the first convention wasn’t held outside North America until 1957 (London, UK) or in Europe until 1970 (Heidelberg, West Germany). Even then, English-speaking writers have prevailed. That is, until recently.
My inspiration for supporting the Best Translated Novel was inspired by the recent Hugo wins by Thomas Olde Heuvelt, Cixin Liu and Hao Jingfang. This shows that the inherent bias against writers from other countries and cultures is slowly melting away. And while no translated novels or short fiction is on the final ballot this year, I am reasonably sure more nominations from writers of different countries and cultures will be forthcoming.
In the meantime, I am writing this column to directly address some of the issues Ms. Van Ekeren pointed out in her editorial.
First, the intent of the proposed amendment is to honor translated novels seeing their first publication in English. In the WSFS Constitution, the definition of a novel (as of this writing) is: ”A science fiction or fantasy story of forty thousand (40,000) words or more. ” This would or should exclude works of non-fiction, manga or anything else that would not fit into what we traditionally know as the novel category. I take it for granted that some sort of provision will be written to prevent a nominee in the Translated category from also being considered in the Best Novel category.
If and when the definition of the novel category is changed, the wording of the Translated Novel category will be adjusted to suit the Constitution. The one thing that I would insist on inserting into the proposal is that translators of the work being honored also receive a Hugo for their efforts.
As to whether or not adding this new category will “dilute” the prestige of the Best Novel Award or make it a second class or lesser award, I completely reject that sort of reasoning. I have held many of them in my hands on many occasions during my four decades in fandom. Ask any of the recipients in any category whether or not they feel that their Hugo is any less special than anyone else’s. And the answer would probably be a unanimous NO. They are grateful and happy to have their work honored by knowledgeable fans.
One of the main objections seems to be finding eligible works to be nominated. This in turn brings us back to Dr. Cordasco, who has a Ph.D in literary studies, is a huge fan of translated fantasy and sf. She has been running a website completely devoted to tracking translated works for several years. (Speculative Fiction in Translation)
Here is a list of translated novels published just in the past two years:
2018 ( Published or scheduled so far)
Anna by Niccolò Ammaniti, translated by Jonathan Hunt (Italian)
The Coincidence Makers by Yoav Blum, translated by Ira Moskowitz (Hebrew)
The Bottom of the Sky by Rodrigo Fresan, translated by Will Vanderhyden (Spanish)
Elven Winter by Bernhard Hennen, translated by Edwin Miles (German)
Alphaland by Cristina Jurado, translated by James Womack (Spanish)
Oneiron by Laura Lindstedt, translated by Owen Witesman (Finnish)
Ball Lighting by Cixin Lui, translated by Jowl Martinsen (Chinese)
Faces From the Past by Rodolfo & Felicidad Martinez, translated by Rodolfo Martinez (Spanish)
Nekomonogatari White by Nisioisin, translated by Ko Ransom (Japanese)
Apple and Knife by Intan Paramaditha, translated by Stephen J. Epstein (Indonesian)
Frankenstein in Baghdad by Achmed Saadawi, translated by Jonathan Wright (Arabic)
Collected Stories by Bruno Schulz, translated by Madeline G. Levine (Polish)
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Vol 6: Flight by Yoshiki Tanaka, translated by Tyran Grillo (Japanese)
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Vol 7: Tempest by Yoshiki Tanaka, translated by Daniel Huddleston (Japanese)
The Emissary by Yoko Tawada, translated by Margaret Mitsutani (Japanese)
Sisyphean by Dempow Torishima, translated by Daniel Huddleston (Japanese)
Science: Hopes and Fears by Juza Unno, translated by J. D. Wisgo (Japanese)
Eighteen O’Clock Music Bath by Juza Unno, translated by J. D. Wisgo (Japanese)
The Invisible Valley by Su Wei, translated by Austin Woerner (Chinese)
A Hero Born (The Condor Heroes, Book 1) by Jin Yong, translated by Anna Holmwood
I Am Behind You by John Ajvide Lindqvist, translated by Marlaine Delargey (Swedish)
2017
The Sacred Era by Yoshio Aramaki, translated by Baryon Tensor Posadas (Japanese)
SRDN: From Bronze and Darkness by Andrea Atzori, translated by Nigel Ross (Italian)
The Dying Game by Asa Avdic, translated by Rachel Willson-Broyles (Swedish)
On the Trail of the Grail by Svetislav Basara, translated by Randall A. Major (Serbian)
Heavens on Earth by Carmen Boullosa, translated by Shelby Vincent (Spanish)
Bodies of Summer by Martin Felipe Castagnet, translated by Frances Riddle (Spanish)
Our Dead World by Liliana Colanzi, translated by Jessica Sequeira (Spanish)
The Twenty Days of Turin by Giorgio De Maria, translated by Ramon Glazov (Italian)
Hadriana in All My Dreams by Rene Depestre, translated by Kaiama L. Glover (French, by way of Haiti)
The Law of Love by Laura Esquivel, translated by Margaret Sayers Peden (Spanish)
The Invented Part by Rodrigo Fresan, translated by Will Vanderhyden (Spanish)
Orbital Cloud by Taiyo Fujii translated by Timothy Silver (Japanese)
Spells by Michel de Ghelderode, translated by George MacLennon (French, by way of Belgium)
Me by Hoshino Tomoyuki, translated by Charles De Wolf (Japanese)
You Should Have Left by Daniel Kehlmann, translated by Ross Benjamin (German)
Listening for Jupiter by Pierre-Luc Landry, translated by Arielle Aronson & Madeleine Stratford (French, by way of Canada)
Kzradock the Onion Man by Louis Levy, translated by W. C. Bamberger (Danish)
Blumenberg by Sibylle Lewitscharoff, translated by Wieland Hoban (German)
Only She Sees by Manel Loureiro, translated by Andres Alfaro (Spanish)
The Irish Sea by Carlos Maleno, translated by Eric Kurtzke (Spanish)
Fever by Deon Meyer, translated by K. L. Seegers (Afrikaans)
The Mountains of Parnassus by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Stanley Bill (Danish)
The Gray House by Mariam Petrosyan, translated by Yuri Machkasov (Russian, by way of Armenia)
Malacqua by Nicola Pugliese, translated by Shaun Whiteside (Italian)
Locus Solus by Raymond Roussel, translated by Rupert Copeland Cunningham (French)
2084 by Boualem Sansal, translated by Alison Anderson (French, by way of Algeria)
Lady of the Lake by Andrzej Sapkowski, translated by David French (Polish)
Fever Dream by Samanta Schweblin, translated by Megan McDowell (Spanish, by way of Argentina)
The King in the Golden Mask by Marcel Schwob, translated by Kit Schluter (French)
Hexagrammaton by Hanuš Seiner, translated by Julie Novakova (Czech)
The Book of the Dead by Orikuchi Shinobu, translated by Jeffrey Angles (Japanese)
Familiar Things by Hwang Sok-yong, translated by Sora Kim-Russell (Korean)
Monday Starts on Saturday by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky, translated by Andrew Bromfield (Russian)
Moon Scars by Ángel Luis Sucasas, translated by James Womack (Spanish)
S(Es) by Koji Suzuki, translated by Greg Gencarello (Japanese)
Archeon by Alessandro Tagliapietra, translated by Patricia Keiller (Italian)
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Vol 4: Stratagem by Yoshiki Tanaka, translated by Tyran Grillo
Legend of the Galactic Heroes: Vol 5: Mobilization by Yoshiki Tanaka, translated by Tyran Grillo
Amatka by Karin Tidbeck, translated by Karin Tidbeck (Swedish)
Bullseye! by Yasutaka Tsutsui, translated by Andrew Driver (Japanese)
Radiant Terminus by Antoine Volodine, translated by Jeffrey Zuckerman (French)
Frontier by Can Xue, translated by Karen Gernant (Chinese)
If you thoroughly peruse the Google doc, you will see that several dozen translated novels have been published in the past decade or so.
Are these works “Hugo worthy”? That determination should be made by the readers and fans, not a committee. I also submit that the point is moot since none of the works above will be nominated since there is no category, so to speak. But the fact that they have been translated and published in such great numbers seems to indicate, at least by the publishers, that there is a market out there for translated novels.
And yes, this would mean that fans who are interested in voting in this category would have to be devoted enough to buy and read more books. And frankly, I there isn’t much of a downside to that.
So, what I am asking is the members of the Study Committee and the World Science Fiction Society Business Meeting is to take yet another leap of faith with me.
In doing so, I point back to my advocacy of splitting the Best Dramatic Presentation and Editing categories, the establishment of the Best Graphic Story and my co-sponsorship of the Best Fancast categories. I helped work for their passage because I had a gut feeling they would work. And each of them has not only become popular among fans who vote on the awards, they have also drawn in new fans who had never heard of the Hugo Awards or the World Science Fiction Convention before.
After all the travails, waiting, frustration, arguing and controversy, what, you might ask, are you getting out of this? Although I achieved a certain low level of infamy over the years, I have never sought to be in a spotlight or capitalize on my advocacy.
This week, I celebrated my forty-second year in fandom. On June 25, 1976, I showed up at a convention which happened to be located just a few miles from where I lived (Midwestcon 27), bought a five dollar membership and changed my life forever.
What I have attempted to do over the past eighteen years is try to pay back all of the friendships and wonderful experiences by helping to ensure the legacy of the Hugo Awards and the works they honor and to make sure they endure far beyond after I take my leave from fandom and life. Each year, I admit feeling a bit of pride as the winners in the categories I helped shepherd into existence receive their just due.
When David Weber got chair Jada Hope Diaz to publicly accept all his conditions for becoming ConCarolinas’ guest in 2019 (see video of her statement here), including an apology to John Ringo, who had withdrawn as a guest amid controversy over his selection, and then rallied thousands to sign his “Ensure Freedom of Speech & Assembly at ConCarolinas” petition “to support Jada Hope and Luis Diaz’s stance on the demands to disinvite guests at ConCarolinas based on unfounded and unproven stories posted by Internet pressure groups” — he did not expect that two weeks later they’d be quitting anyway.
Jada informed me yesterday [June 22] that she and Luis would be stepping down from the ConCarolinas con committee. My family and I were driving home from Myrtle Beach when she and Luis actually posted the news online, so I’ve just seen the formal announcement.
For all of you who signed the petition supporting the position they had taken at closing ceremonies on the dis-invitation of guests, I think a couple of things need to be understood.
The first is that Jada made it clear to me in her exchange of IMs with me that it was HER DECISION to step down, based in large part on medical considerations, because of her continued problems with the concussion symptoms from her head injury. I have no doubt at all that all of the stress involved with the concom’s internal debates played a major role in that (not to mention the brouhaha about John Ringo, prior to and during this year’s convention), as well. If nothing else, I’m sure it was at least a part of what her doctor was talking about when she said she had to cut back on stresses.
However, Weber also said the couple had lost the support of some other members of the ConCarolinas committee:
The second is that the concom has as yet made no statement (that I am aware of) regarding the policy that she enunciated at closing ceremonies about guest invitations and DIS-invitations. I was assured by several people who contacted me to discuss the ongoing, background tensions within the concom that the unhappiness with Jada and Luis as cochairs had nothing to do with that policy and that they — at least as individuals — supported the position Jada had taken in that instance.
But Weber is taking pains to insure that the change in leadership won’t be interpreted as a repudiation of his agenda:
I messaged Jada in these exact words:
“Don’t think anyone who signed it [the petition] just wants to beat up on cons, but they [the concom] need to be aware that a lot of people on the outside looking in DO see the petition as a referendum on your no dis-invitation policy.”
I think that is absolutely true, and I think the ball is now in the reorganized concom’s court, and I think that we, as the signers of that petition, NEED TO GIVE THE CONCOM TIME TO GET ITS FEET UNDER IT AND DECIDE WHAT IT WANTS TO DO GOING FORWARD.
This is not a time to leap upon the concom and beat it with spiked clubs for “forcing Jada out.” It is time for us to see what happens going forward and to let ConCarolinas CHOOSE ITS OWN PATH. If, at the end of the day, we don’t like the path it chooses, then it is always our option not to support the con. If, on the other hand, the con embraces Jada’s position on this issue going forward, then I believe it is incumbent upon us to meet them at least halfway.
I have said from the beginning that the object is to fix the problem, not to break anyone’s — or any GROUP of anyones’ — kneecaps. It’s time to let adults be adults and make adult decisions and then for the rest of us to respond as adults.
I want to thank everyone who has Been supportive to me and Luis (who is making me deactivate my account today). So many don’t even know me or Luis and have been kind and encouraging.
After our meeting with the other members of the committee I am very convinced they will support the statement that was made at closing ceremonies….
David Weber’s June 24 update said he is in dialog with ConCarolinas’ acting con chair:
…Since my previous post about Jada and Luis stepping down from the ConCarolinas concom, I have been in contact with the acting con chair.
He tells me that they are very much in the process of ASSEMBLING a concom; it was a small committee to begin with, and it just got two vacancies, so it may take them a little while to round up the pigs and chickens before they can start getting them into a row.
He reiterated to me that Jada’s decision to withdraw was directly related to her health and that her doctor was becoming seriously concerned about the damage she could do herself spending lots of time with computer screens and stress and was “adamant” that she stepped back.
He told me that the con is strongly committed to maintaining Jada’s stated policy where dis-invitations of the guests are concerned. He said to me:
“First priority is new leadership in place. Second is reiterating the spirit of the closing ceremonies video. Disinviting is bad form, full stop. The concom will not be pressured from any group to renege on a contract.”
That is, in fact, only a portion of what he said to me about the con committee’s commitment to openness and a rejection of the dis-invitation of guests and about the creation of a mechanism to support that policy and give it teeth.
I believe that he is completely sincere about this, and what he has to say about Jada’s health tracks perfectly with what Jada herself has told me, as well as what I have heard from a third source.
So it sounds to me as if the convention is determined to stand by the policy Jada announced at closing ceremonies.
I hate it that Jada’s health is shaky enough to make her decision to stand down necessary, but at this time, I genuinely believe the revamped con committee will stand by her guest policy.
I’d rather not name names at this point, but if you know the ConCarolinas original concom, he was vice chair.
Weber is taking pains to verify why the change happened, and what the new chair’s policies will be, because of the adamant statement he made in his petition —
We believe that if ConCarolinas ejects Jada Hope and Luis Diaz from the Convention Committee (the managing body of the convention) and reverses the position they have taken on the dis-invitation of guests, then no one who believes in freedom of expression should attend this convention ever again.
Last week File770 covered my reporting on Amazing Stories and their submission system. Steve Davidson commented on that Pixel Scroll article and it lead to some discussions between he and I. I published an update this morning and figured I’d pass it along in case you were interested in it…
Sanford recounts an unnamed author’s description of problems they had getting the status of a submission to Amazing Stories, and how he put it to the test.
…After talking with authors like the person above and seeing comments from many other writers who said they didn’t receive rejections, I decided to do more digging into the Amazing Stories submission system. I set up two test accounts of my own in their system, one using a Yahoo account and the other a Gmail account. I didn’t receive either of the initial email verifications for these accounts or the multiple password resets I requested. These emails didn’t even arrive in my spam folders.
I also examined the email header and code from one of the Amazing Stories rejections which an author did receive and forwarded to me. This rejection email was sent through the Amazing Stories submission system using a Gmail account as the send-from address with a separate reply-to address using the amazingstories.com domain. (Note: I won’t publish these email addresses to respect the privacy of the people working on Amazing Stories.)
The author quoted above used Gmail, as did some of other authors who said they didn’t receive their rejection emails. One of the test accounts I set up was also a Gmail account. Google should not block emails sent between valid Gmail accounts, so the failure of these emails to arrive into other Gmail accounts strongly suggests something was wrong with how the Amazing Stories system was set up or sending out emails.
After doing these tests I spoke with Steve Davidson about all this. His complete response is quoted below. Steve said he’d pass along the information about the email verification and password resets to his webmaster to be investigated and, if needed, fixed.
A few hours after Steve said his webmaster would look into the issue, I again tested the password resets. They now worked and I received the emails in my Yahoo and Gmail test accounts. Another author also confirmed they now worked where they hadn’t before.
In short, shortly before I raised this issue with Steve the emails wouldn’t arrive from their system. After Steve said he’d let his webmaster know about the issue, the emailed worked. This alone strongly suggests there was an issue with Amazing Stories’ system.
I hope this means the issue the Amazing Stories submission system is fixed. I personally want to see Amazing Stories succeed with their relaunch and believe most people in the genre feel the same. And there’s no shame with admitting a new submission system had some issues. Galaxy’s Edge recently had a major submission glitch with a number of subs being lost. They posted a message explaining the issue and even authors whose submissions were lost appeared to be cool with everything….
…While we investigated and then explained that the issue(s) were on the recipient’s end of the email chain (spam folder, settings that were overly sensitive to automated messages originating with our server’s email program) we nevertheless have changed the system to originate from a Gmail sending account, which ought to make it past nearly everyone’s electronic censors.
We are also adding an FAQ and a direct contact button on our submissions page; we’ve re-written the rejection notice and have re-examined our internal policy for when more personalized rejection emails will be sent.
One “issue” that apparently exacerbated this situation for some was the fact that we were not made aware of the problem(s) for some authors directly, which we believe ought to have been the first step on the part of people having issues. We received over 200 submissions the first day we opened and have processed several hundred more since; the number of direct queries we received regarding failed communications can be counted on one hand.
Each of those was handled on an individual case bases and, from our end, did not appear to rise to the level of a “systemic” problem that needed to be looked into more deeply.
In point of fact, our native email server was sending out the appropriate status update messages (it was checked numerous times), but some recipient email servers were rejecting the messages, most likely because they originated from an unfamiliar source (our email server) AND were automated status updates.
From our end, everything appeared to be working as it should and, lacking feedback to the contrary, we were in no position to do anything about it.
Once we were made aware of the problem, we thought that an explanation would prompt users to look into their email servers and address the issue with their providers. Since this largely seems to not have been done and we continued to receive complaints, we have taken the steps outlined above.
If you continue to have an issue with email communications from our website, we STRONGLY request that you contact us directly.
(2) BEYOND COCKYGATE. Elsewhere, Jason Sanford has surfaced another interesting trademark claim. The thread starts here.
(3) BUSTED. Is it true that JDA has a lot more followers in Twitter than he did a few days ago?
@NMamatas yeah, but Jon, did you just buy 5000 Twitter followers some time this week? Did you think nobody would notice a sudden jump from under 4K to 9K? are you THAT desperate? your follower feed just filled up with this junk pic.twitter.com/JhhVGSzJJf
— Funning-Kruger Effect (@1stjohn1six) June 26, 2018
(4) NERO AWARD. The “Nero” is presented annually by The Wolfe Pack for the best American Mystery. The award criteria include:
written in the tradition of Rex Stout’s Nero Wolfe stories
first published in the year preceding the award year
“The Campbell Machine” plumbs the obsessions behind several of his ideas about the human mind.
…In “Design Flaw,” Campbell had argued that the solution to highway hypnosis lay in “a solid engineering job,” and psionics was his attempt to frame the project in terms that he thought would appeal to his readers, prompting them to collect data that would illuminate the unexplored aspects of consciousness that had resulted in Joe’s accident. The editor had once held out similar hopes for dianetics, but now his motives were far more personal. He had been unable to avenge his stepson directly, so he would overthrow all of physics and psychology instead.
If he proved unable to stick with it for long, this only reflected a pattern that had been evident throughout his life. In his article on Joe’s death, Campbell had claimed that some people had “an acquired immunity” to highway hypnosis, but he didn’t mention that he included himself in that category, or that he attributed it to the hell of his youth. On the day after the crash, he had written a long letter to his father, explaining why he was impervious to hypnotic trances. The drivers who were the most at risk, he wrote, were the ones who were good at concentrating, and Campbell was “not just intellectually afraid of it—deeply and effectively afraid.”
He placed the responsibility for this squarely on his parents: “You and Mother so disagreed that I had a hell of a time trying to satisfy the requirements which both of you placed on me; doing so was inherently impossible, and it was damned uncomfortable. But you did give me a life-long immunity to highway hypnosis!” His childhood had taught him to survive, but at a devastating cost: “You and Mother between you gave me immunity to many things that neither one of you could have; either of you could have crippled me. . . . At the time, of course, I felt a vast injustice; I do not forgive you, because that’s a useless and arrogant thing.”…
(6) LUND OBIT. Land of the Giants actress Deanna Lund, 81, died June 22. The Hollywood Reporter obituary begins —
Deanna Lund, who played one of the seven castaways trying to survive in a world of large, unfriendly people on the 1960s ABC series Land of the Giants, has died. She was 81.
Lund died Friday at her home in Century City of pancreatic cancer, her daughter, actress and novelist Michele Matheson, told The Hollywood Reporter. She was diagnosed in September.
Lund starred as Valerie Scott, a selfish party girl, on the Irwin Allen-created series, which aired for two seasons, from September 1968 until March 1970.
Set in the year 1983, 20th Century Fox’s Land of the Giants revolved around the crew and passengers of the spaceship Spindrift, which on the way to London crashed on a planet whose humanoid inhabitants were hostile and unbelievably huge. The show was extremely expensive to make, costing a reported $250,000 an episode.
The sexy Lund had appeared as a redheaded lesbian stripper opposite Frank Sinatra in Tony Rome (1967) and as Anna Gram, a moll working for The Riddler (John Astin), on ABC’s Batman, leading to her being cast on the show….
Mike Kennedy sent the link with an observation: “So, a Russian oligarch is heading up a ‘space-based democracy’ which is to be ‘a united supra-national space state open to all people on Earth.’ What could possibly go wrong?”
The space nation held an incredible ceremony on Monday inaugurating its self-declared leader Igor Ashurbeyli as its head of state. Ashurbeyli is a Russian billionaire whose money comes from weapons systems. His backing has allowed Asgardia to thrive and he wants the country to join the UN, but to do so it must have a functioning government. It elected a parliament in April (a motley collection of international characters between the ages of 40 and 80, as specified by the Asgardian constitution) followed by Ashurbeyli declaring himself head of state.
To celebrate the momentous occasion, the Asgardians held a fantastical celebration at the 13th century Hofburg palace, the former principal imperial palace in the center of Vienna, Austria. It was creepy. It was beautiful. It was elegant and magical in a way that Terra-based ceremonies no longer are and it began with children introducing cosmonaut Oleg Artemiev who shared a very special message from the International Space Station.
Astronaut Edwin “Buzz” Aldrin has sued two of his children and former business manager for trying to take control of his finances and accused them of “slander” for saying he suffers from dementia.
The 88-year-old said in a lawsuit that Janice Aldrin, Andrew Aldrin, and former manager Christina Korp are included in the lawsuit which claimed they took control of millions of dollars of “space memorabilia” and his company finances “for their own self-dealing and enrichment”. Mr Aldrin owns BuzzAldrin Enterprises and a charity group called the ShareSpace Foundation.
He has also accused the three of elder exploitation for “knowingly and through deception or intimidation” keeping him from his property as well as stifling his “personal romantic relationships”.
(9) SYNDROME ROUNDUP. Carl Slaughter picked these out —
It’s the moment that had Stranger Things fans screaming: adorkable Radio Shack manager Bob Newby (played by geek icon Sean Astin) uses his technical savvy to save the day, only to become chow for the monstrous Demodogs. Bob’s shocking death scene is arguably the biggest highlight of the show’s second season, replacing #JusticeForBarb with #JusticeForBob as a trending Twitter topic. It also provides some of the best evidence of the show’s Emmyworthy special effects, overseen up by husband-and-wife F/X team of Paul and Christina Graff.
A story can be good but be neither superversive nor pulp. A story can be pulp but be neither superversive nor good. A story can be superversive and good but not pulp. A story can be all three (easier said than done). A story can be none of the three (easy enough—the real trick is figuring out how to win awards for it). And so on. Think of it as a Venn diagram.
However, the Filer who sent it to me says what the diagram shows is that most superversive and pulp fiction isn’t good.
Who’s right?
Regardless, what H.P.’s trying to do is define the characteristics of “superversive.”
People associated with Superversive Press have written several posts that I will be drawing from that attempt to pin down just what the term means. The best are by Tom Simon, Corey McCleery, and L. Jagi Lamplighter. Each identifies particular traits of a superversive story. Simon points to moral high ground and courage. McCleery insists that superversive stories should be aspiring/inspiring, virtuous, heroic, decisive, and non-subversive. Lamplighter argues that, for a story to be superversive, it must have good storytelling, the characters must be heroic, and the story must have an element of wonder.
These are good starting points. You can probably guess which trait I like least. “Good storytelling” isn’t useful as a trait because it conflates superversive with good. The only other term I really don’t like is “non-subversive.” If you are defining superversive in contrast with subversive, as Simon does, then it is no more than a truism. And a superversive work may subvert, indeed, it probably should.
Throughout history, those with social clout have set the standards for what’s the more acceptable pronunciation….
Like Dr. Seuss’ Star-Belly Sneetches and Plain-Belly Sneetches, there are two types of creatures — haitchers with H on their 8th letter name and aitchers with “none upon thars”.
That H isn’t so big. It’s really so small. You might think such a thing wouldn’t matter at all.
But it does — the tiny H on “(h)aitch” divides the nation. The pronunciation has become something of a social password, a spoken shibboleth distinguishing in-groupers from out-groupers. Those with social clout set the standards for what’s “in” and what’s “out” — no H has the stamp of approval.
The best kind of people are people without!
Shibboleths die hard — the opprobrium attached to haitch probably derives from its long association with Irish Catholic education. There’s no real evidence for this, mind, as Sue Butler points out, but never let facts get in the way of a good shibboleth.
It is enough to wake the tired eyes of the groggiest commuter. A striking white and pink bullet train themed around the Japanese cartoon character and marketing phenomenon Hello Kitty.
The bespoke train will begin a three month run between the western cities of Osaka and Fukuoka on Saturday.
It was unveiled by the West Japan Railway firm which hopes the use of a famous local export will boost tourism.
Hello Kitty branding features on the windows, seat covers, and flooring.
Two “devil coins” that were hidden in Scandinavian churches as part of an elaborate hoax in the 1970s have been discovered in the unlikely setting of Bath Abbey.
The most intriguing discovery, however, was two coins bearing a picture of Satan and the legend Civitas Diaboli on one side and 13 Maj Anholt 1973 on the other.
Experts figured out the coins were linked to the story of a Danish eccentric who perpetrated an elaborate 40-year hoax that was only discovered almost a decade after his death.
(15) YOUR OWN MARTIAN ODYSSEY. Red Rover, Red Rover send HiRISE right over… SYFY Wire reports “A Mars video game developed from NASA data now exists, and it’s pretty far out”. Developer Alan Chan has a new Mars rover driving game available for the Steam gaming platform. It features terrain developed from NASA data gathered by the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter. It also features a “ridiculously overpowered Mars rover” which is even equipped with jump jets. You can careen across (or even a bit above) Mars’ Victoria Crater, Western Cerberus, South Olympus, Jezero Crater, Bequerel Crater, Hibes Montes, Candor Chasma, Aeolis Streams, and Noctis Labyrinthus at speeds far beyond any yet achieved on Mars.
Quoting the article:
“The HiRISE camera onboard the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter is the most powerful one of its kind ever sent to another planet,” states HiRISE Principal Investigator Alfred McEwen of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. “Its high resolution allows us to see Mars like never before, and helps other missions choose a safe spot to land for future exploration.”
…Red Rover is now available on Steam for $4.99, and it even supports Oculus Rift for the ultimate immersive VR experience.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Chip Hitchcock, Hampus Eckerman, and Carl Slaughter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Brian Z.]
The Manning Award is presented to a comics artist who, early in his or her career, shows a superior knowledge and ability in the art of creating comics. It is named for Russ Manning, the artist best known for his work on the Tarzan and Star Wars newspaper strips and the Magnus, Robot Fighter comic book. Russ was a popular guest at the San Diego convention in the 1970s.
The 2018 nominees are:
Sean Rubin, writer/artist of Bolivar (Archaia/BOOM!)
Hamish Steele, writer/artist of Pantheon (Nobrow)
Pablo Tunica, artist of TMNT Universe (IDW)
Nina Vakueva, artist of Hi-Fi Fight Club/Heavy Vinyl (BOOM!)
Campbell Whyte, writer/artist of Home Time (Top Shelf)
The nominees were chosen by a panel consisting of board and committee members of Comic-Con International and a San Diego comics retailer. The winner will be chosen by past Manning award winners and Russ Manning assistants. The recipient will be announced during the Eisner Awards ceremony on July 20.
The selection was made by a committee chaired by writer-historian Mark Evanier, Charles Kochman (executive editor at Harry N. Abrams, book publisher), comic book writer Kurt Busiek, artist/historian Jim Amash, cartoonist Scott Shaw!, and writer/editor Marv Wolfman.
“We’re really excited about this one,” Evanier explains. “The comic book industry employed too few women in its early decades. Back when this year’s honorees were active, their gender was horribly unrepresented among the creative talents that made the comics—and what few there were went totally unrecognized. The work of these two extraordinary ladies deserves to be acknowledged and celebrated.”
Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly
Joye Hummel Murchison Kelly was 20 years old in 1944 when she began working for Dr. William Moulton Marston on Wonder Woman. She had recently graduated from the Katherine Gibbs School in New York, where she had taken a psychology class from Dr. Marston. He had written almost all the scripts for his Amazon Princess and found himself in need of an assistant writer he could school in the precise way he wanted the heroine depicted, and Joye Hummel, as she was then named, learned quickly. Soon she was writing scripts on her own, mainly in Marston’s New York office, where she also worked alongside Wonder Woman’s artistic creator, Harry Peter. Like Marston’s own stories, her work appeared in three publications—Wonder Woman, Sensation Comics, and Comic Cavalcade—under the house byline “By Charles Moulton,” and none of it was credited to her. Her work appeared until 1947, and much of it has recently been reprinted to the delight of current readers. Ms. Kelly and her husband Jack will be traveling to Comic-Con so that she may accept her award in person and also appear on Saturday afternoon for a special spotlight interview: her first-ever visit to a comic book convention.
Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk
Dorothy Roubicek Woolfolk (1913–2000) served as a writer/editor from 1942 to 1944 at All-American Publications, which was allied with (and soon absorbed by) the firm now known as DC Comics. She later worked, again as a writer/editor, for Timely Comics (now known as Marvel) and EC Comics. Much later, in the 1970s, she returned to comic book editing for DC, supervising, among others, Wonder Woman, Young Romance, and Superman’s Girl Friend, Lois Lane. For all these companies, she occasionally freelanced scripts, working on her own or with her husband, the prolific writer William Woolfolk. Though much of her work was on so-called “girls’ comics” like the romance titles, she wrote for a great many superhero and adventure comics and is often credited with adding the element of Kryptonite to the Superman mythos. In her 1970s stint at DC, she discovered and gave work to a great many new writers and artists, both male and female. Her Finger Award will be accepted by her daughter, Donna Woolfolk Cross who, as a bestselling author herself, continues the family tradition.
The Bill Finger Award was created in 2005 via a proposal from the late comic book legend Jerry Robinson. “It’s to recognize and salute writers for a body of work that has not received its rightful reward and/or recognition,” says Evanier. “Even though the late Bill Finger now finally receives credit for his role in the creation of Batman, he’s still the industry poster boy for writers not receiving proper reward or attention.”
The Bill Finger Award honors the memory of William Finger (1914-1974), who was the first and, some say, most important writer of Batman. Many have called him the “unsung hero” of the character and have hailed his work not only on that iconic figure but on dozens of others, primarily for DC Comics.
The awards will be presented during the Eisner Awards ceremony on Friday, July 20.
New York resident Frederick Joseph created the Black Panther Challenge on GoFundMe to send black children from Harlem to see the Black Panther movie. He used the attention the campaign received to issue a challenge to others to start similar campaigns in their own communities. According to GoFundMe, some 100 campaigns raised over $900,000 to help 70,000 kids across the nation see Black Panther. Joseph also developed a website around the challenge and offers resources and readings for K-teen. More info: blackpantherchallenge.org
Comics4Kids
Comics4Kids INC is a Pacific Northwest–based comic book reading library and national 501(c)(3) literacy charity. Parents/guardians can bring children to the facility in Tacoma, WA, where kids can read old comics from a 250,000-issue collection that dates back to 1882. Additionally, an all-volunteer staff travels the United States to give away comics to kids to improve literacy and encourage imagination. They also send comics out to schools and libraries as reading incentive program rewards. The organization was created by longtime comic book dealer Dale Moore. Dale’s childhood friends Jason McKibbin and Teena Southern came up with the name Comics4Kids. Together they further developed the program as a way of giving back to the community. Comics4Kids became incorporated in 1996. More info: www.comics4kidsinc.org
Comic-Con International’s Humanitarian Award is presented in the name of famed animator Bob Clampett, who created the TV series Beany and Cecil, designed such popular characters as Porky Pig and Tweety Bird, and directed 84 classic Warner Brothers cartoons. Clampett was a regular guest a Comic-Con in the 1970s and early 1980s. After his death in 1984, the humanitarian award was created to honor those people in comics and the popular arts who have worked to help others. The recipient is chosen by the Comic-Con committee. The awards will be presented by Ruth Clampett (Bob’s daughter) during the Eisner Awards ceremony on Friday, July 20.
The Award is given out yearly to retailers who have done an outstanding job of supporting the comic art medium both in the industry at large and in their local community. Comics fans around the world nominate their favorite stores on the Comic-Con International website.
This year’s nominee list includes 20 comic retail stores from across the United States, plus Australia, Ireland, Portugal, Spain, and the United Kingdom. The finalists will be named during the week of Comic-Con. The recipient will be announced as part of the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards on Friday, July 20.
The nominees for the 2018 award are:
Acme Comics
Mark Austin/ Jermaine Exum, Greensboro, NC
Arsenal Comics & Games
Paul Roman Martinez, Timothy Heague & Elena Sfetcu, Newbury Park, CA
Big Bang Comics
John Hendrick, Dublin, Ireland
Cape and Cowl Comics
Eitan Manhoff, Oakland, CA
Coliseum of Comics
Phil Boyle, Kissimmee, FL
Collector’s Comics
Keith & Monica Mallow, Port St. Lucie, FL
Comic Book Hideout
Glynnes Pruett, Fullerton, CA
The Comic Book Shop
Sarah & Patrick “Titus” Titus, Wilmington, DE
Comic Quest
Don & Kelly Allen, Lake Forest, CA
Comic World
Kathleen Miller the Comic Book Lady, Huntington, WV
Comics Toons N Toys
Mike Kadin, Tustin, CA
Comiczone
Andrew, Michael & Gareth, Perth, Western Australia
Farpoint Toys & Collectibles
Penelope Pappas, Justin Daniels & Frank Mosentoff, Mays Landing, NJ
Kingpin Books
Mário Freitas, Lisbon, Portugal
The Laughing Ogre
Chris Lloyd, Columbus, OH
Norma Comics
Rafa Martínez, Barcelona, Spain
A Shop Called Quest
Lee Raymundo, Natalie Raymundo, & Jason Washburn, Redlands, CA
The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films presented the 2018 Saturn Awards on June 27.
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