Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson team up in the opening pages of Captain America #0, on sale April 20, to launch two Captain America ongoing titles.
Writers Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly and Marvel Stormbreaker artist Carmen Carnero will tell the adventures of Steve Rogers in Captain America: Sentinel Of Liberty while writer Tochi Onyebuchi and Marvel Stormbreaker artist R.B. Silva will see Sam Wilson soar as Captain America once again in Captain America: Symbol Of Truth.
The journeys of both shield bearers will begin in April’s Captain America #0 where they will team up after an explosive attack by Arnim Zola.
“You can see in the #0 issue that we’re getting to play with our favorite scientist, Arnim Zola, The Bio-Fanatic!” Collin Kelly told CBR in an exclusive interview. “That’s a really fun touchstone for us, but what we wanted to do is introduce a new cast of villains. These villains pulling the strings have their own personalities and motivations and they command a force unlike any Captain America has ever seen. That includes lieutenants, generals, and power players. They are critical players in the history of the Marvel Universe, American history, and the world history of the last hundred years.
“We’re giving those characters individual identities that will allow them to stand on their own. So, if and when we do bring in some more of these legacy villains, we want them to be able to stand toe-to-toe with Doctor Doom… These will be characters that Doom also knows of and is reluctant to cross.”
A transformative moment in Captain America history begins. Check out the preview following the jump.
By James Bacon: Welcome Aaron Fischer, Captain America of the railways.
Captain America, a symbol of what is right, standing for justice, the pinnacle of heroism, punching Hitler from the outset, has always asked difficult questions, has eschewed purely jingoistic nationalism, has told stories that questioned what it means to be Captain America and whether America is right, and what is morally the right thing to do.
Over the 8 decades of the character’s existence, in thousands of comics, frequently we have seen this reflection and challenge in the character, questioning much. In Captain America #180 (Dec 1974) Steve Rogers, disgusted with the US government and a senior official who is supporting terrorism, assumed and hinted to be Richard Nixon and mirroring Watergate, can no longer wear the red, white and blue uniform and starts fighting as Nomad, a person with no country. Fifteen years later, the government again appalls Steve Rogers and by issue #332 (Aug 1987) in he takes on the mantle of “The Captain” and John Walker who was the Super Patriot takes on the mantle of Captain America. It’s a useful story turn.
Here, in this issue straight away, Steve Rogers questions what the American Dream is but in a way that suddenly spoke strongly to me. As I look across the Atlantic into America, it’s odd contemplating freedom, or considering what it doesn’t mean to me or mean to others in America, be it being able to own an assault rifle, eat what you want, have black smoke emanate from your car, pay as little taxes as you can while working in a brutal oppressive capitalist profit driven stitch-up where workers rights are minimal, weakness is scorned and belittled, and where there is no social responsibility, and those less fortunate face destitution or death, with the wealthy subsidized, supported and untaxed. I don’t think that is freedom at all, just subtle ensnarement to a mis-sold system where the rich get richer and people are allowed to imagine the American Dream. It’s a fecking nightmare, with workers pitted against other workers, instead of solidarity against billionaires who buy off their guilt with charity, Americans fooled into thinking they pay less in taxes than others, but instead pay huge amounts of health insurance, where climate change is leading to power outages, where water the simplest of things, may poison them….
Science fiction readers, intelligent and thoughtful get this, understand and can see injustice and duplicity, the society slowly walking into a tyranny would be obvious.
It didn’t seem like this on Telly. You know, I don’t recall the Murder She Wrote where the lack of insurance was the cause of death, or the episode where Joey dies from septicaemia while in between jobs, or the ER team writing down these vital insurance details, and so, as one learns more about America, quite a wonderful place, parts slightly tarnished, it gets very ropey, sketchy, not what one had imagined at all. And I love the place. I really do.
So back to Cap who is thinking about the Dream. “I’m Loyal to nothing, except the dream” “I actually said that once”… “But lately– spending my days in this country, as the years march on by — I’m starting to think America actually has two dreams and one lie.” He describes one dream as something that never really existed, which can become nationalistic and jingoistic, using a white picket fence as an analogy, because that dream doesn’t get along nicely with reality, other cultures, immigrants, the poor and the suffering. People easily become seen as “different” or “un-American.” He describes the lie, the empty promise, “instead of a dream they get a raw deal.” He describes it as a lie.
He continues to muse about the dream, one where people work and fight together, but his uncertainty and doubt about things comes through thinking; “The Smithsonian is putting on a special exhibit called ‘Americans who Fight’ To tell you the truth, I don’t really love the name, only because so sometimes we fight when I feel like we could handle things another way.”
We get seven pages of good reflection and introspection, suddenly broken by someone in a Captain America costume, breaking in and stealing the Shield. As a chase ensues, Steve is currently wearing the Steve Rogers super soldier costume, no red and white midriff, and he enlists the Falcon to help him chase down the thief, and things come to a head on Hell Gate bridge where the impostor derails a train using the shield, leaving Steve Rogers and the Falcon to first avert disaster and then help with those who have been injured in a serious train crash.
As the rescue continues Cap grabs hold of someone dressed like Captain America, and we meet Aaron Fischer, who explains that the people on the rails are kinda like family, and unsavory people show up, he deals with them, fighting for those who need it. Fischer is absolutely in awe of his heroes, and Falcon leads the way in keeping things very cordial, and Fischer explains that there are more “Captains”, a sniper tries to take out Aaron and Cap saves him, and both he and the Falcon affirm that Aaron is a Captain America. Despite this, after getting his wound taken care of, he disappears, but Steve and Sam agree to go find the shield, with Sam putting on the Captain America uniform and also warn the other Captains America of the danger of the assassin. It’s a nice easy intro to a road trip story. Christopher Cantwell did a good job, I liked the questioning side. Sale Eaglesham’s art is really nice in places, although I thought that the physique of both Steve and Sam were a little too exaggerated, but it was good overall.
Then we get “Tracks”, a second story by Josh Trujillo and Jan Bazaldua. This tells the story of Aaron Fischer, an admirer of Captain America, an “A” tattooed on one arm, he hears that unhoused kids are being disappeared. Roxxon are kidnapping them and using them as a form of labor, and so Aaron, takes it upon himself to daub his denim dungarees with the appropriate colors, make a shield, don a mask and fight, and so he does, and with a young sweetheart in tow. It’s a nice story, and we get to meet someone who is coming from a different background.
Josh Trujillo and artist Jan Bazaldua spoke to Out (“How the Gay Captain America Creators Crafted Aaron Fischer’s Look”) about the character: “The overalls were something Jan Bazaldua and I settled on really quickly. They felt true to the character and were more practical than a super suit. Plus, I just think the overalls look cool.” said Trujillo. “We tried to give him a simple appearance since he is a street boy who lives in LA, someone who could only make his suit with what he had on hand,” Bazaldua added. “And we just tried to give him a kind look, someone who did not have resources or large amounts of money but has a huge heart and a great desire to help people like him.” Bazaldua also said the two of them were excited to take “a very American and very macho symbol,” and make him gay and someone who resonated with real-life queer people, and that includes sharing in their struggles. The issue of young LGBT homelessness being one they wanted to draw attention to.
“Aaron is inspired by heroes of the queer community: activists, leaders, and everyday folks pushing for a better life,” Trujillo said in a release. “He stands for the oppressed, and the forgotten. I hope his debut story resonates with readers, and helps inspire the next generation of heroes.” Bazaldua said. “I really enjoyed designing him, and as a transgender person, I am happy to be able to present an openly gay person who admires Captain America and fights against evil to help those who are almost invisible to society” and added, “While I was drawing him, I thought, well, Cap fights against super-powerful beings and saves the world almost always, but Aaron helps those who walk alone in the street with problems that they face every day. I hope people like the end result!”
And I think they have done a wonderful job. I have to say that the artwork was super, really clean lines, with some lovely perspectives, low down giving one a sense of not just street level, but being on the street, and the action was also smartly done, with a great sense of movement. The tender moments are perfectly timed, while the story was really advanced by the slick and smooth artwork.
And so one would recommend the comic….
And then well, Washington Times and Fox News happened.
The Times headline was “Marvel celebrates July 4 weekend by having Captain America say American dream ‘isn’t real’”, on the 2nd of July, and yeah, quotes Captain America.
They then, dreadfully, excise Aaron Fischer from the story, but use his lines saying “Another point in the story features a character who, standing next to Captain America, suggests that Sam Wilson, a Black character, is more representative of all Americans. ‘Wow, Sam Wilson,’ the character says. ‘Two Captain Americas for the price of one. Can’t tell you how much it means to meet both of you. You fight for everyone. I mean … everyone.’”
Well, Sam Wilson is representative. And I thought Aaron’s words were nice here. Give Sam some love, why not, he is a great character. But for some, it is reason for umbrage.
Then Fox News obviously picked up on the “news” and they rolled out some opinions. Senator Tom Cotton, wanted Captain America cancelled, or at least demoted to Lieutenant. (WtF)
Then on the 5th of July, Dean Cain, like talk about Hero to Zero, I know he once played Superman, now obviously a poor pundit for Fox and Friends, went on to criticize the comic and rage against wokism….
“I am so tired of this wokeness and anti-Americanism,” Cain said, while later admitting that he actually hadn’t read the comic…
And getting some mileage, comedian Michael Loftus was angry. He reckoned Marvel and Stan Lee are the embodiment of the American dream and this story violated that.
I had a little laugh there, to be honest. Stan was no angel, but he came up with some brilliance, but he often spoke positively and encouraged people to be really good, but I reckon he would have loved the publicity.
I think this all mis-portrays what is going on of course, Captain America is meant to question America and this has occurred many times over the years.
The idea of the dream is interesting, I was impressed that Ta-Nehisi Coates focused on the dream as his departure point and then Captain America here starts with questioning the dream and I loved that connectivity.
The loyalty to the Dream may be a reference to Daredevil #233 at the end of Frank Miller’s run with artist David Mazzucchelli in an arc featuring Nuke, where Cap states that “I’m Loyal to nothing General.. except the dream” as he holds the flag. This portrayal is one where Daredevil educates Cap, who seems mildly naïve, but does do the right thing.
Yet Captain America has never been a flag-clutching propaganda tool. Well in Marvel Fanfare 19, with art by Frank Miller, written Roger Stern and Roger McKenzie Cap is it is a bit overly sickly sycophantic, but…
Created at the end of 1940, a year before America had entered the Second World War, Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, two working class Jewish New Yorkers, the sons of immigrants portrayed Captain America punching Hitler.
Joe Simon who came up with Captain America said of the germination of the character, “’We both read the newspapers, we knew what was going on over in Europe. World events gave us the perfect comic-book villain, Adolf Hitler, with his ranting, goose-stepping and ridiculous moustache. So we decided to create the perfect hero who would be his foil. I did that first sketch of Captain America, and Jack and I did the entire first issue before showing it to (publisher) Martin Goodman at Timely Comics. He loved it immediately.’ he continued ‘But when Captain America came out, America wasn’t yet in the war, so the American Nazis weren’t happy with what we did to their beloved Fuhrer. … We had a couple of personal encounters with the Bund (German American Bund, a US Nazi group 25,000 members). But that didn’t stop us. If anything, it added fuel to the fire.’”
This was serious stuff. In the Comic Book Makers Simon says that “Our irreverent treatment of their Fuhrer infuriated them. We were inundated with a torrent of raging hate mail and vicious obscene telephone calls. The theme was ‘Death to Jews”… “but then, people in the office reported seeing menacing-looking groups of strange men in front of the building at 42nd St… we reported the threats to the police department.”
One day Joe Simon was told there was a call, being told “There’s a man on the phone says he’s Mayor LaGuardia and he wants to speak to the editor of Captain America” and the Mayor personally called to guarantee that no harm would come to the Captain America creators, with Simon quoting him as saying “You boys are doing a good job, The City of New York will see that no harm will come to you.” (“Art Spiegelman: golden age superheroes were shaped by the rise of fascism” in The Guardian.)
The cover was hugely political, and while the stories were in parts fantastical, it put a clear enemy at the forefront, and a hero to take it on. Joe Simon and Jack Kirby went on to serve their country in the Second World War and Captain America has remained, for eighty years.
Politics has been deftly avoided at times. Tales of Suspense #61 from January 1965 saw Captain America travelling to Vietnam to seek out a captured pilot, who is a POW and brother of a WWII veteran who helped Cap.
Cap has to fight a Sumo fighter, who is the champion of a Vietnam General, and then he and Barker escape and in doing so effectively run away from the challenging politics that surrounded the American War in Vietnam for over five years.
Issue 125 of Captain America May 1970, written by Stan Lee with art by Gene Colan, we saw Cap distraught after breaking up with Sharon Carter, and so again we go to Vietnam, he needs something to do….
Cap seeks the kidnapped Dr. Robert Hoskins. Parachuting out of a B-52 he gets captured, and is taken to the Mandarins Castle — Iron Man’s foe. Although he defeats the Mandarin and escapes with Hoskins and this helps all involved get back to peace talks, the final panel, is full of woe but the last line where he says “and the knowledge that one day, even Captain America must surely face defeat” really felt like a subtle commentary on Vietnam.
Though one would love to say that Disney, Marvel are wonderful and perfect, they surely are not, and issues about recognition and payment are well known. Ta-Nehesi Coates spoke out about this recently, and one of the most senior Marvel Execs, Ike Perlmutter supported and worked for Donald Trump (“Meet Reclusive Marvel Billionaire Ike Perlmutter, Trump’s Close Friend” at Business Insider.) And there was much unhappiness amongst fans when Captain America shields or t-Shirts were misappropriated by fascist and racists at right wing protests. Indeed Neal Kirby, son of Jack, said when he saw images of the Storming of the Capital Building (“Captain America creator’s son hits out at Capitol mob’s use of superhero imagery” in The Guardian) — “Captain America has stood as a symbol and protector of our democracy and the rule of law for the past 79 years. He was created by two Jewish guys from New York who hated Nazis and hated bullies. Captain America stood up for the underdog and, as the story was written, even before he gained his strength and process from Army scientists, always stood for what was righteous, and never backed down.” “I was appalled and mortified. These images are disgusting and disgraceful. Captain America is the absolute antithesis of Donald Trump. Where Captain America is selfless, Trump is self-serving. Where Captain America fights for our country and democracy, Trump fights for personal power and autocracy. Where Captain America stands with the common man, Trump stands with the powerful and privileged. Where Captain America is courageous, Trump is a coward. Captain America and Trump couldn’t be more different.”
I hope that we get to see more of Aaron Fischer, and the other Captains America, as Sam and Steve go on their journey and I look forward to Aaron’s adventures, and those of future Captains America, Nichelle Wright, the Captain America of Harrisburg, Joe Gomez, the Kickapoo Tribe’s own Captain America, Ari Agbayani a college campus based Captain America and Air Force Captain Jeremy Merrick who looks out for veterans who have fallen through the tracks, as this five-issue mini-series develops.
By James Bacon: It was big news, proper news when Ta-Nehisi Coates took on Captain America, this was the successful Black Panther writer, and well known thinker, journalist and author taking on one of the most iconic Marvel characters, hugely popular and immediately recognizable, and also one of the trickier characters to get right.
Ta-Nehisi Coates himself wrote about it in The Atlantic (“Why I’m Writing Captain America And why it scares the hell out of me”). I reread the article, thinking about it with excitement, phrases sticking with me “…would be forgiven for thinking of Captain America as an unblinking mascot for American nationalism. In fact, the best thing about the story of Captain America is the implicit irony.” And “Rogers becomes the personification of his country’s egalitarian ideals.” And “Why would anyone believe in The Dream? What is exciting here is not some didactic act of putting my words in Captain America’s head, but attempting to put Captain America’s words in my head. What is exciting is the possibility of exploration, of avoiding the repetition of a voice I’ve tired of.”
The Free Comic Book Day in May 2018 featured a primer story, Cap taking on Nuke clones and we have a voice-over from Alexa Lukin who says: “Like you we rebelled against the old-world elites, like you we embraced revolution, you and I were allies once, revolutionary allies”… “I am told the Super Soldier still calls himself ‘Captain.’ But Captain of what?” She continues “It was all so simple, Captain America was right because America was right and Captain America was good because America was good.” A great start to a fabulous run.
It’s been an interesting few Captain America years. The Ed Brubaker run on Captain America was phenomenal in 2005. I cannot adequately explain, there had been good moments, great moments of art and writing, but suddenly, we had a phenomenal run, Steve Epting’s and Mike Perkins’ art was so good — but the story. Creating Winter Soldier and then seeing Bucky become Captain America. A great seven years on the title, not without controversy, Brubaker got death threats because anti-tax protestors were characterized as “racists” by the Falcon and this upset Tea Party people no end, a placard had “Tea Bag The Libs Before They Tea Bag YOU!” and you know, apologies ensued and Brubaker well, as he said himself to io9 at the time: “I had to shut down my public email because I started getting death threats from, y’know, peaceful protesters.”
You see. Captain America is tricky.
In the intervening years, we had a series of writers, and a number of new issues 1’s and for me, while Sam Wilson Captain America by Nick Spencer was nice enough, overall, it had been only OK, I did like Spencer’s and Waid’s writing.
There had been huge fuss over Captain America being Hydra, although this was a ruse, it was someone looking like Steve Rogers. The concept of a fake Captain America doing heinous things is not exactly new, indeed Stan Lee used the concept in Strange Tales 114 (Nov 1963) to revive Captain America, having the Acrobat pretend to be Cap and first fight with and then get uncovered by the Human Torch. The end left a question for readers “This story was really a test! to see if you too would like Captain America to return! As usual your letters will give us the answer” and so we got Cap in Avengers #4 in 1964, in Tales of Suspense 58, and then in Captain America 117, where we meet Sam Wilson for the first time, the Red Skull is masquerading as Captain America. A well-used theme concept, a trope even.
And so here we were. July 4, 2018 and Ta-Nehisi Coates was writing, Lenil Franci Yu on pencils and a number of covers, although the Alex Ross one being quite amazing*. And we meet our main protagonists Alexa Lukin neé Volkoff and the mystically powerful Selene Gallio. The stresses of the previous stories are all apparent, people have lost faith in Captain America, and indeed there is considerable change. Men once jailed are now in leadership roles, because they opposed Hydra. The Power Elite are a new group trying to usurp power and Captain America has lost trust, and is expected to sit out incidents. While all this is going on, the time and space given to the relationship between Sharon Carter and Steve Rogers is brilliant, allowing reflection and there is a lot of that in these comics. Steve gets ample chance to engage with others or observe, to see what Hydra did, and how the bad guys fixed problems for people…
There are some lovely twists and turns, Sharon gets part of her soul stolen, Selene helps Alexa Lukin to resurrect her husband, Alexander but he has the mind of the Red Skull. Steve gets stitched up for killing Thaddeaus Ross and is imprisoned and Sharon calls upon The Dryad and the Daughters of Liberty, who are pretty fabulous.
First formed in the 18th century, they predate Captain America and the first Dryad was Harriet Tubman. The Daughters of Liberty are, Agatha Harkness, Aja-Adanna as Shuri, Ava Ayala as White Tiger, Bobbi Morse as Mockingbird, Jessica Drew as Spider-Woman, Maya Lopez as Echo, Misty Knight, Sue Richards as Invisible Woman, Toni Ho and the Dryad who is someone else and has a wonderful history.
After prison, we see Captain America on the run and portrayed as actually the Hydra Supreme commander, meanwhile Sharon is trying to figure out what is going on, and at the same time helping Steve come to terms with where he is, and there are some great interactions about what law and order is with Ava as they go on their first mission, to take on a Militia who are hunting illegal immigrants. Steve wondering if it ‘was it ever as simple as I remembered, was it me and Bucky versus Hitler and Zemo? or was it a Jim Crow Army making common cause with Stalin?’
Here we meet the “Watchdogs” masked militia, who wear a red mask with a line of the Bars and Stars at an obtuse angle. While Nick Fury has decided to track down Steve and soon we have Sin and Crossbones and John Walker showing up, as Steve and the Daughters of Liberty go from the Watchdogs on to seek out the Cop Killing Scourge which presents some interesting moments of further thoughtfulness. Linking the Confederate Battle Flag to an armed Militia targeting immigrants where police do not seem to care and through inaction endorse or condone the action, made one think of MAGA aspects in the USA, and the inherent link between the Confederacy, racism and violence and hatred against immigrants.
Ta-Nehisi Coates takes us on quite a series of adventures full of excitement and action, meanwhile weaving the story cleverly, and the concept of idealism, dreams and Captain America himself is well explored. Scourge is not just a criminal but an idea, and as we wheel around following the story, it feels like to so many current issues in the USA, are deftly and gently looked at. This ranged from recognition of Harriet Tubman, to the powerfulness of the Daughters of Liberty to the nature of power, powerful criminals, business people and politicians, sometimes changing role to suit their own egotistical greedy motives we see the, jailed going to jail keeper, and corruption and brutality
Adamsville, a Christian town refuge where down-on-their-luck men can find work and welcome, is in reality where Selene has been vampirically feeding off their souls, and its thanks to Sharon the battle is won, and in a really impressive way. This brought in an interesting religious aspect and one that I recognized, the church that offers with one hand, utterly brutalising with the other.
As I reflected on the second reading, I realized, that one of the best things about this whole run, is that really, it is Sharon Carter’s story. While yes, we follow Steve Rogers who is Captain America around a lot, it really felt like Sharon’s story and a chance for Steve to take things in, to contemplate as well and fight, while her actions and decisions lead a lot of the route of this journey, Captain America relied upon Sharon, and at times she had to work around or behind him, this was her story, and it’s a good one. The art is amazing. Straight away having Alex Ross on covers, was fabulous, his painted work is incredible in its realism, and he really can capture a moment of action and movement, while there were a number of variant covers, for those preferring a different style. I thought Leinil Francis Yu and then Adam Kubert did fabulous pencil work, and I was so impressed and Leonard Kirk likewise finished the run off in style. The action scenes and portrayals of characters were great, all the time it all worked to complement the other components of the comics. Again touching current events, the May cover of Captain America featured the Capitol Building, Ross neatly repossessing the important building that had been stormed earlier that year.
In the last issue, Ta-Nehisi Coates spoke of “a great honour to fulfil a childhood dream — writing for Marvel comics”…. “was more than a childhood fantasy. Grappling with Steve and T’Challa, trying to understand them as people” and ended the piece by saying “And thank you to the fans for reading. I tried to stay true to nothing — except the dream.”
Well in many regards, Ta-Nehisi Coates worked exceptionally hard for the fans, the history of Captain America was well utilized, it’s hard to know if he researched the hell out of it, or is just a very serious fan, I suspect the later. Nuke who debuted in Daredevil was first out of the traps, we also had The Watchdogs from issue 335 (Nov 1987), who then were right wing radical extremist militia, who wanted to hang Lemar Hoskins who was at the time Bucky to his friend John Walker who was Captain America at the time, and of course Ta-Nehisi Coates had John Walker as the Secret Agent appearing in this run. Yet whether it be Bucky Barnes, Peggy Carter, Agatha Harkness, Bulldozer, Misty Knight, Wrecker, they are all portrayed well and with what I felt was a total understanding of the characters and history.
I had hoped that the systematic problems that America has would be addressed, and in many respects, I felt they were, maybe it was hints, immigration, police issues, police getting killed, the blue line, political expedience, sometimes it was oblique in nature, but in many instances, not only were bigger issues looked at, but also the issues of the moment, seeped in, but were delicately fictionalized or portrayed, so as to gently encourage what I consider proper thinking, without causing a huge fuss. Throughout the time, America was challenged, but those of us reading Captain America, saw that here at least, in a fantastical world, Captain America was a fighter for those who needed defending, who stood against racism, fought for all, even if he had to question it, who relied on brilliant women, were guided by them even, and who happy to reflect, question and develop himself, and egalitarian.
The story came together well and in the last number of issues as matters get resolved, there is a lovely tension and heightening and one knows that we will be presented with an ending, and indeed we were, but with lots of potential. As if Coates knew that he had to do more than just end, he left some beautiful aspects that future writers can really work with, and I would like to see The Daughters of Liberty in their own title.
One of the great things about Coates is that he spoke to Evan Narcisse about his run (“The writer reflects on his half-decade run in the Marvel universe and the choices he made along the way” at Polygon.) I held off reading until I was finished my own full second read of the run. He defended comic book creatives. He took the industry to task. He said: “I’m talking very specifically here, I wish they found ways to compensate the author of the greatest Winter Soldier stories that you’re ever going to read. I don’t love that there’s a Falcon and Winter Soldier show on TV and I’m hearing from Ed [Brubaker] that he can’t even get in contact with … I just don’t love that. I don’t love that. Look, I had a great time. I had a tremendous, tremendous time writing for Marvel. I am indebted to Marvel.” he continued later and said “’The Death of Captain America’ is just one of the greatest stories I’ve ever read. I’m talking about the volumes. It is fucking incredible, ridiculously good. When I was going on Captain America, I thought about that. I was like, if I could get anywhere near this, I might have done something. I didn’t. I didn’t, by the way. But to have that, and to have him bleed into that book, to have Steve Epting bleed into that book the way he did, to see folks making billions over top of billions, and for my man to say he can’t get a phone call returned. I don’t know what the relationship will be like in the future, but as a creator, you think about that. You think about how people treat other people. You think about how corporations treat other people. And I just don’t love it, dude.”
He also spoke about Captain America; “He is inherently political from jump. There’s never a point where he’s not speaking to the real world. And you do take some amount of inspiration from what’s going on around you. I think Stan Lee and Jack Kirby and everyone else advanced the Steve Rogers myth in the moment they had him coming out of the ice, in the ’60s. It made him timeless. It’s probably one of the most brilliant tropes I’ve ever seen. Because it’s ultimately a commentary on the Greatest Generation, and the idea of the Greatest Generation literally being the ‘Greatest Generation.’ This guy’s an embodiment of the Greatest Generation faced with a postmodern world. It is such an incredible setup, and he’s constantly disappointed. Because who can live up to that? Who can live up to that?”
I just love it when we get to hear writers on comics, and the industry, it’s just so very welcome, and he spoke with such integrity and insight, honesty. That is real honesty.
I felt that throughout his run on Captain America. He was working hard and being honest to the characters, story and to the fans, who want an enjoyable and good read and yet he was also doing as he set out. Now he is off to write the Superman movie for J.J. Abrams, but I do hope we can get him back to comic books. As issue 30 approached, I had hoped that that the United States of Captain America would start after, but comics schedules are hard and there was a bit of overlap, so I decided to reread Captain America 1 to 29 to refresh for Ta-Nehisi Coates’ final issue — it’s a good run. He addressed so many issues in a gentle thoughtful, allegorical or metaphorical way, like — it musta been hard to find that balance but it’s been really good Captain America. Tricky to get right, but really very good.
(1) CLARION ONLINE EVENTS. Each year Clarion West brings the Write-a-thon to the global community. This is the second year it’s been presented virtually. Check out the free virtual panels and readings coming your way.
Register at the link for “Uncovering Cover Art” featuring Grace P. Fong, Sloane Leong, Aimee Fleck, and John Jennings, on Monday, July 12 at 6:30 p.m. Pacific.
While books capture our hearts, covers are what call to readers from the shelves. What makes an eye-catching, imagination-sparking cover? What do authors need to know about the process? Come learn the answers from some of the hottest artists and book designers in the industry.
You also can register at this link for“Mental Health & Writing” with Susan Palwick, Chaplain, Cassie Alexander, ICU RN, and Justin C. Key, MD on Monday, July 19 at 6:30 p.m. Pacific.
Authors and other artists are often stereotyped as struggling with our mental health. With increased emphasis in media and culture toward understanding and promoting mental health, writers have more resources and self-care tools than ever before. Learn about establishing healthy writing habits and writing about difficult subjects from a panel of authors who are also professionals in fields related to health and wellness.
Humans are accustomed to seeing ourselves as the rulers of creation, apex beings with the right to rearrange the world for our convenience. For many people this is a central tenet of faith, little challenged by the occasional pandemic or environmental collapse. SF authors, however, are willing to consider that this just might be wrong. Many works have explored what it would be like if we were one day to discover that superior entities now ruled our world. Humans would be domestic animals, mere puppies of Terra…
Consider the following five works that challenge human supremacy….
(3) MORDOR ON THE RIVIERA. “An Enduring Fellowship” in Deadline Disruptors+Canneson pages 34-41 can be read magazine-style at Issuu.
In 2001, a lavish Cannes part, and 26 minutes of footage changed the course of film history. As Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings approaches its 20th anniversary, Mike Fleming Jr. gathers key players to look back at a breathtaking gamble.
(4) VIDEO GAME LEGENDS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster, Designated Reader, Financial Times.] In the July 7 Financial Times, Tom Faber discusses urban legends about games that drove users mad (mad, I tell you, mad!)
Much gaming creepypasta revolves around video games for children such as Pokemon and Mario. There is the story of Herobrine, a misty-eyed character who stalks Minecraft, only glimpsed in the distance or through fog. Another concerns a mod for fantasy adventure Morrowwind named “Jvk1166z.esp’ which causes characters to stare blankly at the sky while a figure with long, spidery limbs haunts the edges of your screen. Neither myth has been substantiated.
Some popular legends concern haunted games that probably never existed. Polybius was supposedly a 1980s arcade game, created as part of a US government experiment, that induced psychoactive reactions in players. More recently, a YouTube video emerged called ‘Sad Satan’ that showed a creepy corridor in a mysterious game apparently downloaded on the dark web, Online commented eager jumped on these, untangling references to serial killers and psy-ops, but both are likely hoaxes dreamt up by horror fans.
Michael K. Hovermale says in a press release that an unnamed individual (I’m guessing Stephen Dinehart) apparently ran all the social media accounts for TSR, Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, Ernie Gygax, Justin LaNasa, and Giantlands. He goes on to say that this person has been replaced, and that all posts on those social media accounts are “invalid”. There’s no mention of Stephen Dinehart’s social media accounts though.
TSR has replaced the individual that was serving as both social media manager and information technology manager for TSR and The Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum. This individual was also the social media manager for Giantlands, Justin LaNasa, and Ernie Gygax.
All posts on all social media accounts for TSR and Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum should be considered invalid.
All posts on all social media accounts of Justin LaNasa and Ernie Gygax should be considered invalid.
TSR is in the process of recovering the social media accounts of TSR, The Dungeon Hobby Shop Museum, and the personal Twitter accounts of Justin LaNasa and Ernie Gygax….
Ernie Gygax: “I wish to speak directly to the transgender community regarding this incident. The individual who was speaking to you on Twitter does not represent me or TSR in any way. Trans people are always welcome to play with us. Everyone is welcome at our table.”
(6) THE MARS MY DESTINATION. Dwayne Day discusses a 1969 proposed NASA Mars rocket that inspired Gordy Dickson, Stephen Baxter and Lego builders today in “Flights to Mars, real and LEGO” in The Space Review.
…Boeing’s design [submitted in 1968] has shown remarkable staying power and still appears in artwork decades later. Now, Boeing’s design has been recreated in LEGO form, in three-dimensional plastic glory that you can build yourself….
The political winds had shifted against expensive human space exploration long before the summer of 1969 and the Mars mission, which was only supposed to be the capstone at the top of NASA’s ambitious plans, never had a chance for approval. NASA officials soon found themselves scrambling to justify any human spaceflight activity at all, let alone the exquisite program they had envisioned.
But by this time, the Mars spaceship design had gone public. Marshall Space Flight Center artists had produced artwork showing the multiple phases of the Mars mission and that artwork was soon published in many places, such as books about future spaceflight. The Apollo-shaped MEM also became iconic and was also illustrated by numerous artists. Although the public knew that a future Mars mission had not been approved, they could reasonably expect that if it eventually happened, this was what it would look like.
In 1978, Canadian-American science fiction author Gordon Dickson published the novel The Far Call, about a mission to Mars which employed a spacecraft similar to the one outlined in 1969. It also appeared in Allen Drury’s heavy-handed 1971 book The Throne of Saturn. In 1996, Stephen Baxter published Voyage, which also used a similar spacecraft, although an accident involving a nuclear propulsion stage has tragic consequences. (See: “Space alternate history before For All Mankind: Stephen Baxter’s NASA trilogy,” The Space Review, June 8, 2020.)
You had one of the best announcements of the pandemic, in my opinion, when you suited up and revealed that you are directing Star Wars: Rogue Squadron. How is development going?
It’s going amazing. I had been on it already for six months before I even announced that, so we’re pretty deep into it. We’re finishing a script, crewing up, and it’s all going wonderful. I’m so excited about the story and excited that we’re the next chapter of Star Wars, which is such a responsibility and such an opportunity to really start some new things. It’s really exciting in that way.
What is the consulting process like with the Star Wars brain trust?
There’s plenty of it. It’s an entirely different way of working. I’m on the phone with all of them and doing Zoom meetings with everybody involved in Star Wars all the time. I’m fairly free to do the story that we want to do, but you really need to know who’s done what, who’s doing what, where it goes and how it works, and what designs have been done before. It’s a whole other way of working that I’m getting up to speed on.
(8) WILLIAM SMITH (1933-2021). Actor William Smith, famous as the opponent of Clint Eastwood’s Philo Beddoe in the climactic bare-knuckle fight that ends Any Which Way You Can (1980), but whose 274 career credits includes many genre productions, died July 5 at the age of 88. The Hollywood Reporterprofile mentioned these sff TV and movie appearances:
An inductee into the Muscle Beach Venice Bodybuilding Hall of Fame, Smith was perfect for the role as Adonis, a henchman for Zsa Zsa Gabor’s evil Minerva on Batman. On the ABC show’s final episode in 1968, he was on the receiving end of a Whamm!!, Zowie!, Splatt!, Crash! and Sock! from Batman, Robin and Batgirl.
…He also played the father of the title character in Conan the Barbarian [1982], writing his own lines for his monologue that opens the film. “No one, no one in this world can you trust … not men, not women, not beasts … this you can trust,” he says pointing to the movie’s iconic steel sword.
…Smith appeared in the cult movies Piranha (1972), where he said his stunt with a very large anaconda almost cost him his life, as an FBI agent in Invasion of the Bee Girls (1973), and as a drag racer in David Cronenberg’s Fast Company (1979).
(9) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
July 9, 1982 – Thirty-nine years ago, Tron premiered. The producer was Donald Kushner. It was written and directed by Steven Lisberger from the story by himself and Bonnie MacBird. The cast was Jeff Bridges, Bruce Boxleitner, David Warner, Cindy Morgan and Barnard Hughes. The film was well received by critics with Ebert in particular loving it. However it did poorly at the Box Office and the studio wrote it off as a loss. (The sequel, Tron: Legacy, was a box office success.) Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a decent rating of sixty-nine percent.
(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born July 9, 1911 — Mervyn Peake. Best remembered for the Gormenghast series which is quite delightfully weird. Most fans hold that there are but there novels in the series (Titus Groan, Gormenghast and Titus Alone) though there’s a novella, “Boy in Darkness”, that is a part of it. It has been adapted for radio three times and television once, and Gaiman is writing the script for a forthcoming series which as now isn’t out. (Died 1968.)
Born July 9, 1938 — Brian Dennehy. He was Walter in the Cocoon films, and, though it’s more genre adjacent than actually genre, Lt. Leo McCarthy in F/X and F/X 2. He also voiced Django in Ratatouille. His very last performance was as Jerome Townsend in the “Sing, Sing, Sing” episode of Penny Dreadful: City of Angels series. (Died 2020.)
Born July 9, 1944 — Glen Cook, 77. With the exception of the new novel which is still on my To Be Read list, I’ve read his entire excellent Black Company series. I’ve also mostly liked his far lighter Garrett P.I. series (though not the last novel for reasons I’ll not discuss here) which it seems unfortunately he’s abandoned. And I should read the Instrumentalities of the Night as I’ve heard good things about it.
Born July 9, 1945 – Dean Koontz, 76. The genres of of mystery. horror, fantasy and science fiction are all home to him. Author of over a hundred novels, his first novel was SF — it being Star Quest (not in print) published as an Ace Double with with Doom of the Green Planet by Emil Petaja. ISFDB claims over half of his output is genre, I’d say that a low estimate.
Born July 9, 1954 — Ellen Klages, 67. Her novelette “Basement Magic” won a Nebula Award for Best Novelette. I strongly recommend Portable Childhoods, a collection of her short fiction, which published by Tachyon Publications, my favorite publisher of fantasy. They released another collection from her, Wicked Wonders, which is equally wonderful. Passing Strange, her 1940 set San Francisco novel, which won a BSFA Award and a World Fantasy Award, is also really great. Ok, I really like her.
Born July 9, 1971 — Scott Grimes, 50. He’s Lieutenant Gordon Malloy on The Orville. He did show up once in the Trek verse, playing Eric in the “Evolution“ episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation. And you might recognize him as Bradley Brown in the first two Critters films.
Born July 9, 1978 — Linda Park, 43. Best known for her portrayal of communications officer Hoshi Sato on the Enterprise. Her first genre role was Hannah in Jurassic Park III, and she was Renee Hansen in the Spectres filmwhich Marina Sirtis was also in. Her latest genre role was in For All Mankind as Amy Chang in the “Pathfinder” episode.
Born July 9, 1995 — Georgina Henley, 26. English actress, best remembered for her portrayal of Lucy Pevensie throughout the Chronicles of Narnia film franchise from age ten to age fifteen. She’s listed as having an unspecified role in an untitled Game of Throne prequel series but given the number of those proposed, this may or may not exist. Actually I’d bet on it not happening.
(11) COMICS SECTION.
Macanudo shows our future successors studying human extinction.
Blondie reveals that Dagwood Bumstead and Baby Yoda live in the same universe!
Sure enough. Artists Michael Charles, Maurice Terry Jr., Michael Brooks, and Benjamin Carbonero of Bad Cog Studios illustrated the 24-page comic at the request of Third Planet owner T.J. Johnson and his attorney, Cris Feldman. “I was really intrigued by it because, first of all, I got a lawyer calling me to do a creative project,” Charles told the Chronicle. The full-color comic shows the store staff fending off an onslaught of ceramic plates, lit cigarette butts that they allege have twice caused fires, and no fewer than fourteen fire extinguishers tossed from hotel balconies onto the store’s roof. One panel depicts store employees using buckets to collect water as rain leaks through the damaged roof onto the shelves.
Is this legal?
It is, in fact! It’s unconventional, but the law doesn’t require that pleadings in civil cases be black-and-white typed documents formatted in any particular way. Still, there are good reasons why most lawsuits look the same: one judge might be amused by an unusual pleading, while another may consider it beneath the dignity of the court; a gimmicky pleading might undermine the gravity of the case; and, of course, not every suit lends itself to creative storytelling. The pleading from Third Planet is a unique case. It’s a third amended petition, which means that the parties involved are already in the middle of the legal process. The store and its attorneys know who the judge reviewing the claim is, and whether he’s the sort to hold this gimmick against them. Also, according to the pleading, lawyers for the defendant claimed that they didn’t understand the previous petition, which meant that filing it as an easy-to-comprehend comic book fits the time-honored legal tradition of being snarky to opposing counsel.
Dean Cain was still trending Friday on Twitter after criticisms he made about the new Captain America comic series earlier in the week on Fox & Friends.
The former Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star and Donald Trump supporter, bashed The United States of Captain America comic series due to a line in the first issue in which Cap says the American dream for some “isn’t real.”
Cain took issue with that notion, saying everyone in the country should support the U.S.A.
“I love the concept of Captain America, but I am so tired of this wokeness and anti-Americanism,” Cain said on the Fox News Channel program. “In my opinion, America is the greatest country in history. It’s not perfect. We are constantly striving for a more perfect union, but I believe she’s the most fair, equitable country anyone’s ever seen, and that’s why people are clamoring to get here from all over the globe.”
Calling himself a “revolutionary” for supporting America these days, Cain added, “Do these people ever travel outside of America? Do they go to other countries where they have to deal with governments who aren’t anywhere near as fair as the United States? I don’t think they do. I do it all the time, and I kiss the soil when I get back.”
Needless to say, his comments did not go over well with most, a lion’s share of the reaction on social media blasting Cain for his short-sightedness.
Cain later admitted that he had not actually read the comic, he was just responding to a conservative outlet that reported on one line in the book to which ultra Right-wingers then dug in their claws….
The long-standing tradition of Stan Lee appearing in every Marvel Comics film, television show and video game has come to an end – “The Simpsons” showrunner, Al Jean, says Marvel prevented them from adding a cameo appearance of the comic book legend in their new animated short, “The Good, the Bart, and the Loki.”
In the short, Tom Hiddleston, as Loki, makes his debut appearance in “The Simpsons” universe for a cartoon that makes an array of allusions to other MCU prominent characters. But there is no sign of Lee.
Jean told ComicBook.com that he and his team considered inserting a tribute to Lee upon discovering unused audio files of the creative genius from a prior engagement with the show.
“It wasn’t a joke,” Jean said. “We just thought, ‘Oh, we have Stan Lee audio from when he was on our show. Could we cameo him in?’”
However, Marvel summarily nixed the plan due to a new policy they have established concerning the beloved author.
“They said that their policy is he doesn’t cameo now that he’s passed away. Which is a completely understandable policy,” Jean explained. “That was their only note and that was, of course, easily done.”
(15) AGAINST THE GRAINS. “World’s biggest sandcastle constructed in Denmark” reports The Guardian. At 21.16 metres in height, it is more than 3 metres taller than the previous holder, says Guinness World Records.
The world’s tallest sand sculpture, towering more than 20 meters and comprising nearly 5,000 tonnes of sand according to its designers, is pictured under construction in Blokhus, Denmark, July 7, 2021. The top of the structure features a depiction of the coronavirus.
Its Dutch creator, Wilfred Stijger, was assisted by 30 of the world’s best sand sculptors. He said he wanted the castle to represent the power the coronavirus has had over the world since the beginning of the pandemic. On top of the sandcastle is a model of the virus wearing a crown.
“It’s ruling our lives everywhere,” Stijger said. “It tells you what to do … It tells you to stay away from your family and not go to nice places. Don’t do activities, stay home.”
To make it more cohesive, the sand contains approximately 10% clay and a layer of glue was applied after it was completed so that it could stand up to the chilly and windy conditions of the autumn and winter.
Blokhus residents have been delighted to see local features incorporated into the sandcastle, such as beach houses and lighthouses, as well as depictions of popular activities such as windsurfing and kitesurfing.
The castle is expected to stand until the heavy frost sets in, probably next February or March.
(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. The Danish Road Safety Council reminds people that if you’re going to invade another country you should wear a helmet!
[Thanks to Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, James Davis Nicoll, Rich Horton, John A Arkansawyer, Michael Toman, Rich Lynch, John King Tarpinian, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Jon Meltzer.]
MILES MORALES: SPIDER-MAN #28 CAPTAIN AMERICA 80TH VARIANT COVER by IBAN COELLO & ALEJANDRO SÀNCHEZ
This year, Marvel Comics is honoring the 80th anniversary of Captain America with a new collection of variant covers. Throughout July, Marvel’s ongoing series will feature reimagined versions of iconic heroes including Black Widow, Miles Morales, and Spider-Man.
See the other seven Captain American 80th Anniversary Variant Covers following the jump.
(1) STARTING A STORY. This compelling thread starts here.
Because I was curious tonight…
English: "Once upon a time…" Arabic: "There was, oh what there was (or there wasn't) in the oldest of days and ages and times…" Armenian: "There was, there was not…" Czech: "Beyond seven mountain ranges, beyond seven rivers…"
— Find Nome on Bluesky (@NomeDaBarbarian) June 23, 2021
Anyway, the more complete list I was drawing from – I mostly just picked my favorites.
Check out the ritualized versions of "And they lived happily ever after…"https://t.co/J1DOVSnI40
— Find Nome on Bluesky (@NomeDaBarbarian) June 23, 2021
…But the Nebula and Hugo Award-winning author who explored themes of gender fluidity, climate change, authoritarianism, and the rise of Big Pharma is perhaps more widely read now than ever, and that phenomenon is destined to grow with the publication Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi, due out in January of 2022.
Zoboi, who was a National Book Award finalist for her young adult novel American Street, is not just a Butler devotee, but was mentored by the writer. Now, she has written an ode to her told in poems and prose. Here, Oprah Daily shares an exclusive sneak peak of the forthcoming volume, just in time to say: Happy Birthday Octavia Butler.
…The first night of our film festival, we watched GET OVER IT, the teen movie with Ben Foster, Kristen Dunst, and Martin Short. Berke, played by Ben Foster, has been dumped by Allison for another guy, so he tries out for the school musical DeFores-Oates (Martin Short) is directing, to try to get her back. He’s helped by Kelly (Kirsten Dunst) who really likes him, but he doesn’t even see her because he’s completely obsessed with getting Hermia back. Sound familiar?
The movie doesn’t do the whole play–there’s no Pyramus and Thisbe and Bottom’s just a walk-on, but there are fairies (including the rapper Sisqo), and a stoned stage crew who double as Puck, and the movie’s surprisingly faithful to the play, except for the ending, when Berke takes things into his own hands. GET OVER IT captures even better than Shakespeare the agony you go through when you’re in love with someone who doesn’t even know you exist.
The second night we watched the 1999 A MIDSUMMER’S NIGHT DREAM (or as I call it, the Ally McBeal version,) starring Calista Flockhart and Christian Bale, with Kevin Kline as Bottom and Stanley Tucci as Puck. It’s a good movie overall and lots of stuff I loved–the lovers flee to the woods on bicycles, Puck is very funny and as much of an annoyance to his boss Oberon, Michelle Pfeiffer makes a sexy and funny Titania, and Max Wright is beyond wonderful as the reluctant actor dragged into the play at the last minute to be the Man in the Moon, with a cigarette dangling from his lip and a dog getting into the act.
But there are three moments of true genius in the play…
(4) GOODBYE TO AMAZON. Amanda S. Greene continues her step-by-step explanation of everything involved in shifting her books away from the Amazon platform in “Moving Forward or Onward or Whatever” at Mad Genius Club. There are a lot of issues that require thoughtful decisions.
…I knew when I started it more would be involved than just uploading my books to the various storefronts or 3rd party aggregator. I hadn’t anticipated having to retrain myself to think in ways I haven’t since going exclusively with Amazon.
Without going into too much detail, I had to look at how to get my books into the various storefronts, which storefronts I wanted to go with, etc. Initially, I decided to upload direct to BN, Kobo and Apple. I’d use Draft2Digital for the rest. I’ve changed my mind. The time saved alone by using D2D for everything is worth the few pennies per sale I pay to D2D to handle things for me. All I have to do is upload a generic ePub of the book, fill in the blanks and they do the rest.
There is an added benefit of allowing them to handle it. Draft2Digital has a “sister” site called Books2Read. I’ve mentioned the site before but I am really starting to appreciate how powerful of a tool it can be for a writer. For example, here’s the landing page for Witchfire Burning. It shows the cover, gives the description and below lists other books (showing covers) I’ve written. It’s a much more attractive landing page than the product page at Amazon. If you click on the “get it now” button, it will take you to a new page where you can choose which storefront you want to visit (and I need to update it to pull in the Amazon link).
The great thing about something like this is you can use it as your landing page for the book on your website….
Yesterday, I reserved my hotel room for Discon III. And that put me in mind of the first and only time I was on a con committee.
This was in the 1970s, before I made my first sale. I’d only been to a few science fiction conventions but I knew the guy in charge of putting on a con whose name I conveniently forget and, doubtless for reasons of fannish politics, he filled the committee with his friends, despite the fact we none of us had any experience at the tasks we were assigned.
Long story, short. I did a terrible job. And I’ve never volunteered to serve again. Because even if everything goes perfectly, your reward for putting on a convention is not getting to experience it.
So I’d like to express my gratitude to the Discon III staff, both present and past. That includes everybody who quit for reasons of principle and everybody who decided to tough it out, also for reasons of principle.
This has been a star-crossed year for the Worldcon. I won’t bother to list all the problems: Acts of God, acts of Man, acts of Fans. We all know them. It must have been maddening to be at the white-hot center of them all.
Which makes this a good time to say: Thank you.
(6) FINE DISTINCTION. And one of John Scalzi’s comments:
I disagree. The recent Hugo finalists/winners have been exemplary and have spotlit both the talent working in, and the growing commercial appeal of, the SF/F lit genre. The *award* is in great shape. The *ceremony* for them is having its hiccups. Not precisely the same thing. https://t.co/2IzUYYaY5x
(7) VISIT FROM THE DOCTOR. Jo Martin will be a guest at Gallifrey One: Thirty Second to Midnight, to be held in LA in February 2022.
It’s with great pleasure that we can now announce that JO MARTIN will be joining us next February as a confirmed guest, for her very first Doctor Who convention appearance in North America!
Jo Martin became an immediately beloved part of Doctor Who mythology when she appeared as Ruth Clayton in series 12’s “Fugitive of the Judoon” opposite Jodie Whittaker… a woman who was, in fact, a previously unknown earlier incarnation of the Doctor herself! As the landmark first Doctor of color to be shown in the long-running series, she also appeared in the season finale “The Timeless Children.”…
(8) ONLINE PROMETHEUS AWARDS TO INCLUDE LFS-REASON PANEL. The Libertarian Futurist Society couch plans for their online award ceremony in these terms:
In 2021, LFS members will have a rare opportunity to watch and enjoy the annual Prometheus Awards ceremony and an interesting related panel discussion for free online – without having to register for a Worldcon.
Reason magazine will be the media sponsor of the hour-plus panel discussion, which will immediately follow the online half-hour Prometheus Awards ceremony for Best Novel and Best Classic Fiction (Hall of Fame). Reason editor Katherine Mangu-Ward and Reason’s book editor Jesse Walker will join LFS leaders, including board president William H. Stoddard, on the hour-plus panel discussion along with, we hope, the 2021 Prometheus Award-winning novelist (tba).
(9) VETERAN COMICS READER. James Bacon was interviewed by Football Comics Podcast Champ/We are United, as hosts Rab and Gull take a little break from all the footie and have a look at War Comics, covering classic titles like Battle, Commando, Victor, Warlord, and many more. “Champ/We Are United Episode 13: War Comics”.
Given the popularity of The Masked Singer, we can ascertain that viewers enjoy watching people dressed up in strange costumes. And given the general state of reality television over the past two decades, we can also conclude that people enjoy watching people go on bizarre dates. Netflix has endeavored to combine these two irrefutable tenets in one convenient package. Thus, we have Sexy Beasts, in which elaborate-prosthetic-laden singles meet for a night of “nonjudgmental” romance. At least that’s how they’re touting it. Take a look at the trailer, which features dolphins, demons, canids, scarecrows, insects, bovines, and a handful of uncategorizables….
(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
June 23, 1976 — On this date in 1976, Logan’s Run premiered. It was directed by Michael Anderson and produced by Saud David. The screenplay by David Zelag Goodman is based on the 1967 Logan’s Run novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson. It starred Michael York, Jenny Agutter, Richard Jordan, Roscoe Lee Browne, Farrah Fawcett, and Peter Ustinov. Though critical reception was at best mixed, it was a box success and is considered to have MGM from financial ruin. It was nominated at SunCon, a year in which no film was awarded a Hugo. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it an excellent sixty-seven percent rating.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 23, 1945 — Eileen Gunn, 76. Her story “Coming to Terms” based on her friendship with Avram Davidson won the Nebula Award for Best Short Story. Her stories are in Stable Strategies and Others, Steampunk Quartet and Questionable Practices. With L. Timmel Duchamp, she penned The WisCon Chronicles, Vol. 2: Provocative Essays on Feminism, Race, Revolution, and the Future. She’s well stocked at the usual digital suspects.
Born June 23, 1951 — Greg Bear, 70. Blood Music which won both a Nebula Award and a Hugo Award is an amazing read. I’m also very fond of the Songs of Earth and Power duology, The Infinity Concerto and The Serpent Mage, and found his Queen of Angels a fascinating mystery. He’s deeply stocked at the usual suspects.
Born June 23, 1953 — Russell Mulcahy, 68. You’ll likely remember him as directing Highlander, but he was responsible also for Highlander II: The Quickening, but disowned it after the completion-bond company really messed with production. He would later released this film in Highlander II: The Renegade Version. He also directed episodes of The Hunger, On The Beach, Perversions of Science and Tales from The Crypt.
Born June 23, 1957 — Frances McDormand, 64. She’s God. Well at least The Voice of God in Good Omens. Which in on Amazon y’all. Her first genre role was in the “Need to Know” episode of Twilight Zone followed shortly thereafter by being Julie Hastings in Sam Raimi’s excellent Dark Man. She’s The Handler in Æon Flux and that’s pretty much everything genre worth noting.
Born June 23, 1963 — Cixin Liu, 58. He’s a winner of a Hugo Award for The Three-Body Problem and a Locus Award for Death’s End. He also a nine-time recipient of the Galaxy Award, the Chinese State sponsored SFF Awards. Anyone got a clue what’s going on with the alleged Amazon production of The Three-Body Problem as a film? Is it still on?
Born June 23, 1964 — Joss Whedon, 57. I think I first encounter him with the Buffy tv series. And I hold that Angel was far better told. Firefly was a lovely series that ended far too soon. And don’t get me started on the Avengers: Age of Ultron…
Born June 23, 1972 — Selma Blair, 49. Liz Sherman in Hellboy, and Hellboy II: The Golden Army. She voiced the character also in the animated Hellboy: Sword of Storms and Hellboy: Blood and Iron as well. She’s Stevie Wayne in The Fog, a slasher film a few years later and was Cyane on the “Lifeblood” episode of Xena: Warrior Princess. Later on, she’d be Jessica Harris in the “Infestation” episode of Lost in Space.
Born June 23, 2000 — Caitlin Blackwood, 21. She was the young Amelia Pond in these Doctor Who episodes; “The Eleventh Hour”, “The Big Bang”, “Let’s Kill Hitler”, and “The God Complex”, and had a cameo in “The Angels Take Manhattan”. She’s the cousin of Karen Gillan who plays the adult Pond. No idea how she was cast in the role but it was brilliantly inspired casting!
The American comic book is inseparable from foreign policy, the great twentieth-century battles between capitalism and totalitarianism, and the political goals of the world’s preeminent military and cultural power. The history of the American comic book is a story of visual culture, commerce, race, and policy. These four fields are analogous to the four colors used to print comic books: cyan, magenta, yellow, and black. They lie atop one another, smearing, blending, and bleeding to create a complete image. To separate them is to disassemble a coherent whole and to shatter a picture that in its entirety shows us how culture and diplomacy were entangled during the mid-twentieth century.
THE EARLY YEARS, 1935–1945
The period from 1935 to 1945 was defined by images of darkness and light. The comic industry itself—populated by otherwise unemployable immigrants, racial minorities, and political radicals—emerged from the shadows of the New York publishing world….
…This is the unfortunate fate of most books, even literary prize-winners. In fact, of the 62 books that won Australia’s Miles Franklin Award between 1957 and 2019, 23 are currently not available as ebooks, 40 are not available as audiobooks, and 10 are not available anywhere, in any format whatsoever. They’re officially out of print. This is something that Untapped: The Australian Literary Heritage Project is trying to rectify.
“Untapped is a collaboration between authors, libraries and researchers, and it came about because most of Australia’s literary heritage is out of print. You can’t find it anywhere,” says project lead, Associate Professor Rebecca Giblin from Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne. “Think about it. If so many Miles Franklin winners are out of print, you can imagine how bad availability must be for memoir, and histories, and other local stories.”
Untapped’s mission is to digitise 200 of Australia’s most important lost books, preserving them for future generations and making them available through a national network of libraries. They include books such as Anita Heiss’s I’m Not Racist, But … (2007) and Frank Hardy’s The Unlucky Australians (1968). “One exciting thing is that all these books will now be part of the National E-deposit scheme,” Giblin says, referring to the legal requirement for all publishers to provide copies of published works to libraries – a framework only recently extended to electronic publishing. “This means they’ll be preserved forever. These books will now be around as long as we have libraries.”
Andy Weir built a two-decade career as a software engineer until the success of his first published novel, The Martian, allowed him to live out his dream of writing full-time. He is a lifelong space nerd and a devoted hobbyist of such subjects as relativistic physics, orbital mechanics, and the history of manned spaceflight. He also mixes a mean cocktail. He lives in California.
(17) ROY HOWARD GOH SPEECH. [Item by Cora Buhlert.] The Cromcast has a recording of Roy Thomas’ guest of honor speech at the 2021 Robert E. Howard Days in Cross Plains. Lots of interesting stuff about working at Marvel in the 1960s and 1970s, not just Conan related, though there is a lot of that, too. “Howard Days 2021 – When Conan Went Public!”
Humans have, starting in prehistoric times (with obsidian, red ochre, etc.), established vast trade networks that cross mountains, deserts, and oceans. Presumably, this will be true in the future as well, even as humanity expands out into SPAAACE. While there are reasons why larger concerns will tend to dominate, the little guys will often provide more engaging narratives. Thus, these five heartwarming tales of working traders enthusiastically engaging in commerce among the stars…
The Trouble Twisters by Poul Anderson (1966)
Hyperdrive gave humans the stars…also vast fortunes to Polesotechnic League merchant princes like Nicolas van Rijn. Great men cannot be everywhere, however, which is why this collection of short pieces focuses not on van Rijn but his employee, David Falkayn (don’t worry! David eventually gets into management by marrying the boss’s beautiful daughter). Whether upending religious prohibitions, obtaining state secrets, or intervening in bitter ethnic strife, Falkayn and his co-workers always find the solution that delivers profit.
Long after the events in this book, Falkayn would become disenchanted with the League’s conscience-blind focus on immediate profits. This would have regrettable implications for Falkayn’s relationship with van Rijn, but without actually saving the League or humanity from the consequences of the League’s short-sighted policies. But at least they generated lots of profit for the shareholders before the League-armed space barbarians descended from the skies….
(19) SPIDER-MAN BEYOND. A Marvel press release tells me – “Stay tuned tomorrow for information on this exciting new Amazing Spider-Man era from Kelly Thompson, Saladin Ahmed, Cody Ziglar, Patrick Gleason, and Zeb Wells!”
(20) MARVEL MARKETING. Did that previous item come from this guy? This video from Screen Rant, which dropped today, features Ryan George as master marketer Normantula McMan, who says, “I get butts in seats. I influence butts in ways you can’t imagine.” And McMan knows butts, because his grandpa came up with the idea that four out of five doctors recommended a particular smoke!
(21) ASTRONAUTS TO EXPERIENCE TIDE EFEFCT. Yep, here’s the science entry in today’s Scroll courtesy of the AP: “Dirty laundry in space? NASA, Tide tackle cleaning challenge”. It turns out there’s a simple reason why the International Space Station smells like an old gym sock.
How do astronauts do laundry in space? They don’t.
They wear their underwear, gym clothes and everything else until they can’t take the filth and stink anymore, then junk them.
NASA wants to change that — if not at the International Space Station, then the moon and Mars — and stop throwing away tons of dirty clothes every year, stuffing them in the trash to burn up in the atmosphere aboard discarded cargo ships. So it’s teamed up with Procter & Gamble Co. to figure out how best to clean astronauts’ clothes in space so they can be reused for months or even years, just like on Earth.
The Cincinnati company announced Tuesday that it will send a pair of Tide detergent and stain removal experiments to the space station later this year and next, all part of the galactic battle against soiled and sweaty clothes….
…We have to give big props to the YouTuber here. Unlike other “make your own Cap shield” videos, he didn’t go the drone route. Which is kind of cheating. The MCU shield bounces after all, it doesn’t fly. According to their own description, the shield they made was created with carbon fiber with a fiberglass ring, to provide bounce while keeping maximum strength. The shield also magnetically connects to the user’s wrist, and can be thrown overhand just like Cap. We think the final results are pretty darn impressive….
[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Hampus Eckerman, Cora Buhlert, James Davis Nicoll, Olav Rokne, Martin Morse Wooster, JJ, Michael Toman, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]
Marvel’s America Chavez and Captain America are each making news!
Variant Cover by NATACHA BUSTOS
AMERICA CHAVEZ DISCOVERS SHOCKING NEW TRUTHS BEHIND HER ORIGIN. Her latest series, America Chavez: Made In The USA! written by Kalinda Vasquez (Once Upon a Time, Marvel’s Runaways) with art by Carlos Gómez (Amazing Mary Jane), is packed with revelations about the breakout hero’s fascinating origins and promising future. Not only has she encountered Catalina, a mysterious woman claiming to be America’s sister, but she’s learned that her home dimension, the Utopian Parallel, may not even exist! These shocking moments combined with an intimate new look at her Washington Heights upbringing have made this explosive story a critically acclaimed hit but the greatest reveals are still to come…
AMERICA CHAVEZ: MADE IN THE USA #4 (OF 5)
Written by KALINDA VAZQUEZ; Art by CARLOS GÓMEZ; Colors by JESUS ABURTOV; Cover by SARA PICHELLI (MAY210650); Variant Cover by MARC ASPINALL (MAY210651)
Variant Cover by MARC ASPINALL
AMERICA CHAVEZ: MADE IN THE USA #5 (OF 5)
Written by KALINDA VAZQUEZ; Art by CARLOS GÓMEZ; Cover by SARA PICHELLI (JUN210699); Variant Cover by NATACHA BUSTOS (JUN210700)
A NEW LOCAL CAP IN UNITED STATES OF CAPTAIN AMERICA #4. Get your first look at Ari Agbayani, a new Captain America-inspired hero debuting this September.
Cover by GERALD PAREL
Written by Christopher Cantwell with art by Dale Eaglesham, the upcoming limited series will see Steve Rogers teaming up with Captain Americas of the past—Bucky Barnes, Sam Wilson, and John Walker—on a road trip across America to find his stolen shield. On sale in September, issue #4 will reveal the true magnitude of the forces arrayed against them, including the return of some of Captain America’s most sinister foes…
In addition to featuring the ultimate Captain America team-up, this groundbreaking series will also introduce a diverse cast of new heroes and spotlight the communities they are part of and the unique challenges they face. Cantwell and Eaglesham are joined each issue by an all-star lineup of creative teams who will dive even deeper into the origins and motivations of these new shield-bearers in special backup stories. In United States Of Captain America #4, fans will meet Ari Agbayani.
Created by writer Alyssa Wong (Star Wars: Doctor Aphra) and Jodi Nishijima (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles), Ari is a local Captain America-inspired hero who seeks justice on her college campus. When her school turns a blind eye to fellow students behaving badly, she springs into action—and she’s not afraid to fight dirty. Here’s what Wong had to say about the inspiration behind this new Marvel hero:
“When editor Alanna Smith approached me about creating a new, local Captain America for this series, I immediately knew I wanted to write a Filipino-American girl. There just aren’t very many of us in comics! I grew up without a Filipino-American community for the most part, so every time I see a Filipino character, I get excited. And getting to create one–a Captain America, even!–feels incredibly special.
“Ari Agbayani is a scholarship student at a small, private university. When she finds out her best friend is being victimized by a wealthy legacy student, Ari is determined to make things right. But what can she do when her college is only concerned with keeping its donors happy, and half the buildings on campus are named after her best friend’s abuser? In order to take him down, she’ll have to get creative.
“Like the other Caps, Ari has a strong sense of justice and admires the ideals Captain America embodies. But the Captain America she’s inspired by isn’t Steve Rogers–it’s Bucky Barnes. Someone who hates bullies as much as Steve does, but is willing to use sneakier, shadier tactics to deal with them. Ari’s a vigilante, and she knows that you can’t always win by playing by the rules. Bucky’s influence is reflected in her costume, designed by the incredible Jodi Nishijima.
“Jodi has done such a great job bringing Ari to life. Her art is so playful, charming, and fun. It’s been an honor to co-create Ari with her!”
See one of the mysterious villains the Captains will be facing off against in Gerald Parel’s below. And check out Ari Agbayani on Marvel’s Stormbreaker Peach Momoko’s variant cover as well as design sheets by Jodi Nishijima.
Actor and presenter Rachel Griffiths, Nick Stathopoulos and Deng Adut in Finding The Archibald. ABC
… The series about “the Archie” arrives in the popular prize’s centenary year. Producer, writer and director Griffiths endeavours to establish her cred as host by telling us that she is the daughter of an art teacher and the wife of a painter, as well as “an actor who’s spent her whole life trying to understand the human condition”.
Apparently, a survey of the Archibald’s history and consideration of what it might reflect about our country isn’t sufficient: the production requires some tricking up. So Griffiths embarks on a mission to select a single portrait that she believes “captures the changing face of Australia and will stand the test of time”.
She interviews a range of artists who have submitted portraits to the prize, as well as people who have posed for them, and ponders the question of what makes a great portrait. She also poses for one herself.
Meanwhile, the series also follows Natalie Wilson as she curates an exhibition of 100 portraits to accompany the NSW Art Gallery’s display of this year’s entrants. Her search involves thousands of emails sent in an effort to locate past Archibald entries. Fortunately, Sherlock Griffiths is on hand to help her find the one of Molly Meldrum, which is hanging in the first place that anyone might look for it: his house….
In today’s sci-fi/ fantasy community, it’s fashionable to dig up H.P. Lovecraft and put him on trial as the avatar of everything wrong with speculative fiction. While we won’t defend Lovecraft’s abhorrent social values, we have to ask: what is the point of this? What do we gain by canceling a man who is now a dusty skeleton mouldering in the dirt? Are we really reckoning with genre fiction’s bigoted past, or are we just looking for a way to distract from our contemporary problems?
In this episode, Karlo Yeager Rodríguez joins us to talk about horror, colonialism, and Captain Picard’s dangerous space dumps.
English Heritage has acknowledged the “racism, xenophobia and lack of literary merit” in Enid Blyton’s writing, and the “racist and imperialist sentiments” of Rudyard Kipling, as part of its ongoing efforts to better reflect today’s values in its blue plaques.
While English Heritage’s blue plaques commemorating both authors remain unchanged, the charity’s online information about both now goes into detail about the problematic aspects of their writing and views.
English Heritage notes online how in 1960, Macmillan refused to publish Blyton’s children’s novel The Mystery That Never Was, noting her “faint but unattractive touch of old-fashioned xenophobia”. It would go on to be published by William Collins….
English Heritage has also noted the views of Kipling, who is still commemorated with a blue plaque at 43 Villiers St in London where he lived between 1889 and 1891.
English Heritage’s online information for Kipling now highlights how his political views “have been widely criticised for their racist and imperialist sentiments”. It points in particular to works such as The White Man’s Burden “with its offensive description of ‘new-caught, sullen peoples, half devil and half child’” which “sought to portray imperialism as a mission of civilisation”.
It also highlights that “George Orwell found Kipling’s attitude to instances of colonial brutality ‘morally insensitive and aesthetically disgusting’, but admitted the importance of his work to him in his younger life.”
The Underground Railroad is a stone cold masterpiece, one that not only shoulders the challenging task of adapting the novel it was based on with seeming ease, but that breaks new ground in terms of what television can be and how it can achieve its effect. It deserves sustained, continued discussion and exploration. So this post isn’t a review—I’m not sure I feel equal to that—so much as a series of observations, ones that will hopefully get more people to watch the show, and talk about it….
…So getting to wear the costume, hold the shield, and call himself Captain America — as Wilson does in the Marvel comics — was somewhat overwhelming for Mackie.
“Having if not one of my bucket lists, the bucket list moment happen, is not so much about becoming Captain America — it’s about having my dreams realized,” he says. “It’s very humbling when, you know, you get the opportunity that you’ve always dreamed of.”
The other half of Sam’s journey on the show is the transformation of his relationship with Bucky Barnes (Sebastian Stan) from simmering resentment to a lasting and profound friendship. That translated into several scenes of emotional and physical familiarity between Sam and Bucky that some fans interpreted as a budding romance — similar to how some Marvel fans desired Bucky and the first Captain America, Chris Evans’ Steve Rogers, to be a couple.
Mackie points out that he’s played in these kinds of waters before, in an episode of “Black Mirror” in which he and Yahya Abdul-Mateen II star as best friends who play an immersive, virtual reality video game that allows them to simulate being a man and woman in a sexual relationship. But he resists an interpretation that Sam and Bucky are sexually or romantically attracted to each other.
“So many things are twisted and convoluted. There’s so many things that people latch on to with their own devices to make themselves relevant and rational,” he says. “The idea of two guys being friends and loving each other in 2021 is a problem because of the exploitation of homosexuality. It used to be guys can be friends, we can hang out, and it was cool. You would always meet your friends at the bar, you know. You can’t do that anymore, because something as pure and beautiful as homosexuality has been exploited by people who are trying to rationalize themselves. So something that’s always been very important to me is showing a sensitive masculine figure. There’s nothing more masculine than being a superhero and flying around and beating people up. But there’s nothing more sensitive than having emotional conversations and a kindred spirit friendship with someone that you care about and love.”
“Sam and Steve had a relationship where they admired, appreciated and loved each other,” Mackie continues. “Bucky and Sam have a relationship where they learn how to accept, appreciate and love each other. You’d call it a bromance, but it’s literally just two guys who have each other’s backs.”…
(6) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
June 17, 1960 – The Twilight Zone’s “The Mighty Casey.”
What you’re looking at is a ghost, once alive but now deceased. Once upon a time, it was a baseball stadium that housed a major league ball club known as the Hoboken Zephyrs. Now it houses nothing but memories and a wind that stirs in the high grass of what was once an outfield, a wind that sometimes bears a faint, ghostly resemblance to the roar of a crowd that once sat here. We’re back in time now, when the Hoboken Zephyrs were still a part of the National League, and this mausoleum of memories was an honest-to-Pete stadium. But since this is strictly a story of make believe, it has to start this way: once upon a time, in Hoboken, New Jersey, it was tryout day. And though he’s not yet on the field, you’re about to meet a most unusual fella, a left-handed pitcher named Casey. — Opening narration
It’s almost summer, so let’s have a baseball story. On this day in 1960, The Twilight Zone first aired “The Mighty Casey” in which a down-and-out baseball team’s fortunes are lifted by a mysterious but seemingly unbeatable young player. It was directed by Robert Parrish and Alvin Ganzer, and of course written by Rod Serling. Cast was Jack Warden as McGarry, Robert Sorrells as Casey and Abraham Sofaer as Dr. Stillman.
(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]
Born June 17, 1898 — M. C. Escher. Dutch artist whose work was widely used to illustrate genre works such as the 1967 Harper & Row hardcover of Kate Wilhelm’s Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang, or Berkley Books 1996 cover of Clive Barker’s Athens Damnation Game. (Died 1972.)
Born June 17, 1903 — William Bogart. Pulp fiction writer. He is best remembered for writing several Doc Savage novels using the pseudonym Kenneth Robeson. Actually he’s responsible for thirteen of the novels, a goodly share of the number done. It’s suggested that most of his short stories were Doc Savage pastiches. (Died 1977.)
Born June 17, 1927 — Wally Wood. Comic book writer, artist and independent publisher, best known for his work on EC Comics’ Mad magazine, Marvel’s Daredevil, and Topps’s landmark Mars Attacks set. He was the inaugural inductee into the comic book industry’s Jack Kirby Hall of Fame, and was later inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame. (Died 1981.)
Born June 17, 1931 — Dean Ing. I reasonably sure the first thing I read by him was Soft Targets and I know I read all of his Man-Kzin Wars stories as I went through a phase of reading all that popcorn literature set in Niven’s universe. His “Devil You Don’t Know” novelette was nominated at Seacon ‘79. I also liked his L-5 Community series. (Died 2020.)
Born June 17, 1941 — William Lucking, 80. Here because he played Renny in Doc Savage: Man of Bronze. (I know I’ve seen it, but I’ll be damn if I remember much about it.) He’s also had one-offs in Mission: Impossible, The Incredible Hulk, The American Hero, The Quest, Voyagers, X-Files, The Lazarus Man, Millenium, Deep Space Nine and Night Stalker.
Born June 17, 1953 — Phyllis Weinberg, 68. She’s a fan who was married to fellow fan Robert E. Weinberg. She co-edited the first issue of The Weird Tales Collector. She co-chaired World Fantasy Convention 1996.
Born June 17, 1982 — Arthur Darvill, 39. Actor who has had two great roles. The first was playing Rory Williams, one of the Eleventh Doctor’s companions. The second, and to my mind the more interesting of the two, was playing the time-traveler Rip Hunter in the Legends of Tomorrow. He also played Seymour Krelborn in The Little Shop of Horrors at the Midlands Arts Centre, and Mephistopheles in Doctor Faustus at Shakespeare’s Globe.
Born June 17, 1982 — Jodie Whittaker, 39. The Thirteenth Doctor now in her third series and hopefully not final one. She played Ffion Foxwell in the Black Mirror‘s “The Entire History of You”, and was Samantha Adams in Attack the Block, a horror SF film.
(7A) NUTS. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] This is from a review by Robert Armstrong of Charlie Brown’s America: The Popular Politics of Peanuts by Blake Scott Ball in the June 12 Financial Times. Armstrong notes that Charles Schultz was a World War II veteran.
Snoopy’s alternative identity as a first world war flying ace–with his dog-house propeller plane–was a childhood favourite. It never occurred to me to read the strips as commentaries on the Vietnam War. Yet they were. It is telling that Snoopy never defeated the Red Baron, and equally notable that the strips became more bleak as the war went on.’I’m exhausted,’ Snoopy complains in 1971. ‘this stupid war is too much.’ Readers got the message: Schultz supported the fighting man, but not the war. The soldiers in Asia got it too.
(8) STRACZYNSKI BOOK LAUNCH. J. Michael Straczynski will do a Zoom book launch for his new non-sf novel Together We Will Go on Tuesday, July 6 at 5:30 p.m. Central. Free to attend, registration required. Register here.
Known for his groundbreaking work across television, comics, films, and more, award-winning and bestselling author J. Michael Straczynski joins us to celebrate the publication day of Together We Will Go (Gallery/Scout Press), his stirring first foray into literary fiction. A powerful tale of a struggling young writer who assembles a busload of fellow disheartened people on a journey toward death, Together We Will Go grapples with the biggest questions of existence while finding small moments of the beauty in this world that often goes unnoticed. As Straczynski’s travelers cross state lines and complications to the initial plan arise, it becomes clear that this novel is as much about the will to live as the choice to end it—and that it’s a book readers will remember for a lifetime.
Three Chinese astronauts arrived Thursday at China’s new space station at the start of a three-month mission, marking another milestone in the country’s ambitious space program.
Their Shenzhou-12 craft connected with the space station module about six hours after taking off from the Jiuquan launch center on the edge of the Gobi Desert.
About three hours later, commander Nie Haisheng, 56, followed by Liu Boming, 54, and space rookie Tang Hongbo, 45, opened the hatches and floated into the Tianhe-1 core living module. Pictures showed them busy at work unpacking equipment.
“This represents the first time Chinese have entered their own space station,” state broadcaster CCTV said on its nightly news broadcast.
The crew will carry out experiments, test equipment, conduct maintenance and prepare the station for receiving two laboratory modules next year. The mission brings to 14 the number of astronauts China has launched into space since 2003, becoming only the third country after the former Soviet Union and the United States to do so on its own.
(10) MORE POWER. Netflix dropped a trailer for How I Became a Superhero. Airs July 9.
Who are the real superheroes? In a world where humans and superheroes coexist, a lone wolf cop teams up with a brilliant detective to dismantle a dark organization trafficking superpowers.
(11) REH IN THE COMICS. The Cromcast: A Weird Fiction Podcast lets you listen in to a panel from the recent get-together in Cross Plains: “Howard Days 2021 – REH in the Comics!”
This conversation from Friday, June 11th, at the First United Methodist Church in Cross Plains, Texas. The panel focuses on the history of Robert E. Howard’s characters and stories presented in a comic book format. Mark Finn moderates Roy Thomas, Fred Blosser, Patrice Louinet, and Jay Zetterberg.
(12) REBORN SERIES CONTINUES. Jenna Greene is a teacher and author whose novel, Reborn, won the 2019 Moonbeam Children’s Book award. She is the co-host of Quill & Ink: A Podcast for Book Lovers.
In Reborn, a character tries to escape her fate:
The marks on Lexil’s skin state she is a Reborn – someone who has lived before. As such, she must toil in service to those who have only one chance at life. Sold at auction, she is fearful but accepting of her new life. Everything changes when she must save a young child from a fate worse than death.
With the help of a new ally named Finn, she flees to the Wastelands. There she struggles to survive, while discovering more about herself, the world, and what it truly means to be Reborn.
Now, in the series’ second book, Renew, Lexil and Finn are forced to venture back into the Wastelands:
The Unclaimed Cities are not the idyllic setting Lexil, Finn, and Ceera thought it would be. This new land has challenges of its own – which they soon discover.
When Lexil and Finn return to the Wastelands, they are accompanied by Kaylen, someone they can’t decide is a friend or foe.
(13) MEMORY JOGGER. B-Side Books from Columbia University Press has some writers you’ve heard of advocating for books they hope you’ll love, too. Got to love this cover, anyway!
…What do you do when a book that you love has been neglected or dismissed by everyone else? In B-Side Books, leading writers, critics, and scholars show why their favorite forgotten books deserve a new audience. From dusty westerns and far-out science fiction to obscure Czech novelists and romance-novel precursors, the contributors advocate for the unsung virtues of overlooked books. They write about unheralded novels, poetry collections, memoirs, and more with understanding, respect, passion, and love.
In these thoughtful, often personal essays, contributors—including Stephanie Burt, Caleb Crain, Merve Emre, Ursula K. Le Guin, Carlo Rotella, and Namwali Serpell—read books by writers such as Helen DeWitt, Shirley Jackson, Stanislaw Lem, Dambudzo Marechera, Paule Marshall, and Charles Portis.
… Fast forward to now and there are thousands of ambrosia beetle species, including more than 70 of the Coptoborus genus—and counting. In christening the new beetles, Smith and Cognato got some inspiration by finding similarities between the beetle and its namesake.
For instance, the C. uhura was given its name because its reddish color, reminiscent of the uniform worn by Nichelle Nichols’s Uhura character in the original “Star Trek” TV series.
And Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley character in the “Alien” film franchise had a shaved head in the movie “Alien 3.” One of the beetles, now named C. ripley, was also glabrous, or without hair.
Other names were selected because the duo just liked the characters and found them inspiring. For example, the C. scully beetle was named after Dana Scully, Gillian Anderson’s character on “The X-Files.”
The character is also behind what’s known as the “Scully Effect.” By showing a successful female scientist on TV, the show helped raise awareness of science, technology, engineering and mathematics—or STEM—professions among young women.
In their paper, Smith and Cognato wrote, “We believe in the ‘Scully Effect’ and hope future female scientists, real and fictional, continue to inspire children and young adults to pursue STEM careers.”…
[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Martin Morse Wooster, Cora Buhlert, Moshe Feder, JJ, Michael Toman, John King Tarpinian, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to contributing editor of the day Jim Janney.]
By James Bacon: United States of Captain America will debut Aaron Fischer and Joe Gomez.
Marvel Comics announced a number of new Captain America’s to appear in the upcoming mini series, United States of Captain America.
While I am very excited by Aaron Fischer the Captain America of the Railways, who will debut shortly, I expect the next Captain America debut, Joe Gomez may be of interest to many.
Created by geoscientist and Lipan Apache writer Darcie Little Badger and Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation artist David Cutler, Joe Gomez, the newest member of the Captain America ranks will make his debut in The United States of Captain America #3
“Something I love about Joe is his day job. It represents everything he stands for as a hero,” Little Badger explained. “See, Joe Gomez is a construction worker, a builder in a world plagued by destruction. Every time a spaceship crashes into a bridge or a supervillain transforms a whole city block into rubble, people like Joe make things whole again. Work like that may seem thankless, but Joe genuinely enjoys helping his community survive and thrive. That’s why he won’t charge elders for home repair services (the Joe Gomez senior discount is 100%). That’s also why he’s willing to risk his life to save others. I know lots of people like Joe–many of them my Indigenous relatives–so it was wonderful to help develop a character with his values, strength, and extreme crane-operating skills.”
Returning to the Captain America of the Railways, Aaron Fischer, will debut in issue #1’s main and in a secondary story written by Joshua Trujillo with art by Jan Bazaldua, both of whom also created the character.
Trujillo said in Marvel’s press release: “Aaron is inspired by heroes of the queer community: activists, leaders, and everyday folks pushing for a better life. He stands for the oppressed, and the forgotten. I hope his debut story resonates with readers, and helps inspire the next generation of heroes.”
“I want to thank Editor Alanna Smith and Joshua Trujillo very much for asking me to create Aaron. I really enjoyed designing him, and as a transgender person, I am happy to be able to present an openly gay person who admires Captain America and fights against evil to help those who are almost invisible to society. While I was drawing him, I thought, well, Cap fights against super-powerful beings and saves the world almost always, but Aaron helps those who walk alone in the street with problems that they face every day. I hope people like the end result!” said Bazaldua, herself a trans woman.
USCA will start once Ta-Nehisi Coates ends his run, which is a bit bittersweet, given his brilliance with the title and further characters may be presented. Many characters who have appeared in Captain America have remained in the Marvel universe, so we could see more of these Captain Americas.
The mini series follows Steve Rogers and Sam Wilson, as Captain America’s Shield is stolen and they go on a road trip around America, and on the journey find many Captain Americas. The first issue features John Walker and Bucky Barnes next to Steve and Sam on the cover by Alex Ross.
A task force made up of science fiction and fantasy, romance, crime and horror authors has been formed in an attempt to persuade Disney into paying authors outstanding royalties for novelisations and comics relating to their properties, including Star Wars, Alien and Indiana Jones.
The so-called DisneyMustPay Joint Task Force includes major writers Neil Gaiman, Tess Gerritsen, Mary Robinette Kowal and Chuck Wendig among its members. It has been formed by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America in partnership with the Author’s Guild, Horror Writers Association, National Writers Union, Novelists, Inc., Romance Writers of America, and Sisters in Crime.
The author organisations came together after the SFWA became involved in the author Alan Dean Foster’s battle to get Disney to pay him royalties for his bestselling novelisations of Star Wars and Alien. Foster was asked to write his novelisation of Star Wars: A New Hope by George Lucas himself, which was published in 1976. When Disney acquired Lucasfilm in 2012, it bought the rights to the Star Wars novel, while Disney’s acquisition of 20th Century Fox in 2019 meant it also bought rights to Foster’s novelisations of Alien, Aliens and Alien 3….
But despite the books still being in print, Foster claimed that Disney was not paying him royalties for them and that he’d had to go public after the company ignored multiple queries from his agents, legal representatives and the SFWA. The latter claimed that Disney had argued that it had purchased the rights, but not the obligations of the contract.
(2) SLF OLDER WRITERS GRANT. The Speculative Literature Foundation will be taking applications for the SLF $1000 Older Writers Grant from May 1-31. Complete guidelines here.
The SLF $1000 Older Writers Grant is awarded annually, since 2004, to a writer who is fifty years of age or older at the time of grant application, and is intended to assist such writers who are just starting to work at a professional level. We are currently offering a $1000 grant annually, to be used as each writer determines will best assist his or her work.
This grant will be awarded by a committee of SLF staff members on the basis of merit. If awarded the grant, the recipient agrees to provide a brief excerpt from their work, and an autobiographical statement describing themselves and their writing (500-1000 words) for our files, and for possible public dissemination on our website.
This grant, as with all SLF grants, is intended to help writers working with speculative literature. Speculative literature is a catch-all term meant to inclusively span the breadth of fantastic literature, encompassing literature ranging from hard science fiction to epic fantasy to ghost stories to horror to folk and fairy tales to slipstream to magical realism to modern myth-making — and more. Any piece of literature containing a fabulist or speculative element would fall under our aegis, and would potentially be work that we would be interested in supporting.
(3) IT’S ABOUT TO HATCH. Melinda Snodgrass invites readers to look over her shoulder as she explains “How I Plot”.
I mentioned on Twitter that I was getting ready to outline or break two new novels, and a follower asked if I could describe my process. It ended up being a really looong Tweet thread so I thought I would pull it all together here for folks who might not be on Twitter. I always outlined from the time I first started writing, I think it was a function of having been a lawyer and knowing that a brief has to take a judge or a jury to a certain conclusion so structure is important. I’m also the type of person who likes to have an itinerary when I travel and hotels booked in advance. But it wasn’t until I got my first job in Hollywood that I truly learned how to “break a story”. Ira Behr, Rick Manning and Hans Beimler were my teachers and they were very good ones. So without further ado….
First, I never start anything unless I know the ending. I don’t mean the wrap up, falling action, but the actual exciting climax. The next thing I ask myself is “What is the theme of this book?” What is it I want to impart about the human condition? The human heart in conflict with itself as William Faulkner wrote.
My short hand for this is “Plot is the shit that happens. Theme is why it matters.”…
(4) CHRIS GARCIA’S SFF FILM PODCASTS. Chris Garcia says he’s rediscovered a ton of episodes of his old podcasts and has started posting them on a new series of feeds.
Fantasy Film 101 is available from Pinecast or Apple. Its 16 episodes cover fantasy film history, emphasizing short films, foreign works, and the super-artsy.
(5) JOHN HODGMAN WEIGHS IN ON TIME TRAVEL CONTROVERSY. [Item by Martin Morse Wooster.] This is John Hodgman’s column from the April 18 New York Times Magazine.
Tony; “My son read that the director James Gunn’s favorite time-travel movie is A Christmas Carol. That isn’t time travel! Please find against Scrooge, my son, and James Gunn, just to be sure. (P.S. I was mistaken. Apparently, it was Robert Zemeckis who said this.”
Hodgman: “I had never thought of Scrooge’s big night as time travel! And for that reason I find against you. Back To The Future is wonderful but only one template for time travel in movies. There’s the multiple timelines concept, as in Avengers: Endgame, which would account, say, for an alternate universe in which Robert Zemeckis, director of Back To The Future, could be wrong about time travel. But as with all these stories, they are designed to inspire imagination, not stamp it out as you seek to do with your own Tiny Tim. G Buy your son the biggest goose in town as damages.”
(6) AND THAT’S NOT ALL! [Item by Daniel Dern.] The new season (starts May 2) of DC Legends Of Tomorrow looks like a wild whacky ride! Watch the trailer even if you currently don’t plan to watch the show! And io9’s post “Legends of Tomorrow Season 6 Trailer: Aliens, Disney, Reality TV” says that beyond what the trailer shows, the season will include other references —
… And that’s not all! Entertainment Weekly confirms there will also be a Clue episode, an ALF episode (because of course there is), and, according to showrunner Phil Klemmer, “another episode that’s virtually all Constantine (Matt Ryan) in the Spanish Civil War, and that could just as well be from the Constantine TV show,” which sounds completely awesome….
(7) FIRM GRASP ON THE CATNIP. In“Timothy Reviews The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin” at Camestros Felapton, Timothy the Talking Cat propounds literary truths about a great classic that were previously unsuspected by any human being. But fairly obvious to a cat, evidently.
Greetings, salutations and the assorted lyrics of Hello, Goodbye by the mop-headed foursome from Liverpool to you all. I am, once again, your inimitable host and master of ceremonies, Timothy the Talking Cat esquire, who shall be taking you on a journey into the foundational texts of modern scientifiction….
Doctor Who‘s John Barrowman and David Bradley are set to reprise their roles for the theatrical event Time Fracture.
The pair, who play Captain Jack Harkness and the First Doctor on the BBC sci-fi series respectively, have recorded cameo appearances for the Immersive Everywhere event.
… Time Fracture is set to take place at Immersive | LDN in London and will put fans in the middle of a new Doctor Who story set at the time of the Blitz.
(9) COLLINS OBIT. Apollo 11 astronaut Michael Collins died April 28. Acting NASA Administrator Steve Jurczyk had this to say:
“Today the nation lost a true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration in astronaut Michael Collins. As pilot of the Apollo 11 command module – some called him ‘the loneliest man in history’ – while his colleagues walked on the Moon for the first time, he helped our nation achieve a defining milestone. He also distinguished himself in the Gemini Program and as an Air Force pilot.
“Michael remained a tireless promoter of space. ‘Exploration is not a choice, really, it’s an imperative,’ he said. Intensely thoughtful about his experience in orbit, he added, ‘What would be worth recording is what kind of civilization we Earthlings created and whether or not we ventured out into other parts of the galaxy.’…”
(10) TODAY’S DAY.
April 28 – National Superhero Day. Marvel, naturally, celebrated by advertising a forthcoming production.
(11) MEDIA BIRTHDAY.
April 28, 1946 — On this night in 1946, The Shadow’s “Dreams of Death” episode first aired. It starred Lloyd Lamble (of Quatermass2 fame) as Lamont Cranston and The Shadow with Lyndall Barbour as Margot Lane and Lloyd Berrill as The Announcer. The Shadow in the radio series was quite different from the printed version as he was given the power to “cloud men’s minds so they cannot see him”. This was at odds with the pulp novel character who relied solely on stealth and his guns to get the job done. Likewise Margo Lane was a radio creation that would later be added to the pulps. You can hear the episode here.
(12) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.
[Compiled by Cat Eldridge and John Hertz.]
Born April 28, 1840 — Palmer Cox. He was known for The Brownies, his series of humorous books and comic strips about the troublesome but generally well meaning sprites. The cartoons were published in several books, such as The Brownies, Their Book for some forty years starting in the 1870s. Due to the immense popularity of his Brownies, one of the first popular handheld cameras was named after them, the Eastman Kodak Brownie camera. (Died 1924.) (CE)
Born April 28, 1910 – Sam Merwin. Edited Fantastic, Startling, Thrilling, Wonder, later Fantastic Universe; for a while editor of Satellite, associate editor of Galaxy; his letter columns were lively; he generally improved our field. Six novels, six dozen shorter stories for us; also romance and detective fiction, under various names. (Died 1996) [JH]
Born April 28, 1914 – Phil High. Working thirty years as a bus driver did not prevent, may have helped, his writing a dozen novels, fourscore shorter stories. See here. (Died 2006) [JH]
Born April 28, 1917 — Robert Cornthwaite. Actor in such Fifties films as The Thing From Another World, The War of the Worlds, Men Into Space and Destination Space. He would be active well in the Twentieth Century in such productions as The Twilight Zone, Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, Colossus: The Forbin Project , The Six Million Dollar Man, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and White Dwarf. (Died 2006.) (CE)
Born April 28, 1926 – Jim Bama, age 95. Fourscore covers, a few interiors for us; interviewed by Vincent Di Fate in SF Chronicle. Outside our field, Westerns, sports, commercial art. Here is The 480. Here is V.Here is He Could Stop the World. Illustrators Hall of Fame. Artbooks The Art of JB; The Western Art of JB; JB, American Realist with introduction by Harlan Ellison. [JH]
Born April 28, 1926 – Bill Blackbeard. One short story that I know of; correspondent of Amazing, Fantasy Times, Riverside Quarterly, Weird Tales; fanziner, in various apas including The Cult. Extraordinary collector of comics in newspapers and otherwise, eventually 75 tons; he produced 200 books, and that ain’t the half of it. See here (note by Our Gracious Host), here (Fancyclopedia 3), here (The Comics Journal). (Died 2011) [JH]
Born April 28, 1930 — Carolyn Jones. She began played the role of Morticia Addams (as well as her sister Ophelia and the feminine counterpart of Thing, Lady Fingers) in The Addams Family. Though she had an uncredited role in the original The War of the Worlds which was her first genre role as a Blonde Party Guest, and she was Theodora ‘Teddy’ Belicec in the Invasion of the Body Snatchers. She had a recurring role as Marsha, Queen of Diamonds on Batman. (Died 1983.) (CE)
Born April 28, 1948 — Terry Pratchett. Did you know that Steeleye Span did a superb job of turning his Wintersmith novel into a recording? You can read the Green Man review here as reviewed by Kage’s sister Kathleen. My favorite Pratchett? Well pretty much any of the Watch novels will do for a read for a night when I want something English and really fantastic. (Died 2015.) (CE)
Born April 28, 1959 – Fran Dowd, age 62. Chaired Eastercon 49; with husband John Dowd active in Eastercons and Novacons; F & J both Fan Guests of Honour at Eastercon 61. Sofa, i.e. chair when we need one, of the Sheffield Science Fiction and Fantasy Society. Posted her Books Read in 2020 here. [JH]
Born April 28, 1970 – Danielle Ackley-McPhail, age 51. Nine novels, five dozen shorter stories, a dozen poems; a score of anthologies with various co-editors. Member and supporter of Broad Universe. Was at the last known Lunacon in 2017, then in 2019 HELIOsphere. She and husband Mike McPhail publish ESpec Books. [JH]
Born April 28, 1971 — Chris Young, 50. Bryce Lynch in the Max Headroom series which I still hold is of the best SF series ever done. The only other genre I think he’s are two horror films, The Runestone and Warlock: The Armageddon. Unless you call voice roles in The Brave Little Toaster Goes to Mars and The Brave Little Toaster to the Rescue genre… (CE)
Born April 28, 1982 — Samantha Lockwood, 39. Daughter of Gary Lockwood of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame. And she apparently was in yet another video Trek fanfic though this may not have ever gotten done before Paramount squashed them, Star Trek Equinox: The Night Of Time. There’s a trailer but no actual episode that I can find, so her role in Sci-Fighters which as Girlfriend is her only genre role. (CE)
(13) COMICS SECTION.
The Far Side involves what happens when aliens are the ones posing a familiar nature question.
Dracula said, “I never drink…wine.” The zombies in Bliss say something else.
… Jupiter’s Legacy is based on Millar and artist Frank Quitely’s 2013 cross-generational saga about rifts in a super-powered family, whose conflicting politics and ideologies manifest themselves as a global power struggle, causing significant collateral damage. “People expected it to be like Kick-Ass or Kingsman,” he says, “which are quite nihilistic, really violent and ironic, whereas this show is very sincere. Kick-Ass is a pastiche of superheroes, but Jupiter’s Legacy is a love letter. The big question is: is it ethically correct, if you have the power to save the world, to stand back and do nothing?”
… The series contains what Millar calls a “boomer versus millennial argument”. This is reflected mostly through the Sampson family: Sheldon (AKA The Utopian) and Grace (AKA Lady Liberty) are the elder, age-defying leaders of The Union, a paramilitary team that has symbolised the American ideal ever since they gained their superpowers during the Great Depression of the 1930s. Cut to the present day and we find their children, Chloe and Brandon, are increasingly disillusioned by their parents’ code and expectations. “Superman is the best guy you could possibly have,” says Millar, “but imagine if he was your dad? That’s the idea with The Utopian, who the whole world loves. But what does that mean for your children? Because the pressures are incredible.”
Daniel P. Dern adds:
Like many-to-most supercapes these days, the issues of power/authority along with “hard to have a life when you’re a cape” fuel this. It’s not as extreme as The Boys.
Mark Millar has written bunches of superhero comics (including an entire publishing brand of his own creations).
Frank Quitely is one of my favorite comic artists. For example, All-Star Superman (1-12), Flex Mentallo (1-4), a great run on New X-Men.
Jupiter’s Legacy is based on a manageable-to-read # of comics — 24 issues across 5 books/volumes, plus 10 issues of JUPITER’S CIRCLE, a prequel series.
Buy the individual comic issues or the collected-into-books
Borrow the books from your library
Buy & e-read via Kindle, ComiXology.
I enjoyed the comics; I’m ready to watch the show and see how it goes.
(15) STRETCH RUN. [Item by Michael Kennedy.] After achieving all the basic goals on flights 1–3, Ingenuity is now ready for a little stretch. Stretch goal, that is. Flight 4 will go further, faster, and take more photos than ever before. As for what might happen on flight 5, project Chief Engineer Bob Balaram said, “We have been kicking around several options regarding what a flight five could look like. But ask me about what they entail after a successful flight four.” “With Goals Met, NASA to Push Envelope with Ingenuity Mars Helicopter”.
… The fourth Ingenuity flight from Wright Brothers Field, the name for the Martian airfield on which the flight took place, is scheduled to take off Thursday, April 29, at 10:12 a.m. EDT (7:12 a.m. PDT, 12:30 p.m. local Mars time), with the first data expected back at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California at 1:21 p.m. EDT (10:21 a.m. PDT).
“From millions of miles away, Ingenuity checked all the technical boxes we had at NASA about the possibility of powered, controlled flight at the Red Planet,” said Lori Glaze, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division. “Future Mars exploration missions can now confidently consider the added capability an aerial exploration may bring to a science mission.”
The Ingenuity team had three objectives to accomplish to declare the technology demo a complete success: They completed the first objective about six years ago when the team demonstrated in the 25-foot-diameter space simulator chamber of JPL that powered, controlled flight in the thin atmosphere of Mars was more than a theoretical exercise. The second objective – to fly on Mars – was met when Ingenuity flew for the first time on April 19. The team surpassed the last major objective with the third flight, when Ingenuity rose 16 feet (5 meters), flying downrange 164 feet (50 meters) and back at a top speed of 6.6 feet per second (2 meters per second), augmenting the rich collection of knowledge the team has gained during its test flight campaign.
“When Ingenuity’s landing legs touched down after that third flight, we knew we had accumulated more than enough data to help engineers design future generations of Mars helicopters,” said J. “Bob” Balaram, Ingenuity chief engineer at JPL. “Now we plan to extend our range, speed, and duration to gain further performance insight.”…
The moon’s surface is pockmarked with craters, the relics of violent impacts over cosmic time. A few of the largest are visible to the naked eye, and a backyard telescope reveals hundreds more. But turn astronomical observatories or even a space probe on our nearest celestial neighbor, and suddenly millions appear.
Bettina Forget, an artist and researcher at Concordia University in Montreal, has been drawing lunar craters for years. Ms. Forget is an amateur astronomer, and the practice combines her interests in art and science. “I come from a family of artists,” she said. “I had to fight for a chemistry set.”
Moon craters are named, according to convention, for scientists, engineers and explorers. Some that Ms. Forget draws have familiar names: Newton, Copernicus, Einstein. But many do not. Drawing craters with unfamiliar names prompted Ms. Forget to wonder: Who were these people? And how many were women?
“Once this question embeds itself in your mind, then you’ve got to know,” she said.
Ms. Forget pored over records of the International Astronomical Union, the organization charged with awarding official names to moon craters and other features on worlds around the solar system. She started underlining craters named for women.
“There was not much to underline,” Ms. Forget said.
Of the 1,578 moon craters that had been named at that time, only 32 honored women (a 33rd was named in February)….
A new trailer has been released for the upcoming documentary In Search of Tomorrow, which taps into the nostalgia of the sci-fi films of the 80s. For any of you who grew up in the 80s and enjoyed these films, this is the kind of doc that you can truly appreciate.
The film comes from journalist and filmmaker David A. Weiner and it’s a “four-hour-plus retrospective of ’80s sci-fi movies featuring interviews with actors, directors, writers, SFX experts, and composers.” They have over 75+ interviews and there are a lot of stories and revelations that come to light….
(19) COLBERT (ON FRESH AIR) TALKS ABOUT HIS INTRO TO SF & F. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Among other things. The SF stuff starts around minute 30, where he names a handful of authors that many Filers will know, including a few that you rarely hear in mainstream conversations, like A.E. Van Vogt Also, how Joe Biden is arguably (my word not his or Terri’s) part of his “origin” story going from playing a character to being a (night show) host as himself. “Stephen Colbert On Missing His Live Audience And Making Comedy A Family Business” on NPR.
On why he turned to sci-fi and fantasy in his grief when his brothers and father were killed in a plane crash when he was a kid
Anything is possible [in fantasy stories]. Often it’s a young man who finds himself with extraordinary powers that he didn’t have at the beginning of the story. There’s a “chosen one” in fantasy stories. Often there’s a missing father figure — if they’re not just orphans outright. … I think being able to make…an alternate world where there are new rules, or the character who you identify with can make his own rules, maybe even bring back the dead or make things impossible possible … I think that’s related to being in a constant state of grief and anxiety and needing a place to be able to escape to.
[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, JJ, BravoLimaPoppa, Martin Morse Wooster, IanP, Andrew Porter, Cat Eldridge, John Hertz, Daniel Dern, and Michael Toman for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Lenora Rose.]
