(1) DON’T FALL FOR IT. Writer Beware’s Victoria Strauss sends out a warning: “Dogging the Watchdog Redux: Someone Else is Impersonating Writer Beware”.

…A bit over a year ago, a scammer (I never was able to determine which one, but it’s highly likely it was someone on this list) sent out a large number of emails under my name, using a fake address (writerbewaree@gmail.com), offering to provide “guidance” to authors to protect them against scams and help them “connect with well-known traditional publishing houses”.

The aim, it turned out, wasn’t to rip anyone off, but to troll me. Since trolling isn’t any fun unless the trollee knows about it, the scammer also sent the emails directly to me (twice), with the subject line “Writer Beware, the Watchdog and Dog Victoria Strauss” (hence the title of my post about the episode, which also used the graphic above). Maybe because I didn’t respond, or maybe because I mocked them publicly, the troller never dogged me again and I never got any other reports of those particular fake Writer Beware emails.

Unfortunately, there’s now another Writer Beware/Victoria Strauss impersonation attempt. And this one seems designed not just to troll, but to defraud….

Strauss goes into detail about how this fraudster operates. The victim took things at face value, only suspecting they’d been deceived after forwarding the first thousand dollars requested.  Then came another request for money.

…In this case, the writer avoided being fully poached. They simply didn’t have the extra cash, and told Fake Victoria so. That was the last they heard from her. Since they didn’t contact me about the scam until nearly two months later, I’m guessing that they held out hope for a while that Fake Victoria would deliver, but eventually became suspicious enough of her silence to google Writer Beware. At which point they realized they’d been hoodwinked….

Strauss has a hypothesis about the scammer’s identity, which you can read at the link. She concludes:

…Why wouldn’t a scammer decide to use my/Writer Beware’s good reputation to steal money from unsuspecting authors and give me the middle finger while they’re at it? Honestly I’m only surprised it hasn’t happened more often….

(2) PKD VS. HEGEMONY. [Item by Steven French.] In this provocative essay in The Paris Review, Jonathan Lethem, author of Brooklyn Crime Novel, among others, discusses Philip K Dick, especially the latter’s Martian Time-Slip and its portrayal of the Bleekmen, current attitudes towards Palestinian people and the importance of considering alternative modes of existence: “’Multiple Worlds Vying to Exist’: Philip K. Dick and Palestine”.

…When Dick became my chosen writer, at age fourteen, in 1978, with Martian Time-Slip, one of my two or three favorites among his novels, the presence of the Israeli settlement on Mars didn’t resound in any particular way. My initial responsiveness to Dick’s work was to delight in his mordant surrealist onslaught against the drab prison of consensual reality—he was punk rock to me. It took me a while to grasp how Dick’s novels, those of the early sixties especially, function as a superb lens for critiquing the collective psychological binds of the postwar embrace of consumer capitalism. Yet to say that he seems to devise his critiques semiconsciously, by intuition, is an understatement. Dick thought he was bashing out pulp entertainment, and he sometimes despised himself for doing it. At other times—and Martian Time-Slip was one of those times—he injected his efforts with the aspiration to raise his output to the condition of literature, employing all the thwarted ambition of a young novelist with nine or ten literary novels (or, as an SF writer would put it, “mainstream” novels) in his trunk, which his agent had been unable to place with New York publishers. 

Dick had an extrasensory power, however; he was a freaked-out supertaster of repressive and coercive elements lurking inside the seductive and banal surfaces of Cold War U.S. culture and politics. This meant that science fiction opened up his particular capacity for fusing ordinary experience—the emotional and ontological crises of his human characters—to the implications of the hegemonic power of the U.S., which coalesced in the period in which Dick wrote, and which defines our present century. Reality’s surface shimmers open beneath Dick’s gaze. It’s this that led Fredric Jameson to compare him to Shakespeare. This wouldn’t have happened had he stuck to the earnest social realism of his unpublished novels….

(3) ARTIST SAYS ONE THING, DISNEY SAYS ANOTHER. “Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur Episode Allegedly Scrubbed Over Trans Storyline” – Gizmodo has the details.

One of the remaining episodes of Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur set to release in 2025 will now allegedly no longer make it to air, according to since-deleted comments on social media from crew who worked on the Marvel and Disney animated series, claiming concerns over the developing political climate in the U.S. in the wake of the 2024 presidential election.

The remaining episodes of Moon Girl‘s second and final season were set to air on the Disney Channel sometime in 2025, but now at least one episode produced for the Marvel series—adapting the titular young comics heroine, aka Luna Lafayette, and her adventures alongside the giant T-Rex-esque creature Devil Dinosaur—may not make it to air, supposedly due to revolving around a plotline involving the topic of trans kids involved in school sports.

“One of the projects (episode) I worked on is getting shelved because of which party that won the recent election,” Derrick Malik Johnson, a storyboard artist who worked on Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur said in a recent, since-deleted post on the social media platform Bluesky. “It breaks my heart knowing this impactful and amazing [episode] is now about to be consider a lost media episode.”

In a thread on the Moon Girl subreddit about Johnson’s post, someone claiming to have worked on the series alleged that the episode revolved around the character Brooklyn, a teen volleyball player who attends Luna’s school in the series. “If you put attention [sic] to details about the character, you can figure out about what theme [the episode was based on] and why it was canned,” the user wrote in a now-deleted comment thread.

io9 was not able to independently verify the veracity of the above posts on Bluesky and Reddit, but when reached out for comment, a Disney source familiar with the matter confirmed that while the episode had been pulled from release, the decision was made over a year ago, and unrelated to concerns over the current political climate.

The source further described the reason for the episode’s cancelation–specific to the episode itself, rather than Brooklyn as a character, who has appeared elsewhere in Moon Girl–as part of a regular review process the company makes with all of its kids content, with the intent to ensure material doesn’t potentially push ahead discussions around social issues before families can have them themselves….

(4) BRIAN ASMAN Q&A. The most recent episode of David Agranoff’s podcast Postcards from a Dying World is an “Interview with Brian Asman”.

On this episode I welcome Brian Asman author of Man, Fuck That House and his debut novel Good Dogs. It is hard for me to think of this as being the first novel for Brian Asman. I suppose you could say this is the first proper novel, published with an established publisher, but Asman has been publishing for a few years, but those have been novellas published in a DIY punk style have even produced a viral book release. I mean with a title like “Man, Fuck this House.” Asman already has a signature release. The novellas range from funny to weird and the last Our Black Hearts Beat as One could be argued is a short novel, or would have been considered a novel in the past.

We talk about Brian’s career path and Good Dogs without spoilers for about 40 minutes before a spoiler Warning and then we go under the hood.

(5) IMPERIALISTS IN MARTIAN DISGUISE. [Item by Steven French.] Richard Flanagan’s book Question 7 is up for both fiction and non-fiction awards and tracks the chain of events leading from Rebecca West kissing HG Wells to Hiroshima; here he recalls the first time he read War of the Worlds: “Richard Flanagan: ‘I’m not sure that I will write again’” in the Guardian.

Wells’s novel The War of the Worlds is pivotal to the narrative. Do you remember the first time you read it?

I thought I knew the story – yet when I first read it, perhaps 20 years ago, I was staggered to learn in Wells’s introduction that it was inspired by the extermination of Aboriginal Tasmanians. It isn’t a hokey Edwardian set piece. It’s an indictment of English imperialism.

If you read to the end you can also mourn for Flanagan’s hilarious parrot, Herb.

(6) FLAME ON. The New York Times tells about “One City’s Secret to Happiness: The Annual Burning of a 50-Foot Effigy”. “Every year, Santa Fe incinerates a giant puppet of Zozobra — a ritual meant to purge anxiety and promote a reset.” (Behind a paywall.)

For most of the millions of travelers who make the trek each year, there is no reason to go to Santa Fe except to go to Santa Fe. Just about everything that needs doing can and should be done somewhere else, someplace easier to get to than this tiny city 7,000 feet in the air, whose airport terminal is a fraction of the size of a typical American grocery store. But this town of 90,000 residents strives to ensure that its singularity is reason enough.

Which makes it remarkable that Santa Fe’s most distinctive motif is left inscrutable to outsiders. A towering ghoul points down from a mural on one of the city’s busiest streets with no context. At a local confectionery, a scowling white figure in a cummerbund is rendered in chocolate — why? Even if you clock that the big-eared goblin tattooed on the biceps of a local electrician is the same creature depicted (being consumed by flames) on the cab of a municipal fire truck, you will encounter nowhere an explanation of who or what this monster is — unless you happen to be in Santa Fe on the one evening a year when locals construct a building-size version of this thing and set it on fire.

The explanation is a touch nonsensical: This is Zozobra, a beast who lives in the mountains nearby. The people of Santa Fe invite him into town every year on the pretext of a party in his honor. He arrives at the party dressed in formal attire, thrusts the town into darkness and takes away “the hopes and dreams of Santa Fe’s children,” whom he also kidnaps. The townspeople try and fail to subdue him with torches. But then the Fire Spirit, summoned by an atmosphere of cooperation among the town’s citizens, appears and, flying high off the good vibes, battles Zozobra until he is consumed by fire.

If you are fortunate enough to be around on the exactly right night in late summer — the Friday before Labor Day — you may find yourself surrounded by, and even join in with, the screaming citizens of Santa Fe as they string up this enormous, writhing pale-faced humanoid on a pole on a hill overlooking their homes and burn him while he moans until dead.

“Burn him!” demand the children onstage. “BUUUURN HIIIIIM!” roar the adults from the crowd, a portion of whom are inebriated. Unseen, a local judge howls into a microphone, providing the voice of a gargantuan puppet being cooked alive. It is possible that, one century ago, the forebears of the current population discovered the violent secret to happiness in their high, dry town — and that it is annual, ritualized killing by flames. Just in case that’s right — in fact, proceeding on an assumption that it is — the local citizenry have recommitted the monstrous puppet’s murder every year for 100 years straight, so far. The aim is to incinerate their gloom….

… The monster is still stuffed with slips of paper bearing woes (“glooms” in event parlance). But these days there are virtually no limits to what the public may cram inside Zozobra’s body and set aflame: wedding albums; medical bills; report cards; loved ones’ ashes; parking tickets; pictures of Osama bin Laden (popular in 2002); a pristine guitar; many varieties of gown (wedding; hospital; according to local lore, a few belonging to Marilyn Monroe that an acquaintance was adamant would never go to auction); etc. The show still follows its original script….

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary, Justice League animated series (2001)

Twenty-three years ago on this evening, the Justice League animated series premiered on the Cartoon Network. It was the seventh series of the DC Animated Universe. The series ended after just two seasons, but was followed by the Justice League Unlimited, another series which aired for an additional three seasons.  There really wasn’t any meaningful difference between the two series save a larger number of characters. Really there wasn’t. 

It’s largely based off the Justice League created by editor Sheldon Mayer and writer Gardner Fox in the Sixties.  

It has a stellar primary voice cast of George Newbern as  Superman / Clark Kent, Kevin Conroy as Batman / Bruce Wayne,  Michael Rosenbaum as The Flash / Wally West, Phil LaMarr as Green Lantern / John Stewart, Susan Eisenberg  as Maria Canals-Barrera as Hawkgirl / Shayera Hol, Carl Lumbly as Martian Manhunter / John Jones  and Susan Eisenberg as Wonder Woman / Princess Diana. 

In a neat piece of later casting, Lumbly will be J’onn J’onnz’s father M’yrnn in the Arrowverse and on Supergirl. That changes the story as it was here, where John J’onnz was the very last Martian. No. I am not dealing with every fluid story in the comics. I am not. 

It lasted for fifty-two episodes and featured scripts from such writers as John Ridley, Dwayne McDuffie, Pail Dini, Butch Lukic and Ernie Altbacker. 

One of my favorite episodes, “Chaos at the Earth’s Core”, was written by Matt Wayne, a DCU writer of the time, with the world of Skytaris and its inhabitants are all taken from Mike Greil’s Warlord comics from the Seventies. Yes, he’s properly acknowledged as the source.

It received universal acclaim and IGN lists it among the best animated series ever done with its successor series being second. Audience reviewers at Rotten Tomatoes currently give it a near perfect ninety-nine percent rating. 

Streaming on Amazon Prime. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal gets around the grawlix.
• Thatababy chose the option package.
• The Argyle Sweater can mash ‘em, boil ‘em, or stick ‘em in an Egyptian history book.
• Cul de Sac provides negative inspiration.
• Wumo shows an editor at work.
• Tom Gauld shows what it means to work cheaper.

(9) EISNER ART ON THE BLOCK. Heritage Auctions will hold “The Art of Will Eisner Comic Showcase Auction” on December 12. View the artwork in all the lots at the link. Includes this back cover from The Spirit Coloring Book.

(10) ROCKY ROAD. Idolator says it’s time to deconstruct that well-known Stone Age family. “20 Things That Didn’t Make Sense In ‘The Flintstones’ That We’re Still Thinking About”.

Set in the stone age, The Flintstones follows a modern prehistoric family that always seems to get into unlikely situations. And while it was a popular animated sitcom when it premiered on ABC in 1960, there are many aspects of the series that don’t really make sense, and we’re not just talking about a pet dinosaur who’s allowed to hang around babies!

Tiny points such as Fred getting gas for his foot-powered car and how time-traveling has no butterfly effect on the Flintstones’ actual timeline leave people saying yabba dabba, huh? And those aren’t even the most confusing points!…

Here’s one of the nits they pick.

What Is Wilma’s Maiden Name?

When it comes to popular long-running shows, one would hope the screenwriters could keep their characters’ names in check. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen for one Mrs. Wilma Flintstone. If you recall, the show mentions Wilma’s maiden name a few times, but depending on which episode you’re watching, it could be one of two names.

Wilma’s maiden name flip-flops between Pebble and Slaghoople, in what most likely is nothing more than a continuity error on the writer’s part. And, to quote Tony Stark, “[they] didn’t think we’d notice; but we did.”…

(11) BIRD BRAIN COVER STORY. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] This week’s Nature has as its cover story a paper reporting the discovery of a well-preserved (around 85–75 million years old), fossil skull of an early off-shoot of the dinosaurs that went on to become the birds we know today. Past fossils of early birds have not had such well-preserved skulls and so palaeontologists may have underestimated their brain size.  Could these early-birds be nearly as bright as some birds are today?

The paper is Chiappe, L. M., et al. (2024) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-08114-4 “Cretaceous bird from Brazil informs the evolution of the avian skull and brain” Nature, vol. 635, p376-381.

Now, the thing is that if early birds were brighter earlier than thought, what does this say about the rise of early intelligence that ultimately leads to full-blown intelligence capable of putting people on the Moon and returning them safely to Earth without the use of Cavorite? My personal musing is that if intelligence arises multiple times and in different ways, does this speak to it being an ‘easy’ evolutionary step? If so what are the prospects for intelligent life elsewhere in the Galaxy? And if so, will they serve decent beer?  These are the important questions….

Of course, intelligence takes many forms. Let’s not forget the octopus or, for that matter, dolphins (so long and thanks for all the fish).  I have always been wary of dinosaurs and have never really forgiven them for what they did to Raquel Welch…

(12) SSSSSSSSSSS. “NASA Believes International Space Station Leak Can Be ‘Catastrophic’” reports People.

NASA has growing concerns about an ongoing air leak on a Russian section of the International Space Station (ISS) that has been going on since 2019.

According to SpaceNews, Bob Cabana, a former NASA astronaut who now chairs the ISS Advisory Committee, raised the issue during a meeting on Wednesday, Nov. 13.

“While the Russian team continues to search for and seal the leaks, it does not believe catastrophic disintegration of the PrK [module] is realistic. NASA has expressed concerns about the structural integrity of the PrK and the possibility of a catastrophic failure,” said Cabana….

… The news comes after NASA identified an increase in the leak rate in February, per the report. The rate at which air was leaking peaked at 3.7 pounds per day in April but was reduced “by roughly a third” with repairs, according to Space.com.

The ISS Program and Roscosmos officially met in May and June to discuss heightened concerns, elevating the leak risk to the highest level in its risk management system, per the report….

(13) CHINESE SPACE SHUTTLE PLANNED. “China Shows Off Reusable Space Shuttle” – Futurism has a rundown.

China has shown off a reusable shuttle that it intends to use to ferry cargo to and from its Tiangong space station.

As Space.com reports, the project — dubbed Haolong — recently won the state-owned Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute a government contract to develop a low-cost space station cargo spacecraft.

The country’s human spaceflight agency selected two proposals last month as part of its efforts to regularly resupply its three-year-old space station….

…Not unlike NASA’s retired Space Shuttle, the winged spacecraft would launch atop of a rocket and land much like an airplane on a runway. It measures 32 feet long and 26 feet wide.

“With a blunt-nosed fuselage and large, swept-back delta wings, it combines the characteristics of both spacecraft and aircraft, allowing it to be launched into orbit by a carrier rocket and land on an airport runway like a plane,” Haolong chief designer Fang Yuangpen explained in a video by state-owned broadcaster CCTV….

[Thanks to SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, P. J. Evans, Rob Thornton, Sourdough Jackson, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, and Cat Eldridge for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Camestros Felapton.]