Tag Archives: Marie Severin

Pixel Scroll 3/31/25 Are Pixels Beyond Count Or Not?

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(1) WILE E.’S DAY. We’ll get to see it after all: “Warner Bros Completes Sale Of ‘Coyote Vs. Acme’ To Ketchup” reports Deadline.

Ketchup Entertainment today confirmed their completed deal for worldwide rights to the live-action/animated hybrid film that brings Looney Tunes character Wile E. Coyote to the big screen. We had the deal pegged in the $50M range and the film is expected to get a theatrical release in 2026….

….The film is based on the Looney Tunes characters and the New Yorker humor article “Coyote v. Acme” by Ian Frazier.

Will Forte, John Cena, Lana Condor and Tone Bell star in the movie, which follows Wile E. Coyote, who, after Acme products fail him one too many times in his dogged pursuit of the Roadrunner, decides to hire a billboard lawyer to sue the Acme Corporation. The case pits Wile E. and his lawyer (Forte) against the latter’s intimidating former boss (Cena), but a growing friendship between man and cartoon stokes their determination to win….

(2) #30#. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) has announced that the organization is shutting down. They offer a lengthy explanation in “The State of NaNoWriMo – A Community Update – March 2025” on YouTube.

We come to you today with a major operational update and important news about the future of the organization and we encourage you to listen to it in its entirety. This video shares real data and information that the organization has not discussed previously. It also contains some important acknowledgments and information about the logistics of our next steps.

This is the aftermath of a controversy that erupted last September when they issued an equivocal statement about using AI – when it did not go unnoticed that NaNoWriMo is sponsored by ProWritingAid, a writing app that advertises AI-powered technology, including text rewrites – and Writers Board members Daniel Jose Older, Cass Morris, and Rebecca Kim Wells immediately resigned. 

(3) KICKSTARTER FOR LONG LIST ANTHOLOGY 9. [Item by Ziv Wities.] The Long List Anthology series collects stories that show up on the Hugo Award finalist tally, based on the official report of the top fifteen finishers in each Hugo category.  

Long List Anthology Volume 9 is drawn from the Long List of the 2024 Hugo Awards. This volume is co-edited by David Steffen, Chelle Parker, and Hal Y. Zhang, with original cover art by Evelyne Park. The new volume includes stories by genre favorites, new voices, and three translations of stories originally published in Chinese — including one translation which is original to the LLA.

Join the Kickstarter here: “The Long List Anthology Volume 9 by David Steffen”.

(4) SOCIETY OF ILLUSTRATORS 2025 HOF INDUCTEES. The Society of Illustrators have announced the 2025 Hall of Fame recipients, contemporary artists Rudy Gutierrez, Kadir Nelson, and Tim O’Brien, and posthumous honorees Peter Arno, Frank R. Paul, and Marie Severin. The Society’s Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony will be held on Thursday, October 9.

Here is what the press release says about artists of genre interest Paul and Severin.

Art credit: Frank R. Paul, Stories of the Stars: Andromeda, circa 1950s. Gouache and ink on board.

Frank R. Paul (1884 – 1963) was a pioneering American illustrator best known for shaping the visual language of science fiction during the early 20th century. His bold, visionary artwork graced the covers of seminal pulp magazines such as Amazing Stories, Science Wonder Stories, and Fantastic Adventures, introducing readers to a vibrant, imaginative future filled with spaceships, robots, and alien worlds. Trained in mechanical drafting and architecture, Paul brought an unmatched level of technical precision and grandeur to his work, helping to define the aesthetic of speculative fiction long before the rise of popular sci-fi cinema. In an era before comic books or concept art departments, Paul created entire worlds from scratch, often illustrating full-color covers, interior black-and-white pieces, and even full spreads for each issue. Over the course of his career, he illustrated thousands of works and played a foundational role in inspiring generations of artists, writers, and filmmakers. He is widely regarded as the first major science fiction artist, and his influence is still seen in visual media today. Frank R. Paul was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame in 2009 for his trailblazing contributions to the genre.

Art credit: Marie Severin (interior pencils), Marvel Spotlight No. 32, Marvel Comics, February 1977. Ink and color on paper.

Marie Severin (1929 – 2018) was a legendary comic book artist and colorist whose work helped define the visual identity of both EC Comics and Marvel Comics throughout the mid-20th century. Beginning her career as a colorist at EC in the 1950s, she quickly earned recognition for her keen sense of composition, storytelling, and humor, eventually moving into penciling and inking as one of the few prominent female artists in the male-dominated industry of the Silver Age. At Marvel, she co-created iconic characters such as the Living Tribunal and worked on titles including Doctor Strange, The Hulk, Sub-Mariner, Iron Man, and Not Brand Echh, a satirical series that showcased her sharp comedic sensibility. Known affectionately as “Mirthful Marie” among peers, Severin brought a distinctive style that blended expressive characters with dynamic layouts, all while mastering the art of visual pacing. She had a unique ability to inject personality and emotion into every panel, making even the most fantastical scenarios feel grounded and human. Her behind-the-scenes influence also extended to production and design, contributing to Marvel’s overall visual tone during a crucial period of expansion and experimentation.

Her versatility as both a humorist and dramatic artist made her an invaluable creative force in every genre she touched—whether superheroes, horror, fantasy, or comedy. Severin was admired not only for her technical skill but also for her warmth, wit, and generosity within the comics community. In 2001, she was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, and her legacy continues to inspire comic artists around the world. Marie Severin remains one of the most important and beloved figures in the history of American comics.

(5) BLACK MIRROR S7 EPISODE BRIEFING. “’Black Mirror’ Season 7 Trailer and Episode Details Revealed” by The Hollywood Reporter.

Such details include cast, synopsis, run time and credits for each standalone saga, which includes the first-ever Black Mirror sequel, for USS Callister, and a callback episode to Netflix’s first-ever interactive feature with Black Mirror: Bandersnatch.

(6) JAMESON QUINN DIES. Jameson Quinn was killed when he fell off a cliff in Guatemala on March 23. His death was announced by his mother on Bluesky. According to his son it happened when Quinn was trying to rescue a dog.

Jameson Quinn

Quinn is best known to science fiction fans for helping to reform the Hugo Award nominating system in the wake of the Sad/Rabid Puppies block voting episodes of 2013-2017. He designed the EPH (E Pluribus Hugo) voting method, and helped get it adopted by the World Science Fiction Society for use in nominations for the Hugo awards. He was an active participant on Making Light, and contributed articles to File 770 and also led comment discussions about the initiative here.

Quinn’s other noteworthy accomplishments in voting theory and/or voting reform included co-organizing and attending the British Colombia Symposium on Proportional Representation in 2018 (sponsored by the Center for Election Science), and popularizing the term “Voter Satisfaction Efficiency” (VSE).

A Harvard grad school blog profile about Jameson featured his contribution to EPH as an example of his work: “A Better Way to Vote”.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation novel

It’s the seventy-fourth anniversary of the first publication of Isaac Asimov’s Foundation as a novel. So let’s tell the history of the novel. 

In the summer of 1941, Isaac Asimov proposed to John W. Campbell of Astounding Science Fiction that he write a short story set in a slowly declining Galactic Empire, based on the fall of the Roman Empire. Campbell thought the idea was great. 

Then Asimov proposed writing a series of stories depicting the fall of the first Galactic Empire and the rise of the second. Asimov would write eight stories for Campbell’s magazine over eight years (1942-1949), and they were later collected into three volumes known as The Foundation Trilogy which were published from 1951 to 1953.

Foundation was first published as a single book by Gnome Press. It has “The Psychohistorians”, “The Encyclopedists” “The Mayors”, “The Traders” and “The Merchant Princes”. “The Encyclopedists” and “The Mayors” were novelettes, the others are short stories.  As noted before, each was in Astounding Science Fiction. 

The cover art is by David Kyle. Please note that on the cover it is titled Foundation: An Interplanetary Novel. When Ace published it they renamed it The 1,000 Year Plan in their two editions of 1955 and 1962. 

At Tricon (1966), it would win the Hugo for Best All-Time Series. Other nominees were Burroughs’ Barsoom series, Heinlein’s  Future History series , E. E. Smith’s Lensmen series and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. 

As you know, it is now streaming as a series as Apple+. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) THE INSIDE STORY. “Rare Merlin and King Arthur text found hidden in binding of medieval book” – Popular Science tells how it was done.

Variations on the classic Merlin and King Arthur legends span hundreds, if not thousands, of retellings. Many are documented within handwritten medieval manuscripts dating back over a millenia—but some editions are far rarer than others. For example, less than 40 copies are known to exist of a once-popular sequel series, the Suite Vulgate du Merlin. In 2019, researchers at the University of Cambridge discovered fragments of one more copy in their collections, tucked inside the recycled binding of a wealthy family’s property record from the 16th century. But at the time of discovery, the text was impossible to read.

Now after years of painstaking collaborative work with the university’s Cultural Heritage Imaging Laboratory (CHIL), archivists have finally been able to peer inside the obscured texts—without ever needing to physically handle the long-lost pages.

Experts combined multiple conservation tools and techniques to construct a 3D model of the fragments. These included multispectral imaging (MSI), which creates high-resolution images by scanning an artifact with wavelengths ranging from ultraviolet to infrared light. After borrowing X-ray and CT machines from Cambridge’s zoology department, the team then examined the parchment layers to map unseen binding structures without the need to deconstruct the delicate material. CT scanning allowed researchers to examine how the pages were stitched together using thin strips of similar parchment.

Some of the Merlin texts were unreadable due to being hidden under folds or stitching, so the team also needed to amass hundreds of images from every angle using an array of magnets, prisms, mirrors, and other tools. The combined result is a high-definition, digitized 3D model of the entire relic that unfolds, allowing experts to analyze it as though reviewing the physical manuscript itself.

The results revealed not just a part of Suite Vulgate du Merlin, but insights into the time period in which it existed. Experts now believe the sections originally belonged to a shortened edition of the tale. Given small typographical errors as well as the red and blue ink used in its handwritten decorated initials, historians traced its origins to sometime between 1275–1315 CE…

(10) TIME FOR A SNACK. Invasion ’53, written by Danielle Weinberg,is making the rounds of film festivals. View the trailer at the link.

Invasion ’53, a 10-minute short film about a man-eating alien who crashes a suburban cocktail party. The movie stars Jeffrey Combs (Re-Animator, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) and was produced with Kurt Uebersax (Elf-Man, America’s Most Wanted).

(11) FROM AN OLD FAMILIAR SCORE. “What gave life on Earth its spark? Scientists recreating a decades-old experiment offer a new clue” says CNN.

In the 1931 movie “Frankenstein,” Dr. Henry Frankenstein howling his triumph was an electrifying moment in more ways than one. As massive bolts of lightning and energy crackled, Frankenstein’s monster stirred on a laboratory table, its corpse brought to life by the power of electricity.

Electrical energy may also have sparked the beginnings of life on Earth billions of years ago, though with a bit less scenery-chewing than that classic film scene.

Earth is around 4.5 billion years old, and the oldest direct fossil evidence of ancient life — stromatolites, or microscopic organisms preserved in layers known as microbial mats — is about 3.5 billion years old. However, some scientists suspect life originated even earlier, emerging from accumulated organic molecules in primitive bodies of water, a mixture sometimes referred to as primordial soup.

But where did that organic material come from in the first place? Researchers decades ago proposed that lightning caused chemical reactions in ancient Earth’s oceans and spontaneously produced the organic molecules.

Now, new research published March 14 in the journal Science Advances suggests that fizzes of barely visible “microlightning,” generated between charged droplets of water mist, could have been potent enough to cook up amino acids from inorganic material. Amino acids — organic molecules that combine to form proteins — are life’s most basic building blocks and would have been the first step toward the evolution of life….

(12) VIDEO FROM ANCIENT DAYS. A zillion years ago, Vincent Price was on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson to promote Theatre of Blood, in which he murders all the critics who fail to praise his Shakespearean ham acting. (How long ago was this? Sitting next to him was the singer Mama Cass Elliot, who obviously wasn’t dead yet…!)

[Thanks to Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, N., Danny Sichel, Ziv Wities, Kevin Lighton, Thomas the Red, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, and Teddy Harvia for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]

Seven Added to Harvey Awards
Hall of Fame

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The Harvey Awards revealed the 2019 inductees to their Hall of Fame ahead of the annual event at New York Comic Con. The seven recipients include two active creators, and five posthumous honorees who were Harvey Kurtzman’s core 1950’s MAD Magazine collaborators.

  • Mike Mignola (Hellboy)
  • Alison Bechdel (Fun Home), and
  • Will Elder
  • Jack Davis
  • John Severin
  • Marie Severin
  • Ben Oda

Mike Mignola, began working as a comic book artist in 1982, working for both Marvel and DC Comics before creating Hellboy, published by Dark Horse Comics in 1994. Mike’s comics and graphic novels have earned numerous awards and are published in a great many countries. He said about his latest honor:

My very first comic industry award was the 1994 Harvey Award for Best Artist on Hellboy. I never expected that award, but I took it as a sign that I might actually be on to something. It is a great honor to be inducted into the Harvey Awards Hall of Fame—something I certainly never could have imagined. And I’ll take it as proof that I haven’t embarrassed myself too badly over the last 25 years.

Alison Bechdel, known for her pioneering work on the strip Dykes to Watch Out For, which ran from 1983 to 2008, is also the author of two graphic memoirs, Fun Home and Are You My Mother? The stage-musical adaptation of Fun Home opened on Broadway in 2015 and received five Tony Awards, including Best Musical. She is currently working on a graphic memoir called The Secret to Superhuman Strength. She acknowledged the award:

As someone who existed for so long on the crumbling newsprint margins, it’s surprising and a bit unsettling to receive this recognition from the corridors of comics power. Where did I go wrong? No, just kidding. If you had told me, when I was reading Kurtzman parodies in my playpen, that I would one day be inducted into the Harvey Hall of Fame, I would have plotzed. I cannot imagine a greater nor a more furshlugginer honor.

They also will recognize the historic contributions by a co-editor of one of the field’s leading publications:

Comics Industry Pioneer

  • Maggie Thompson, on behalf of her work with her late husband Don Thompson as longtime editors of the Comics Buyer’s Guide.

The inductees will be recognized at the 31st annual Harvey Awards ceremony at Friday, October 4 in New York.

Pixel Scroll 12/29/2018 Scroll-Covered Three-Pixeled Family Credential

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(1) SFF IN TRANSLATION. Rachel S. Cordasco has launched the first Science Fiction in Translation Poll:

Welcome to the first annual SFT Poll, where you can vote for your favorite translated novels, short stories, anthologies & collections, translators, and publishers!

Eligible for the 2018 poll are any translated texts published from January 1 – December 31, 2018. All possible answers are supplied- just click on your favorite in each category!

The poll is open until March 1, and results will be announced on March 10, 2019.

The poll has five categories:

  • Favorite Short Story
  • Favorite Novel
  • Favorite Anthology/Collection
  • Favorite Translator
  • Favorite Publisher/Journal/Magazine

(2) TIME TO CHECK ASIMOV’S ANSWERS. The Toronto Star has reprinted Isaac Asimov’s preview of the year 2019 — how accurate was he? (And the editors remember, “He was a very gracious man and charged $1 a word.”) — “35 years ago, Isaac Asimov was asked by the Star to predict the world of 2019. Here is what he wrote”.  

…Let us, therefore, assume there will be no nuclear war — not necessarily a safe assumption — and carry on from there.

Computerization will undoubtedly continue onward inevitably. Computers have already made themselves essential to the governments of the industrial nations, and to world industry: and it is now beginning to make itself comfortable in the home.

An essential side product, the mobile computerized object, or robot, is already flooding into industry and will, in the course of the next generation, penetrate the home.

There is bound to be resistance to the march of the computers, but barring a successful Luddite revolution, which does not seem in the cards, the march will continue.

The growing complexity of society will make it impossible to do without them, except by courting chaos; and those parts of the world that fall behind in this respect will suffer so obviously as a result that their ruling bodies will clamour for computerization as they now clamour for weapons….

(3) BIRD BOX A SMASH. Mashable says Netflix’s new sci-fi thriller is drawing a huge audience: “Netflix releases viewership numbers for ‘Bird Box’ and holy crap”.

According to Netflix, this is the best debut week for any of its films ever. It’s worth pointing out that the 45 million number refers to accounts, not views or streams. So the figure isn’t even taking into consideration how many of us share Netflix or watched it with one or more viewing companions.

To put that number into perspective, if each of those accounts had paid $14 to see Bird Box — less than the price of a movie ticket in cities like New York — the Netflix thriller would have surpassed Aquaman‘s current global box office haul of $629 million.

The rare look at Netflix numbers reminds us how ubiquitous the streaming platform is, particularly with its international scope. 

(4) WHITFIELD OBIT. Dame June Whitfield who died December 28, was famous for her work on Terry and June, the Carry On movies and Absolutely Fabulous. However, in her long career she worked often, and occasionally took genre roles, as in Doctor Who’s 2010 episode ”The End of Time Part II.”

I’m intrigued that one of her earliest credits was Yes, It’s The Cathode-Ray Tube Hour. Which is a very campy title, but I don’t think they were doing camp yet in 1957. Or were they?

(5) TODAY IN HISTORY

December 29, 1967 — The Mary Sue wants us to know December 29 marks what they believe is an important anniversary (“Things We Saw Today: It’s The 51st Anniversary Of ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’”):

As we celebrate other anniversaries and holidays, now is the day to celebrate a seminal moment in Star Trek history: the release of ‘The Trouble With Tribbles.’ As Captain Kirk navigates some Klingon troubles, he also must contend with the small, furry invaders who are eating everything and multiplying like bunnies all over his ship. It contains some great dialogue such as McCoy asking what happens when you feed a tribble too much and Kirk replying “a fat tribble?” and a great action scene in which Scotty fights some Klingons because they dared insult the Enterprise.

‘Tribbles’ is not necessarily an Emmy-worthy episode, but it’s a fun episode. It showcases the lighter, funnier side of Star Trek. Star Trek is about our humanity striving to overcome present biases to find a utopian future. ‘Tribbles’ embraces the weirdness of it all, while still depicting a non-violent solution to a dispute in which the problem is solved through diplomacy (and some Tribble trickery) rather than by shooting our way out.

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born December 29, 1972 – Jude Law, 46. I think his first SF role was as Jerome Eugene Morrow In Gattaca followed by playing Gigolo Joe in A.I. with my fav role for him being the title role in Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. He was Lemony Snicket In Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events, Tony in The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, Dr. John Watson in the 2009 Sherlock Holmes and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, Remy in Repo Man and he voiced Pitch Black in one of my favorite animated films, Rise of the Guardians. 

(7) SHOULD AULD FICTION BE FORGOT? At Featured Futures, Jason’s compiled another list of the month’s memorable fiction in “Summation: December”.

December closes the year with little to fully recommend but with several good stories to note, mostly from unusual sources. These half-dozen tales were drawn from the month’s reading of 42 stories of 169K words (plus four November stories of 10K in December’s first review of the weeklies). Aside from the recommended stories, the most interesting items posted this month were probably (hopefully) this site’s “Year’s Best” and the start of the “Collated Contents” of the real “Year’s Bests” (linked in the News section at the end of this post).

(8) THE END OF GOTHAM. How will Gotham end? The TV show, that is, not the title city (The Hollywood Reporter: “DC TV Watch: How ‘Gotham’s’ Final Season Sets Up Batman’s Beginning”). And apparently the answer is at a breakneck pace.

Five years of comic book-inspired villains, noir gang power struggles and vigilante hero training has all led to this: the final season of Gotham.

With only 12 episodes of the series remaining […] Fox’s Batman prequel has a lot of loose ends to tie up before the young Bruce Wayne (David Mazouz) can wear the cape and cowl for which he’s destined. And with the season four cliffhanger of Jeremiah (Cameron Monaghan) blowing up all the bridges and cutting Gotham off from the rest of the world, bringing the “No Man’s Land” arc from the comics to life, the series couldn’t be any further from that end goal. […]

With so much ground to cover in a limited amount of time, executive producer John Stephens tells The Hollywood Reporter that viewers should expect “a velocity to the story that we’ve never had before.”

(9) APPRECIATION OVERDUE. Alex Dueben of Comicsbeat calls it “The Obituary Marie Severin Should Have Received”:

…In 2016 controversy erupted before the annual Angouleme Festival International de la Bande Desinée over the festival’s lack of any women on the longlist to be awarded the festival’s Grand Prix de la ville d’Angouleme. The prize, given to a cartoonist for their body of work, had given to only a single woman in the festival’s history. Many creators originally up for the prize boycotted and withdrew their names from consideration. The committee ultimately awarded that year’s prize to Ms. Severin.

Only the fifth American to receive the award – after Will Eisner, Robert Crumb, Art Spiegelman and Bill Watterson – the decision to award it to Severin was at the time controversial. Since then it has come out that a number of men were put forward, but people were unable to come to a consensus. When Severin’s name was put forward, the vote was unanimous.

Severin was chosen for her body of work. For her connection to EC Comics, to Mad, to Silver Age superhero comics. Her work represents the ways that comics managed to penetrate the counterculture and transform it and society at large. She represented the ways that the medium has its connections to illustration and design through the work she and her contemporaries had been doing in recent decades, but also through the influence of her father, who was an illustrator, and that early tradition of illustration that so influenced early comics….

(10) NIGHTFLYERS REVIEW. Matthew Kadish gives his rundown on Nightflyers in a thread that starts here.

(11) BELATED BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge. He was on time – I’m the one who fell behind!]

  • Born December 27, 1922 – Stan Lee. Summarizing his career is quite beyond my abilities. He created and popularized Marvel Comics in a way that company is thought to be the creation of Stan Lee in way that DC is not. He co-created the Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, the X-Men, Iron Man, Thor, the Hulk,  Daredevil, Doctor Strange, Black Panther, Scarlet Witch and Ant-Man, an impressive list by any measure.I see he’s won Eisner and Kirby Awards but no sign of a Hugo. Is that correct? (Died 2018.)
  • Born December 27, 1932 – Nichelle Nicols, 86. Uruhu on the original Trek. She reprised her character in Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. Other film SF roles included Ruana in Tarzan’s Deadly Silence with Ron Ely as Tarzan, High Priestess of Pangea in The Adventures of Captain Zoom in Outer Space, Oman in Surge of Power: The Stuff of Heroes and Mystic Woman in American Nightmares. Series appearances have been as Lieutenant Uhura and additional voices in the animated Trek, archive footage of herself in the “Trials and Tribble-ations” DS9 episode and Captain Nyota Uhura In Star Trek: Of Gods and Men which may or may not be canon.
  • Born December 27, 1973 – Wilson Cruz, 45. His first SF role was as Benj Sotomejor in Supernova, a film disowned by damn everyone involved with it. His second credit was a minor role as Sid Tango in the Pushing Daisies series. His third was is damn good — he’s Dr. Hugh Culber on Star Trek: Discovery, a series that for all the whining for it bring on a premium station should be one that you go and watch — it’s that’s good. 
  • Born December 27, 1977 — Sinead Keenan, 41. Best known for playing the role of the werewolf Nina Pickering in Being Human, she would show up in Doctor Who in the “The End of Time” episode as Addams. For those of you interested in Awards, she was in the The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot as a fan, the show being a comedy spoof and homage to Doctor Who that featured a lot of the actors who’d played The Doctor and damn near anyone else involved in it down the years. It was nominated for the 2014 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form.)
  • Born December 28, 1983 – Olivia Cooke, 25. For a youngster, she’s  impressive genre creds starting off with The Quiet Ones, a British a supernatural horror film followed by a SF thrilled titled The Signal. From there she went on to The Limehouse Golem based on a Peter Ackroyd novel, and was in Ready Player One. Series wise, she was in The Secret of Crickley Hall before getting the main role of Emma Decody In Bates Motel.  I’d be absolutely remiss not to note she voiced the Loch Ness Monster in the animated Axe Cop series.
  • Born December 27, 1995 – Timothy Chalamet, 23. First SF role was as Young Tom Cooper in the well received Interstellar. To date, his only other genre role has been as Zac in One & Two but I’m strongly intrigued that he’s set to play Paul Atreides In Director Denis Villeneuve forthcoming Dune. Villeneuve is doing it as a set of films instead of just one film.  
  • Born December 28, 1934 – Maggie Smith, 84. First genre role was as Theis in Clash of the Titans with Minerva McGonagall In the Harry Potter films being her best known role. She also played Linnet Oldknow in From Time to Time  and voiced Miss Shepherd, I kid you not, in two animated Gnomes films. 
  • Born December 28, 1979 – Noomi Rapace, 39. She played Madame Simza Heron in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, had  the lead role of Dr. Elizabeth Shaw in Prometheus, Renee in Rapture, played all the seven lead roles in What Happened to Monday and was in Bright as Leilah.

(12) YOUR BIGGERAGE MAY VARY. No doubt a lot will depend on what you’re expecting — Closer: “Carrie Fisher’s Brother Says Her Part In The Next ‘Star Wars’ Will Be Bigger Than Anyone Expected”.

The death of Carrie Fisher two years ago was a shock to a great many people, not the least of whom were Star Wars fans. She had a prominent role in the last film, The Last Jedi, as Leia Organa, and was supposed to play a major part in Star Wars Episode IX, which is currently being shot by The Force Awakens’ J.J. Abrams. The big question was how she would be written out of the series.

There had been rumors — quickly debunked by Lucasfilm — that a digital version of Carrie would be created to wrap up her character arc. After all, one had previously been created for the conclusion of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, which was designed as a prequel to 1977’s Episode IV: A New Hope and which concluded with the moments leading up to that film, including Carrie’s Princess Leia recording a message into the R2D2 droid. The next rumor was that outtakes from both The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi featuring the actress would be featured. Now comes word from her brother, Todd Fisher, that it could be considerably more than that.

(13) BEST AND WORST TREK EPISODES RANKED (CONFUSINGLY!) [Item by Mike Kennedy.] At the end of each year we are besieged by too many lists of the best of this or the worst of that for the year. The subject here isn’t one of those, but rather an attempt to rank the best & worst all time Star Trek episodes across the various series as an entity (ScreenRant: “Star Trek: The 10 All Time Best (And 10 Worst) Episodes, Officially Ranked”). In a side note, it is hereby acknowledged that columnist Joseph Walter should be sentenced to 40 lashes with a wet noodle—if not indeed more—for using the rather officious term “Officially Ranked” in the title.

Star Trek, throughout many moments of its many seasons, has been a prime example of superior science-fiction television, and has had a tremendous effect on not only fans of the genre, but curious outsiders who found themselves drawn into the well-developed world of our space-faring future, complete with wonderfully multi-dimensional characters, harrowing plots, and impactful commentary on any number of current day issues through the gaze of fiction.

[…] Unfortunately, for every tremendous success in that particular realm, there are often some Picard-styled face-palming failures. Trek has given us some of the greatest science-fiction episodes of all time, along with some of the worst, and we’ve dug through both sides of the spectrum and compiled a list that’ll set the record straight on the many ups and downs the franchise has produced.

The list interleaves the best and worst, counting down from the 10th best (at item #20) to the very worst (at item #1). Walter provides his reasoning for each choice, but herewith the list itself:

20 Best: The Trouble With Tribbles (TOS)

19 Worst: These Are the Voyages… (ENT)

18 Best: Year of Hell (VOY)

17 Worst: The Fight (VOY)

16 Best: Trials and Tribble-Ations (DS9)

15 Worst: The Omega Glory (TOS)

14 Best: Measure of a Man (TNG)

13 Worst: A Night in Sickbay (ENT)

12 Best: In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)

11 Worst: The Way to Eden (TOS)

10 Best: The Best of Both Worlds (TNG)

9 Worst: The Savage Curtain (TOS)

8 Best: Far Beyond the Stars (DS9)

7 Worst: Threshold (VOY)

6 Best: The City On the Edge of Forever (TOS)

5 Worst: Shades of Gray (TNG)

4 Best: The Visitor (DS9)

3 Worst: Spock’s Brain (TOS)

2 Best: All Good Things… (TNG)

1 Worst: Code of Honor (TNG)

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. In “Xerox’s Paradox” on Vimeo, John Butler imagines what sort of high-tech clothes we will wear to keep our competitive edge.

[Thanks to Alan Baumler, JJ, Chip Hitchcock, Cat Eldridge, John King Tarpinian, Mike Kennedy, Martin Morse Wooster, Carl Slaughter, John A Arkansawyer, Jason, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit goes to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew.]

Pixel Scroll 8/31/18 The Credential, The Cryptomancer, And The Credenza

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(1) #BACKTOHOGWARTS. Warner Bros. kicked off the weekend with a behind-the-scenes featurette for Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald.

Excited about #BackToHogwarts tomorrow? Watch J.K. Rowling and the cast of #FantasticBeasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald reminisce over their favourite Hogwarts memories.

 

(2) FIRST DAY OF FALL. Bill Capossere’ gives the new release a favorable review, “The Fall of Gondolin: A welcome addition to Christopher Tolkien’s close looks at his father’s work”. He also explains to Fantasy Literature readers:

As with Beren and Lúthien, with regard to the stories themselves (as opposed to the analysis), there is little “new” here; the various versions can be found in others of Christopher’s HISTORY OF MIDDLE-EARTH books. What the stand-alone offers that those books do not is a single-minded focus on one story, allowing us to trace the tale’s evolution more fully and in more detail. I’ve personally found that singular focus to be well worth the purchase price despite owning the versions in other books. Also, I should note that both the publisher and Christopher are (and have been) quite upfront and transparent about this. There’s been no attempt to present these as “new” texts.

And about one part, The Last Version, he says –

Unfortunately, cruelly even, Tolkien abandoned this version, what Christopher calls “this essential and (one may say) definitive form and treatment of the legend,” just after Tuor passes the last gate. I’m with Christopher when he confesses that for him it “is perhaps the most grievous of his many abandonments.”

(3) TANSY RAYNER ROBERTS REVIEWED. At Fantasy-Faction, Richard Marpole praises the novella “Cabaret of Monsters by Tansy Rayner Roberts”.

Rayner Roberts’ writing style is lively and conversational, she doesn’t shy away from grown-up words or a bit of satire here and there either. Evie’s attempts to get away with wearing trousers in a city still mired in traditional gender roles adds a pleasant dash of feminist commentary to proceedings. (Though, among the Creature Court and the bohemian set at least, alternative sexualities and genders seem to be well represented and completely accepted in Aufleur, which is always nice to see.) There are plenty of pretty descriptions and well-turned phrases here, but they don’t slow down the pace.

(4) HERE’S MY NUMBER AND A DIME. NASA is waiting for a call. Engadget has the story: “Mars Opportunity rover will have 45 days to phone home”.

As a planet-wide dust storm enveloped Mars, many were concerned about the fate of the Opportunity rover. After all, Opportunity is dependent on solar panels; the opacity of the dust storm meant that she wasn’t getting enough light to stay powered. The team at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory last heard from Opportunity on June 10th. Now, the storm is lifting, and once its opacity reaches a tau level of 1.5, the little rover will have 45 days to respond to the team’s signals. Otherwise, NASA will stop actively listening for the rover.

The tau measures the amount of dust and particulate in the Martian atmosphere. The team hopes that, once the skies have cleared enough and the rover has recharged its batteries, Opportunity will be able to hear and respond to the signals that Earth is sending its way. If 45 days have passed without a response, the team will cease its active efforts to recover the rover. “If we do not hear back after 45 days, the team will be forced to conclude that the Sun-blocking dust and the Martian cold have conspired to cause some type of fault from which the rover will more than likely not recover,” said John Callas, Opportunity’s project manager, in a statement.

However, that does not mean they will abandon all hope, as the article goes on to explain.

(5) MORE WORLDCON 76. Stephanie Alford’s report includes some good panel notes.

While WorldCon76 was my second worldcon, it was my best con ever!  Big backpack stuffed with con survival gear (food, books, journals, pens, etc.), bowler hat squarely on my head, I wandered the convention center with a big smile on my face.

Panel:
1001 Years Later – What Happened to Arabian Fiction – Shayma Alshareef and Yasser Bahjatt

Panel:
SETI:  What Do We Do When We Find Them? – Andrew Fraknoi,  Guy Consolmagno, SB Divya, Douglas Vakoch, Lonny Brooks

(6) PIXLEY AT WORLDCON. Joy Pixley explains the con’s distinctive features in “Back from Worldcon!”

Worldcon is much more oriented toward books than other large fan cons like Comic Con, that have huge movie trailer premieres and feature famous celebrities.  I mean, Worldcon does have celebrities, it’s just that we readers and writers think of authors as being big celebrities, not actors.  So it doesn’t have quite the glitz or the production value of commercial cons, but then, the guests of honor actually walk around the convention center and go to talks and sit down for drinks, just like everyone else.  To me, that makes it feel so much more inclusive and approachable.

(7) SEVERIN OBIT. Marie Severin, who was a pioneering woman in comics, mostly for Marvel, died August 29. The Washington Post’s Matt Schudel marked her passing: “Marie Severin, versatile Hall of Fame comic-book illustrator, dies at 89”.

Ms. Severin spent more than 50 years as an illustrator, handling all three of the major visual tasks in comic-book production: penciling, inking and coloring. She worked closely with Marvel’s editor in chief Stan Lee for decades and in 2001 was named to the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame.

In the 1970s, Ms. Severin was a co-creator of Jessica Drew — better known as the superhero Spider-Woman — and designed the character’s skintight red-and-yellow costume.

“Marie Severin did it all — penciler, inker, colorist, character creator,” historian and publisher Craig Yoe, the former creative director of Jim Henson’s Muppets, wrote in an email. He called her “one of the last of comics’ greatest generation.”

(8) ZADAN OBIT. He brought musicals to live TV, some of them genre: “Craig Zadan, 69, Dies; Produced Musicals for Stage, Screen and TV”.

Craig Zadan, an ebullient showman who helped engineer a revival of Broadway musicals on television with live NBC broadcasts of “The Sound of Music,” “Peter Pan,” “Hairspray” and “The Wiz,” died on [August 21st] at his home Los Angeles. He was 69….

The success of “Gypsy,” broadcast in 1993, led to ABC, where [he] produced “Annie” (1997), with Kathy Bates and Alan Cumming, and “Cinderella” (1999), with Brandy Norwood in the title role and Whitney Houston as the fairy godmother….

(9) HEATH OBIT. Russ Heath (1926-2018), a long-running comic artist, although less known in genre, who drew for Hero Initiative (fund that helps comic book artists in need), died August 23. The New York Times obit is here: “Russ Heath, Whose Comics Caught Lichtenstein’s Eye, Dies at 91”.

Heath seemed to feel his comics had done more than just catch the renowned pop artist’s eye.

(10) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born August 31, 1890. E.E. “Doc” Smith. Writer, the Lensman and Skylark Universe series, each of which has a lot less novels in them then I thought they did, but which have influenced a number of later genre works including the Babylon 5 series. I admit I’ve not read them, so are they worth reading?
  • Born August 31 – Steve Perry, 71. Apparently there’s quite a living to be made in writing genre fiction that’s based in universes created by someone else as he’s written novels in the Predator, Aliens, Aliens versus Predators, Conan, Indiana Jones, Men in Black and Star Wars franchises. Not to mention both books based on both work by Leonard Nimoy snd Tom Clancy. And Isaac Asimov. not sending a lot of originality here.
  • Born August 31 – G. Willow Wilson, 36. Writer of such work as Air, Cairo, Ms.Marvel and Alif the Unseen. She won the World Fantasy Award for the latter and a Hugo Award went also to Ms. Marvel Volume 1: No Normal.

(11) COMICS SECTION.

(12) RETURNING THIS FALL A Superheroes Fight Back Trailer from the CW to let everyone know their new season starts October 9.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UBqzpgqUVg

(13) EPISODE IX CASTING. ScienceFiction.com learned “‘Star Wars Episode IX’ May Be Looking For Another Female Lead!”

A character breakdown for the upcoming ‘Star Wars: Episode IX’ has been released, and it teases a new female character who could be joining the cast soon! It was previously reported that the film was on the hunt for two new female leads, one being a 40-50 year old female to play a character being called “Mara”, and the other being an African-American actress, age 18-26, to portray a character by the name of Caro.

That Hashtag Show reported that the film is now looking for another actress age 27-35, for a character being called “KARINA.” The character breakdown describes the supporting role as:

“A younger Charlize Theron with street smarts and a sharp wit… a good sense of humor, solid comedic timing and a strong voice.”

 

(14) THE CONTINENTAL. If people still put destination stickers on their luggage, John Scalzi’s bags would be accumulating a new batch next year.

(15) QUICK SIPS. Charles Payseur gives Tor.com’s short fiction a whirl in “Quick Sips – Tor dot com August 2018”.

Two short stories and a novelette round out the SFF originals from Tor this month, with a definite focus on science fiction, on futures of humanity interacting with the universe and, perhaps more importantly, with the Earth. Whether that means dealing with the touch of climate disaster and change, or working to move beyond the bounds of our terrestrial home through uploading and flight, or gaining a new and non-human presence to co-inhabit the planet with, the pieces look at how humans see the Earth, and how that perspective shifts as the gaze becomes less incorporated in a human body. It’s a month full of strangeness and longing, risks and looming dangers, and it makes for a fascinating bunch of stories. To the reviews!

(16) MARVEL SHOWS HEART. Several stars of Marvel films have sent short videos — as themselves — to a teenager who has terminal brain cancer. Josh is a particular fan of Deadpool, causing actor Ryan Reynolds to lead the charge. He’s also recruited Tom Holland (Spider-Man), Chris Evans (Captain America), Chris Pratt (Star-Lord), and Hugh Jackman (Wolverine) to make videos of their own. You can see all five at “Marvel stars line up crossover to send powerful vibes to teen with terminal cancer” on SYFY Wire.

(17) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Tink by Mr. Kaplan on Vimeo is a short film about an animated Rube Goldberg machine.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, Martin Morse Wooster, Mike Kennedy, JJ, John King Tarpinian, Chip Hitchcock, Carl Slaughter, and Andrew Porter for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]