Tag Archives: Hasbro

Pixel Scroll 12/10/24 We Are The Telepath Guild, The Telepath Guild, The Telepath Guild

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(1) UNION AND STRAND BOOK STORE SETTLE. “Strike Ends at the Strand as Union, Management Reach Tentative Agreement” reports Publishers Weekly.

The Strand Book Store has reached a tentative contract agreement with its staff union, which is represented by United Auto Workers Local 2179, putting an end to a strike that stretched through the weekend and much of Monday, December 9. Should the contract be ratified, it would last through Aug 31, 2028, adding an additional year to a contract that was previously three years long, said Will Bobrowski, the former Strand employee and current second VP at UAW Local 2179.

Among the changes to the contract, Bobrowski told PW, are an increase to the store’s per hour hiring rate, which will now be $0.50 above New York State minimum wage and a $1.50/hour raise in an employee’s fourth year, amounting to a roughly 37% wage increase over four years for Strand workers who begin at the base salary. (The minimum wage in New York will increase by another $0.50 on January 1, 2026, and on Jan. 1, 2027, the state’s rate will be tied to the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, taking inflation into account in the establishment of a minimum.)

Paid time off for employees will remain unchanged in the new contract, totaling nine days for all workers. Charges of unfair labor practices filed by the union to the National Board of Labor Relations over the weekend will also be dropped….

(2) DEADLINE APPROACHES TO APPLY FOR OTHERWISE FELLOWSHIPS. The Otherwise Motherboard is soliciting applications for two 2024 Otherwise Fellows.

The Otherwise Fellowship (formerly Tiptree Fellowship) was established in 2015 to support and recognize new voices who are creating work that is changing our view of gender today. The Fellowship program seeks out creators who are striving to complete new works, particularly creators from communities that have been historically underrepresented in the science fiction and fantasy genre and those who are working in media other than traditional fiction! Each Fellow receives USD $500 in support of a new or ongoing project.

Applications are due December 15, 2024, at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time, via email. Selected Fellows will be announced in Spring 2025. The Fellowship committee is being chaired by Otherwise Motherboard member Jed Samer.

For more information about what the Fellowship entails and how to apply, see “How to apply for an Otherwise Fellowship”.

(3) GENRE SPECIALISTS’ PICKS. At Reactor: “Reviewers’ Choice: The Best Books of 2024”.

As readers of speculative fiction, we are spoiled for choice. The book releases in the genres of science fiction, fantasy, horror, and beyond this year took us to lands of magic and wonder, newly terraformed planets and generation ships, crumbling gothic mansions, and tech-fueled future Earths—and we are so lucky to get to read them all. Our reviewers each picked their top contenders for the best books of the year, along with some personal favorites….

(4) ASFS’ REVISED CODE OF CONDUCT. The African Science Fiction Society released its new Code of Conduct today in concert with this statement about Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki. (The Code of Conduct is at the link.)

ASFS had started gathering information in response to Erin Cairns’ report discussed in File 770’s post “Two Accusations Against Ekpeki Disproved”.

(5) SCOTT EDELMAN’S OTHER PODCAST. Episode 10 of Scott Edelman’s podcast Why Not Say What Happened? — “Why I Was Questioned by the Police for Wearing a Mister Miracle Mask” — includes his ramblings about his first cons — plus a couple of con photos of him at 16.

And here’s the link to all episodes in the series, which can be downloaded through multiple sites.

Scott Edelman, at right wearing glasses.

(6) CALL ME ISHMAEL, BUT DON’T CALL ME LATE TO DINNER. “’People are rooting for the whale’: the strange American tradition of Moby-Dick reading marathons” at Yahoo!

Every fall on Venice beach, local residents set up a director’s chair by the water. A harpoon goes on one side, a whalebone on the other. Then, in honor of grey whale migration season, they spend two days reading Moby-Dick aloud.

Nearly 200 years after Herman Melville first published the story of a sea captain’s obsessive hunt for a white whale, Moby-Dick marathons have become a surprisingly popular American tradition. There are an estimated 25 or more across the US each year, in locations ranging from museums to a 19th-century whaling ship….

…The Venice beach marathon, held for 29 years, is a particularly surreal scene. Even in late November, the beach is crowded: French tourists on bicycles, the men of Muscle beach lifting weights, friends playing volleyball in short shorts. Far out on the sand, where the air begins to smell more like salt than weed or essential oils, the Moby-Dick readers sit in a circle, switching readers every chapter, as tourists and surfers eddy around them, drifting up to take photographs and then drifting away again. Occasionally, readers spot whales in the distance….

…Other classic novelists may inspire larger fan events, but Jane Austen celebrations don’t typically include a live reading of all of Pride and Prejudice.

“No offense to Jane Austen, but more happens. It’s more exciting to hunt a whale than to hunt a husband,” said Dawn Coleman, the executive secretary of the Melville Society, and an English professor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville….

(7) MANY DOLLARS WERE LOST. Giant Freakin Robot makes its case for “How Disney’s Horrible Marketing Forever Changed Sci-Fi Movies”. They begin by dissecting the corpse of Disney’s marketing campaign for John Carter (2012).

In the long, storied history of Disney, the company has had massive successes, including the history-making Marvel Cinematic Universe and their entire animated output in the ’90s. At the same time, they’ve created some of the biggest bombs of all time.

The 2012 sci-fi adventure John Carter was, at the time of its release, the least profitable film ever made, a title it might end up losing to Joker: Folie a Deux by the end of the year. A rollicking sci-fi adventure based on classic pulp novels, John Carter should have been a massive success, but it never had a chance, thanks to the worst marketing campaign of all time….

…The second trailer course-corrected and starts off with Carter fighting in an arena before launching into a montage of the alien planet with Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” playing. As with everything about this movie, it was too far ahead of the curve, as today, every trailer has a slowed-down, epic version of a classic rock song playing over the trailer, but in 2012, this confused most of the general audience.

Worse, there’s nothing about being based on the legendary pulp novels of Edgar Rice Burroughs, nothing about being an adventure 100 years in the making, no mention of how it’s starring Taylor Kitsch, who at the time Hollywood was pushing as the next big thing. In interviews leading up to its release, Kitsch publicly spoke about his disappointment with the film’s marketing, which lacked any sort of “hook” or jaw-dropping special effects shot to leave an impression on viewers. Even his other sci-fi dud, Battleship, included a screen-filling shot of the alien ship in all of its glory to tease moviegoers of the battle yet to come….

(8) WICKED INSPIRATION. Saturday Night Live gives us “Gladiator II: The Musical”. “There’s No Place Like Rome.”

(9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

December 10, 1960 — Kenneth Branagh, 64.

I first saw Kenneth Branagh with his then-wife Emma Thompson in Much Ado About Nothing, the Shakespearean comedy which he adapted. Truly lovely film.

So let’s look at his genre work as a performer. Dead Again might or might not be his first genre film where he was Mike Church / Roman Strauss, but Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where he was Victor Frankenstein is genre and he directed it as well. I’ve heard varying opinions on it. What did y’all think of it? 

Then there’s Wild Wild West where he was Arliss Loveless, some bastardized variant on Michael Dunn’s perfectly acted Dr. Miguelito Quixote Loveless. He didn’t work for me. Not at all. Nor did that shudderingly awful film. 

Alien Love Triangle is a thirty-minute film starring Kenneth Branagh, Alice Connor, Courteney Cox and Heather Graham. Teleportation. Aliens. Genders, alien. 

He got to play in Rowling’s universe in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets as Gilderoy Lockhart. Great role it was.

Oh, and in an alternate reality sort of way, he plays William Shakespeare in All is True, another name for Shakespeare’s play Henry VIII.  It’s a very lovely role and a sweet film as well. Recommended. 

For hard SF, I’ve got him directing Thor. (Well sort of hard SF.) For fantasy, he directed Cinderella and Artemis Fowl. 

Finally, he’s Hercule Poirot in the three Agatha Christie films produced so far — Murder on the Orient Express, Death on the Nile and A Haunting in Venice. He was also director and producer for these. He’s certainly a different manner of that detective. Really different.

Kenneth Branagh

(10) SPIDER-MAN FIGURES. “Hasbro Unveils New Spider-Man Marvel Legends Wave for 2025” – Bleeding Cool has all the photos. Here are a couple.

…The first wave of Marvel Legends figures for 2025 have been revealed, with Spider-Man bringing some heat in the new year…. However, the whole roster has been unveiled, with six iconic heroes and villains coming to life, with each getting their own card back. For the classic Spider-Man: The Animated Series retro wave, we have the debut of The Chameleon, and yes, he gets a J. Jonah Jameson mask. We are also getting a Clone Saga debut with Kaine from a time before he was a hero and the corrupt clone of Peter Parker. Lastly, we are stepping into the Spider-Verse with the 1st ever-Marvel Legends figure of Spider-Man Unlimited!…

…The latest wave of Marvel Legends Series Spider-Man inspired figures:

  • Spider-Man Unlimited
  • Agent Venom (Flash Thompson)
  • Spider-Boy
  • Marvel’s Chameleon
  • Marvel’s Kaine
  • Electro (Francine Frye)

(11) CASTING OUCH. Variety reports “Jeremy Allen White Joins ‘Star Wars’ Film ‘The Mandalorian & Grogu’ as Jabba the Hutt’s Son”. Eh, Jabba the Hutt’s son? How? Parthenogenesis? Binary fission? Actual sex? Where’s my eye bleach.

… Plot details have been hard to come by for “The Mandalorian & Grogu,” so White’s casting as Jabba’s son provides the first real glimpse for what could be in store for the titular bounty hunter and his adorably wee adopted son. Their Disney+ series “The Mandalorian” is set in the years following the events of 1983’s “Return of the Jedi,” in which Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher) strangles Jabba to death. The recent spin-off series “The Book of Boba Fett” revealed that Jabba’s absence left a power vacuum among the organized crime bosses on Tatooine; two of Jabba’s cousins made a play for his territory, only to be defeated by Boba Fett (Temuera Morrison), who takes over instead. It seems likely that, with Jabba’s son somehow involved in the new film, Boba Fett and his deputy Fennec Shand (Ming-Na Wen) could show up as well….

(12) BLASTED IN THE PAST. Larry Correia would never do this. “Why ‘Gladiator’ director Ridley Scott keeps a 40-year-old negative review framed on his wall: ‘I was actually hurt’” at CNBC.

At 87 years old, director Ridley Scott has seen a tremendous amount of success over the course of his career. 

His films have grossed billions at the box office and taken home nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture for 2000′s “Gladiator.” But despite the plaudits he has received as a filmmaker, it’s the critical pans that have stayed with Scott the most. 

In an interview with filmmaker Fede Alvarez on the DGA’s “Director’s Cut” podcast, Scott revealed that he has a negative review from famed film critic Pauline Kael of his 1982 science fiction epic “Blade Runner” on display in his office. 

Scott explained that Kael “destroyed Blade Runner in four pages” in the New Yorker, likening the review to “industrial espionage, because you’re destroying a product before it’s out.”…

… “I framed that. It’s still in my office today,” he said. “It taught me this: there’s only one critic that means anything, and that’s you.”…

(13) THE WEST EGG AND I. Chuck Tingle seems to have embraced Scott’s number – and a good many other things.

(14) UNUSUAL VIDEO GAME. [Item by N.] “I Hope This Hurts: Mouthwashing Through A Disabled Lens” at The Jimquisition is a video essay from game critic James Stephanie Sterling, which analyzes the recent indie sci-fi horror success Mouthwashing from the vantage point of disability.

(15) CASTLEVANIA. Netflix dropped a trailer for “Castlevania: Nocturne Season 2”, which is available there starting January 16.

The legendary Alucard, Richter Belmont, and his band of vampire hunters are in a desperate race against time. Erzsebet Báthory, the Vampire Messiah, who already seems invincible, seeks the full power of the goddess Sekhmet so she can plunge the world into endless darkness and terror

(16) ZOMBIES BY INCREMENTS. Gizmodo says, “In 28 Years Later’s First Trailer, the Apocalypse Just Keeps Going”. Beware spoilers (maybe). Beware gory zombie stuff (definitely). In theaters June 20, 2025.

A lot can change in nearly three decades, even in a zombie apocalypse. New ways to survive, new mysteries evolving in the infection that laid the world low. Sometimes people grow up and become Aaron Taylor-Johnson, even. But one thing that doesn’t change? The violence….

…28 Years Later is just the first half of our long-awaited return to this version of the zombie apocalypse, however–Boyle’s sequel was shot back-to-back with its own continuation, helmed by Nia DaCosta and titled The Bone Temple (which we seem to get a brief look at in this trailer, too). That film will see Cillian Murphy reprise his role from 28 Days as Jim, but it hasn’t stopped people from speculating that one of the zombies glimpsed in the trailer could be his grim fate, as there is one that looks especially like a particularly gaunt Murphy glimpsed rising out of a bed of wild grass….

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, Sumana Harihareswara, N., Daniel Dern, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel “We’d Like To Welcome You” Dern.]

Pixel Scroll 11/15/24 If I Said You Had A Beautiful Pixel, Would You Scroll It Against Me?

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(1) KING JOINS RUSH FOR THE X-IT. “Stephen King leaves X, describing atmosphere as ‘too toxic’” reports the Guardian.

Stephen King has announced he is quitting X after describing the platform as “too toxic”.

In a post on X on Thursday, the author of The Shining and Shawshank Redemption wrote: “I’m leaving Twitter. Tried to stay, but the atmosphere has just become too toxic.” Referring to the rival platform launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, he added: “Follow me on Threads, if you like.”

This week, the Guardian said it would stop posting on X, citing concerns over toxic content on the platform. The German football club St Pauli, the actor Jamie Lee Curtis, the US TV journalist Don Lemon and Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia have also announced they will no longer post on the site.

On Wednesday, King denied he had called X’s owner, Elon Musk, “Trump’s new first lady” or that the world’s richest person, a staunch Donald Trump supporter, had kicked him off the platform – drawing a reply of “Hi Steve!” from Musk’s own account.

The Guardian left ahead of King:

…On Wednesday, the Guardian said it would no longer post from its official accounts because the benefits of being on the site were outweighed by the negatives, citing the “often disturbing content” found on it….

Since the election there’s been a mass X-odus. Bluesky has been one of the beneficiaries. File 770, which honestly has never had a big following at X.com, has lost 150 readers there — while gaining over 400 at Bluesky. We’re probably in somebody’s Starter Pack. Once people discover what they’ve signed up for I predict there will be a market correction…

(2) B&N BOOK OF THE YEAR. Barnes & Noble has announced James by Percival Everett as the 2024 Book of the Year reports Publishers Weekly. Filers soundly rejected my efforts to label James as being of genre interest. However, the bookseller has specially recognized two additional books, naming Impossible Creatures by Katherine Rundell (definitely genre) as its inaugural Children’s Book of the Year, and The Backyard Bird Chronicles by Amy Tan as its first-ever Gift Book of the Year. The entire list of “2024 Book of the Year Finalists” is here at B&N Reads.

(3) DARK HORSE FOR AWARDS CONSIDERATION? “You probably haven’t heard of Meanwhile on Earth. It’s only 2024’s best sci-fi movie” according to Digital Trends. A lot is revealed about the plot at the link, and there are more clips.

… Meanwhile on Earth ends the way it should end, which is to say not all is revealed, and it’s up to you to decide what happens. Remember, this isn’t a big-budget sci-fi movie, so there’s no need to satisfy a mass audience who desperately need all questions answered and all mysteries revealed.

This film doesn’t do that, and it’s better for it. The ending is either happy or sad depending on how you interpret it. I’m leaning more to the former, although like everything else in the film, happiness comes at a cost, and you’re still left asking the film’s central question: Was everything Elsa did worth it?…

(4) BEFORE THERE WAS AI. Paul O’Connor reminds us about “The Wisdom of Wally Wood”.

One particular saying of comics arts genius Wally Wood has always stuck with me:

“Never draw anything you can copy, never copy anything you can trace, never trace anything you can cut out and paste up.”

I worked in comics for several years, and then — as in Wally Wood’s day — creators were mostly paid by the page. There was a minimum quality bar you needed to hit, but quantity was the thing. As a writer, I could manage about eight finished script pages per day. That meant I wrote a comic in three days. To make my rent, I needed to write four or five comics a month. It’s largely because of those days that I still think of myself as a pulp writer at heart.

(I envied writers who went faster — still do).

In that kind of environment, you need outlines, structures, reliable starting places, formulas. And you need to work fast.

Wood’s quote hits to the heart of those requirements. If it worked before, it should work again. Don’t reinvent the wheel. Use your tools to tell the story, then tell the next story, and the next. Most of all, don’t worry about starting with a copy. By the time you finish the work, it will be your own.

One of the artists Wally Wood copied … was himself. His “22 Panels That Always Work” was a toolkit of poses and composition for injecting variety into boring panels from “some dumb writer (who) has a bunch of lame characters sitting around and talking for page after page!” (Ahem)….

(5) FORBIDDEN AGAIN. Deadline tells us: “’Forbidden Planet’ Remake Set; Brian K. Vaughan To Adapt Sci-Fi Classic”. Of course, Hugo voters know who Vaughan is. But are we excited?

Warner Bros has made a deal to mount a new version of the 1956 science fiction classic Forbidden Planet. The film will be written by comic book and screenwriter Brian K. Vaughan, and it will be produced by Emma Watts.

For its forward-thinking themes, the film is considered a north star for science fiction writing and cinema that came after it. It has never had a big-screen remake — though James Cameron reportedly once considered it — partly because the rights were complicated and difficult to untangle. The studio and Watts finally got that major obstacle out of the way….

… Vaughan is the Hugo- and Eisner Award-winning comic book writer and screenwriter whose comic creations include Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Runaways, Pride of Baghdad, Saga and Paper Girls. He also wrote on such comics as X-Men, Spider-Man and Captain America — and his TV work includes serving as writer, story editor and producer of three seasons of Lost, after being tapped by Damon Lindelof. Vaughan was then handpicked by Steven Spielberg to adapt Stephen King’s novel Under the Dome. He has the sci-fi bona fides….

(6) WIN THE STOKER AWARD IN HALF AN HOUR. The Horror Writers Association debuted its “official tabletop game” at StokerCon 2024 – Sudden Acts of Horror! Available from the Stop The Killer online store.  Takes 30 minutes to play.

In this fun party charades game, teams invent fake horror novel titles on-the-spot to score points and win their very own mini Bram Stoker Award®!

The game comes packaged in a box that looks and opens like a novel, and includes:

  • 460 words printed on 230 double-sided tiles
  • 1 velvety black drawstring bag with gold cord to hold the tiles
  • 1 mini (2.5″) Bram Stoker Award®
  • 3 Dice
  • 1 Sand timer
  • 1 Score pad with pencil
  • 1 Rule Book

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Anniversary: — Star Trek’s “The Tholian Web”

Untold years ago this evening, Star Trek’s “The Tholian Web” first aired.

It was written by Judy Burns, her first professional script. She would later write scripts for myriad genre series including Mission: Impossible, The Six Million Dollar Man and Fantasy Island. Her co-writer was Chet Richards, this would be his only script. 

Primary guest cast was Sean Morgan as Lt. O’Neil, Barbara Babcock as the voice of Loskene who was the Tholian commander (she was Mea 3 in “A Taste of Armagedon” and Philana in “Plato’s Stepchildren” plus four voice roles), and Paul Baxley (uncredited in the episode) as the Captain of the Defiant. Baxley was the stunt coordinator for the series, and the stunt double for Shatner. 

RED ALERT, ERR, SPOILER ALERT. GO DRINK SOME KLINGON BLOOD WINE IF YOU CAN STOMACH IT. NOT ALL CAN. 

The Defiant has gone missing. Everyone can see the faintly green glowing ship, and the Enterprise is not picking up on any sensor readings. “Fascinating!” says Spock. (How many times did we hear those words in the final season?)  

Kirk decides Chekov, Bones, Spock and himself will beam over and check it out. They beam aboard the Defiant, each wearing a special suit. Everyone there is dead. Are you surprised? A Red Shirt murdered the Captain. Again, are we supposed to be surprised? This is a season three episode. I consider that season by far the weakest season. 

Then transporter seriously acts out. Scotty manages to get it almost behave but says he can take only three at a time. (Plot device!) Kirk says he’ll beam last. He vanishes. Errr, no surprise. And they can’t get a fix on him. No, I won’t say that again. 

As Chekov observes, the Defiant disappeared and took the captain with her. Shortly thereafter, aliens called the Tholians demand that the Enterprise go away. Spock, who is now in command, insists that they will not leave until Kirk is rescued.  

The Tholians decide to trap the crew there inside an energy web, and reveal that this is a part of space where people tend to go insane as if we need to be told that by now. The crew begins to go insane, again no surprise. 

Kirk is declared dead after attempts to save him have failed. Will it be any surprise that then Kirk is rescued? I think not. Will all be well in the end? What do you think? 

In a two-part episode of Enterprise, “In a Mirror, Darkly”, written by Michael Sussman, it is told that the Defiant has reappeared in the Mirror Universe of Archer’s time, where it is salvaged by the Tholians and later stolen from them by Jonathan Archer of the Terran Empire who tries but fails to become Emperor of that Empire when he is murdered by his lover so becomes Empress. All of this happening because the Defiant is the most technologically advanced starship in the Empire.

Yes, I very much like the latter story and think those episodes were very well told. Each of the regular cast here got to do something they didn’t usually get to do, actually really act. 

ENJOY THE WINE? OR NOT? EITHER WAY DO COME BACK BACK NOW. 

This is the first appearance of a Tholian in Star Trek — in this case, Commander Loskene. For this appearance, Loskene appeared only on the Enterprise’s viewscreen and was portrayed simply by a puppet created by Mike Minor. 

They would be a recurring presence in the Trek verse with three appearances in Star Trek Next Generation, seven in Deep Space Nine, Star Trek Nemesis and Enterprise twice. 

It is well worth noting as Memory Alpha says, “The approximately two dozen crew members who attend Kirk’s memorial service appear to constitute the largest assemblage of Enterprise personnel in the original series.” Having seen the rest of the various Trek series, I don’t think there’s another scene where there’s that many crew members assembled. Anyone remember one?

It is considered by most critics and a lot of fans alike to be one of the best Trek episodes done though it did not get a Hugo nomination unlike a lot of other Trek episodes. It appears we were more picky than they were. 

Need I say that both are on Paramount+?

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) VIDEO GAME CELEBRATES 20TH ANNIVERSARY. “’We don’t go to Ravenholm’: the story behind Half-Life 2’s most iconic level” as told in the Guardian.

At the start of Valve’s Half-Life 2, the seminal first-person shooter game that turns 20 this month, taciturn scientist Gordon Freeman is trapped within a dystopian cityscape. Armed soldiers patrol the streets, and innocent citizens wander around in a daze, bereft of purpose and future. Dr Wallace Breen, Freeman’s former boss at the scientific “research centre” Black Mesa, looks down from giant video screens, espousing the virtues of humankind’s benefactors, an alien race known as The Combine.

As Freeman stumbles through these first few levels of Half-Life 2, the player acclimatises to the horrible future laid out before them. It’s hardly the most cheerful setting, but there are some friendly faces (security guard Barney, Alyx and Eli Vance) and even moments of humour, as Dr Isaac Kleiner’s pet, a debeaked face-eating alien called Lamarr, runs amok in his laboratory. It feels safe. It feels fun. It feels familiar. There’s even a crowbar! And then, the foreshadowing. “That’s the old passage to Ravenholm,” mutters Alyx Vance during Freeman’s chapter five tour of the Black Mesa East facility. “We don’t go there any more.” You feel a shiver down your spine; you know you will end up going there.

“[Ravenholm] was a totally different environment from what the player had been in until that point,” says Dario Casali, level designer and member of the informal City 17 Cabal, a group within Valve that worked on Half-Life 2’s most famous level. “It was an outlier of a map set that survived from a pretty early build of the game, borne from a need to give the newly introduced Gravity Gun a place to shine.”

(10) STOCKHOLDER SUES HASBRO. “Hasbro sued in investor suit for allegedly lying about overpurchased inventory after pandemic demand” – Polygon analyzes the claims.

A self-described “investor rights law firm” filed a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that Hasbro, the tabletop gaming and toy company, misrepresented its excessive inventory to investors, something the firm says is a violation of federal securities laws. Polygon reached out to Hasbro for comment and has yet to hear back.

Bernstein Litowitz Berger & Grossmann (the law firm) filed a complaint in a New York court on behalf of the West Palm Beach Firefighters’ Pension Fund, asking the court to grant the case class action status — meaning other investors and stock purchasers can participate. Hasbro, like other gaming companies, saw a boost in interest and sales during the pandemic, when people were looking for things to do in their homes; games were an obvious choice. The lawsuit alleges Hasbro purchased inventory to meet that demand — but ended up buying too much. Hasbro allegedly told investors the high purchasing was necessary to “mitigate supply chain risk and meet consumer demand” ahead of the 2022 holiday season, according to the lawsuit. When that inventory sat, Hasbro said the stock “reflected outstanding and anticipated demand” and not a decreased demand. The lawsuit alleges Hasbro was intentionally misleading investors and knew it “overpurchased inventory to an extend that significantly outpaced customer demand.” The timeline makes sense: 2022 is when the world started opening up more broadly, and people were eager to get out of their houses….

…Because of all this — especially the October 2023 financial disclosures — stock prices declined and investors lost money, the lawsuit alleges, to the tune of a loss of $831 million in shareholder value. The stock value Hasbro previously had, according to the lawsuit’s claims, was due to inflated prices due to the lack of disclosures….

(11) LATE REPORT FROM THE EARLY NO-WARNING SYSTEM. Space.com tells readers: “An asteroid hit Earth just hours after being detected. It was the 3rd ‘imminent impactor’ of 2024”. “By the time the astrometry reached the impact monitoring systems, the impact had already happened.”

Last month, an asteroid impacted Earth’s atmosphere just hours after being detected —  somehow, it managed to circumvent impact monitoring systems during its approach to our planet. However, on the bright side, the object measured just 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter and posed very little threat to anything on Earth’s surface. 

This asteroid, designated 2024 UQ, was first discovered on Oct. 22 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) survey in Hawaii, a network of four telescopes that scan the sky for moving objects that might be space rocks on a collision course with Earth. Two hours later, the asteroid burned up over the Pacific Ocean near California, making it an “imminent impactor.”The small amount of time between detection and impact means impact monitoring systems, operated by the European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center, didn’t receive tracking data about the incoming asteroid until after it struck Earth, according to the center’s November 2024 newsletter….

(13) SPACEWOMAN DOCUMENTARY. “Trailblazer: astronaut Eileen Collins reflects on space, adventure, and the power of lifelong learning” at Physics World (registration required).

In this episode of Physics World Stories, astronaut Eileen Collins shares her extraordinary journey as the first woman to pilot and command a spacecraft. Collins broke barriers in space exploration, inspiring generations with her courage and commitment to discovery. Reflecting on her career, she discusses not only her time in space but also her lifelong sense of adventure and her recent passion for reading history books. Today, Collins frequently shares her experiences with audiences around the world, encouraging curiosity and inspiring others to pursue their dreams.

Joining the conversation is Hannah Berryman, director of the new documentary SPACEWOMAN, which is based on Collins’ memoir Through the Glass Ceiling to the Stars, co-written with Jonathan H Ward. The British filmmaker describes what attracted her to Collins’ story and the universal messages it reveals. Hosted by science communicator Andrew Glester, this episode offers a glimpse into the life of a true explorer – one whose spirit of adventure knows no bounds….

(14) HOW RADIO TELESCOPE BECAME PERMANENTLY UNPLUGGED. “Unprecedented failure led to the collapse of the world-renowned radio telescope in Puerto Rico, report shows” – NBC News has the story.

Four years after the radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico collapsed, a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine is shining a light on the unprecedented failures that caused its destruction.

The steel cables holding up the telescope’s 900-ton receiver platform became loose because the zinc-filled sockets built to support them failed, according to the report published Oct. 25.

The failure was due to excessive “zinc creep,” a process in which the metal used to prevent corrosion or rusting on the sockets deforms and loses it grip over time, the report said.

The zinc gradually lost its hold on the cables suspending the telescope’s main platform over the reflector dish. This allowed several cables to pull out of the sockets, ultimately causing the platform to plummet into the reflector more than 400 feet below, according to the report…

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Lise Andreasen, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Teddy Harvia, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Kip W.]

Pixel Scroll 4/21/16 Pixel Like It’s 1999

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(1) NEW DOCTOR WHO COMPANION. ScreenRant reports the “Doctor Who Season 10 Companion To Be Revealed This Weekend” – in the middle of the BBC One Match of the Day Live soccer broadcast.

[A] new companion has now been cast, the big reveal of exactly who that companion is, will be made this Saturday, April 23rd, on BBC1.

The announcement will be made during half-time of the soccer match between Everton and Manchester United, at approximately 6pm GMT. The news will be posted on all Doctor Who social media sites as it’s announced, enabling viewers across the world to all find out who has been cast at the same time.

 

(2) VIRTUOUS SIGNALING. Rob Boffard at Medium says “You can talk to the International Space Station right now. Here’s how to do it”.  Do you have what it takes?

Of all the things that shouldn’t be possible but are, talking to the International Space Station ranks right up there with Steph Curry’s basketball skills and the existence of Donald Trump.

Think about it. How weird is it that NASA can put a $150bn space station into orbit, which can then be contacted by anybody on Earth? Even you? It’s one of those things that gives you pause?—?the kind of thing you’re vaguely certain is against the law, somewhere.

It’s not something you’re going to be doing tonight?—?not unless you have the relevant equipment already to hand. It takes a little bit of work. But it’s entirely possible, even for those of us who aren’t geeks….

(3) BLOWN AWAY. James Bacon highly recommends The Great British Graphic Novel Comic art exhibition at the Cartoon Museum on the Forbidden Planet blog.

This is a phenomenal experience, it exceeded my expectations and I was blown away by the calibre of the artwork on display. The Cartoon Museum has amassed the finest examples of comic art, an incredible mix of exemplary work, providing a beautiful tapestry of the history and breadth of the greatest works from Britain for public consideration….

Soon I was looking at lovely pieces, starting with Hogarths ‘A Harlots Progress’ from 1732, ‘The Bottle’ from 1847 by George Cruikshank, ‘Ally Sopers; A Moral Lesson’ from 1873, Ronald Searle’s Capsulyssese from 1955, written by Richard Osborne. All giving one a real sense of history, showing that illustrated stories are nothing new in Britain.

Then as I rounded a corner I saw a grouping of Commando Comics placed next to a full colour cover of Charley’s War, and four pages of this seminal work of the First World War. Undoubtedly Pat Mills and Joe Colquhoun’s masterpiece is indeed a crucial addition here, but I had a feeling of true appreciation of the comic form when I saw this colour cover and four original pages lined up. Juxtaposed with this was My Life in Pieces, The Falklands War by Will Kevans from 2014. Original art, cover and concept sketch made for a great grouping….

(4) CHABON AND HASBRO? Birth.Movies.Death almost cannot be believed this time — “Michael Chabon And Brian K. Vaughan To Make Hasbro Cinematic Universe Worth Taking Seriously”. Is there a way to get G.I. Joe taken seriously?

Last December, word came out that Hasbro was going to try their hand a making a cinematic universe based on their various toy properties, namely G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, M.A.S.K. and ROM. I was a little flip about it.

But now Hasbro, lead by Akiva Goldsman, has assembled its writers room and it’s no laughing matter. The big stars of the list are The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay’s Michael Chabon (who also worked on Spider-Man 2), Brian K. Vaughan, who you should know from comics like Y: The Last Man, Ex Machina, Saga, Runaways and a bunch of other impressive titles, and Nicole Perlman, co-writer of Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel.

(5) SPACE MARINES. If you remember Space: Above and Beyond, you may be ready for the Space: Above and Beyond 20th Anniversary celebration on Saturday, August 6 at the Marriott Burbank Airport Hotel.

In 1996, Fox Studios produced the TV series: Space: Above And Beyond (aka S:AAB). The show had Drama, action, mystery and followed the lives of a diverse group of U.S. Marine Space Aviators while fighting against a powerful alien force on the ground, in the air and in outer space. It was part Top Gun, part James Cameron’s Aliens, and all exciting!

This short lived show (1995 to 1996), which fell victim to scheduling conflicts like Joss Whedon’s Firefly, is considered one of the best of Military Science Fiction series to air and is deserving of a convention of its own….

VIP tickets and Premium tickets are both on sale NOW at early-bird prices, and general admission tickets will go on sale starting May 1st.

(6) BEFORE THEY WERE BOTTLED. Syfy may order a pilot for David S. Goyer’s Superman prequel series Krypton.

The series, set two generations before the destruction of Superman’s titular home planet, would tell the story of the man of steel’s grandfather as he fights to restore the family honor of the House of El after it has been shamed.

The pilot will be produced by Warner Horizon Television. Goyer — who penned the screenplays for “Batman Begins,” “Man of Steel” and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” — will write the pilot with Ian Goldberg. He will executive produce through his company Phantom Four with Damian Kindler, who will serve as showrunner. Colm McCarthy is set to direct the pilot.

(7) KIT WEST OBIT. British special effects artist Kit West (1936 – 17 April 2016), known for his work in Raiders of the Lost Ark and Return of the Jedi, died April 17.

(8) BOND FILM EDITOR HAMILTON OBIT. From the BBC:

Guy Hamilton, who directed four James Bond films, has died aged 93.

Former 007 actor Sir Roger Moore tweeted that he was “incredibly, incredibly saddened to hear the wonderful director Guy Hamilton has gone to the great cutting room in the sky. 2016 is horrid”.

Hamilton directed Sir Roger in Live and Let Die and The Man with the Golden Gun.

He also directed Sir Sean Connery in Goldfinger and Diamonds are Forever.

…Speaking about his style of directing he said he wanted value for money.

“In the making of Bond films we are some of the meanest toughest film makers. If we spend a million dollars it had better be up there on the screen.”

(9) TODAY IN HISTORY.

  • April 21, 1997 — Ashes of  Star Trek creator, Gene Roddenberry, journeyed into space.

(10) CAN YOU SAY “CANONICALIZATION”? Will Frank discusses “The Duties of the Hugo Administrative Team” in a MidAmeriCon II blog post.

Once nominations close at the end of March, we go through the data and process it. There are a few steps to this, the biggest one being canonicalization. We review the data to make sure that votes for, for example, “The Three-Body Problem” and “The 3-Body Problem” and “Three Body Problem” and “ The There Body Problem ” —which would all appear separately in our database—are all set up to be recognized as nominations for the same book. And if you think that’s bad, imagine what it’s like when episodes of television get nominated in Best Dramatic Presentation, where there are series title, episode title, and season and episode number, and a thousand different ways to put those together…

Once that’s done, we have our preliminary finalists. That’s when we start reaching out to nominees, letting them know they’ve been nominated, and a bit about the awards. That can be surprisingly difficult if we don’t know people’s email addresses. Sometimes, they’re public…but fairly often they’re not. There’s a certain amount of Googling, guessing, or asking people with impressive Rolodexes just to figure out a valid email address sometimes.

(11) SELECTIVE QUOTE OF THE DAY. Kate Paulk says Sad Puppies have a future, in “Miscellany” at Mad Genius Club.

In other news, this of the Puppy-related kind, I’ve heard rumors from several sources (but nothing official, alas) that more than 4000 Hugo nomination ballots were cast. I’ve also heard there are some saying that Sad Puppies 4 is a nonentity, that it’s run out of steam, it’s dead, pining for the fjords, gone to a better place… (erm, sorry?). Well, no.

Sad Puppies 4 is waiting to hear who the nominees (*ahem*. The Hugo Site says they aren’t being called nominees any more. They’re ‘finalists’ from a shortlist. Whatever) are before congratulating them for their recognition, whoever they are, and starting the next round of campaigning to boost involvement in the Hugos process.

(12) CAT PITCHER. He’s mad as a wet you-know-what! “Timothy Under Attack by SJW Warrior Feminist Filers” at Camestros Felapton.

A certain “website” which I shall not name because I shall not provide it with anymore publicity because I am sure nobody but a tiny number of far left Bernie Sanders supporters in a gated community ever read, as they sip champagne frappucinos in their la-di-da literati bookclub but whose name rhymes with smileearnestbevinbeventy, has SELECTIVELY QUOTED ME in a truly monstrous way to suggest that I am nothing but a poo-poo head! The calumny! The outrage!

(13) A MULTIPLE-CHUS PANEL. This program idea was dropped in the MidAmeriCon II suggestion box….

https://twitter.com/kyliu99/status/722967958054666241

(14) IN FACT IT’S COLD AS HELL. Science Alert reports “An abandoned probe just discovered something weird about the atmosphere of Venus”.

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Venus Express probe spent eight years collecting information on Venus before plunging down to the surface and out of range back in November 2014. But now we finally have the last batch of data it transmitted back to Earth before going offline, and there are some big surprises in all those recordings.

Turns out, the polar atmosphere of Venus is a whole lot colder and a lot less dense than we previously thought, and these regions are dominated by strong atmospheric waves that have never been measured on Venus before.

Maddie Stone from Gizmodo reports that the Venus Express probe found polar areas of Venus to have an average temperature of -157 degrees Celsius, which is colder than any spot on Earth, and about 70 degrees lower than was previously thought.

This is rather surprising, considering Venus’s position as the hottest planet in the Solar System overall.

Not only is Venus much closer to the Sun than we are, it also has a thick, dense cloud layer that traps heat. However, Venus Express also found that the planet’s atmosphere was 22 to 40 percent less dense than expected at the polar regions.

(15) FAMOUS FURNITURE. Heritage Auctions now calls it “The Chair Heard ‘Round the World”.

The online and print publicity pieces for J. K. Rowling’s chair reached over 90 countries, plus all 50 states and all news aggregator sites. It saw total media coverage nationwide, with special interest in New York, Silicon Valley, and major cities in the Midwest, as well as the nation’s capital. The chair also garnered attention with 4,428 mainstream media hits, a number that is still rapidly growing. Print media circulated to 291.7+ million, while 15.6+ billion unique viewers visited websites carrying the article.

(16) THE TRUTH MAY NOT BE OUT THERE. Rachel Swirsky conducts a “Silly Interview with Effie Seiberg, Liar”. (Effie needs an introduction Camestros Felapton’s cat.)

4) Wait, how do I know you aren’t sneakily telling the truth?

The answer to question 3 is a lie.

5) All right, I’ll let it go. Just know that I’m aware that at any point you could be LYING. So. You studied philosophy and logic. Do you use that in your fiction?

Absolutely! There’s a long tradition of slipping philosophy into speculative fiction, especially since they’re both about exploring ideas and taking them to their logical conclusions. Some of my favorites are Italo Calvino’s “All at One Point” and Asimov’s “The Last Question” for metaphysical cosmology, Ken Liu’s “Mono No Aware” for ethics, and Roald Dahl’s “William and Mary” for epistemology, and the movies Labyrinth and Monty Python’s Holy Grail for classic logic. Also the entire Discworld series for all the philosophy ever.

(17) FARE LADY. Ann Leckie wrote about her GoH stint at Japan’s Hal-Con, including a special souvenir —

I don’t tend to take a lot of pictures, unless I’m explicitly doing research on something and think I need pics for future reference, but I did take one or two of the view out my hotel window in Numazu:… And one of some lovely fish-shaped cakes a reader gave me as a gift:…

Okay, those aren’t really cakes. The two in the middle are pancakes with bean paste inside, and the top and bottom ones are a kind of wafer-cookie sandwich, also filled with bean paste. Still. Close enough….

And I learned from her post that when cooked a coelacanth, like every other exotic creature, reportedly “tastes like chicken.”

(18) RUN A LINE THROUGH IT. “SFWA Contracts Committee Alert” at the SFWA Blog.

The SFWA Contracts Committee believes there are serious problems for writers with the non-compete and option clauses in many science fiction and fantasy publishers’ contracts. The non-compete language in these contracts often overreaches and limits authors’ career options in unacceptable ways. Writers may choose to bring out a range of books from different publishers — science fiction from one publisher and fantasy from another publisher, for example — and may have to do so in order to earn anything like a living wage.  The problem becomes even worse for hybrid authors who self-publish works in parallel with their traditional publications. Several contracts that we have seen include overlapping restrictions that could keep the author from publishing another book for more than a year….

Our recommendations:

Any limitation on the author’s ability to write new works at any time is unacceptable and should be deleted.

“Competing work” should be defined in the contract as clearly and narrowly as possible, and preferably limited to a work in the same series (whether one is planned or not). The burden should be on the publisher to prove that another work published elsewhere by the author would reduce their sales.

(19) THRONES RETROSPECTIVE. BBC devoted a long post to “Game of Thrones at 20: How the saga became a TV hit”.

Still, HBO wavered over whether to make a fantasy show that would be so drastically different from their trademark series, which tended toward the grittily realistic. And even after HBO tentatively signed on, Benioff and Weiss’s original pilot episode had to be completely reshot before the show finally debuted in 2011 – another six years after the producers had first acquired the rights from Martin. But there was hope from another perspective: the rise of prestige television had paralleled the rise of cult fandoms. The passionate online exchanges among fans of books like Martin’s made them desirable targets for marketing. Suddenly, HBO had proof that a Game of Thrones series would have an intensely engaged audience from the start, and the network’s marketers knew exactly how to reach those fans – right on those websites and message boards where they gathered to discuss the minutiae of the books. If the network got particularly lucky, those fans would become ambassadors to a wider audience.

Chip Hitchcock sent the link together with these comments, “They do mention the proper title at one point, although it seems a lost cause generally. OTOH, the night before my cruise got to Dubrovnik two weeks ago, the tour manager specifically called out A Song of Ice and Fire — so some people actually know the original collective.”

(20) HEAD OF THE CLASS. Entertainment Weekly explains what went down.

On Wednesday’s episode of The Late Late Show With James Corden, host James Corden and some high-wattage Game of Thrones cast members spoofed House of Black and White’s Hall of Faces (a prominent part of the show’s season 6 marketing campaign), with a segment imagining what an obnoxious disembodied head might do to the larger group.

The sketch featured recent guests Lena Headey, Emilia Clarke, Alfie Allen, and Iwan Rheon…

 

 [Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Rachel Swirsky, Will R., Chip Hitchcock, Andrew Porter, and JJ for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day, the Top Level Poster. On his head be it!]