Pixel Scroll 9/9/24 A Strange Pixel. The Only Winning Move Is Not To Scroll

(1) F&SF GOES QUARTERLY. Jason Sanford relayed this announcement from The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction.

The summer 2024 issue of F&SF is out. The issue contains a note from publisher Gordon Van Gelder that reads, "Ongoing production problems have led us to skip the Spring issue and to switch to a quarterly schedule." 1/2 weightlessbooks.com/the-magazine…

Jason Sanford (@jasonsanford.bsky.social) 2024-09-09T18:43:11.828Z

The note continues, "We apologize to our disappointed readers and assure subscribers that no one will be shorted any issues. Thank you for bearing with us during this rough stretch." 2/2

Jason Sanford (@jasonsanford.bsky.social) 2024-09-09T18:43:49.125Z

(2) WE INTERRUPT OUR PROGRAM. Remember the other day when we reported that Good Omens 3 was moving forward? Well, that’s changed: “’Good Omens’: Production Paused On Amazon Drama From Neil Gaiman” reports Deadline.

Production has been paused on the third and final season of fantasy drama Good Omens, the Neil Gaiman drama for Amazon that’s shooting in Scotland.

Deadline is hearing there are discussions about possible production changes. A spokesperson would not comment.

News about the future of Good Omen comes less than a week after Disney put a planned feature adaptation of Gaiman’s 2008 YA title The Graveyard Book on pause amid a series of sexual assault allegations against the award-winning author. (Insiders said multiple factors went into the decision). Gaiman has denied the allegations and said he was “disturbed” by them….

(3) WORLDCON AT THE MOVIES. There will be a Seattle Worldcon 2025 Film Festival – FilmFreeway and full details are on the Film Freeway site.

Seattle Worldcon 2025 is proud to dedicate a room for all five days of the convention exclusively for showcasing speculative fiction films. This room will be the home of the Seattle Worldcon 2025 Film Festival.

If you’re a cinephile, a filmmaker, or just a lover of speculative fiction, make sure to spend some of your time at the Worldcon in the festival room. The festival promises to be an exhilarating celebration of creativity, diversity, and the magic of the silver screen.

The Seattle Worldcon 2025 Film Festival is not your run-of-the-mill film event. It’s a carefully curated showcase of independent films that fall under the umbrella of speculative fiction. Whether you’re into mind-bending science fiction, epic fantasy, or spine-tingling horror, this festival has something for everyone. And the best part? It’s a judged festival, so you’ll be treated to the cream of the crop—films that push boundaries, challenge conventions, and transport you to otherworldly realms.

Calling All Filmmakers
Are you a filmmaker with a passion for speculative storytelling? This is your chance to shine! The submission window for the Seattle Worldcon 2025 Film Festival opens on September 1, 2024 and closes on March 31, 2025. We encourage filmmakers from all backgrounds to submit their works. And here’s the icing on the cake: if you’re a BIPOC or a woman director, the submission fee is waived. So, dust off that camera, polish your script, and get ready to share your vision with the world. For more information on submitting films, please see the Seattle Worldcon 2025 Film Festival webpage on FilmFreeway.

(4) CHANGING TIMES. Joe of Compelling Science Fiction is signal-boosting Rich Larson’s new collection The Sky Didn’t Load Today and Other Glitches, which comes out tomorrow with a mix of new and reprint short stories.

For those of your who have never read Rich Larson, here’s the short version of what you need to know: he writes crisp, vivid scenes exploring messy human behavior in mostly near future SF contexts. His work often digs into the darker corners of technological advancement, examining how innovations might amplify or twist our existing flaws and desires. He also writes short, and fortunately for all of us, he writes a LOT.

Instead of belaboring how great his short fiction is, I want to tell you about the first time I met him in person. I was in the audience at a Worldcon panel (the topic of which I don’t remember). One of the panelists was a classic “old dude who doesn’t want the world to change” and he started editorializing about people clutching pearls ruining science fiction and fantasy.

The place devolved into mild pandemonium, with folks in the back yelling at the panelists, standard culture war stuff.

This was many years ago so I don’t remember the exact moment, but I had given a tshirt to Rich. He proceeded to take his shirt off and put mine on, and everyone was so incensed that nobody even noticed him shirtless in the auditorium.

That’s one of my favorite Worldcon memories, and is a Rich Larson signature: injecting humor into serious situations.

(5) DEEP PERSPECTIVE. At Reddit’s r/Fantasy forum, Janny Wurts chimed in and gave her informed perspective on the topic at hand, which was about changes in SFF book cover design trends over the past couple of decades.  “WTF happened to book cover art?”

When I started painting cover art (and when my husband did) – the USA did full range portrait or figure style art. The UK tended to do landscapes – all painted. Digital art did not exist then.

The reasons given for this difference was market…UK, where life was more crowded, they claimed readers wanted to feel the other worldliness as an open landscape maybe with a castle or tiny figure.

The USA readers wanted to see character based.

Then one editor (Jane Johnson) shifted the metric – wanting to put Fantasy into a more ‘adult’ look – since many readers (she said) were tearing off the covers so that others wouldn’t see them reading in the genre…so she struck off in a new direction to make the books ‘appeal’ to a more adult audience, since so many books were not for younger readers anyway.

Then came digital art…and one publisher in the USA threw everything upside down…suddenly they realized they did not have to PAY for an artist at all. They could hire a design firm to do a simple cover design mostly based on typography – and use in house people doing photoshop (and therefore saving anywhere from 3000/7000 bucks per cover) to mere hundreds….

(6) POSTIVELY BEASTLY. Camestros Felapton shares “Timothy’s Bestiary of Mythical Creatures of Wonder” – probably so-called because you’ll wonder how Tim thought them up.

(7) BAEN CONTEST GETS NEW DIRECTOR. C. Stuart Hardwick told Facebook readers he has been selected as Contest Director for the Jim Baen Memorial Short Story Award, taking over for William Ledbetter after 18 years. Hardwick said:

In this competition, Bill and Toni Weisskopf have created something of real and lasting value to the industry, and I’m honored and excited to have a part in carrying on its legacy.

Contest opens for submissions on October 1, 2024 at 12:01am EDT.

Details at https://www.baen.com/contest-jbmssa

(8) KEEPING THE ‘Z’ IN FOLIO. If you’ve ever wanted an artisanal edition of Children of Dune (a snip at £80!) then this is for you: “TikTok meets Tolkien: how the Folio Society attracted gen Z readers” in the Guardian.

Founded in 1947, the Folio Society was once a membership club known for publishing classic tomes and history books, with a customer base of predominantly “old white men”, according to its boss.

Now, however, more than half the people who buy its books are aged between 25 and 44, and it is selling more sci-fi and fantasy titles, boosted by BookTok and growing gen Z interest in “artisanal” editions.

The publisher, which produces illustrated editions with elaborate covers, has seen sales soar 55% since 2017-18.

Joanna Reynolds, chief executive since 2016, said: “We’ve completely changed the sort of books that we sell. We developed fantasy, sci-fi and more children’s. Particularly the fantasy and sci-fi have made a massive difference to us. Game of Thrones was literally a gamechanger … It made so much money for us.”

Reynolds recalled that, when she joined, “the business was in freefall by every metric. It was losing money, losing customers. It was in a mess.”

She ditched the membership model, opened the company to new audiences and started asking them what they wanted.

One of the answers was more sci-fi and fantasy. The genres are a growing market in UK publishing, achieving a record year for sales in 2023. In the past year, the Folio Society’s three bestselling titles across all age groups are Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne JonesDune by Frank Herbert and Jurassic Parkby Michael Crichton.

Last week, the society published Children of Dune, the third in Herbert’s series, and sold more than 1,000 copies of the £80 book in 24 hours. Younger audiences buy more Tolkien and Game of Thrones, while older readers want James Bond novels and classics such as The Wind in the Willows and Rebecca.

(9) JAMES EARL JONES (1931-2024). Actor James Earl Jones died at home in New York state on September 9 at the age of 93. Deadline’s tribute, “James Earl Jones Dead: Darth Vader Voice, ‘Field Of Dreams’ Star, EGOT Winner”, noted these career highlights:

…Among his more than 80 film credits, Jones’ other notable movies include as a B-52 bombardier in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire “Dr. Strangelove” (his feature film debut), as the first Black president of the United States in 1972’s “The Man,” as the fearsome villain in 1982’s “Conan the Barbarian,” as a reclusive author in 1989’s “Field of Dreams,” as a blind former baseball star in 1993’s “The Sandlot,” and as a minister living in apartheid South Africa in 1995’s “Cry, the Beloved Country.”…

He voiced Darth Vader in many Star Wars movies and innumerable live and animated TV productions and games. He also was Thulsa Doom in Conan the Barbarian (1982), King Jaffe Joffer from a mythical African country in Coming to America (1988) and Coming 2 America (2021) and appeared in Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold (1986). He appeared as himself in a 2014 episode of The Big Bang Theory.

James Earl Jones in Dr. Strangelove

(10) ROBERT SIDAWAY (1942-2024). Actor and documentary-maker Robert Sidaway died August 16 reports the Guardian. Fans saw him in several Sixties genre productions, including Doctor Who:

…His television credits included … Out of the Unknown (1965) and The Avengers (1968). The second of his two roles in Doctor Who – as the cheery, affable and dashing Captain Turner in the Patrick Troughton adventure The Invasion (1968) – involved him going up in a helicopter, being an original member of Unit (the army outfit that would become a mainstay of the series), and announcing one of the series’ most enduring sequences – the Cybermen bursting from the sewers and marching in front of St Paul’s Cathedral….

(11) COMICS SECTION.

  • Close to Home shows a prehistoric practical joker in action.
  • Thatbaby apparently does not need to apologize to everyone.
  • Macanudo has a transcription of an early critic.
  • Rubes is on hand for the last sign.

(12) HISTORIC COMPUTER ARTIFACTS. Christies auction of “Firsts: The History of Computing from the Paul G. Allen Collection” runs until September 12.

Firsts: The History of Computing from the Paul G. Allen Collection presents important milestones in the history of computing, some of which have been preserved in working order. Initially focused on recovering software for the DEC PDP-10, Paul Allen’s collection expanded to include hardware for many other systems as well. Iconic supercomputers such as the CDC-6500 and Cray 2 will be offered alongside early and influential microcomputers, like the Altair 8800 and Apple-1. These groundbreaking innovations were instrumental in shaping our modern world.

One of the items is this Tate’s Arithmometer (C & E Laytons, Circa 1892).

(13) NOT A BOMB. Denver fan Dana Cain’s musical The Android’s New Soul is praised by Front Row Center Denver.

I had the extreme pleasure of watching a dream come true tonight.  Dana Cain as a teenager in 1974 had an idea for a musical that incorporated all the late-night movies she watched that were the aftermath of atomic bomb tests creating giant mutant bugs.  She mixed in a hard rock beat like the groups she heard on the radio and MTV – ELO, Genesis, Kiss, Led Zeppelin.  Robotics were in their infant stages but endlessly fascinating in their possibilities.  Mix all this together with a beautiful medical technician as the lone survivor of a Big Bomb and you’ve got the outline for a rock musical that took fifty years to finish.  But that is still as fresh, creative, and relevant as when it burst from her imagination.  Her dream of seeing it come alive on a stage happened tonight at the appropriately named Bug Theatre. …

(14) IF YOU WANT TO DRIVE, GET SOME WHEELS. Idolator digs deep into the archives to bring us photos of “40 Of The Most Futuristic Concept Cars From The Past That Look Totally Bizarre Today”.

Automakers have often pushed the boundaries of creativity, resulting in concept cars that defied conventions and challenged the status quo. When these cars were first revealed, they dazzled everyone with their futuristic design and cutting-edge features… but now, they seem a bit strange and out of place compared to today’s standards.

However, despite all their eccentricities, these concepts have made a place in automotive history due to their quest for innovation. Let us have a look at some of the most futuristic concept cars from the past that look bizarre now…

Got to love this one:

Ford Nucleon (1958)

Back in the late 50s, it was believed that nuclear technology could be made small and cheap enough to replace gasoline. So, Ford came up with the bold idea to use it to power cars.

Unveiled in 1957, the Ford Nucleon featured a small nuclear reactor in the rear of the vehicle. The idea was to use uranium fission to power a steam engine, such as done in nuclear submarines. But it proved to be impractical, and the car could never advance beyond the concept stage.

(15) SAUSAGE GRINDHOUSE. “’The Franchise’: HBO Comedy Series Gets Premiere Date & First Trailer” says Deadline.

HBO has set Sunday, October 6 for the premiere of Sam Mendes and Armando Iannuccci’s comedy series The Franchise. The streamer also released the official teaser trailer which can be viewed above.

Created and executive produced by Jon Brown, The Franchise follows the crew of an unloved franchise movie fighting for their place in a savage and unruly cinematic universe. The comedy series shines a light on the secret chaos inside the world of superhero moviemaking, to ask the question — how exactly does the cinematic sausage get made? Because every f*ck-up has an origin story…. 

(16) A HOLE NEW TREK. Animation Magazine shares the link as “Paramount+ Debuts ‘Lower Decks’ Exclusive Clip for Star Trek Day”.

In celebration of Star Trek Day (Sept. 8), Paramount+ debuted an exclusive clip and the official key art for the fifth and final season of its hit animated comedy series Star Trek: Lower Decks. The new season will premiere on Paramount+ with two episodes on Thursday, October 24 in the U.S. and internationally. Following the premiere, new episodes of the 10-episode long season will drop every Thursday on the service leading up to the series finale on Thursday, December 19.

In Season 5 of Star Trek: Lower Decks, the crew of the U.S.S. Cerritos is tasked with closing “space potholes” — subspace rifts that are causing chaos in the Alpha Quadrant. Pothole duty would be easy for Junior Officers Mariner, Boimler, Tendi and Rutherford … if they didn’t also have to deal with an Orion war, furious Klingons, diplomatic catastrophes, murder mysteries and scariest of all: their own career aspirations….

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

2023 Eugie Award

The winner of the 2023 Eugie Foster Memorial Award for Short Fiction was revealed on September 3 at Dragon Con.

Example of award plaque.

The Eugie Award “honors stories that are irreplaceable, that inspire, enlighten, and entertain.”

This is a juried award, that begins with a longlist of nominations coming from publishers and editors, supplemented by choices of select readers. A selection committee of spec fiction fans picks the finalists. The winner is chosen by a panel of judges and receives a plaque and a $1000 prize. All finalists receive a pin.  

Learn more about Eugie Foster at EugieFoster.com.

[Thanks to Ray Radlein for the story.]

2023 Philip K. Dick Award Nominees Announced

The six works nominated for the 2023 Philip K. Dick Award were announced by the judges and the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society, along with the Philip K. Dick Trust on January 12.

  • Arboreality by Rebecca Campbell (Stelliform Press)
  • Widowland by C. J. Carey (Sourcebooks Landmark)
  • Ymir by Rich Larson (Orbit)
  • January Fifteenth by Rachel Swirsky (Tordotcom)
  • The Legacy Of Molly Southbourne by Tade Thompson (Tordotcom)
  • The Extractionist by Kimberly Unger (Tachyon Publications)

First prize and any special citations will be announced on Friday, April 7, 2023 at Norwescon 45. Plans for the ceremony will be posted here when they are available.

The Philip K. Dick Award is presented annually with the support of the Philip K. Dick Trust for distinguished science fiction published in paperback original form in the United States during the previous calendar year.

The award is sponsored by the Philadelphia Science Fiction Society and the Philip K. Dick Trust and the award ceremony is sponsored by the Northwest Science Fiction Society.

The 2022 judges are Michael Cassutt (Chair), Matthew Goodwin, Stina Leicht, and Elise C. Tobler.

[Based on a press release.]

Imagine 2200 Story Contest Winners

Grist’s “Fix” has announced the winners of its short story contest Imagine 2200: Climate Fiction for Future Ancestors, which “encouraged entrants to envision the next 180 years of equitable climate progress.”

The three winning stories and nine finalists “create intersectional worlds in which no community is left behind.” 

FIRST PLACE: Afterglow by Lindsay Brodeck, tells the story of Talli and her refusal to abandon the Earth.

SECOND PLACE: The Cloud Weaver’s Song by Saul Tanpepper, follows Semhar Ibrahim and her defiant journey to save her people.

THIRD PLACE: Tidings by Rich Larson, travels through several decades and shows the climate impacts that tie generations together.

OTHER FINALISTS

Tory Stephens, Fix New England Network Weaver, tells “How Imagine 2200 came to life”.

…It was connecting, rather than storytelling, that we had in mind in the spring of 2020 when we invited climate and justice leaders to a retreat focused on envisioning a pathway to our climate future. With pandemic lockdowns taking effect, our gathering migrated to Zoom, and over the course of three days the group charted the next 180 years of climate progress. This assembly visualized a complete societal transformation: a dissolution of political parties and borders. Reparations. The return of land to Indigenous and Black stewardship. Restorative justice replacing prisons. Granting rights to the Earth and non-human kin. Food sovereignty and heirloom seeds triumphing over monoculture farming. An economy built on ecological restoration, mutual aid, and care work. The pursuit of right relationships in all our systems and designs. 

Out of that visioning came a new idea: a climate-fiction contest to create stories of life in that future — not to just describe a better world, but to truly build it within our imaginations. Fix has largely focused on nonfiction storytelling, so an initiative to create imagined worlds would be a first for Grist and, as a network weaver now setting off to launch this new project, for me as well….

The contest judges were Adrienne Maree Brown, Morgan Jerkins, Kiese Laymon, and Sheree Renée Thomas. Story reviewers were Tobias Buckell, Andrew Dana Hudson, and Sarena Ulibarri.

[Via Locus Online.]

Pixel Scroll 7/8/18 My Friend, Can Your Heart Stand The Shocking Facts Of Pixel Scrollers From Outer Space?

(1) CASH THEFT AT MONTREAL COMIC CON. Peter Chiykowski, creator of Rock, Paper, Cynic, told fans that thieves took over $1,000 from his booth at Montreal Comic Con on July 7. He has written a long post on Facebook about the theft, its toxic emotional impact on him, plus a full description of the three perpetrators, who have hit other vendors, too.

Peter Chiykowski and Husein Panju at Montreal Comic Con booth.

Yesterday an organized group of thieves stole about $1,000 cash from my booth at comic con. (Fellow vendors: details at the bottom about how to recognize them and fight back.)

I’m feeling a lot of things right now. Angry. Hurt. Defeated. Spiteful. Grateful to all the people who helped me in the aftermath, including friends and fellow vendors and comic con staff.

…They stole $1,000 in 30 seconds.

I was one of about 4 booths they hit in an hour. I seem to have been hit the hardest. Apparently this is the 3rd con they’ve done this at.

This year has been personally terrible for me. There’s been a lot going in my personal and professional life that I haven’t discussed and that has made this by far the low point and most difficult and financially strained year of my career. On the way to this show I was very seriously questioning if I want to keep doing this.

I can’t help feel like yesterday was a sign. A big fuck you, because no matter how hard I work, there will always be shitty people who can take it away.

I am going to move on from this, because I have to move on from this, and in the grand scheme of my life, $1,000 is far from the biggest thing I’ve lost….

Rodney Valerio has set up a fundraiser with the goal of replacing the thousand dollars that was taken: “Peter’s Rock, Paper, Cyncic Dream”.

(2) SMOFCON SCHOLARSHIPS OFFERED. CanSMOF Inc. is taking applications for three scholarships for convention runners to be used towards the cost of attending SMOFcon 36, to be held in Santa Rosa, CA, November 30-December 2, 2018. SMOFCon is the annual convention about organizing Science Fiction conventions.

  • The first Scholarship of up to 500 CAD is open to a Canadian citizen or resident involved in running conventions with a preference for those who have not previously attended a SMOFCon.
  • The second scholarship of up to 1000 CAD is open to anyone not residing in North America, involved in running conventions with a preference for those who have not previously attended a SMOFCon.
  • The third scholarship of up to 500 CAD is open to anyone involved in running conventions, regardless of their place of residence with a preference for those who have not previously attended a SMOFCon.

Preference will be given to fans who have not previously attended a SMOFCon, but this is not necessary to be an applicant. The submission deadline is September 9.

To apply for a scholarship, follow this link: https://goo.gl/forms/4rNPJbZ7f2Vx1NMJ2

(3) KEPLER NEARS RETIREMENT. On July 6, NASA announced that they have put the Kepler space observatory in a “no-fuel-use safe mode” in preparation for downloading data from what may have been the final Kepler observational campaign. Kepler has been very successful at finding exoplanets (both confirmed and candidates) since commissioning in 2009. After 2 of the 4 reaction wheels failed (the second in 2013), the mission was replanned to use thrusters as well as the remaining reaction wheels to point the telescope. Now, however, thruster fuel is critically low. NASA currently “expects it to run out of fuel in the next few months.”

NASA plans to take Kepler out of safe mode on August 2. It will then be commanded to reorient and point its high-gain antenna at Earth so data currently stored onboard can be downloaded. This reorientation maneuver uses significantly more fuel than observation mode and NASA notes that, “Returning the data back to Earth is the highest priority for the remaining fuel.” If the download is successful, NASA will command one more observation campaign (the 19th), to begin 6 August.

(4) WONDER WOMAN DROPS BY. Syfy Wire, in “’Wonder’-ful surprise: Gal Gadot visited a children’s hospital in her full Wonder Woman costume”, reports Wonder Woman actress Gal Gadot made a surprise appearance at Inova Children’s Hospital in Annandale VA on Friday 6 July… in her full battle armor costume.

Surgeon Dr. Lucas Collazo posted a photo to his Twitter account of Gadot posing with nearly a score of staff members and thanking her for brightening the day of many of the children (and staff).

Other pics were posted on Twitter (@WonderWomanHQ) and on Reddit (/u/oligarchyoligarchy). Gadot was apparently in the area while shooting Wonder Woman 1984, the upcoming sequel.

(5) PREMIERE. The Verge posted an excerpt of Rich Larson’s debut novel from Orbit: “A transgender girl rises up against alien invaders in Rich Larson’s novel Annex”. Previous work from Larson includes short genre fiction in Apex Magazine, in Clarkesworld Magazine, at Daily Science Fiction, on Tor.com, and in the anthology War Stories: New Military Science Fiction.

Later this month, Rich Larson will publish his debut novel, Annex, the start to his Violet Wars trilogy. The book is set in the aftermath of an alien invasion, and follows Violet, a transgender girl who has escaped capture and discovered that an alien parasite has given her strange powers. The aliens have tagged the adults of the world with a device that leaves them in a zombie-like state. She and a group of children called “Lost Boys” struggle to survive in order to take the fight back to the otherworldly invaders.

(6) SF V. LITERATURE. Gautham Shenoy interviews Adam Roberts in his 100th sff column for Factor Daily: “‘We’re Winning the War’: A Q&A with SF writer, critic and historian, Adam Roberts”.

Shenoy: I remember a few years ago, Kim Stanley Robinson angrily (I’d presume) calling the judges of the Man Booker Prize ignorant for ignoring science fiction, singling you out as the author who should’ve won that year, for your book, Yellow Blue Tibia. How did that make you feel? Which leads me to the second part of this question, where do you stand on this ‘literary apartheid’ if I can call it as such, where the ‘literary establishment’ tends to ignore if not sneer at ‘low brow’ science fiction, which in turn one could say has become ghettoised.

Roberts: Stan was being kind (really, incredibly kind and flattering) rather than wholly accurate when he said that. I’m never going to win the Man Booker, and I’m content with that. By the same token, I wonder if the ghetto doesn’t figure the opposite way to how it’s often invoked. It’s not that SFF is a ghetto inside the glorious city of ‘Literary Fiction’, but the reverse. “Literary” novels sell abominably badly, by and large; popular culture in the main belongs to SF and Fantasy, eighteen of the top twenty highest grossing movies of all time are SFF, everybody recognises SFF icons and memes, and not only popular bestsellers like Andy Weir’s The Martian but the best in contemporary experimental fiction is now SF. Nicola Barker’s Goldsmith’s Prize-winning H(a)ppy is SF; Kim Stanley Robinson’s own New York 2140 is as stylistically and formally innovative as Dos Passos, and so on. We’re winning the war.

(7) NEWS TO ME. Fafnir – Nordic Journal of Science Fiction and Fantasy Research is “a peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary academic journal published by the The Finnish Society for Science Fiction and Fantasy Research.”

Fafnir aims at serving as an international forum for scholarly exchange on science fiction and fantasy and for discussion on current issues on the field. Fafnir welcomes contributions from a wide range of perspectives.

(8) TRIBUTE TO DITKO. Sam Thielman, in “Steve Ditko’s Genius Made Him Something He Disdained–A Beloved Celebrity” in The Daily Beast, offers an appreciation of Ditko, and explains that many comics fans made the trip to 1650 Broadway, Suite 715 (an address that was in the phone book) only to find that Ditko refused to give interviews to anyone, including Neil Gaiman, who left Ditko’s office with a bag of comics and no interview.

For this beloved artist, the focus was entirely on his work, and he wanted other people’s focus there, too. “I never talk about myself,” he said when his own editors asked for a promotional interview after he’d created a new character, The Creeper, for DC Comics in 1974. “My work is me. I do my best, and if I like it, I hope somebody else likes it too.”

Pretty much everybody else did like it. There is a peculiar grammar to comics, a way that one panel suggests the next panel, that is ephemeral and hard to learn; some people intuitively understand it and reading their comics is like watching actual movement. Ditko is their patron saint.

(9) VANZINA OBIT. Carlo Vanzina (1951 – 2018): Italian screenwriter and director, died July 8, aged 67. Often collaborated with his brother Enrico. Genre work included Nothing Underneath (1985), A spasso nel tempo (1996), A spasso nel tempo – L’avventura continua (1997), 2061: Un anno eccezionale (2007).

(10) COMICS SECTION.

  • Why are UFO sightings down? Mike Kennedy learned the answer in Brewster Rockit.

(11) SHE LIGHTS UP THEIR LIVES. Mark Jenkins in the Washington Post reports on a forthcoming concert by Hatsume Miku, who is a hologram (her name means “first sound of the future” whose manga-loving fans have composed 100,000 songs in at least five languages for her, some of which have gotten 25 million hits on YouTube. “This singer is part hologram, part avatar, and might be the pop star of the future”.

When Japanese pop idol Hatsune Miku makes her Washington debut at the Anthem on Thursday, fans will be asked to use the official glow sticks for sale at the show instead of the regular brighter ones. The thing is, if too much light shines from the audience, Miku might simply disappear.

That’s because Miku is a hologram — at least when she performs in concert, backed by a quartet of flesh-and-blood musicians. She’s also an anime character, a video-game avatar, a bundle of sophisticated “vocaloid” code and a fascinating experiment in crowd-sourced pop art.

(12) AN INCREDIBLE NUMBER. ComicBook.com has pointed out that Incredibles 2 is about to set a record—the highest domestic gross for an animated film. According to BoxOfficeMojo’s Domestic Gross table, as of 5 July 2018, I2 was sitting at $475,361,414 (and #13 overall for all films), just behind Finding Dory at $486,295,561.

On the other hand, I2 would have a long way to go to gain the same distinction internationally. On BoxOfficeMojo’s Worldwide Gross chart, Frozen is the highest ranked animated film (#12 overall; $1,276.5 million) while I2 is way down the rank (#109 overall; $693.4 million). Animated films between them include Up (#96), Monsters University (#94), Madagascar 3 (#91), Shrek Forever After (#89), Maleficent (#85), Shrek the Third (#74), Coco (#73), Inside Out (#63), The Secret Life of Pets (#57), Ice Age: Continental Drift (#56),  Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (#52),  Shrek 2 (#49), Finding Nemo (#45), The Lion King (#38), Despicable Me 2 (#37), Zootopia (#32), Finding Dory (#29), Despicable Me 3 (#27), Toy Story 3 (#23), and Minions (#16).

Of course, when adjusting Domestic Gross for inflation, no animated film can beat out Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (#10 overall) or even 101 Dalmatians (#12 overall). And those two films together don’t add up to the inflation adjusted Domestic Gross for #1 Gone with the Wind. [Item penned by  Mike Kennedy.]

(13) SDCC PROGRAM. Comic-Con has released its program. They’ve finally found something for all the Hollywood lawyers to do.

(14) ELLISON TRIBUTE AT SDCC. San Diego’s Comic-Con International also will host a panel discussion about the late Harlan Ellison on Sunday at 3 p.m. in Room 6DE.

Josh Olson, Bill Sienkiewicz, William Stout, Erik Nelson, Steve Barnes, Nat Segaloff, Jude Meyers, Scott Tipton, J. K. Woodward, Christine Valada, Jason Davis will honor the memory of Harlan Ellison and the lasting effects of his work.

(15) PIERS ANTHONY ON ELLISON. Piers Anthony devotes a long section of his latest Newsletter to reminiscing about Ellison.

Yet there are limits. When Harlan made comments that could be dangerous to my career, I wrote to him privately saying in essence that I did not want trouble with him, as we were on the same side in so many cases, but if he repeated some of the things in print I would have to take legal action to protect my reputation. He was dismayed, listing three things that I should have said and had not. I replied by quoting all three things from the first page of my letter. Again he had accused me without cause. It was apparent that he was incorrigible, simply not capable of getting such things straight; he was a loose cannon, possibly more dangerous to friends than to enemies. Strike Three. I decided to disengage. “Fare well, Harlan,” I wrote, and cut him off.

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