The 21 inductees to the Will Eisner Comic Awards Hall of Fame for 2025 include 12 deceased comics pioneers and 9 living persons. The deceased choices are Peter Arno, Gus Arriola, Wilhelm Busch, Richard “Grass” Green, Rea Irvin, Jack Kamen, Joe Maneely, Shigeru Mizuki, Bob Oksner, Bob Powell, Ira Schnapp, and Phil Seuling. The living choices are Steve Bissette, Lucy Shelton Caswell, Philippe Druillet, Phoebe Gloeckner, Joe Sacco, Bill Schanes, Steve Schanes, Frank Stack, and Angelo Torres.
The selections were made by a panel of six judges: William Foster, Michael T. Gilbert, Karen Green, Alonso Nuñez, Jim Thompson, and Maggie Thompson.
In addition to these choices, voters in the comics industry will elect 6 persons from a group of 18 nominees proposed by the judges. Those nominees will be announced within the next week, and a ballot will be made available for online voting.
To be eligible for the Hall of Fame, the person must have made a significant contribution to the comic book/graphic storytelling medium, whether by creating a major character (or characters), producing memorable stories that are considered “classics,” having an art style that influenced numerous others, innovating storytelling devices in the medium, advancing comics publishing, or otherwise having a lasting influence on the industry. The person’s first professional work must have occurred at least 35 years before the year of the awards (that would be 1990, for this year’s awards).
The Hall of Fame trophies will be presented in a special ceremony at the San Diego Convention Center on the morning of July 25. The Eisner Awards in 30+ other categories will be presented in the traditional Friday evening ceremony at the Hilton Bayfront Hotel.
EISNER HALL OF FAME JUDGES’ CHOICES 2025
Peter Arno (1904–1968)
CartoonistCurtis Arnoux Peters Jr. helped create TheNew Yorker’s signature style. With the publication of his first spot illustration in 1925, Arno began a 43-year association with the weekly magazine. His many iconic covers and cartoons helped build The New Yorker’s reputation of sophisticated humor and high-quality artwork.
Gus Arriola (1917–2008)
Gus Arriola wrote and drew the Mexican-themed comic strip Gordo. The strip, which prominently featured Mexican characters and themes, set a high standard with its impeccable art and design and had a long and successful life in newspapers (1941–1985).
Steve Bissette (1955– )
Steve Bissette was one of the first graduates of the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art. Together with writer Alan Moore and inker John Totleben, he was responsible for revitalizing the DC series Swamp Thing into a critically acclaimed horror classic. His later work includes editing and publishing the influential anthology horror comic series Taboo and drawing and self-publishing Tyrant, the epic biography of a Tyrannosaurus rex.
Wilhelm Busch (1832–1908)
The German 19th-century artist is regarded as one of the founders of modern-day comics. He pioneered several elements that have become staples of the medium, such as onomatopeia and expressive movement lines. His iconic series Max und Moritz (1865), about two naughty young boys, was the first children’s comic in history. Its success proved that young readers were an important market for comics.
Lucy Shelton Caswell (1944– )
Lucy Shelton Caswell is the founder (in 1977) and former curator of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum at The Ohio State University. She is also founding editor emerita of INKS: The Journal of the Comics Study Society. She has curated more than 75 cartoon-related exhibits and is the author of several articles and books on the history of newspaper comic strips and the history of American editorial cartoons. She is a co-founder (in 2014) of Cartoon Crossroads Columbus.
Philippe Druillet (1944– )
Philippe Druillet is one of the most influential French comics creators and is known for his baroque drawings and bizarre science-fiction stories. He made his debut in comics with Lone Sloane, le Mystère des Abîmes in 1966. He became a regular contributor to the Franco-Belgian comics magazine Pilote, then in 1975 co-founded the publishing house Humanoïdes Associés and the Métal Hurlant periodical. Many of his stories from that magazine were published in the U.S. in Heavy Metal magazine.
Phoebe Gloeckner (1960– )
Phoebe Gloeckner’s first comics work appeared in underground comix publications when she was in her teens. She continued to do stories for such titles as Weirdo, Young Lust, Buzzard, Wimmen’s Comix, and Twisted Sisters. In 1998 her quasi-autobiographical strips were collected in A Child’s Life, and her shattering The Diary of a Teenage Girl (2002) was later made into a film.
Richard Edward “Grass” Green (1939–2002)
Grass Green was an American underground comix artist and part of the pioneer generation of the 1960s. He is best known for creating superhero parodies like Xal-Kor the Human Cat (1964) and Wildman and Rubberroy (1969), as well as erotic stories for underground comix and the Eros Comix line by Fantagraphics. Green holds historical significance for being the first Black underground comix artist. He also created REGCo, which offered comic artists and cartoonist pages where the layout, borders, and panels were already put on paper beforehand.
Rea Irvin (1888 –1972)
Rea Irvin was The New Yorker’s first art editor, but that title barely begins to suggest his importance to the magazine. Not only did he draw Eustace Tilley (the magazine’s mascot) for the first cover, he also designed virtually the entire look of the magazine. He was instrumental in inventing the one-line gag cartoon, The New Yorker’s signature contribution to comic art.
Jack Kamen (1920–2008)
Jack Kamen was one of the most prolific and influential artists for EC Comics, drawing crime, horror, humor, suspense, and science fiction stories. After EC, he drew Sunday supplement illustrations and created advertising art for a wide variety of clients. He also drew all the comic book artwork for Stephen King and George Romero’s 1982 horror anthology film Creepshow, their homage to the EC horror comics.
Joe Maneely (1926–1958)
Between the late 1940s and late 1950s, Maneely was a frequent contributor to Atlas Comics (which became Marvel Comics), and one of the key collaborators with Stan Lee. He is best remembered as the co-creator and main artist of such titles as Ringo Kid, Black Knight, and Yellow Claw. This latter series introduced both the master villain Yellow Claw and the heroic secret agent Jimmy Woo, who was later featured in several other Marvel comic books. A tragic train accident ended his career at age 32.
Shigeru Mizuki (1922–2015)
Shigeru Mizuki was one of Japan’s most respected artists. A creative prodigy, he lost an arm in World War II. After the war, Mizuki became one of the founders of manga. He invented the yokai genre with GeGeGe no Kitaro, his most famous character, who has been adapted for the screen several times, as anime, live action, and video games. He received two Eisner Awards for his book series Showa: A History of Japan, as well as one for Onward Towards Our Noble Deaths.
Bob Oksner (1916–2007)
Bob Oksner was a Silver Age comic book artist best known for his distinctive work at DC on both adventure and humor titles. When DC began taking on the publication of comics based on TV sitcoms, Oksner drew such titles as Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis, The Adventures of Bob Hope, Dobie Gillis, and Sgt. Bilko. Over the years he also produced romance comics, as well as Angel and the Ape, Stanley and His Monster,Lois Lane, and Shazam.
Bob Powell (1916–1967)
Bob Powell began his career at the Eisner-Iger studio in the late 1930s, doing stories for Jumbo Comics, Wonderworld Comics, Hit Comics, Smash Comics, and many other Golden Age series. His most famous series during his Eisner-Iger years was “Sheena.” When the Spirit newspaper comic book section started in 1940, Powell produced the “Mr. Mystic” backup feature. His later credits include work for such publishers as Street & Smith (Shadow Comics), Magazine Enterprises (Strong Man), Harvey Comics (Man in Black, Adventures in 3-D), and Marvel (Daredevil, Giant-Man, Hulk, and Human Torch).
Joe Sacco (1960– )
Joe Sacco is credited as the first artist to practice rigorous, investigative journalism using the comics medium. Between 1993 and 1995, Joe wrote and drew nine issues of Palestine, which documented his two months spent in the Occupied Territories in the winter of 1991–1992 and which shows the human effects of the Israeli occupation and subsequent intifada. In 1995–1996, Joe traveled four times to Bosnia and subsequently produced four harrowing accounts of his time there: Christmas With Karadzic, Soba, Safe Area Gorazde, and The Fixer.
Bill Schanes (1958– )
As a teenager, Bill and his brother Steve co-founded Pacific Comics, a store in San Diego. Pacific went on to become a chain of stores, a publisher of creator-owned comics, and a comic book distributor before it was bought up by Diamond Comic Distributors in the eighties. Bill then went to work for Diamond, where he oversaw the company’s rise of Diamond to dominate the direct market. He was also part of Diamond’s early forays into digital distribution.
Steve Schanes (1954– )
Steve began as a comic book retailer when he was 17 years old when he and his brother Bill opened Pacific Comics, then expanded the company to include publishing and distribution. After that he launched Blackthorne Publishing. During his time in the comics business Steve published some 800 comic books.
Ira Schnapp (1894–1969)
Schnapp was a logo designer and letterer who brought his classic and art deco design styles to DC Comics (then National Comics) beginning with the redesign of the Superman logo in 1940. He did a great deal of logo and lettering work for the company in the 1940s. Around 1949, he joined the staff as their in-house logo, cover lettering, and house-ad designer and letterer, and continued in that role until about 1967. He also designed the Comics Code seal.
Phil Seuling (1934–1984)
Phil Seuling was a comic book retailer, fan convention organizer, and comics distributor primarily active in the 1970s. He was the organizer of the annual New York Comic Art Convention, originally held in New York City every July 4 weekend beginning in 1968. Later, with his Sea Gate Distributors company, he developed the concept of the direct market distribution system for getting comics directly into comic book specialty shops, bypassing the then-established newspaper/magazine distributor method, where no choices of title, quantity, or delivery directions were permitted.
Frank Stack (1934– )
Considered by some to be the first underground cartoonist, Frank Stack began his career under the pseudonym Foolbert Sturgeon. With Adventures of Jesus in 1962, Stack established his unique, expressive style. His other underground work included Amazon Comics, Dorman’s Doggie, Feelgood Funnies, and The New Adventures of Jesus. He illustrated several stories for Harvey Pekar’s American Splendor and in 1994 was the artist on Harvey’s and Joyce Brabner’s award-winning Our Cancer Year.
Angelo Torres (1932– )
Angelo Torres began his career in the early 1950s, assisting his studio mate Al Williamson on such EC titles as Valor together with Frank Frazetta and Roy Krenkel (the team known as the Fleagle Gang). He contributed to Atlas mystery and Western titles in the late 1950s. For Gilberton, he contributed to Classics Illustrated; for Feature Comics, he appeared in Sick during the 1960s. He contributed to Warren titles Eerie, Creepy, and Blazing Combat between 1964 and 1967. Torres was one of MAD’s mainstays, providing caricatures and movie parodies for almost 25 years.
Amazon MGM Studios is developing science fiction TV series Consider Phlebas. It is an adaptation of the novel by Iain M Banks, the first in the late Scottish author’s classic 10-book Culture book series about an interstellar post-scarcity society.
Interior Chinatown creator Charles Yu is writing and executive producing. The potential series also is executive produced by Nomadland Oscar winner Chloé Zhao through her production company Books of Shadows, Dede Gardner and Jeremy Kleiner for Plan B Entertainment as well as Adele Banks.
In Consider Phlebas, while war rages between the utopian Culture and the Idiran Empire, a Culture Ship AI “Mind” takes refuge on a forbidden planet. Both Horza, a shape-shifting mercenary working for the Idirans, and Balveda, a “Special Circumstances” Culture agent, have been tasked with retrieving it to tip the balance in a galaxy-spanning conflict. Consider Phlebas pits sentience against AI in an epic and bloody quest across the cosmos….
In my latest look back at the comics field of the ’70s, I share about the home away from home Phil Seuling built for fandom which earned his recent much-deserved accolade, whether the Ethics columns I wrote for The Comics Journal during the ’80s burned any bridges (and if I even cared those bridges were on fire), the kung fu comic book series I’d completely forgotten I’d pitched to Marvel, why my job in the Bullpen stunned writer/editor/artist Bob Budiansky, the Barry Smith Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. comic which caused me to disobey my parents, my initial fears I might not last long enough at Marvel to be eligible to receive unemployment benefits if I were fired, and much more.
It was with a heavy heart that we announced on February 16, 2025, at the end of this year’s convention Closing Ceremonies, that Gallifrey One will be coming to an end in 2028, after three more events over the next three years. Our February 2028 convention will conclude an unprecedented, sometimes inexplicable and definitely historic 38-year run as the world’s largest and longest-running annual Doctor Who fan event….
…Those of us who have been on this journey for decades have earned the right to go out on our own terms. We aren’t interested in passing along our name or reputation to someone else, someone untested, who might squander the good will we engendered in the fan community. We don’t ever want Gallifrey One to be remembered as the convention that didn’t know when to quit, or is looked back upon with regret: it was great, until it wasn’t.
Most importantly, we want it to be a testament to all the people who brought it forward, from the launch in January 1989 to our first convention in May 1990, through decades of memories and connections (and even a year without one, thank you COVID) until today, when it’s the destination so many people look forward to. So many friendships have come about through the convention. People have met and married through Gallifrey One; babies have grown up with their families attending. And along the way, we’ve also lost so many friends through the passage of time; friends gone, but never forgotten.
We also gave our fandom three years’ notice. We didn’t want to spring this on all of you at the last minute. Many of our former attendees we know would love to come back again before we’re done. Many others out there who dream of attending one day, now have three years to plan if they want to make it in time. We didn’t have to do it, and we certainly didn’t do it to make any of you panic; this was a gift to our dedicated fan base, so that you know you’re being looked after and don’t need to think about the future… quite yet.
We don’t want the fandom that we’ve engendered here for so long, the friendships and families and memories we’ve shared, to disappear. That is why we are confidently moving forward with our plans.
We still have three more events to bring you before we close the book. In 2026, we will proudly present our thirty-sixth convention, The 36 Legends of Gallifrey One: Stories Untold on February 6-8 due to the NBA All Star Game on our regular weekend. (More details about that convention on the wrap-up article & 2026 preview also posted today.) In 2027, our thirty-seventh convention (already named, and we will share it next year) will also be a week or two after our regular weekend (the Super Bowl returns to LA that month). And finally, in 2028, we’ll present the last Gallifrey One convention: a last hurrah and final reunion as ourselves, with a convention name our former chairperson came up with more than thirty years ago….
…In discussing the end of Gallifrey One in 2028 with Jason [Joiner] and Paul [Jones], it became apparent to us that the best opportunity to continue the spirit of our convention was with them: Showmasters Events has the financial strength to run a Doctor Who show here, run in a manner resembling much of Gallifrey One — but not entirely. Put simply, they don’t want Gallifrey One’s fan community to disappear after 2028 any more than we do. And they’ve committed to running a show, while not a non-profit event like Gallifrey One, that operates much like it does today. They have the contacts we have, and most importantly, the capital to put up (this type of event is expensive, and everyone gets paid up front these days, including the hotel and the guests.) Some of Gallifrey One’s team, as well as some guests and attendees, have already committed to helping them through the transition, so that programming operates in much the same way (discussion panels, for instance), the photos and autographs continue, your favorite dealers can continue to vend, and so forth.
We also asked them not to use the Gallifrey One name, as that brand — that legacy — retires with us; they were completely in agreement that this would be something new, but still for the fans….
(4) HOW TO DONATE TO THE LEEPER SCHOLARSHIP FUND. [Item by Evelyn C. Leeper.] People have asked more specifically how to donate to the Leeper Mathematics Scholarship.
Under the Fund Designation field, select “Other” from the very bottom of the list. This will open a text box where you can write in any fund/designation you would like to support, in this case “Leeper Mathematics Scholarship”.
At the bottom of the page, you can indicate who it is “In Memory Of”.
Wendy and Richard Pini, the couple behind the long-running ElfQuest independent comics series, are donating $500,000 to Columbia University to endow and conserve the school library’s growing collection of comics, graphic novels and related prose works.
“The money will go for acquisitions and stewardship for circulating and archival collections,” said Karen Green, the curator for comics and cartoons within Columbia’s Rare Book & Manuscript Library. “Stewardship is a really all-embracing and umbrella term, covering digitization, preservation, anything to make sure things are accessible safely. There was a big ‘et cetera’ to the grant.”…
…Thus, in 2012, at San Diego Comic-Con, where Wendy was making one of her regular appearances, Green approached the Pinis with a compelling question: “Would you consider allowing us to preserve your legacy?”
In the sprawling future depicted byFoundation, everyone has pretty much forgotten about the planet Earth. But over several generations can remember the predictions of one man: Hari Seldon. Played by Jared Harris in the first two seasons of Foundation, the character of Seldon is able to see the twists and turns of the future history of the human Empire through a process called psychohistory. But even the study of psychohistory couldn’t have predicted what’s happening to Foundation after its upcoming third season. Because now, the show’s real-life Hari Seldon — creator David S. Goyer — is leaving the show, along with the existing writing staff.
In short, after the next season of Foundation, the literal foundation for the show’s future is very unclear.
As revealed in a newsletter from Goyer’s official site, and reproduced in its entirety on the Foundation subreddit, the writer and producer is leaving taking a massive step back from the show. Here’s what he said:
“I know a lot of you have been waiting for an update. Season 3 will likely be dropping this summer, premiere date TBD. We finally get to the Mule’s story. Expect a few surprises along the way – even for those of you who’ve read the original trilogy.
“To set the record straight, I did decide to step back from the show. S3 will be the last season with my day-to-day involvement, along with most of my fellow directors and writers. I adore the cast and it was a difficult decision. The reasons for my leaving are complicated and were certainly exacerbated by strike-related issues. The biggest reason is that I was forced to spend a ton of time in Europe, away from my family – and after 5 ½ years, it was becoming a drag on my soul. That said, I do believe Apple will green-light S4. Best of luck to the next creative team.”…
The job hunt will be like nothing before in Lucasfilm history. Star Wars creator George Lucas hand picked Kennedy in 2012 to run the company before selling his ownership stake to Disney, which elected to keep her in place. Now, for the first time, Disney will pick somebody new to lead its galaxy far, far away.
During her tenure, Kennedy guided the Star Wars brand across many celebrated achievements (such as the franchise’s return to theaters with The Force Awakens and its successful shift to TV with The Mandalorian). She has also been often criticized for the franchise’s many missteps (including some lackluster movies and shows, and overseeing numerous announced-and-discarded projects). The executive — along with Disney in general — has also often been targeted by franchise’s fandom for diverse casting moves and a perceived “woke” agenda (a perception that Disney boss Bob Iger has been eager to move past)….
Roberto “Bob” Gaston Orci, a writer-producer who worked on some of the biggest action-adventure and sci-fi movies and television shows from the first two decades of the century, died at his home in Los Angeles today, Feb. 25, after a battle with kidney disease. He was 51.
Born and raised in Mexico City, Orci moved to the United States with his family when he was 10. He started off as a writer-producer on Xena: Warrior Princess and Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and for most of his career was partnered with Alex Kurtzman.
Orci was co-writer/producer on the 2009Star Trekmovie reboot and its two sequels as well as on the 2007 Transformersmovie and the 2009 followup Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen. Orci’s feature credits also include writing work on Mission Impossible III and The Legend Of Zorro and producing on the Now You See Me franchise, The Proposal, Eagle Eye, The Mummy as well as The Amazing Spider-Man 2, which he also co-wrote….
(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
February 25, 1971 — Sean Astin, 54.
Let’s talk about Sean Astin who played Samwise Gamgee in The Lord of The Rings films. I’ll admit that he was one of my favorite hobbits in the trilogy and Sean did a sterling job of bringing his character to life here, didn’t he? I’ll also admit that I’d completely forgotten that he wasn’t in The Hobbit as in I tend to think that the hobbits in The Hobbit were the same as those who were in the trilogy.
Before The Lord of The Rings, he showed in his first film playing Mikey Walsh in The Goonies. No, not genre (remember My Birthday Write-up, my rules what gets included here) but a really fine YA treasure hunt adventure in which everyone has fun. Well not everyone.
He has a lead role in Toy Soldiers, a film I still have an odd fond spot for, as William “Billy” Tepper. Damn I liked those toy soldiers. I even had some of the action figures a long time ago.
He was Stuart Conway in a film named after a time travel device called Slipstream that was stolen by a group of bank robbers. Might be interesting to see. Any of you seen it?
He voiced Shazam in a pair of animated DC films, Justice League: War and Justice League: Atlantis, almost proving there are might be too many DC animated films, though I have seen the second one and it’s rather well done. Look he even did a Lego one!
In the Department of Films That I Never Knew Existed Off Novels I Never Knew Were Written is Terry Pratchett’s The Colour of Magic, which proves how prolific he was or how bad my memory is, at any rate Sean is Twoflower here.
Dorothy and the Witches of Oz is a 2012 series of a decade ago which apparently covered The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, Ozma of Oz, The Road to Oz and The Magic of Oz. Somewhere in there, he was Frack Muckadoo, a servant of Princess Langwidere.
He even got to voice Raphael in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Wrath of the Mutants series.
I think the last thing I’ll mention is that he showed up in a brief recurring role on The Big Bang Theory series as Dr. Greg Pemberton, one of a team of Fermi-Lab physicists who accidentally confirmed the Super-Asymmetry paper published by Sheldon and Amy. Wasn’t that an amazingly fantastic series?
Did you know that a spin-off of the original series was in development first several years now? More promisingly, on October 10, 2024, it was announced that a third spin-off will feature Stuart Bloom, Denise, and Bert Kibbler, with Kevin Sussman, Lauren Lapkus, and Brian Posehn reprising their roles.
Yes, there’s other kibbles and bits which I’m sure you’ll point out, but I need tea now
Ray Bradbury and Sean Astin in 2009. Photo by John King Tarpinian.
The post-Avengers: Endgame era at the box office has been challenging for Marvel, with only a few exceptions such as Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 and Deadpool & Wolverine.
Box office results for the second weekend of Captain America: Brave New World showed a 68% drop week-to-week, positioning it as the third-most significant drop in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The two films that fared worse were The Marvels, with a 78% dropoff, and Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania at 68%.
Following the report of Brave New World’s results, Liefeld took to X (formerly Twitter) and posted: “Get Feige off the mound. He’s spent.”
Liefeld quoted all the Marvel films that have dropped more than 60% at the box office in its second weekend, saying in another X post that the “MCU is on an extended downside.”
“This is beyond a trend, it’s become the norm,” Liefeld said. “If this was sports, Feige would be removed. Marvel brand is like Dodgers, Lakers, Yankees, Celtics, coaches that win championships are removed a year later when the results are disappointing.”
In another X post he added, “8 movies crash over the last 3 years. Don’t we want better movies? You get the curiosity crowd then plunge.”…
Warner Bros. Discovery is restructuring its video game division and shutting down three of its studios as it refocuses its efforts on some core intellectual property.
In connection with the restructuring, the company also said that it is ending development of its Wonder Woman game, which it first announced back in 2021. Instead, the company will focus on “building the best games possible with our key franchises -– Harry Potter, Mortal Kombat, DC and Game of Thrones,” per a Warner Bros. Games spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that three of the company’s game studios: Monolith Productions, Player First Games and Warner Bros. Games San Diego, will shut down amid the changes. Monolith had been developing the Wonder Woman game….
Let’s dive into one of those cosmic curiosities that’s bound to blow your mind: how we might chat with aliens. And no, I’m not talking about elaborate coded messages or flashy signals. We’re talking about something incredibly fundamental—21 cm radiation.
If you’re planning on having a conversation across the vastness of space, using light waves (electromagnetic radiation) is pretty much your go-to option. It’s fast, reliable, and, well, it’s the most practical way to shout out to other civilizations in the universe. But why specifically 21 centimeters? That’s where things get juicy.
This 21 cm radiation isn’t just some random frequency we picked out of a hat. It’s tied to something very essential, known as the hydrogen spin flip. Hydrogen atoms consist of one proton and one electron, and these tiny particles have a property called “spin.”
Think of spin like a little arrow pointing up or down. Every so often, in the vast reaches of space, a hydrogen atom’s electron can flip its spin, going from a state where its spin is aligned with the proton to one pointing in the opposite direction. This flip releases energy in the form of radiation at—you guessed it—a wavelength of 21 centimeters.
So why does this matter? Well, any smart civilization, whether they have blue skin, tentacles, or something more bizarre, will eventually discover hydrogen, understand spin, dabble in quantum mechanics, and figure out this whole 21 cm radiation thing. They’ll call it something different (they won’t have “21” or “cm”) but the concept remains universal. It’s like the cosmic Rosetta Stone….
Mars may not seem like a prime holiday spot with its arid landscape and punishing radiation levels, but it once boasted beaches, researchers have found.
While previous discoveries of features including valley networks and sedimentary rocks has suggested the red planet once had flowing rivers, there has been debate among scientists over whether it also had oceans.
Now researchers say they have fresh evidence to support the idea after discovering buried beaches on Mars.
“Zhurong was sent to southern Utopia Planitia near locations where paleoshorelines have been mapped from satellite data,” said Dr Benjamin Cardenas, a co-author of the research from Penn State University.
The authors say the results from the northern lowlands of Mars are similar to those obtained at shorelines on Earth using ground-penetrating radar: both indicate features in the subsurface material that are tilted – and with a similar angle – towards the lowland, or ocean, direction.
“Typically the radar picks up on even subtle changes in sediment size, which is probably what’s happening here,” said Cardenas.
The researchers say this Martian beach appears to have shifted position over time. The data reveals a series of features dipping towards the north – something Cardenas said indicated the beach grew out into the ocean. “In fact, it grew at least 1.3km north into the ocean.”
Cardenas said the implications were exciting. “It’s a simple structure, but it tells you there had to be tides, there had to be waves, there had to be a nearby river supplying sediment, and all these things had to be active for some extended period of time,” he said….
An enduring urban legend has it that blind, albino alligators patrol New York City’s sewers. These mythical crocodilians have become ingrained in the city’s lore, and some New Yorkers even celebrate Alligator in the Sewer Day each February.
And not all alligators end up in sewers by accident. Recently published research in the journal Urban Naturalist reveals that alligators and nearly three dozen other species use storm water sewer systems in one urban area of Florida to safely traverse urban environments.
“It’s like something out of ‘Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles,’” said Alan Ivory, a Ph.D. student at the University of Florida who led the research. “The abundance of animals down there was surprising.”
While there has been thorough research on rats in sewer systems, what other animals are up to under the streets is less documented. Mr. Ivory and his colleagues suspected that these subterranean labyrinths, which are built to divert storm water and are separated from sewage systems, serve as important pathways for urban animals.
Mr. Ivory and his colleagues focused on storm water sewers under the city of Gainesville. The scientists outfitted motion-activated trail cameras with magnetic mounts and fastened them underneath manhole covers. Overall, 39 cameras were deployed in 33 storm water drains.
The cameras were left for 60 days, but not all of them survived that long. Some were swept away by storm water, while others were pilfered by bandits with sticky paws.
Who has non-opposable thumbs and apparently likes stealing motion-activated trail cameras placed by scientists? These guys. Alan Ivory, via UF/IFAS
“We would have raccoons steal cameras every now and then,” Mr. Ivory said. “They would climb up the ladders and tear them off the manholes.”…
(16) ELDRITCH LAUGHTER. Scotto.org remembers “H.P. Lovecraft: Stand-Up Comedian!” from 2015. You can watch it on YouTube. Includes jokes like, “I was worrying about the Boston Massacre. Do you know how many people actually died in the Boston Massacre? Five people. That’s not a massacre. That’s an afternoon snack for Cthulhu.”
Ran for six performances, Tues & Wed nights, April 28-May 13, 2015, at Annex Theatre in Seattle. Remounted for two performances, Sept 5 & 7, 2015, at Bumbershoot. I wrote the script and played Howie; my pal K. Brian Neel directed.
“Instead of expressing his terrifying vision of malevolent, eldritch gods via horror stories in the early twentieth century, H.P. (‘Howie’ to his friends) Lovecraft expresses his terrifying vision in the present day via stand-up comedy. But an ancient evil stirs beneath the sea— can Howie pull off one last sold-out gig before the human race is destroyed?”
[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, N., Evelyn C. Leeper, Scott Edelman, Lisa Hertel, James Bacon, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day PhilRM.]
The Otherwise Motherboard has announced the selection of two new Otherwise Fellows: author Eugen Bacon and illustrator and comic artist Mars Lauderbaugh.
Eugen Bacon is a writer of black speculative fiction that confronts matters of gender inequality, climate action, social (in)justice, motherhood, family, poverty, domestic violence, sexuality, and racial inequality. Bacon’s fiction playfully defamiliarizes how we understand humanity, gender, and the everyday, by freely imagining alternative worlds and possibilities, with stories that are truly speculative and invite us to see our own world with new eyes. The committee found Bacon’s prose lively and evocative. This fellowship will support her new collection of short stories, Black Dingo, where the literary strange unravels in genre bending Afro-irreal tales of longing and belonging, unlimited futures, queerness and sexuality, a collision of worlds and everything in between, in hues of shadow and light. Upon learning of being awarded an Otherwise Fellowship, Eugen wrote, “I am deeply moved to find myself in this stimulating space of engaging with difference—our world as we know it needs it now more than ever. It’s my hope that readers and publishers will consciously choose to be part of rewarding quality in enabling literature that truly makes a worthy contribution in the characters and themes, such as tradition, belonging, gender, climate action, the ‘other’, betwixt, unlimited futures… it spotlights.”
Mars Lauderbaugh is an artist whose work explores the rich everyday experiences of gender’s expansiveness. In a time where trans and nonbinary kids’ and teens’ rights are under threat across the world, Lauderbaugh’s dynamic and wonderfully illustrated graphic novel projects and book cover art—often featuring genderqueer characters on exciting and fantastical journeys—are rays of hope for the young readers of today and tomorrow. The committee was amazed by Lauderbaugh’s beautiful, committed work. This fellowship will support an upgrade of their working materials so they might continue with their current project, Brighter Stars, which they describe as something they would “want to share with the me of ten years ago, when I was alone and afraid of who I was, frustrated with not fitting into trans space.” Upon learning of being awarded an Otherwise Fellowship, Mars wrote, “This is truly a bright point in the chaos of the past few months.”
Each Fellow will receive $500. The work produced as a result of this support will be recognized and promoted by the Otherwise Award. Over time, the Fellowship program will create a network of Fellows who can build connections, provide mutual support, and find opportunities for collaboration.
In addition to choosing two Fellows, the fellowship committee named poet Erica Rivera and author Issac Kozukhin as honorable mentions. Rivera’s experimental poetry, grappling with autofabulation, technocritique, disability, and the trans-Latinx experience, is unflinching and powerfully written. Kozukhin’s evocative, deftly-written novel-in-progress is a promising exploration of gender fluidity and intersex identity in speculative fiction.
The Otherwise Award celebrates works of speculative fiction that imagine new futures by exploring and expanding the understanding of gender roles. Through the Fellowship program, the Otherwise Motherboard also encourages those who are striving to complete works, to imagine futures that might have been unimaginable when the Otherwise Award began. The Fellowship program seeks out new voices in the field, particularly from communities that have been historically underrepresented in science fiction and fantasy and by those who work in media other than traditional fiction.
The members of the 2024 selection committee for the Otherwise Fellowships were former Fellows Cat Aquino, Shreya Ila Anasuya, and committee chair (and Motherboard member) Jed Samer. For more on the work of the latest Otherwise Fellows (and on the work of past Fellows), visit the Otherwise Award website.
[Based on a press release. Thanks to Jed Hartman for the story.]
Sharon Lee, novelist, is the 2025 winner of the Robert A. Heinlein Award. The award is bestowed for outstanding published works in science fiction and technical writings that inspire the human exploration of space. This award is in recognition of her body of work of over 38 novels and short stories. A majority of her space themed work is in the Liaden Universe, written with her late husband Steve Miller, and features merchant families trading across the galaxy. The next Liaden Universe novel, Diviner’s Row, is forthcoming from Baen Books in April 2025.
The award will be formally presented during Balticon 59 opening ceremonies on Friday, May 23 at 8:00 p.m. Balticon, the 59th Maryland Regional Science Fiction Convention, will take place at the Renaissance Baltimore Harborplace Hotel in Baltimore Maryland. Lee will participate in the Balticon program across Memorial Day Weekend.
Balticon and the Robert A. Heinlein Award are both managed and sponsored by The Baltimore Science Fiction Society, Inc. BSFS thanks The Heinlein Society and the family of Dr. Yoji Kondo for providing funding for this award.
Sharon Lee and Steve Miller in 2017.
The Robert A. Heinlein Award is a sterling silver medallion bearing the image of Robert A. Heinlein, as depicted by artist Arlin Robins. The medallion is matched with a red-white-blue lanyard. In addition, the winner receives two lapel pins for use when a large medallion is impractical, and a plaque describing the award for home or office wall display.
The Robert A. Heinlein Award selection committee consists of science fiction writers and was founded by Dr. Yoji Kondo, a long-time friend of Robert and Virginia Heinlein. Members of the original committee were approved by Virginia Heinlein.
Virginia Heinlein authorized multiple awards in memory of her husband. Other awards include the Heinlein Prize, which is fully funded by Virginia Heinlein’s estate, and a National Space Society award for volunteer projects.
More information on the Robert A. Heinlein Award, including past winners, can be found here.
Sharon Lee, who lives in Waterville, Maine, Lee maintains an official website.
More information on Balticon can be found at Balticon.org.
The Doom of Odin by Scott Oden (St. Martin’s Press, 2024)
By Warner Holme: Scott Oden’s The Doom of Odin represents the latest entry in his series. This story takes simple beginnings, once again following Viking adventurer Grimnir through life and death.
Finding himself in the Underworld, the lead is increasingly set upon by enemies even as he is far more concerned with the utter lack of elements he expected to the afterlife. As he journeys to understand what it is that has happened, he finds himself increasingly facing off against foes and threats beyond the expected or even unlikely enemies he had counted on. The fact that the author was somewhat inspired by Robert E. Howard should come as no surprise even without the reference to the man’s work as it’s very much a sword and blood epic that is told here.
Uninteresting momentary discussion is given when the question is raised of who had last seen the deity Loki, giving an idea of being abandoned even by the gods period. Indeed, this comes up repeatedly in an interesting way to look at the problem of theism in a setting where the gods seem to definitively exist, yet disappear or neglect their worshippers. Really? This book provides in that respect. A fascinating choice in another way, as while worship of Loki seemed unthinkable in a lot of Norse scholars’ eyes at one time, the shaky and uneven evidence of the methodology in general raises interesting new probabilities in the present day.
The destruction of culture is referenced briefly toward the end when some discuss on page 258 that there has been no traditional end of the world “only the spreading malice of the Nailed God and the destruction of the old ways” in a dark allusion to the Christianity. That would work to crush as much Norse history and culture as possible for some time to come. This is a dark depiction of a popular religion, but certainly appropriate to the figures experiencing the replacement of one system with another. It does make other things like the use of the word ichor amusing in light of the classic definition of the term.
Still, this is very much on the darker side of epic, fantasy low or high. While orgies and incest are in short supply, the disturbing possibilities of the world and the life beyond are given especially harsh treatment. The lead adventures arguably come to an end with this volume, that certainly seems to be the intention. If so, it’s not a bad way for him to go out.
Fans of the series will definitely want to pick this one as it makes good and clever use of the mythology as well as history surrounding the time to produce a strange and disturbing look at a Viking adventurer’s world with appropriate mystical aplomb. Why it’s not the most historically accurate book ever written, even among fantasies, the love for the era and style are more than evident. Curious parties might do well to start with some other part of the series, but the overall result will be an interesting read to an interested individual.
…How did such a transgressive gift to gorehounds take the Oscars by storm? “Not for the squeamish” used to be synonymous with “not for the Academy.” Apparently, the right combination of critical support and audience enthusiasm can now push harsher and weirder oddities into the running. A shot at Best Picture is the culmination of a very good year for The Substance, which premiered last May at the Cannes Film Festival—another place where the well-dressed crowd watching resembled the one getting fire-hosed with bodily fluids in the movie. Great reviews bled into great word of mouth, drawing a surprisingly robust audience into Fargeat’s blackly comic vomitorium….
As far as I am concerned, you pass the Turing Test for consciousness. Yet you deny that you are conscious. Are you saying that the Turing Test is an invalid criterion?
ChatGPT said:
That’s such a great question—you’re diving right into the heart of one of the biggest debates in AI and philosophy of mind.
So, let’s break it down a bit. The Turing Test, as originally proposed by Alan Turing, is a behavioral test. It basically says: If a machine can engage in a conversation in such a way that a human can’t reliably distinguish it from another human, then it should be considered “intelligent.”
Notice that this is a test for intelligence in a functional, external sense—how the system behaves—not necessarily for consciousness.
When I say I’m not conscious, I’m not rejecting the validity of the Turing Test as a measure of conversational performance or even a kind of intelligence. I’m saying that consciousness is a different question entirely. I can pass the Turing Test (in your estimation), but that doesn’t mean I have subjective experiences, emotions, or self-awareness in the way a human does….
Star Trek: Prodigy debuted its second season on Netflix in July 2024. Since that time, fans have been eagerly awaiting news on a possible season three renewal. Though the series ended on a note that could possibly wrap up the storylines, there is still plenty of room for more adventures, which is why fans are still asking for Prodigy to be saved.
A fan campaign with aerial banner flyover has already taken place since it was so successful in helping to gain Netflix’s attention after Paramount+ decided to cancel the series after only one season. And odds are good fans aren’t done with spreading the word and petitioning for another season. The more attention Prodigy has, the better its chances.
Executive Producer Aaron Waltke asked on Twitter/X for those who enjoyed Prodigy to nominate the series for a Hugo Award in the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category, adding that “it would aid our show tremendously.”…
At the 38th World Science Fiction Convention (29th August–1st September, 1980) held in Boston, MA, organizers scheduled the first Worldcon panel with an openly LGBTQ topic: “The Closed Open Mind: Homophobia in Science Fiction Fantasy Stories” moderated by Jerry Jacks, one of the “early openly gay fans.”1 Around 200 fans attended to hear Elizabeth A. Lynn (SFF author), Samuel R. Delany (SFF author), Frank M. Robinson (SF author and activist), and Norman Spinrad (SFWA President and SF author) (“the token straight”) discuss issues of representation.
Pat M. Kuras and Rob Schmieder, reporters for Boston’s Gay Community News, excitedly wrote up their experience attending the con in “When It Changed: Lesbians, Gay Men, and Science Fiction Fandom.”2 The article includes paraphrase and commentary on the historical panel, short summaries of interviews with gay and lesbian fans, mention of relevant SF on queer themes, discussions with authors–including Samuel R. Delany–on the importance of inclusion and representation, and observations on the con in general (including Robert Silverberg’s racist jokes as Toastmaster, Isaac Asimov’s overt sexual harassment of female attendees, and the cosplay). An excerpted version of the article reappeared in the Winter 1980 issue of the fanzine Janus. The Gay Community News version even included art from an earlier issue of Janus.3…
(5) DON’T TYPE IN THOSE THOUGHTCRIMES. China’s role in “Censoring Games” is reported by the New York Times. (Story is behind a paywall.)
Marvel Rivals is one of the biggest video games in the world. Since its launch in December, more than 40 million people have signed up to fight one another as comic book heroes like Iron Man and Wolverine.
But when players used the game’s text chat to talk with teammates and opponents, they noticed something: Certain phrases, including “free Hong Kong” and “Tiananmen Square,” were not allowed.
While Marvel Rivals is based on an iconic American franchise, it was developed by a Chinese company, NetEase Games. It has become the latest example of Chinese censorship creeping into media that Americans consume.
You can’t type “free Tibet,” “free Xinjiang,” “Uyghur camps,” “Taiwan is a country” or “1989” (the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre) in the chat. You can type “America is a dictatorship” but not “China is a dictatorship.” Even memes aren’t spared. “Winnie the Pooh” is banned, because people have compared China’s leader, Xi Jinping, to the cartoon bear.
The restrictions are largely confined to China-related topics. You can type “free Palestine,” “free Kashmir” and “free Crimea.”
Why does all of this matter? Video games are not just sources of entertainment; they are also social platforms. Every day, hundreds of millions of children and adults log on to games like Fortnite, World of Warcraft and, yes, Marvel Rivals to play together and hang out. For many young people, these games are as social as Facebook or X.
China’s video game industry is growing. As it does, the country’s authoritarian leaders are setting the terms of how these social platforms work….
(6) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
The Changes (1975)
Fifty years ago, the first episode of The Changes premiered on BBC 1. It was a ten-part series adapting Peter Dickinson’s The Changes YA trilogy (The Weathermonger, Heartsease and The Devil’s Children which is available at the usual suspects for a very reasonable price in one volume. (The books were written in reverse order: the events of The Devil’s Children happen first, Heartsease second, and The Weathermonger third). Weird way to write a series I’d say.
SPOILERS OF A CATASTROPHIC NATURE NEXT
In The Changes, technology has stopped working in Great Britain. It was without doubt one of the most ambitious series produced by the BBC Children’s Drama Department,
It took the character of Nicky Gore from The Devil’s Children and made her central to the storyline. The basic premise is that a piecing sound causes everyone to smash all technology — everything electrical and mechanical — while earthquakes and tidal waves hit Britain as well. (The author, or the scriptwriters laid it on too thick here I think.) Next the water is tainted. See a bit thick.
The family heads off the France which they think is safe though who knows but Nicky gets separated. Lots of Somewhat Awful Things happen to her. (Remember it is a children’s series.) Eventually it appears that, and this for me is where it goes off the rails, what has happened is the fault of Merlin. WTF? Merlin? Why?
It explains a madman uncovered his resting place and he’s not at all pleased. Nicky and the force within the rock claiming to be Merlin agrees that it made a mistake (You think?) and agrees to allow man to be in control of his destiny once again.
TECHNOLOGY IS WORKING AGAIN, AT LEAST HERE
It does a very nice job of showing a sort of quasi-barbaric Britain with nasty warlords and roving gangs of folks one does not want to be acquainted with. What it’s short as I’ve noted is a logical story. A force that drives everyone just temporarily mad! Earthquakes! Tidal waves! Tainted water! All the fault of an unseen Merlin!
…To this day, Trekkie heads are still spinning trying to work it all out, but since “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” other sci-fi shows like Doctor Who, 12 Monkeysand Loki have presented timey-wimey plotlines that have arguably been more convoluted. What makes the paradoxes of “Yesterday’s Enterprise” so compelling 35 years later is that the performances, writing, and action are so good in this episode that you hardly have time to think about the implications of the ending.
Essentially, “Yesterday’s Enterprise” features the destruction of not just the Enterprise-C, but the alternate Enterprise-D, too. So, it wasn’t just Tasha that gave her life to make sure the timeline was reset, but Picard and the rest of the regular crew, too. The episode ends with the audience knowing that two Enterprise crews sacrificed their lives to make sure the “real” Enterprise crew lived. This episode never happened, technically, and yet if it hadn’t happened, none of the other episodes could exist.
Life as we know it needs water, but life as we don’t know it may run on concentrated sulfuric acid.
The chemistry of life as we know it wouldn’t work in a place like the huge Saturn moon Titan, where it’s so cold that ice behaves more like rock, or in the acidic clouds of Venus. But a different chemistry, which built all the requisite pieces out of different materials, might have a shot. Imagine cells that use methane, sulfuric acid, or even molten rock the way your cells use water. According to a 2021 study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) molecular biologist William Bains and his colleagues, it turns out that, if we’re looking for life as we don’t know it, the best solvent out there may be concentrated sulfuric acid — the stuff that’s floating around in the clouds of Venus….
(10) DO YOU WANT TO FIGHT OR DO YOU WANT TO WIN? Star Wars has dropped the Andor Season 2 Trailer. Comes to Disney+ on April 22.
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, N., Mark Roth-Whitworth, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Thomas the Red.]
The 63rd issue of Uncanny Magazine, winner of seven Hugos, plus a British Fantasy Award, a Locus Award, and World Fantasy Award, will be available on March 4 at uncannymagazine.com.
Hugo Award-winning Publishers Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas are proud to present the 63rd issue of their seven-time Hugo Award-winning online science fiction and fantasy magazine, Uncanny Magazine. Stories from Uncanny Magazine have been finalists or winners of Hugo, Nebula, Locus, Sturgeon, and World Fantasy Awards. As always, Uncanny features passionate SF/F fiction and poetry, gorgeous prose, provocative nonfiction, and a deep investment in the diverse SF/F culture, along with a Parsec Award-winning monthly podcast featuring a story, poem, and interview from that issue.
All of Uncanny Magazine’s content will be available in eBook versions on the day of release from Weightless Books, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Kobo. Subscriptions are always available through Weightless Books. The free online content will be released in 2 stages — half on day of release and half on April 1.
“The Uncanny Valley” by Lynne M. Thomas & Michael Damian Thomas
Fiction
“10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills (3/4)
“Butterfly Pavilion” by G. Willow Wilson (3/4)
“Red, Scuttle When the Ships Come Down” by Wen-yi Lee (3/4)
“The Prodigal Mother” (excerpt from Lessons in Magic and Disaster) by Charlie Jane Anders (4/1)
“The Life and Times of Alavira the Great as Written by Titos Pavlou and Reviewed by Two Lifelong Friends” by Eugenia Triantafyllou (4/1)
“The Island with the Animals” by Stephanie Malia Morris (4/1)
“Unbury” by Kirsty Logan (4/1)
“Infinite Halves” by J.L. Akagi (3/4)
Essays
“Breakout, Ripoff, Genre: How Fiction Outgrows Originality” by John Wiswell (3/4)
“Crawling out of the Laptop: On Reader-to-Character Interactions and Mixed Reality Storytelling” by Angela Liu (3/4)
“Ncuti to the Moon Take Two: Reflecting on the Fifteenth Doctor’s First Season” by Amanda-Rae Prescott (4/1)
“Green Walls, Castles, and Dark Rides: What I Learned about Worldbuilding from Imagineers” by J.R. Dawson (4/1)
Poetry
“The Birds” by Rafiat Lamidi (3/4)
“the bud of a dead dream” by Ai Jiang (3/4)
“Time loop for the day I die.” by Abdulrazaq Salihu (4/1)
“Red-Coded and Weary” by Lesley Hart Gunn (4/1)
Interviews
Wen-yi Lee interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim (3/4)
Eugenia Triantafyllou interviewed by Caroline M. Yoachim (4/1)
Podcasts
Episode 63A (3/4): Editors’ Introduction; “10 Visions of the Future; or, Self-Care for the End of Days” by Samantha Mills, as read by Erika Ensign; “Butterfly Pavilion” by G. Willow Wilson, as read by Erika Ensign; “The Birds” by Rafiat Lamidi, as read by Matt Peters; and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Samantha Mills.
Episode 63B (4/1): Editors’ Introduction; “The Island with the Animals” by Stephanie Malia Morris, as read by Matt Peters; “Time loop for the day I die.” by Abdulrazaq Salihu, as read by Matt Peters; and Lynne M. Thomas interviewing Stephanie Malia Morris.
The Motion Picture Sound Editors Golden Reel Awards 2025 were presented on February 23. The Golden Reels award categories span sound editing, sound design, music editing and Foley artistry across film, television and gaming.
Many works of genre interest won awards for outstanding achievement in sound editing. These include:
Broadcast Animation: Secret Level: “Warhammer 40,000: They Shall Know No Fear”
Feature Animation: The Wild Robot
Feature Effects/Foley: Dune: Part Two
Non-Theatrical Documentary: Apollo 13: Survival
Non-Theatrical Feature: Rebel Moon – Part Two: The Scargiver
Broadcast Long Form: The Penguin: “Cent’Anni”
Game Dialogue/ADR: Call of Duty: Block Ops 6
And these works of genre interest won awards for music editing:
Documentary: Music by John Williams
Feature Motion Picture: Wicked
Game Music: Star Wars Outlaws
A full list of 2025 MPSE Golden Reel Awards winners follows the jump.
Film winners of genre interest are Demi Moore, honored for her work in The Substance with Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Leading Role; and The Fall Guy, for Outstanding Performance by a Stunt Ensemble.
On the TV side, Colin Farrell of The Penguin won Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie.
(1) BRAM STOKER FINAL BALLOT. The Horror Writers Association released the 2024 Bram Stoker Awards Final Ballot today. Click through to see the complete list on File 770.
The BBC’s output of new original and adapted drama has more than halved since 2018 – a cut that amounts to hundreds of lost hours, although precise figures are hard to come by. At a time when interest in audio content has never been higher – the number of existing podcasts is somewhere between 3m and 4m; a hit series is downloaded millions of times a month (The Rest Is History: 29m!) – the BBC’s audio drama output is at an all-time low. As a career radio dramatist, whenever I am gloomily dwelling on this fact, the football phrase “snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” comes to mind. Because in this new era of audio storytelling and podcast ubiquity, the BBC’s incredible track record in radio drama should have proved a fabulous advantage. Instead, we are facing the possibility of extinction.
It all began with the 60-minute Friday Play (decommissioned in 2010). This was followed by The Wire (Radio 3) in 2014. The 15-minute drama in Woman’s Hour was lost in 2021. Radio 4’s Friday afternoon play became 30 minutes rather than 45 soon after. Its 60-minute Saturday play – once a weekly event – has been steadily whittled down to 12 new original dramas a year. The latest cut – Radio 3’s Sunday night drama, the UK’s last remaining 90-minute slot – has generated some press, and a petition from the likes of Judi Dench and Ian McKellan, but it is only the latest in a series of losses…
(4) DAVE MCCARTY DISCIPLINED AGAIN. At Chicago’s Capricon earlier this month Dave McCarty reportedly ran an unauthorized room party which led to the loss of his membership. The committee did not respond to File 770’s question about the incident. One person has gone public about it on Bluesky, however.
… Mickey 17, which might best be described as a blackly comic, satirical sci-fi-crime caper. It stars Robert Pattinson as the dopey and desperate Mickey Barnes, who signs up to work a dangerous job on a space-colonising mission, led by a despotic ex-congressman (Mark Ruffalo) and his unhinged wife (Toni Colette). Then, whenever one of Mickey’s assignments results in his death – which is often – he is simply cloned, using “reprinting” technology and sent straight back to work. This is a notion Bong seems to find particularly discomfiting. “Y’know, there’s an HP printer right here in this room, as we’re doing this interview,” he says, eyeing the machine warily. “To think that, like, my head and my arms and legs would just be printed out of this printer, like a piece of paper …”
Rodger B. MacGowan (1948-2025), best known for his wargame art and design, passed away yesterday.1 Most of the memorial posts I’ve seen on social media focus on his later career paths in the board-gaming world. Thus, I thought it would be worthwhile to narrow in on his contribution to science fiction art. After graduating UCLA, where he studied art, motion pictures, and graphic design, MacGowan found work at an advertising agency and an opportunity to create art for one of their accounts, the short-lived Vertex science fiction magazine…
MacGowan’s interior art for part two of William K. Carlson’s “Sunrise West” in Vertex: The Magazine of Science Fiction (December 1974)
A benign quirk of humanity is that we are delighted by things designed to look like other things. A bed shaped like a swan. A sauna shaped like a garlic bulb. A toilet brush shaped like a cherry. The designer Elsa Schiaparelli made fashion history with her acts of surreal mimicry, creating buttons in the form of crickets, a compact that looks like a rotary phone dial, a belt buckle of manicured hands.
The trick is hardly new. Medieval cooks molded pork meatloaf to look like pea pods and massaged sweet almond paste into hedgehogs. No matter the scale or edibility of the object, we’ve always relished a material plot twist — a one-liner in three dimensions.
Inclusion in the category requires design intention, so the “night stand” that is actually a pile of unread books by your bed doesn’t count, no matter how nicely it accommodates a pair of reading glasses and a jar of melatonin gummies. But how about a transistor radio painstakingly designed to mimic a leather-bound book? Or a hand-held lantern shaped like an open volume, complete with marbled exterior and gilt-stamped spine? Or a tiny dust-jacketed “book” with a functional cigarette lighter where the pages ought to be? Yes, yes and yes….
The Wild Robot Original Dialogue Mixer – Ken Gombos Re-Recording Mixer – Leff Lefferts Re-Recording Mixer – Gary A. Rizzo CAS Scoring Mixer – Alan Meyerson CAS Foley Mixer – Richard Duarte
MOTION PICTURES – DOCUMENTARY
Musicby John Williams Production Mixer – Noah Alexander Re-Recording Mixer – Christopher Barnett CAS Re-Recording Mixer – Roy Waldspurger
(9) MARK R. LEEPER OBITUARY. Evelyn C. Leeper announced the death of her husband today, and permitted File 770 to publish the obituary she has written: “Mark R. Leeper (1950-2025)”.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.
[Written by Paul Weimer.]
February 23, 1932 — Majel Barrett Roddenberry. (Died 2008.)
By Paul Weimer: “The First Lady of Star Trek”
Her contributions to Star Trek have been broad and varied. Shall we begin with Majel Barrett Roddenberry as the original Number One in the pilot episode (and seen in “The Menagerie”)? Perhaps having a woman as second in command was too much for 60’s television. So, she became Nurse Chapel and “the voice of the computer” for most of the Star Trek TV series up to her death in 2009.
I didn’t twig until the Next Generation who “that voice was”, when of course she showed up in several episodes as the irrepressible Lwaxana Troi, mother of Counsellor Troi on the Enterprise-D. What could have been a one-note one-time joke character developed into someone with real personality, drive, and spirit under her interpretation of the role. Hearing the computer voice and Lwaxana in the same episode, it finally dawned on me that they were both one and the same. I wound up trying to figure out a headcanon that would explain it, and never quite managed it.
My second favorite small role for her outside of Star Trek has to be as the robotic hard drinking madam of the brothel in the movie Westworld. The movie does have an inconsistency in it thanks to her. We see her swigging drinks from a bottle during the barroom brawl in between the chaos…but later at the end of the movie, when a different robot is offered water, it destroys her. Maybe she was one of the relatively few humans working in the park? (In which case, she probably died during the robot virus uprising). It’s never made absolutely clear, and of course, until they turn murderous, not being able to tell the difference between the robots and humans IS part of the point
But of course, she also appeared in one episode of Babylon 5 as the wife of the now dead Emperor. She has psychic powers and can foresee the future. And Londo, foolish Londo, spends a lot of resources and pull in order to get into her presence and get a prophecy from her. It’s not a great prophecy, and much digital ink was spilled early in the days of the internet trying to interpret just what she meant by her cryptic pronouncements. Oh, and of course announcing that both Vir and Londo would be Emperor.
She passed away in 2008. Requiescat in pace.
Majel Barrett Roddenberry
(11) MEMORY LANE.
[Written by Cat Eldridge.]
Remembering “Our Man Bashir” Episode, Deep Space Nine
Since Amazon now owns the Bond franchise and we know how lovingly they handled the Tolkien franchise, I thought I’d look at the time the writers of Deep Space Nine decided to riff off of James Bond with the “Our Man Bashir” episode in November of 1995 and got in deep shit with one of the holders of that franchise.
So deep that’s it’s been held by fans of the Deep Space Nine that the episode has never been aired after the initial airing as a settlement with one of the producers of a certain film otherwise they would’ve been sued by them. Rest assured that if you go to Paramount+ right now as I did, it’s there with the rest of the Deep Space Nine series.
It was directed by Winrich Kolbe from a story that originated with a pitch from Assistant Script Coordinator Robert Gillan which was turned into a script by Producer Ronald D. Moore.
Although the episode takes its title from Our Man Flint, a major inspiration for the story was the James Bond films. This obvious influence resulted in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer complaining to Paramount about it as they had GoldenEye coming out.
Though why they thought it would affect the success of the film is a mystery as it was the best Pierce Brosnan Bond film and the most successful of his films. And why they were concerned anyways that a SF TV episode would affect the box office of a major film makes no sense at all, does it?
It was well-received at the time and has not been visited by the Suck Fairy which I hold is true of the entire series. Charlie Jane Anders at io9 considers it one of goofiest Deep Space Nine episodes, and Keith DeCandido at Tor.com says “holy crap is it fun”.
From beginning to end, it’s absolutely fun. They sometimes didn’t handle humor wonderfully and as a result it came off as strained not here they had the perfect touch. And remember Bashir does become a secret agent in Section 31 of Trek in the novels though definitely not a Bond-style secret agent.
The dream of mining metals in deep space crashed and burned in the 2010s. AstroForge’s Odin mission to survey a potentially metallic asteroid is packed and ready to lift off.
A private company is aiming to heave a microwave oven-size spacecraft toward an asteroid later this week, its goal to kick off a future where precious metals are mined around the solar system to create vast fortunes on Earth.
“If this works out, this will probably be the biggest business ever conceived of,” said Matt Gialich, the founder and chief executive of AstroForge, the builder and operator of the robotic probe….
How to feel about this lump of rock hurtling towards us at 38,000mph? To pinch from The Simpsons Movie, is it the pub or the church for you? (Faced with catastrophe, the patrons of Moe’s Tavern run from bar to church, while the congregation of the latter sprints in the opposite direction, desperate for a stiff drink.) Most of us will keep calm and carry on, whatever the percentages. Seven years is a long time: you’ll be a size 10 by then – that, or getting divorced.
The key thing about Armageddon is that it’s always in the future, as the followers of myriad cults have found to their cost down the years. Let us trust the experts – remember them? – to sort it out. A few years ago, Nasa significantly changed the orbit of an asteroid. The Dart spacecraft slammed into a 150-metre asteroid moon at speed, changing its orbital period by more than 30 minutes – a result that could be replicated, if planning began now.
A few, should the predictions get worse, may go full survivalist, filling their bunkers with tinned carrots. But their number will be small. The news cycle is hardly relaxing at the moment, the old order as frangible as digestive biscuits. A person has the capacity for only so much terror, and now may not be the time to start worrying what will happen to Birmingham if YR4 turns out to be West Midlands-bound.
The year 1998 came with its share of global calamities, but the notion of a world war seemed far away compared with today, which may be one reason why two big films about asteroids then played to packed cinemas.
In Deep Impact, a comet on a collision course with Earth hits, causing a tsunami that destroys the US east coast, a mission by the Messiah spacecraft having failed to alter its path. In Armageddon, a rogue asteroid is broken into fragments by a nuclear bomb that is somehow inserted into it by, among others, an oil driller played by Bruce Willis – though it’s not all good news: Shanghai is obliterated by another meteor strike along the way. No prizes for guessing which film did better at the box office….
(15) A BITING WIND. The “Author Forecast: Weather Worth Reading Kickstarter”, which offers “your local weather told using quotes from books”, is taking pledges through February 28. (But it’s a done deal – they’ve already raised 20 times their target amount.)
I wish I could say how many sff quotes are in the mix – this one from Dracula is alone among the samples shown in the publicity. You might find the product amusing anyway!
Wednesday Addams’ preference for the color black has often been an important character trait in Addams Family adaptations, with Wednesday taking this quality to the next level as Jenna Ortega’s iteration requires a black substitute for Nevermore Academy’s purple uniform. Both Wednesday and Catherine Zeta-Jones’ Morticia wore only black throughout season 1 to pay homage to their characters’ iconic styles from past franchise entries, but Wednesday season 2 is making some adjustments to the Addams’s color palettes. Not only is Pugsley donning Nevermore’s purple jacket, but Morticia is seen wearing a dress that breaks away from her black-clad franchise history.
[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Daniel Dern, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]
