Six stories, two tweets, and a video of Lou Antonelli reading his story in a morgue. (Okay, okay – so it’s a newspaper morgue….)
(1) CinemaBlend says it was a brutal night for Kevin Smith when he had to follow J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars panel at Comic-Con:
That’s right. At the end of his panel on behalf of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, director J.J. Abrams invited EVERYONE in the Hall to come attend a free concert of Star Wars music. And everyone promptly got up and left. In an orderly fashion, mind you. But everyone left. 100% of the audience. Gone. So when Kevin Smith took the stage at Hall H – a place where he normally dominates – it looked like this:
I'm in my room cackling to myself about the Kevin Smith panel. pic.twitter.com/n4ee8DTqJS
— Andrew Woods (@JimJarmuschHair) July 11, 2015
I feel a grave disturbance in the Force. As if six thousand people were suddenly silenced by a free concert. Might have to cancel my panel.
— KevinSmith (@ThatKevinSmith) July 11, 2015
(2) Mary Robinette Kowal explains that she won’t be at the Worldcon but it has nothing to do with Puppies:
Some of you have noticed that I’m cancelling a lot of appearances this summer. I was not initially going to talk about why, except to the people that my absence directly affects, but after a lot of conversation with my parents, we have decided to be open about it.
My mom has Parkinson’s. On Monday, she’s going in to have the first procedure involved in receiving a Deep Brain Stimulation Implant. This is a great thing. This is an amazing thing. I know people who have had this surgery done to help mitigate their symptoms and it’s life-changing.
So I’m canceling things because I’m going to be helping my folks with stuff surrounding the procedures.
(3) The Hollywood Reporter posted a short video about moving the DC Comics Library from NYC to Beautiful Downtown Burbank.
(4) Not unlike J.K. Rowling, Back To The Future’s Bob Gale is willing to indulge fans’ obscure questions:
One persistent question about “Back to the Future Part III”: In 1885, when Marty tells Doc that they’re out of gas (thanks to the fuel tank getting pierced with a Native American’s arrow), why don’t they just go siphon some gas out of the DeLorean that Doc buried in Delgado Mine?
Click and get the answer.
(5) Cover Browser has scans of 350 Vintage Sci-Fi hardback book jackets. Took me back to my early days reading everything on the library’s SF shelf.
(6) It’s now possible to create a Joker mask with a 3D printer. This gives new meaning to kids making their own Halloween costumes.
The files used to create the mask are available to download from MyMiniFactory. The costume piece is designed to print out in six pieces. These can be glued together and painted to get the final, creepy effect.
(7) Lou Antonelli reads aloud his Hugo-nominated story “On A Spiritual Plain.”
[Thanks for several of these stories goes to John King Tarpinian and David Klaus.]
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Oh, poor Kevin Smith! Of course, who is going to turn down free new Star Wars music?
I liked his tweet, though.
Covers: The one for Sixth Column does a surprisingly good job of representing the plot elements (I like the atom of Science! breaking the chain), while simultaneously being absolutely terrible.
That is strange. Is CinemaBlend just straight up lying about this? If you look at the picture from taken from the rear of Kevin Smith’s daughter while she’s on stage, the hall is clearly full, (or at least full within the frame of the camera taking the picture). If Cinemablend’s story is just a lie, then this story is pretty unethical.
@idontknow:
It’s a matter of camera angles, I suspect.
If you look at the photo above, it is taken from as far back as possible with a wide angle lens. This tends to make spaces look vast, things in the foreground look huge and isolated, and things in the background look tiny and isolated.
If you look closely, there is actually a reasonable crowd, all seated at the front closest to the stage, which is what one would expect. I think I can count at least five rows filled with people, possibly ten or more (that hall is huge and the angle makes it hard to count). They just don’t fill the entire hall, so someone taking a picture from way back can minimize their presence with camera tricks.
Hall H is the biggest room at the convention center and Smith is normally enough of a favorite to pretty well fill it. Amusing that a hard core Star Wars fan like him would could lose much of his audience to it.
And I, with my minimal knowledge of modern pop culture, had to use Wikipedia to answer the question “Who is Kevin Smith?”
Morris:
As you probably surmised, he’s a director, and he worked on a lot of movies that resonate with the GenX and early Millennial cohort. His most famous movie is probably Clerks, but Dogma is pretty good if you don’t mind a bit of poking fun at religion.
He’s a big geek, and there’s references to Star Wars and Jaws in Clerks. I can’t recall anything SFnal that he’s done, but I freely admit that I stopped paying attention at Jersey Girl and Clerks 2.
He’s written Daredevil, Spider-Man, Green Arrow and Batman for Marvel and DC Comics.
But also, you mentioned DOGMA, which is described on Wikipedia like so:
“The plot revolves around two fallen angels who plan to employ an alleged loophole in Catholic dogma to return to Heaven, after being cast out by God; but as existence is founded on the principle that God is infallible, their success would prove God wrong and thus undo all creation. The last scion and two prophets are sent by the Voice of God to stop them.”
That sounds like mythic fantasy to me…
Mark: Covers: The one for Sixth Column does a surprisingly good job of representing the plot elements (I like the atom of Science! breaking the chain), while simultaneously being absolutely terrible.
I just got done re-reading that book, and I’m wondering from whence, in the plot, the cover artist got the submissive woman… 😉
That “F&SF-style” lettering on the Ship of Ishtar cover always gives me a warm, fuzzy feeling.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, Kevin Smith still managed an audience of 2,000 — though I question that number, it certainly doesn’t look that way in the photo.