Tag Archives: Wolverine

Pixel Scroll 7/16/24 Oh You’ll Never See My Shade Or Hear The Sound Of My Feet, While There’s A Scroll Over Pixel Street

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(1) GLASGOW 2024 DELAYS BUSINESS MEETING AGENDA. The WSFS Standing Rules required publication of this year’s Business Meeting Agenda by July 17. However, Glasgow 2024 today announced that agenda “will be delayed until Friday, 19th July 7pm (BST/UTC+1)”. X.com thread starts here.

Glasgow 2024 has received 50 items, including new business and items passed on from the prior Worldcons. And they have put up this chart to justify the delay in producing the agenda.

In the meantime, File 770 has published the text of more than 20 of these proposals. Here are the links.

  • Motion to Abolish the Retro Hugos Submitted to 2024 Business Meeting
  • WSFS 2024: Motion to Add Human Rights and Democracy Standards to Worldcon Site Qualifications
  • WSFS 2024: Three Resolutions
    • SHORT TITLE: APOLOGY RESOLUTION
    • SHORT TITLE: CHENGDU CENSURE RESOLUTION
  • SHORT TITLE: MAKE THEM FINALISTS RESOLUTION
  • WSFS 2024: Cleaning Up the Art Categories
  • WSFS 2024: Meetings, Meetings, Everywhere
  • WSFS 2024: Transparency in Hugo Administration
  • WSFS 2024: Irregular Disqualifications and Rogue Administrators
  • WSFS 2024: Independent Hugo Administration
  • WSFS 2024: No Illegal Exclusions
  • WSFS 2024: When We Censure You, We Mean It
  • WSFS 2024: And The Horse You Rode In On
  • WSFS 2024: Three Standing Rules Change Proposals
  • SHORT TITLE: “NO, WE DON’T LIKE SURPRISES, WHY DO YOU ASK?”
  • SHORT TITLE: “STRIKE 1.4”
  • SHORT TITLE: MAGNUM P.I.
  • Two More Proposed WSFS Constitutional Amendments for 2024
  • SHORT TITLE: MISSING IN ACTION
  • SHORT TITLE: THE WAY WE WERE
  • WSFS 2024: Popular Ratification
  • WSFS 2024: Site Selection by the Worldcon Community

    • Also along the way File 770 has published these drafts. Whether they have been submitted, or their final wording, is not known at this time.

    File 770’s reprints from the Journey Planet #82 “Be the Change” issue included two more proposals. Whether any or all were submitted to the Business Meeting is not known.

    (2) LAST DAYS TO VOTE FOR THE HUGOS. There are only four days left to vote in the 2024 Hugo Awards and to download this year’s Hugo Voting Packet. 

    Voting closes at 20:17 GMT on 20 July because that will be 55 years *to the minute* since Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first landed on the moon in 1969!

    Instructions about how to vote and the way to download the Hugo Voting Packet are on the Glasgow 2024 website.

    (3) COMMUNITY ANSWERS OCTAVIA’S BOOKSHELF’S CALL. “Black Woman-Owned Bookstore Octavia’s Bookshelf Is Getting Closer And Closer To Funding Goal To Keep Doors Open” reports Blavity. At this writing, Octavia’s Bookshelf has raised $83,780 of the $90,000 goal.

    ….According to Pasadena Now, the Black woman-owned business Octavia’s Bookshelf was founded by Nikki High, a former corporate communications employee at Trader Joe’s who left corporate America to accomplish one of her biggest goals: owning a bookstore. The name of her shop was inspired by Octavia Butler, who was known for her science fiction novels. When she opened her doors in February 2023, she was immediately embraced by her neighborhood and got more than enough support to move into a bigger space.

    Due to traffic slowing down in the store, High is asking her community and the general public for help to remain in business; she set up a GoFundMe page….

    …Due to lack of funding, she was forced to cut the shop’s regular events, group discussions, children’s readings and workshops, but she hopes to be able to offer these services again soon once she raises enough money.

    Despite the hurdles she faces, High is unwilling to throw away her dreams.

    “I still know that this is a viable business,” High told Pasadena Now, “and this space is crucial to our community.”

    (4) LEGGO MY LEGO. “Get bricks quick: collectible Lego sets fuel growing black market” says the Guardian.

    A black market for highly valuable Lego sets is being built brick by brick, and authorities are trying to knock it down.

    Lego sets are highly sought after, by kids and their parents as well as adult collectors.

    But it’s not all fun and games. Bad actors who know the resale value of these sets are increasingly cashing in, while law enforcement aims to bust such Lego theft rings.

    Police in Oregon last week recovered 4,000 stolen Lego sets worth more than $200,000, according to law enforcement. Ammon Henrikson, 47, the owner of a retail store called Brick Builders in Eugene, was arrested and accused of knowingly purchasing the allegedly stolen goods for a fraction of their retail price and then reselling them, a local CBS channel reported….

    … Two people were arrested in Los Angeles last month in connection with more than 2,800 stolen Lego sets. In April, California police arrested three men and a woman after discovering stolen Lego sets worth a combined $300,000. Some of the stolen sets included the 921-piece Millennium Falcon, typically priced around $85, the 6,167-piece Lord of the Rings Rivendell set, worth $500, and the 1,458-piece Porsche 911 set, worth $170.

    Meanwhile, overseas, French police announced in 2021 that they had begun building a case against an international gang of toy thieves specializing in Lego….

    (5) CLARION WEST MATCHING. The Clarion West Writers Workshop can leverage your donation this week. More information here.

    The Sherman Family Foundation has offered a Week Five Matching Challenge, doubling any donations made this week up to $2,000! Donations made to Clarion West support free and low-cost programming for writers and readers year-round.

    (6) SIMULTANEOUS TIMES. Space Cowboy Books presents episode 77 of their monthly podcast “Simultaneous Times” with Phoenix Alexander & F.J. Bergmann.

    Stories featured in this episode:

    • “Loamblood” by Phoenix Alexander — read by the author
    • “Surgery for Dummies” by F.J. Bergmann — read by Jean-Paul Garnier

    Music by Phog Masheeen. Theme music by Dain Luscombe

    Heather Wood in 1988. Photo by and (c) Andrew Porter

    (7) A. HEATHER WOOD (1945-2024). Publishing pro and folk singer A. Heather Wood died at Stony Brook Memorial Hospital on July 15 at the age of 79. At one time she was assistant to Tor’s President and Publisher Tom Doherty, and a consulting editor for Tor Books. She was also well-known in the folk music community as part of The Young Tradition, a 60s English group.

    We applied a tiny bit of that musical talent on Noreascon Three’s (1989) program SF Tonight, where I played Ed McMahon to Tappan King’s Johnny Carson, and Heather Wood was our kazoo-playing answer to Doc Severinsen.

    She also was known as part of World Fantasy Convention’s “Musical Interlude,” which featured pros singing in a folk revue.

    Her website, which lists her many accomplishments, is here.

    (8) IVAN GEISLER (1944-2024). [Item by Jeanne Jackson.] Ivan Geisler, longtime member of the Denver Area Science Fiction Association, passed away July 2, 2024 of congestive heart failure and old age.

    I was first informed this afternoon by Sherry Johnson, his ex-wife. Although Ivan was quickly found by his neighbors after his passing, and his dog Brownie returned to the shelter Ivan had adopted her from, there had been some difficulty locating contact information for friends and relatives.

     According to Sherry, memorial arrangements have not yet been organized. As Ivan was a veteran of the United States Army, it is likely the Veterans’ Administration will be involved in his funeral.

     Ivan joined DASFA over 30 years ago. He was a lifelong reader of science fiction and fantasy, and also an avid amateur astronomer—he was an active member of the Denver Astronomical Society long before he found his way into DASFA.

    (9) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

    [Written by Paul Weimer.]

    July 16, 1928 — Robert Sheckley. (Died 2005.)

    By Paul Weimer: I came to Robert Sheckley’s work through an oblique angle. Somehow, through all of the reading I did in the late 70’s and early 80’s, I missed or didn’t recognize, his short story work (although it’s dollars to donuts I came across a story of three in the many anthologies I read during that period. (And a check in the writing of this shows a couple of Sheckley stories in 100 Great Science Fiction Short Short Stories).  But I didn’t recognize his work and his genius and his skill until 1992. 

    Sheckley in the 1990s. Photo by John Henley

    Yes, it wasn’t until the movie Freejack came around that I started looking for Sheckley’s work specifically, since the movie proudly announced in its credits that it was based on “Immortality, Inc. by Robert Sheckley”.  Yes, this is the movie where Emilio Estevez is a car driver transported to the future, with Mick Jagger (!) of all people as the major antagonist.

    The name sounded familiar even so, and so, as was my practice at the time (Total Recall leading me to Philip K. Dick in similar fashion), I decided that I needed to investigate his work, starting with Immortality, Inc. The novel was very different than the movie by a long show, but I was immediately hooked on his writing. 

    I found his work sharp, twisty, clever, devilishly entertaining, and especially for his short stories, with a sting in the tail. It was no wonder to me that his work has been so adapted so frequently, and with such great effect. And while science fiction is generally not explicitly in the prediction business, “The Prize of Peril” pretty accurately and sharply predicts and shows the consequences of television devoted and focused on Reality Television for clicks. “The Perfect Woman” shows the consequences of wanting the perfect mate, straight from the factory, and the consequences of a lack of quality control.  

    My favorite Sheckley story might surprise, but it is “Death Freaks” from the “Heroes in Hell” shared world verse. With the ability of throwing anyone who is anyone into their shared world version of Hell, the editors got a story from Sheckley involving the Marquis de Sade, Baudelaire, Lizzie Borden, Jesse James, and an 8th Century BC Greek Hoplite. Sheckley, perhaps out of all of the authors in the series, best “understood the assignment” and let his imagination run wild.  It’s a story that’s a lot of fun and full of the unexpected, entertaining all along the way. That’s what Sheckley could, and did do, with his fiction.

    (10) COMICS SECTION.

    (11) LADY DEADPOOL. “New ‘Deadpool & Wolverine’ Trailer Teases Even More of Lady Deadpool” promises Yahoo!

    Ten days ahead of the film’s release, Shawn Levy’s Deadpool & Wolverine has a new trailer and TV spot.

    Set to the tune of Toni Basil’s “Hey Mickey,” one of the first shots in the trailer shows the mysterious Lady Deadpool’s red boots and up past her signature belt to show the ends of blonde hair without landing on her face.

    And a week ago was this: “Deadpool & Wolverine & The Bachelorette”.

    Everyone seemed to like the Deadpool Bachelorette spot last night but can we talk about the episode? Thought Jenn made some strong choices, except for sending my countryman Brendan packing. Marcus is easy on the eyes, Grant was a little much and the day trading thing, but I get it. Two Sams will get confusing so slightly leaning towards Sam N. Jenn’s mom might have been the highlight and Melbourne, Australia, felt like a Hugh shout out so bit of a lowlight there. Overall, great start. What was I talking about again?

    (12) FOR MONSTER TOURISTS. Atlas Obscura lists “11 Museums Dedicated to Monsters”.

    Monsters have roamed the human consciousness as long as there has been one, from tales around the campfire, to the tomes of antiquity, to the modern cineplex. And sometimes those monsters leap off the page or the screen, and out of our imaginations. Sightings of cryptids and other frightful creatures have spanned millennia, often taking place in the darkest corners of the world. Luckily there are lots of ways to get to know these fantastical creatures—especially when enthusiasts create museums or exhibits dedicated to their lore….

    …In Point Pleasant, West Virginia, is a museum dedicated to the state’s most widely known cryptid: the Mothman. The only collection dedicated to the half-moth, half-man creature, the Mothman Museum celebrates this harbinger of misfortune, who has been spotted in Appalachia on and off since 1966. Much further in the past, stories of massive sea monsters off the Icelandic coast have stricken fear into the hearts of sailors. The Skrímslasetrið in Bíldudalur, Iceland, covers the history of these encounters. According to the museum, two of the monsters most endemic to Iceland’s waters are the hafmaður (Sea Man) and the skeljaskrímsli (Shell Monster), but there are more. From a four-legged beast that terrorized 18th-century France to an amphibious water demon in Japan, here are a few of our favorite places to get up close to monsters in relative safety…

    (13) READY FOR HER CLOSE-UP. “Gnatalie is the only green-boned dinosaur found on the planet. She will be on display in L.A.” announces NBC News.

    The latest dinosaur being mounted at the Natural History Museum in Los Angeles is not only a member of a new species — it’s also the only one found on the planet whose bones are green, according to museum officials.

    Named “Gnatalie” (pronounced Natalie) for the gnats that swarmed during the excavation, the long-necked, long-tailed herbivorous dinosaur’s fossils got its unique coloration, a dark mottled olive green, from the mineral celadonite during the fossilization process.

    While fossils are typically brown from silica or black from iron minerals, green is rare because celadonite forms in volcanic or hydrothermal conditions that typically destroy buried bones. The celadonite entered the fossils when volcanic activity around 50 million to 80 million years ago made it hot enough to replace a previous mineral….

    (14) IT’S A TWISTER AUNTIE EM! “What Twisters gets right — and wrong — about tornado science” opines Nature

    When Hollywood producers showed up a few years ago at Sean Waugh’s office, he couldn’t wait to show them his thunderstorm-tracking equipment. Waugh, a meteorologist at the US National Severe Storms Laboratory in Norman, Oklahoma, is a big fan of the 1996 film Twister, which stars Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as leaders of a tornado-chasing research team. And now, Hollywood was asking Waugh his opinion on how the science in the next film in the Twister franchise should look.

    On 17 July, when the film is released internationally, the world will see how Waugh’s recommendations panned out. Like its predecessor, the new Twisters film focuses on characters who are storm chasers: Daisy Edgar-Jones plays a researcher traumatized by past weather disasters and Glen Powell a social-media star racing for footage of the biggest and baddest tornadoes. But science has an even bigger role in the plot of the new film than it had in the original, say Waugh and other researchers who worked as consultants for Twisters. It not only shows advanced radar data and highlights links between climate change and tornadoes, “it’s an incredible opportunity to inspire the next generation of scientists”, Waugh says….

    (15) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Ryan George’s “Battlefield Earth Pitch Meeting” tells why the movie was made – not that you didn’t already know.

    [Thanks to Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, Anne Marble, Joe Siclari, Jeanne Jackson, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Niall McAuley.]

Pixel Scroll 7/1/24 Don’t Scroll Tonight: Call Pixel Delight!

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(1) WESTERCON, JUST ADD HEMLOCK. Kevin Standlee won’t be making the motion, but ”For Those Who Want to Retire Westercon” he has written the recipe. Kevin explains:

[It’s] something that might come up at the Westercon Business Meeting if at least two members present decide to use it, or if the motion arises out of a Committee of the Whole should no bid win the election. At this time, there are no bids filed, but a bid could always file a write-in up until voting closes on Friday evening, and if they do so and out-poll None of the Above, the Business Meeting would probably give a collective sigh of relief that they don’t have to deal with the decision for the third year in a row.

(2) DUST & DARK TO LAUNCH IN 2025. Dust & Dark, a new print and digital quarterly magazine specializing in short horror fiction, will launch in 2025.

 Editor Owen Duffy says the magazine will offer deliciously dark tales for readers.

 “Our focus is on stories that get under your skin and stay with you long after you’ve turned the final page,” he says.

 “We aren’t interested in straightforward shocks or gratuitous gore. We’re all about inventive, stylish, original stories with strong characterisation, tight pacing and immersive settings.

 “We also absolutely see horror as part of the speculative fiction family. We’ll feature stories which explore a range of ideas and issues, open us up to new perspectives and look at the world from slightly sideways angles.”

 The magazine is set to launch following a Kickstarter campaign in November. Story submissions will open in September. To be notified when submissions go live, sign up for updates at https://dustanddark.com/.

(3) IF YOU’RE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD. The UK’s National Trust invites everyone to “Visit great writers’ and poets’ houses”. One of the places on their list is:

Hill Top, Cumbria

Beatrix Potter bought Hill Top with the royalties earned from her first book, Peter Rabbit. The garden and surrounding countryside inspired many of her works – spot the beehive nestled in the garden wall, just as it was depicted in The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck.

(4) BIG RED ONE. “’Hellboy: The Crooked Man’ first trailer reveals Jack Kesy as the titular demon” – Entertainment Weekly sets the frame.

Different Hellboys come and go, but there will always be things that go bump in the night — and who better to defeat them than the lovable red superhero? Later this year, actor Jack Kesy (12 Strong) will be the third actor to play Mike Mignola’s Hellboy on the big screen, and you can see him in action in the first trailer for Hellboy: The Crooked Man… 

(5) BOT SPEECH. “The Voices of A.I. Are Telling Us a Lot” says the New York Times. “Even as the technology advances, stubborn stereotypes about women are re-encoded again and again.” (Behind a paywall.)

…A.I. creators like to highlight the increasingly naturalistic capabilities of their tools, but their synthetic voices are built on layers of artifice and projection. Sky represents the cutting edge of OpenAI’s ambitions, but she is based on an old idea: of the A.I. bot as an empathetic and compliant woman. Part mommy, part secretary, part girlfriend, Samantha was an all-purpose comfort object who purred directly into her users’ ears. Even as A.I. technology advances, these stereotypes are re-encoded again and again.

Women’s voices, as Julie Wosk notes in “Artificial Women: Sex Dolls, Robot Caregivers, and More Facsimile Females,” have often fueled imagined technologies before they were built into real ones.

In the original “Star Trek” series, which debuted in 1966, the computer on the deck of the Enterprise was voiced by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, the wife of the show’s creator, Gene Roddenberry. In the 1979 film “Alien,” the crew of the USCSS Nostromo addressed its computer voice as “Mother” (her full name was MU-TH-UR 6000). Once tech companies started marketing virtual assistants — Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana — their voices were largely feminized, too.

These first-wave voice assistants, the ones that have been mediating our relationships with technology for more than a decade, have a tinny, otherworldly drawl. They sound auto-tuned, their human voices accented by a mechanical trill. They often speak in a measured, one-note cadence, suggesting a stunted emotional life.

But the fact that they sound robotic deepens their appeal. They come across as programmable, manipulatable and subservient to our demands….

(6) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

July 1, 1991 — Terminator 2: Judgement Day. Terminator 2: Judgement Day was released on this day in 1991.  It won a Hugo at MagiCon, so may I question why oh why wasn’t The Terminator nominated for a Hugo?  Tell me oh Filers why it wasn’t. It certainly deserved one, didn’t it?

Now let’s discuss this film, that like The Terminator, I indeed did see at a theater. It had its first showing thirty three ago in the States at Century City in Los Angeles with a general release two days later.  That’s seven years after The Terminator came out.

Not at all surprisingly, just about everyone involved in The Terminator is back here. Like the first film, it’s directed by James Cameron.  Cameron is very much the driving force as he also wrote both scripts, the first with Gale Anne Hurd, whom he married a year after The Terminator came out, and this film with William Peter Wisher  who also worked uncredited on The Terminator. 

The Terminator was a considerable success, making the careers of both Cameron and Schwarzenegger, but work on what would become  this film almost ended  because of animosity between the pair and Hemdale Film Corporation, which partially owned the film’s rights. So they got Carolco Pictures to purchase the rights from The Terminator producer Gale Anne Hurd and Hemdale, which was almost bankrupt.

Now they owned the rights to produce a sequel. Cameron engaged  his long-time friend Wisher who I noted had worked uncredited on The Terminator. He’d later be responsible for writing the Judge Dredd script. Oh well.  This script was written in just seven weeks. 

So we’ve got a script, now do we have a cast? Oh yes.  Schwarzenegger is obviously back and so is the only other individual that counts, Linda Hamilton. Robert Patrick is here as well. That’s the primary cast. (Remember we don’t do story lines here as one of you might not have seen it. I’ve seen it. It’s excellent.) 

Now let’s talk budgets.  The Terminator cost a shade over eight million to make. This film? We think that it cost at least thirteen times which comes out to just over a hundred million.  Fortunately, it made so much money that I think they just stopped counting after a while as they only give an estimate, but over a half billion is definitely what it made plus somewhat more.

So the public loved it, but what did critics think of it? Most liked it. Some who, in my opinion of course, had an unhealthy attachment to the first didn’t. 

Derek Malcolm of the U.K. based Guardian was typical of the reviewers who liked it: “Cameron has done an honourable and undoubtedly skilful job of tailoring his new film to the tastes of the times without too much sloppy compromise. He’s made a science fiction film with verve, imagination and even a little wit.” 

On the other hand, we have Ralph Novak of People Magazine who sadly said, “Shamefully sadistic, achingly dull and totally predictable, it rehashes the far superior 1984 original.” 

But let’s not forget our heroine. Alan Jones of Radio Times said about her in this film : “Linda Hamilton turns in another terrific performance as the fiercely committed heroine who puts a necessary human face on Cameron’s high-decibel mayhem and pyrotechnical bravura.”

(7) COMICS SECTION.

  • The Argyle Sweater features monster party games.
  • Carpe Diem says it’s no fun waiting for evolution.
  • Rubes remembers a different Sixties Godzilla than you and me.

(8) THAT JAZZ-LOVING LOVECRAFT FAN. [Item by Steven French.] On the recommendation of my brother, I’ve been working my way through Andrew Hickey’s podcast “A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs”, which started in 2018. In episode 13, featuring “’Mama He Treats Your Daughter Mean’ by Ruth Brown”, he mentions the important role played by one Willis Conover:

…Conover was a fascinating figure — he presented the jazz programme on Voice of America, the radio station that broadcast propaganda to the Eastern bloc during the Cold War, but by doing so he managed to raise the profile of many of the greatest jazz musicians of the time. He was also a major figure in early science fiction fandom — a book of his correspondence with H.P. Lovecraft is now available.

Conover was visiting the nightclub along with his friend Duke Ellington, and he was immediately impressed by Ruth Brown’s performance — impressed enough that he ran out to call Ahmet Ertegun and Herb Abramson and tell them to sign her.

Ertegun and Abramson were the founders of Atlantic Records, a new record label which had started up only a couple of years earlier.

As a teenager Conover produced the fanzine Science Fantasy Correspondent and the book Hickey mentions was Lovecraft at Last.

Ruth Brown not only went on to have a number of hits in the 1950s and was eventually inducted into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame in the 1990s, but had a second career as an acclaimed musical actress, earning a Tony award for the musical Black and Blue.

(9) CLARKE-INSPIRED TV. “Star Trek Legend Jonathan Frakes to Direct New Sci-Fi Series” – CBR.com has the story.

…Per Variety, Frakes will produce and direct all six episodes of the new sci-fi series, Arthur C. Clarke’s Venus Prime. The new show is based on the series of novels written by Paul Preuss, a collaborator of Clarke’s, which takes inspiration from characters and places from Clarke’s short stories. Preuss will also be involved as a consultant for the show. David Cormican and Dwayne Hill are set to executive produce and will serve as showrunners for the series. Production on the show is expected to begin near the end of the year.

Frakes, who is no stranger to directing science fiction, expressed his excitement for the project and his love for the series of novels. “When the materials for Arthur C. Clarke’s Venus Prime were presented to me, I couldn’t help but devour them,” Frakes said. “When asked if I wanted to direct what I read —my answer was a resounding and immediate ‘Hell, yes!’ Working on such a tremendous piece of IP from the mind of another sci-fi legend (who is also a contemporary of the true #1 Gene Roddenberry), will be both an honor and a dream for me.”…

(10) THESE FEET ARE MADE FOR WALKIN’. NPR goes to find out how “The Bigfoot Festival draws thousands to West Virginia”.

This weekend, the tiny town of Sutton, W.V., population 840, is hosting about 20,000 people for its annual Bigfoot Festival. It’s a celebration of a mythical giant, hairy primate with – that’s right – big feet. Briana Heaney spoke to those still looking for the creature and others who just love the idea of it.

BRIANA HEANEY, BYLINE: Folklore is a pillar of Appalachian culture as much as banjos and quilts are. And in Sutton this weekend, it’s all about Bigfoot.

(SOUNDBITE OF BELL)

HEANEY: Here in Sutton, the country store doubles as a Bigfoot museum. Laurel Petolicchio owns and runs it. Petolicchio has never seen Bigfoot, but she’s heard a lot of stories.

LAUREL PETOLICCHIO: I’ll have these big mountain men come into my counter, you know, of my little country store. And the one guy, I mean, slammed his hand down on the table, I mean, on my counter. And he’s like, you don’t believe this crap, do you? And I’m like, well, I kind of do. And he’s like, why? And I said, well, it’s the stories I hear. And it’s just – there’s so many of them. And then he leaned forward and he’s like, OK, can I tell you mine? I’m like, what? Like…

(11) VIDEO OF THE DAY. A new Deadpool & Wolverine trailer. Movie arrives in theaters on July 26.

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

Sneak Peek at Marvel & Disney: What If…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine #1

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This year marks the 90th anniversary of Donald Duck’s as well as the 50th anniversary of Wolverine, and in July, fans will be able to see both their sagas collide in a special comic book one-shot, Marvel & Disney: What If…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine #1! Today, fans can see all the covers for this highly-anticipated issue and check out some interior pages.

This first-of-its-kind mashup adventure will celebrate everything the world loves about both these pop culture legends from their heart and humor to their epic rage.

The comic will introduce Donald-Wolverine along with all sorts of reimagined Disney and Marvel mashups in a wild adventure inspired by one of Wolverine’s most memorable story arcs, Old Man Logan. In addition, the saga will revisit some of the greatest moments in Donald-Wolverine’s history including his time spent with Weapon X and the Uncanny X-Men!  

Travel to the near future where chaos rules as Pete-Skull transforms Duckburg into a super-hero-less wasteland. Only Old Donald Duck can turn the tide, but he’s given up his battling days and prefers naps and his grandma’s apple pie over fighting villains. But when Mickey-Hawkeye comes knocking at the door with Goofy-Hulk at his side, Donald-Wolverine has to make a choice! Will a trip down memory lane change his mind to save the world? Or will the lure of the backyard hammock and a long nap keep him from popping his claws one last time?

On merging these two icons, writer Luca Barbieri said, “Donald Duck and Wolverine are two characters that seem almost impossible to make coexist, but in fact they possess very similar personality: they are both hot-tempered and unlucky, but in adversity they do not lose heart and always show that they have a big heart! Once this point was focused, writing the story turned out to be easy and fun!”

“I always thought Wolverine’s sideburns only looked good on Uncle Scrooge, but when I drew them on Donald Duck I realized they fit him perfectly too!” artist Giada Perissinotto added. “Those pointy head tufts and thick sideburns go well with his shaggy being. I had so much fun adapting Wolverine’s hair to Donald Duck that I would do him like this all the time now!”

See the variant covers and page art following the jump. For more information, visit Marvel.com.

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 5/31/24 Scroll Dol! Pixel Dol! File A Dong Dillo!

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(1) ARISTOTLE! In 2017 The New Yorker considered “Fantastic Beasts and How to Rank Them” Aristotle isn’t the only one who had an opinion.

Consider the yeti. Reputed to live in the mountainous regions of Tibet, Bhutan, and Nepal. Also known by the alias Abominable Snowman. Overgrown, in both senses: eight or ten or twelve feet tall; shaggy. Shy. Possibly a remnant of an otherwise extinct species. More possibly an elaborate hoax, or an inextinguishable hope. Closely related to the Australian Yowie, the Canadian Nuk-luk, the Missouri Momo, the Louisiana Swamp Ape, and Bigfoot. O.K., then: on a scale not of zero to ten but of, say, leprechaun to zombie, how likely do you think it is that the yeti exists?

One of the strangest things about the human mind is that it can reason about unreasonable things. It is possible, for example, to calculate the speed at which the sleigh would have to travel for Santa Claus to deliver all those gifts on Christmas Eve. It is possible to assess the ratio of a dragon’s wings to its body to determine if it could fly. And it is possible to decide that a yeti is more likely to exist than a leprechaun, even if you think that the likelihood of either of them existing is precisely zero….

(2) IGLESIAS REVIEW COLUMN. Gabino Iglesias reviews four new horror books in the New York Times, Stephen King’s You Like It Darker: Stories (Scribner), Layla Martínez’s debut novel, Woodworm (Two Lines Press), Christina Henry’s The House That Horror Built (Berkley) and Pemi Aguda’s Ghostroots: Stories (Norton).

(3) SOME PIG! [Item by Dann.] Author Paul Hale has released the first episode of his next series for the Cinema Story Origins podcast.  This time around, he will be comparing and contrasting the book and movie versions of “Charlotte’s Web”. “Charlotte’s Web Part 1”.

(4) SPEED UPDATING. The latest in Joe Vasicek’s continuing series at One Thousand and One Parsecs is “How I would vote now: 2018 Hugo Award (Best Novel)” – a decision made easier by the fact that he didn’t read three of the books at all, and only read “the first couple pages” of a fourth.

How I Would Have Voted

  1. Six Wakes by Mur Lafferty
  2. No Award

Everything else from this year is pretty much terrible, in my opinion. I skipped The Stone Sky, Provenance, and Raven Strategem because those were all series that I had already DNFed….

A fourth finalist that he actually started was Kim Stanley Robinson’s 2140.

(5) CCB CASE ANALYZED. At Writer Beware a guest post looks over a case involving “Disney, Books, and the Copyright Claims Board”.

Writer Beware has been covering the Copyright Claims Board since it started accepting cases in 2022. A small claims court for copyright matters, the CCB offers an alternative to the expensive court battles that previously were the only path to resolving copyright disputes, providing creators with a streamlined, inexpensive method of adjudicating cases of infringement, misuse, and other alleged malfeasance…..

Jonathan Bailey of Plagiarism Today says:

…Overall, the CCB did a good job. Though it cited the most recent Supreme Court ruling, which was handed down just four days before this final determination was published, the CCB didn’t get bogged down needlessly in the injury rule/discovery rule debate. Instead, it turned to the Raging Bull case, allowing the case to move forward but only looking back three years.

That filing delay deeply hurt the claimant. Not only did the vast majority of the alleged infringement take place during the excluded time, but much of the relevant evidence was also from then. Key pieces of that evidence were simply gone.

As the CCB pointed out, the burden of proof is on the claimant. While Disney may have some responsibility, there wasn’t enough (or any) evidence to prove it. If the case had been filed before 2018, things might have progressed very differently.

It is a frustrating case. As small as the infringement may have been, it feels like someone should be held responsible for it. However, the evidence simply didn’t support holding Disney accountable. If this case had been filed earlier or targeted Hoopla directly, there might have been a different outcome.

Ultimately, I think the CCB made the right call, even if my sympathies lie with the author and her publisher….

(6) FANS B.C. Atlas Obscura finds that “Before ‘Fans,’ There Were ‘Kranks,’ ‘Longhairs,’ and ‘Lions’” – a study that encompasses sports, theater, and finally, science fiction.

THE EXACT ORIGINS OF THE modern term “fan” are disputed, but most look to the 1880s, where it was first used by American newspapers to describe particularly invested baseball enthusiasts. But “fan” was just one of the words the press, leagues, clubs, and baseball enthusiasts themselves were using at the time. They were called “enthusiasts,” but also a whole host of other names, from “rooters” to “bugs” to “fiends” to “cranks,” sometimes spelled—as in the German word for “sick”—as “krank.”…

… This, of course, stretches across the history of fandom: Differences like age, geography, approach, and values can lead to different groups forming around the same thing. Trekkies versus Trekkers, for instance, or Holmesians versus Sherlockians. “How you name yourself says a lot about what you think of yourself and your very intense passions,” Cavicchi says. “But at the same time, another name or variation on the name, or another use of your name, maybe in a derogatory sense, may say something about what the culture thinks about you.” Modern fandom terms like “stan” and “fangirl” can connote very different things depending on the speaker—overly emotional and uncontrollable to a critic, or a term of in-group recognition to fellow fans….

(7) TAKING POPCORN OUT OF THE MOUTH OF A SUPERHERO. Does this popcorn bucket need a trigger warning? Consider it given. “Ryan Reynolds unveils hilarious ‘Deadpool and Wolverine’ popcorn bucket” at Entertainment Weekly.

Dune began this war, but Ryan Reynolds isn’t backing down from it. Following the popularity of the Dune: Part Two custom popcorn bucket (which was shaped like the gaping jaws of a sandworm), Reynolds unveiled Deadpool and Wolverine‘s own bucket on Thursday….

…Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige teased that the bucket would be “intentionally crude and lewd” at CinemaCon, and now we get to see it for ourselves.

Similar to the Dune bucket, the top of the Deadpool and Wolverine popcorn container is shaped like a mouth — Wolverine’s mouth, that is. If you’ve ever wanted to shove your hand down the clawed mutant’s throat…well, now’s your chance….

(8) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

May 31, 1993 — Total Recall, the one and only true Total Recall, premiered on this date in Los Angeles thirty-four years ago. So let’s talk about it.

As you most likely know, it’s based off Philip K. Dick’s “We Can Remember It for You Wholesale” which not surprisingly can be found in the We Can Remember It for You Wholesale collection. 

Ronald Shusett who wrote the original script for Alien, not the one that was filmed, bought the film rights to it fourteen years prior to it making it to the screen. It went through at least four studios over sixteen years, some forty script drafts, seven different directors and a potential cast of what seemed like hundreds. In other words, what is called development hell. 

It didn’t get better as it was being film when the De Laurentiis company went bankrupt. Oh well. 

Schwarzenegger wanted to play that role but had been dismissed as inappropriate for the lead role by, well, everyone including the De Laurentiis company, but he convinced the Carolco Pictures to purchase the rights and develop the film with him as the star.

In 2024 terms, the film cost two hundred million dollars.  Quite a bit given that Foundation is only costing Apple five point five million an episode for the current season.  Cost overruns were so common that the bankers gave up trying to figure out what it’d cost to make it. No, none jumped out windows but I bet they thought about it… 

Shusett was the co-director here along with Frederick Feitshans. Why him? Because he’d directed Schwarzenegger on Conan the Barbarian and he wanted him here. If you’re getting the idea, that is a vanity project of Schwarzenegger, you’re not far off as the shooting script was also approved by him. 

Setting him aside, it had a lead cast that you’ll (mostly) recognize— Rachel Ticotin,  Sharon Stone,  Michael Ironside and Ronny Cox. Each went to be a major star save Rachel Ticotin. The other three you’ll know as being in any number of genre films though Stone is best known for Basic Instinct which cannot ever be stretched under any circumstances to be genre adjacent and shouldn’t even be really considered for its police procedural angle really. Seriously no one went to see it for that. 

It’s an entertaining film that I like. I’m amazed Gary Goldman, a film producer, director, animator, writer and even voice actor, was able to make sense of the nearly forty scripts that everyone had a hand in – even Dan O’Bannon at one point. But he did. He even went back to the original script based off the Dick work. Verhoeven read each one of these, bless him, and highlighted those he wanted Goldman to reference.

Yes, the specials effects by Industrial Light & Magic were extraordinary, as is the actual physical work that had to done like The Earth train station which was filmed in the Mexico City Metro and all of the exterior Mars scenes took place at the Valley of Fire State Park in Overton, Nevada. 

The critics were mostly either unfavorable or meh on it with a few impressed. Even when they praised the production values and Schwarzenegger’s performance, they really, really criticized the violent content. 

It turned to be one of the year’s most successful films. On its release, the film earned approximately $261.4 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year.

I rewatched it a few years back. Does it hold up well? The Suck Fairy says yes and I agree. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Brewster Rockit reports there are some things everyone must watch.
  • Non Sequitur demonstrates a problem that might be unfamiliar today.

(10) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON.

(11) DON’T LOSE YOUR WAY WHEN YOU CHOOSE YOUR WAY. “These Maps Reveal the Hidden Structures of ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Books” – Atlas Obscura unveils an example.

Reading a “Choose Your Own Adventure” book can feel like being lost in a maze and running through twists and turns only to find dead ends, switchbacks, and disappointment. In the books—for those not familiar with them—you read until you come to a decision point, which prompts you to flip to another page, backward or forward. The early books in the series, which began in 1979, have dozens of endings, reached through branching storylines so complex that that trying to keep track of your path can seem hopeless—no matter how many fingers you stick into the book in order to find your way back to the key, fateful choice. You might end up back at an early fork again, surprised at how far you traveled only to reemerge at a simple decision, weighted with consequences that you couldn’t have imagined at the beginning.

The last installment of the original “Choose Your Own Adventure” series came out in 1998, but since 2004, Chooseco, founded by one of the series’ original authors, R.A. Montgomery, has been republishing classic volumes, as well as new riffs on the form of interactive fiction that seemed ubiquitous in the 1980s and ’90s. The new editions also carry an additional feature—maps of the hidden structure of each book….

…The meat of “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories are gender-neutral romps in worlds where there are no obviously right or wrong moral choices. There’s danger around bend, usually in the form of something like space monkeys, malicious ghosts, or conniving grown-ups. Even with a map, there’s no way to find out what really comes next without making a choice and flipping to another page….

(12) BROOKER Q&A. “Black Mirror Season 7: Charlie Brooker Talks AI, USS Callister Sequel” in The Hollywood Reporter.

…In the conversation below, Brooker reveals what inspired him to create the episode (while musing about what a sequel could look like) and weighs in on the AI conversation now, while also discussing the upcoming seventh season of Black Mirror and the show’s first-ever (and highly anticipated) sequel to the Emmy-winning season four “USS Callister” episode.

***

The timing of the release of “Joan Is Awful” may be the most Charlie Brooker thing that has ever happened. What was it like to watch that play out as the AI conversation began to explode?

It was really odd. So, I must have written it in June-July in 2022. When we shot it, it was September-October. It was just before ChatGPT launched. I think it was about a week later that ChatGPT came out and suddenly, everyone was talking about generative AI and how all creative jobs were going to be replaced, pushed out or automated. There’s also a lot of raw animal panic that takes over as a writer as soon as you see some of that generative AI output. I’d seen some of [AI chatbot app] Midjourney, the image generating stuff.

For a while I had wanted to do a story about a news network that bills itself as satire that isn’t showing news but is showing satirical content, which is photorealistic imagery of political figures either being humiliated or looking heroic. And the idea that was a strange way of doing propaganda that they could claim was satirical, but that was ridiculous and absurd. It was a funny and disturbing idea, but I couldn’t work out quite what the story was.

Then I was watching The Dropout, the Hulu drama about the Theranos scandal starring Amanda Seyfried, with my wife and we were discussing how weird it would be — because it was dramatizing very recent events — if you were Elizabeth Holmes watching this and it’s getting so up to date that in a minute, she’s going to put the TV on and see The Dropout. And so those two ideas kind of glommed together: of AI-generated imagery starring real figures — and a dramatization of somebody’s life that’s depicting them in a terrible light. (Laughs.)

As “Joan” came out, I knew it was timely. That season was originally going to be a season of all horror stories called Red Mirror. I was part way into the season and then I had this idea and I thought: It’s not horror. I mean, it’s existentially terrifying, but it’s not horror. It’s definitely a very Black Mirror idea. So I thought, “Fuck it, OK” [about the Red Mirror idea]. I felt like it had to be done now. I definitely couldn’t wait for another season to do it. So when the ChatGPT conversation caught fire and when it became a huge issue because of the strikes, I was slightly wiping my brow with relief that we got the episode out before. The timing of it was surreal. Hopefully, it added to the conversation….

(13) ANOTHER ENTRY RAMP. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] …On the infinite helical slide into the bottomless pit. “Hollywood Nightmare? New Streaming Service Lets Viewers Create Their Own Shows Using AI” in The Hollywood Reporter.

Fable, the studio behind the viral AI-generated ‘South Park’ clips, has announced a streaming platform that allows users to create their own content.

Generative artificial intelligence is coming for streaming, with the release of a platform dedicated to AI content that allows users to create episodes with a prompt of just a couple of words.

Fable Studio, an Emmy-winning San Francisco startup, on Thursday announced Showrunner, a platform the company says can write, voice and animate episodes of shows it carries. Under the initial release, users will be able to watch AI-generated series and create their own content — complete with the ability to control dialogue, characters and shot types, among other controls.

The endeavor marks the tech industry’s further encroachment onto Hollywood as it eyes the exploitation of AI tools embroiled in controversy over their potential to streamline production and the possibility they were created using copyrighted materials from creators they could eventually displace. Amid the industry’s historic dual strikes last year, in which the use of AI emerged as a contentious negotiating point, Fable released an AI-generated episode of South Park to showcase its tech. While some mocked it for its comedic misses, others pointed to the video as a leap forward in the tech and proof of concept that AI tools will soon allow viewers to more actively engage with content, possibly by creating their own. It also demonstrated the threat the tech poses to creators whose labor could be undermined if it’s adopted into the production pipeline.

“The vision is to be the Netflix of AI,” says chief executive Edward Saatchi. “Maybe you finish all of the episodes of a show you’re watching and you click the button to make another episode. You can say what it should be about or you can let the AI make it itself.”…

(14) CAN THE NEXT MUMMY BE A WHALE OF A TALE? World of Reel reports “’The Mummy’ Sequel in the Works, Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz to Return”.

According to Daniel Richtman, “The Mummy” franchise has a new sequel in development over at Universal — Brendan Fraser and Rachel Weisz set to return in their respective roles. If you remember, the franchise abruptly ended after 2008’s “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor” — budgeted at $175 million— barely made a profit.

The 1999 original was written and directed by Stephen Sommers and was a remake of the 1932 film of the same name. Despite mixed reviews, it was a commercial success and grossed over $416 million worldwide. The film’s success spawned two direct sequels, 2001’s “The Mummy Returns,” and 2008’s “The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor.”

“The Mummy” was an incredible success for Universal on home video, selling 7 million units on VHS and 1 million on DVD, making it that year’s best-selling live-action VHS and second best-selling DVD. This all resulted in Universal grossing over $1 billion in home video sales. It seemed as though everyone you knew owned a copy of this movie.

Fraser is hot right now and is in the comeback phase of his career. In 2023, he won an Oscar for “The Whale” and has been piling up projects ever since….

(15) VOYAGER NOW. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] In this week’s Science journal there is a look at the Voyager probe, its recovery from computer failure and the mystery region of space it is now entering.  It appears that pulses of Solar plasma are hitting the interstellar medium boundary causing reverberations or it could be plasma clouds from another star…. “Voyager 1 science resumes after interstellar crisis”.

Before a computer crash, venerable NASA probe entered mysterious new region of space Voyager 1, the first earthly object to exit the Solar System may be traversing a plasma cloud from another star.

[Thanks to Teddy Harvia, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Chris Rose, Andrew (not Werdna), Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, and Steven French for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]

Pixel Scroll 4/22/24 Pixel Walked Through A Wall Where She Encountered More Pixels

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(1) CLARKE AWARD SUBMISSION LIST. The complete list of eligible books received by Arthur C. Clarke Award judges has been posted in “Carbon-Based Bipeds: Apr 22nd”. This year the judges received 117 eligible titles from 50 UK publishing imprints and independent authors. 

(2) PEN AMERICA MAKES LITERARY AWARDS DECISIONS. “PEN America Cancels 2024 Literary Awards Ceremony” reports Publishers Weekly.

PEN America has canceled its 2024 Literary Awards ceremony, which was previously scheduled to be held at the Town Hall in New York City on April 29, although some awards will still be conferred. The move follows months of steadily mounting criticism of the organization over its response to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, which culminated last week in 28 authors withdrawing books from consideration for the awards, including nine of the 10 authors nominated for the organization’s top prize, the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award.

“We greatly respect that writers have followed their consciences, whether they chose to remain as nominees in their respective categories or not,” PEN America literary programming chief officer Clarisse Rosaz Shariyf said in a statement. “We regret that this unprecedented situation has taken away the spotlight from the extraordinary work selected by esteemed, insightful and hard-working judges across all categories. As an organization dedicated to freedom of expression and writers, our commitment to recognizing and honoring outstanding authors and the literary community is steadfast.”

The $75,000 prize accompanying the PEN/Stein award will be donated, this year, to the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund at the direction of the Literary Estate of Jean Stein….

The five finalists and winning titles for each of the more than 20 awards conferred by PEN America had already been selected by judges during deliberations held before the mass withdrawals, the organization said in a statement. As a result, the organization continued, the two winners who remained under consideration for their awards will receive their cash prizes. Those include Countries of Origin by Javier Fuentes (Pantheon), which was chosen to win the $10,000 PEN/Hemingway Award for Debut Novel, and The Blue House: Collected Works of Tomas Tranströmer by the late Tomas Tranströmer, translated from the Swedish by Patty Crane (Copper Canyon Press), which was chosen to win the $3,000 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.

No winners will be announced if the winning title was withdrawn from consideration for the award,…

(3) CLARION WORKSHOP 2024. The Clarion Workshop at UCSD has announced the Clarion class of 2024:

The Clarion Workshop at UCSD  also plans to bring back the Write-A-Thon this year.

Last summer we saw enormous success in our Indiegogo fundraising campaign, but we also missed joining in writerly solidarity with the larger Clarion community. That’s why we’re returning to our roots–but we’re also hoping to shake things up a little (more news on this soon!)

As always, this year’s Thon will run concurrently with the workshop (June 23 to Aug 3) to help Clarion raise scholarship money to support future students. The Write-a-Thon also helps participants commit to writing goals for the summer. 

We’ll include more details for how to participate and contribute in our next newsletter. In the meantime, it’s time to start thinking about your writing goals for the summer. We can’t wait to hear more about them!

(4) THE X-MAN AND THE WHY-MAN. Deadline shares “’Deadpool and Wolverine’ Trailer”. Deadpool & Wolverine is set to arrive in theaters on July 26. Ryan Reynolds is Deadpool, and Hugh Jackman reprises his role of Wolverine in the Marvel film.

(5) READERS TAKE DENVER, AUTHORS GIVE IT BACK. [Item by Anne Marble.] On Threads, there are a lot of upset posts about Readers Take Denver — an event for authors and readers. If you see “RTD” trending, that’s why. This weekend, it was one of the top trending items on Threads. On Twitter, the Readers Take Denver posts were mostly positive — until later on Sunday. (On Twitter, if you search for RTD, you get mainly posts about Russell T Davies of Dr. Who, so I had a hard time finding information at first.) Here are some newer Twitter posts taking on the event:

On Threads, there are so many posts that “RTD” got its own tag on Threads: tag on Threads (registration required).  

Here is a good starting place on Threads (registration not required): @charlottedaeauthor: “After scouring Threads for information regarding Readers Take Denver, here’s what I’m gathering”.

This Thread also has details: @storiesdontcare “Readers Take Denver is an absolute logistical atrocity. $300 for a ticket”.

How influencers were treated: @authorncaceres “Influencers received different treatment. 1st they were told not to film anywhere. Then they were…”.

There were also accessibility issues: @rinkrat702 “Readers take Denver. Accessibility: me when I signed up. ‘I’d love to be on the ADA team’”.

It’s mostly a romance event, but it included romantasy authors — including big names such as Rebecca Yarros (“Fourth Wing”). There was also a day for thriller authors, including Jason Pinter and Mark Greaney. It sounds as if the organizers got way in over their heads. They had something like 3,000 attendees. And a huge list of authors (“Attending Authors / Narrators – Readers Take Denver”). Many think they aimed too high and ended up with a logistical nightmare.

There are allegations that the registration line took 3 hours — Also, signing lines took a very long time as well — too many authors in a small space without enough time allotted for the event. Authors are alleging that items were stolen from them (such as boxes of books). I’ve read about at least one case where an author’s books were accidentally given away as “swag.”

Also, the organizers apparently ran out of lanyards (!) and swag bags. And they didn’t have enough bottled water for the authors. Many readers enjoyed the event and had no issues, but other readers felt that they were ripped off.

It sounds like they needed better security, too. Later on Sunday, sexual assault allegations emerged. Several men attending another event entered RTD (despite having no badges) and groped women at RTD.

(6) SOFANAUTS LAUNCHES. Tony Smith hosts a new podcast — Sofanauts. He says the podcast mixes science fiction and technology. Two episodes are already available.

…Each week I’ll be joined by futurist, educator, speaker and writer Bryan Alexander (Thursdays) to talk about science fiction and technology. We’ll be discussing our favourite books, movies, and TV shows, as well as the latest technological developments that are shaping the future from the the very books, films and TV shows we’ve watched and read over the years….

(7) RAY GARTON (1962-2024). [Item by Anne Marble.] Horror author Ray Garton passed away on April 21. The announcement came from Dawn Garton on his Facebook page:

On April 9, 2024, he had posted on Facebook that he was in the hospital with stage 4 lung cancer.

Garton was named a World Horror Convention Grand Master in 2006.

Among others, Stephen King posted about his death:

A GoFundMe was started earlier in April by a family friend. “Ray Garton~Beloved Master of Horror”.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 22, 1937 — Jack Nicholson, 87. My all-time must watch again performance by Jack Nicholson is that of him playing Daryl Van Horne in The Witches of Eastwick. I’ve refused to watch any of the later versions of The Witches of Eastwick simply because I can’t picture anyone else being that character.   

Bill Murray had been cast in the role had dropped out before even preliminary filming began. Jack Nicholson expressed interest in playing the role of Daryl to the producers through his then-girlfriend Anjelica Huston who was then being seriously considered for a role there. (Apparently the role Susan Sarandon got according to several sites.) So thus we got The Devil in the form of him. Brilliant role.

Jack Nicholson, center, Murray Close, right.

Now his first role in the genre was in The Little Shop of Horrors, the true one of course, not the latter one, as Wilbur Force, The Dentist.  Because Corman did not believe that The Little Shop of Horrors had any chance of making money at all after its first run, he did not bother to copyright it, resulting in the film entering public domain immediately, so I can show you this scene with him in that role.

His next film, another Roger Corman affair, The Raven, was better known forc who he was performing with than for him being in it, those performers being Vincent Price, Peter Lorre and Boris Karloff. He played Lorre’s son, Rexford Bedlo. Poe’s “The Raven” poem was very, very faintly the basis of this film. Think a drop of blood in a gallon of water.

He’s Andre Duvalier in The Terror. Here he’s a French officer who is seduced by a woman who is also a shapeshifting devil. 

Now we come to what critics consider his best performance of all time, that of Jack Torrance in The Shining based off King’s novel which was produced and directed by Kubrick who co-wrote it with Diane Johnson. Look I can’t judge his role there as I do not do horror of that sort, so it’s up to the collective wisdom here to tell me how he was there. Go ahead, tell me. 

Now I did see Batman. Several times. And yes, I like it a lot. And yes, I thought he made a most excellent Joker. And one of the best Jack Napiers as well, a role that is even harder to get right. (The animated B:TAS series did so by showing him smartly dressed and grinning evilly but not speaking after committing a cold blooded murder. They’d refer to him several times over the series and in The Mark of The Phantasm film which I highly recommend.) So it was a very good role for him.

In Wolf, he was Will Randall. A middle-aged chief editor who hits a wolf with his car who is actually a werewolf who bites him. A Very Bad Idea Indeed. He chews a lot of scenery here. A lot. And he can, as we saw in Batman, chew scenery really, really well. Actually he did so in The Witches of Eastwick brilliantly as well. 

Finally there’s Tim Burton’s LoneStarCon 2 Hugo-nominated Mars Attacks! where he plays two roles, President James Dale and Art Land. I’ll be damn if I remember the latter role now nearly thirty years on after seeing it. One moment… Oh I see, he was the Galaxy Casino owner. No, that still didn’t help. The President James Dale character was fascinating if only as for being a much less in your face role than some of his other genre roles such as those of The Shining, Batman, and Wolf. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) TEDDY HARVIA CARTOON. Another of Teddy’s Belphegor cartoons. “I must have sold my soul to the Devil to come up with such funny stuff.”

(11) X MARKS A LOT OF SPOTS. Check out the first half of Scott Koblish’s connecting cover that run across four upcoming X-Men titles: X-Men #35 (Legacy #700), X-Men #1, Uncanny X-Men #1, and Exceptional X-Men #1. (Click for larger image – though still might not see a lot of detail.)

It’s a great time to be an X-Men fan! In addition to their animated resurgence in Marvel Studios’ X-Men ’97, the X-Men’s comic book line is closing out its’ revolutionary Krakoan age of storytelling AND gearing up for the exciting all-new From the Ashes era this summer! To celebrate this iconic franchise’s recent milestone, acclaimed artist Scott Koblish has crafted an insanely epic connecting cover that will grace some of the most highly-anticipated upcoming X-Men comic releases…. 

Showcasing the entirety of the X-Men’s 60-year publication history, including core X-Men series as well as spinoffs and limited series, this breathtaking group shot spotlights A-List X-Men, obscure mutants, super villains, allies, super hero guest stars, and much more. Test your knowledge of the mutant mythos by finding your favorites and identifying as many characters as you can!  For more information, visit Marvel.com.

(12) ASTEROIDS QUIZ. Brick Barrientos’ “Asteroids One-Day Special” went live on April 15. He says “Rich Horton was among my playtesters.” Here is the link to the quiz: https://www.learnedleague.com/oneday.php?5701.

The first question has audio which can only be heard by Learned League members – but you can eavesdrop on the copy hosted at Brick’s Google Drive:

1.  What astronomer and composer of this piece first suggested the term “asteroid”, just after the discovery of Pallas, the next body discovered after Ceres? Although at that time, the term was intended to apply also to the moons; objects with a star-like point appearance. 

(13) NOW, VOYAGER. [Item by PJ Evans.] In far-out news, Voyager 1 seems to be communicating again: “NASA’s Voyager 1 Resumes Sending Engineering Updates to Earth”.

…For the first time since November, NASA’s Voyager 1 spacecraft is returning usable data about the health and status of its onboard engineering systems. The next step is to enable the spacecraft to begin returning science data again. The probe and its twin, Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to ever fly in interstellar space (the space between stars)….

…The team discovered that a single chip responsible for storing a portion of the FDS memory — including some of the FDS computer’s software code — isn’t working. The loss of that code rendered the science and engineering data unusable. Unable to repair the chip, the team decided to place the affected code elsewhere in the FDS memory. But no single location is large enough to hold the section of code in its entirety.

So they devised a plan to divide the affected code into sections and store those sections in different places in the FDS. To make this plan work, they also needed to adjust those code sections to ensure, for example, that they all still function as a whole….

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. It’s a tight one. “Most awkward moments in superhero filming”.

Great power comes with… a painful costumes. Today, it’s about the unavoidable pain of being a superhero.

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

Pixel Scroll 4/14/24 Something For Everyone, A Pixel Scroll Tonight!

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(1) PROBABLY SOMETHING. I would use Patrick Morris Miller’s entire verse as the title if it wouldn’t break Jetpack. Here are the lyrics he posted in comments.

Something quite fannish,
Something quite slannish,
Something for everyone,
A pixel scroll tonight!

from A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Consuite

(2) TAFF NEWS. Taffluorescence 4, downloadable from the link, has the latest on the Trans-Atlantic Fan Fund: (1) a two-vote correction to the TAFF results reported a couple weeks ago, (2) winner Sarah Gulde’s basic itinterary, and (3) financial information.  

(3) QUANTUM SHORTS WINNERS. The winners of the Quantum Shorts flash fiction contest have been announced. The stories can be read at the links.

First Prize

Runner-Up

People’s Choice Prize

The two stories were selected for the competition’s top honors by Quantum Shorts judges Chad Orzel, George Musser, Ingrid Jendrzejewski, José Ignacio Latorre, Ken Liu, Leonardo Benini and Tania De Rozario from a shortlist of ten quantum-inspired stories. The winner receives $1500, and the runner-up gets $1000.

The People’s Choice Prize was chosen by a public poll on the shortlist, and includes $500.

In addition to the shortlist award, certificate and digital subscription to Scientific American that is awarded to all the finalists, the three winners will receive cash awards and an engraved trophy.

(4) FOR XUYA COMPLETISTS. “The Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard” at Laura’s Library.

…The Universe of Xuya by Aliette de Bodard is one of the Best Series finalists for the 2024 Hugo Awards.  As this point, there are two novels and 33 pieces of short fiction (4 novellas, 13 novelettes, and 16 short stories).  Since the main connection between them is the setting, they can pretty much be read independently and in any order.  Take a look at the author’s webpage about the series for suggestions on where to start and background information….

(5) WRITER BEWARE. Jeanne Veillette Bowerman explains “How a Book Really Becomes a Movie” in a guest post at Writer Beware. Here the introduction.

… The filmmaking industry baffles many—even those working in it. The reality is, there is no single way to get a film made. There are quite literally as many ways to break in as there are writers who’ve successfully done so, making scams harder to identify.

Sadly, when someone proactively reaches out to you, you have to assume it’s fake until you can prove otherwise. With scams abounding, the burden of proof has shifted. Due diligence has never been more important.

  • You do NOT need a screenplay to sell your book-to-film rights.
  • You do NOT need a sizzle reel or “cinematic trailer”.
  • You do NOT need storyboards.
  • You do NOT need mood boards.
  • You should NOT have to pay any upfront fees.
  • You should NOT be required to buy anything.

Let’s go through the traditional paths first, then I’ll share an unusual story to demonstrate how varied this process can be….

(6) IF YOU LIKE SCIENCE IN YOUR SF. AND ROMANCE. [Item by Ersatz Culture.] The Bookseller had an article about an upcoming romance novel that has a plot element that might be relevant to File 770: “Rights – Corvus snaps up Rose McGee’s STEM rom-com Talk Data to Me”.

Corvus has snapped up Rose McGee’s “delightful” STEM rom-com, Talk Data to Me…

“Physicists Dr Erin Monaghan and Dr Ethan Meyer are bitter rivals,” the synopsis says. “They are each at the forefront of their opposing fields and competing for everything: grant money, lab time, government backing. But fate has lined up a meet-cute on the pages of sci-fi magazine Galactica. Erin’s short story and Ethan’s illustrations are paired for publication, and when they meet online as their alter egos ‘Aaron Forster’ and ‘Bannister’, sparks fly.”

(7) HOMEMADE WHO. “Watch: The Doctor Who movie being filmed in Cardiff” at Nation Cymru.

A Doctor Who fan feature film described as a ‘passionate tribute to the classic ’70s and ’80s series’ is being filmed in Cardiff using local amateur actors and crew.

The movie titled ‘Dr Who meets The Scorpion’ is to be released as a non-profit film on YouTube purely for the pleasure of the fans to watch.

As of last month – 45 minutes of the 70 minute feature film is already in the can.

Now the makers of the movie have launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds needed to complete filming…. [Dr Who meets the Scorpion at Greenlit]

…Are there any copyright implications in making something like this and how would you circumnavigate them?

There are literally hundreds of Dr Who fan films out there on Youtube. As well as Star Trek, Star Wars, James Bonds fan films. As long as you don’t try to make money out of something like Doctor Who that belongs to the BBC there has never been a problem. If you put it out on Youtube for free purely for the enjoyment of the fans then I don’t think the BBC is concerned. I’m not trying to compete with the BBC series and wouldn’t want to. How could we on our tiny budget? We’re trying to give a flavour of the 70s/80s series with a bit of the Peter Cushing Dalek movies thrown in as well. It’s my homage to the days of the classic series where the ingenuity of the designers faced with a tight budget produced some iconic sets and monsters out of nothing. Just like I’m having to do! That’s always been the charm of the classic series for me.

What is the plotline of Dr Who meets The Scorpion without giving away spoilers obviously?

The Doctor bumps into Jennie in a deserted warehouse at night, both there to find out more about the mysterious Scorpion company. They start to unravel a fiendish plot by the arch villain Scorpion and his right hand man Taylor which takes them from Earth to a planet far, far away! Thrills, spills, monsters, peril and adventure await them…and we couldn’t resist including the iconic Daleks as well!…

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 14, 1925 — Rod Steiger. (Died 2002.) Let’s start with Rod Steiger’s best-known genre role as Carl in The Illustrated Man. The film is based off of three short stories from Bradbury’s The Illustrated Man released first seventy-three years ago, “The Veldt”, “The Long Rain” and “The Last Night of the World” with all three having been published elsewhere previously. 

Need I say that I madly, deeply love this collection?  I have it as an audiobook from Audible with the narrator being Scott Brick who does the Philip Marlowe series. 

Rod Steiger being illustrated.

Steiger gives his usual commanding performance though I do think he was a bit much at times. Hostile and violent, it’s hard to feel any sympathy for him. That of course is the role. And setting aside the role, there’s that illustrated body. I wasn’t sure if it was his body that got illustrated or not until I actually found the image below which indicates that indeed he got inked before every filming session. Cool.

Let’s not forget the other two principal actors, Claire Bloom and Robert Drives, who put on magnificent performances as well.  It was nominated for a Hugo at Heicon ’70.

He had several genre roles after that, all interesting. 

A decade after this film, he’s in The Amityville Horror as Father Francis ‘Frank’ Delaney, a rather great role. 

He’s Dr. Phillip Lloyd in The Kindred. Hey, it has a tentacled baby in it. Need I say more? 

In Tim Burton’s Mars Attacks! he is a United States Army General who did not trust the Martians, and advised nuclear warfare against them, an action which that is not allowed by President Dale.

He sank his teeth, no I couldn’t resist into his next role as Dr. Van Helsing, leader of Van Helsing’s Institute of Vienna in Modern Vampires (also known as Revenant). 

Finally he’s in an Arnold Schwarzenegger film, End of Days, a horror film about a young woman who is chosen to bear the Antichrist. He’s Father Kovac here. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

(10) ALSO KNOWN AS. Rich Horton has put together a “Pseudonyms Quiz” for readers of Strange at Ecbatan.

…Most of these questions are about writers, but there are some from the film world, one singer, and one more politically-oriented individual. I’ll have answers in a couple of days. If you wish, leave your guess in the comments….

I got 11 out of 16, greatly aided by the hints that Horton sprinkled along the way. Not bad, but I expect to hear from Filers who have run the table.

(11) ADD ONE TO THE BUCKET LIST. “Deadpool & Wolverine Getting ‘Intentionally Crude’ Popcorn Bucket Kevin Feige Reveals” – story at Comicbook.com.

…While the folks behind the Dune: Part Two bucket (probably) didn’t intend for people to view it in a lewd way, Marvel Studios has decided to take the idea and run with it for Deadpool & Wolverine. Kevin Feige took the stage at CinemaCon today during Disney’s presentation and revealed the movie will have an intentionally risqué popcorn bucket. 

“Deadpool & Wolverine is getting a popcorn bucket which will be intentionally crude and lewd. #CinemaCon,” ComicBook.com‘s Brandon Davis shared on Twitter while attending the presentation…

(12) GRADE INFLATION. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] This Variety article about movies presented at industry-insider CinemaCon is packed with information on upcoming releases. But it’s hard to take their overall conclusions too seriously since none of the companies’ slates received a grade below a B-. “CinemaCon Winners and Losers: ‘Gladiator 2,’ ‘Wicked,’ ‘Deadpool 3’”.

Hollywood decamped for Las Vegas this week for CinemaCon, looking to reassure movie theater owners and executives that they had what it takes to keep audiences flocking to cinemas through 2024 and beyond. And despite odes to the magic of the big screen experience, there was a whiff of desperation in the artificially-oxygenated, cigarette-perfumed air of Caesars Palace, where the annual exhibition trade show takes place.

That’s because the box office hasn’t recaptured its pre-pandemic stride — studios estimate that roughly 15% to 20% of frequent moviegoers have yet to resume their old entertainment habits now that COVID has dissipated. Plus, the labor strikes that consumed the media industry for much of the previous year as actors and writers hit the picket lines resulted in production delays that left theaters with fewer movies to hawk on their marquees….

….After four days filled with hours-long pitches to tease blockbuster hopefuls and big gambles, Variety has assessed the studio presentations that may have missed the mark or could just salvage the struggling box office….

(13) STIFFED AGAIN. In Morecambe & Wise’s 1980 Christmas Special, Peter Cushing makes another attempt to get the money he’s owed for appearing in the M&W show in the early 70’s

(14) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Jim Benson’s TV Time Machine investigates “What Happened to the Rod Serling’s Night Gallery Paintings?”

What happened to the Night Gallery paintings? Night Gallery co-author Jim Benson reveals the strange and sometimes sad fate of these classic, and valuable, TV artifacts. The fate of the Night Gallery paintings has always been shrouded in mystery–until now!

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Ersatz Culture, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Patrick Morris Miller.]

Pixel Scroll 4/11/24 One Scroll, Furnished In Early Pixelry

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(1) IT PAYS TO BE A GENIUS OF COURSE. The Steampunk Explorer updates fans about the Girl Genius Kickstarter:

Call it mad science or just good storytelling, but Phil and Kaja Foglio are blazing through Kickstarter with their latest Girl Genius graphic novel. The campaign for An Entertainment In Londinium reached its US$50,000 funding goal within 24 hours and is now in six-figure territory. It launched on April 3.

Stretch goal rewards include the “Envelope of Madness” with bookplates, bookmarks, and other printed items. Backers will also get PDF downloads of Volumes 12 through 14. All Girl Genius titles are now available for 50 percent off from DriveThru Comics through May 5.

The campaign itself runs through May 1. See the Kickstarter page for more info.

(2) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 107 of the Octothorpe podcast unpacks“The Significance of the Acorn”.

At Eastercon we welcomed Stunt Liz, Nicholas Whyte, to the podcast for the first time, and he brought an excellent tartan rocket! We discuss Glasgow 2024’s April Fool’s Day joke, before moving onto the Hugo Award finalists, what we think of Telford, and chatting about a lot of British TV.

Transcript here.

John, Alison, and Nicholas Whyte stand in front of a projection of the Octothorpe podcast and behind a panel table. Each of them wears a convention badge, and Nicholas holds the Glasgow Landing Zone Rocket. Nicholas is looking at the camera, while John and Alison are not quite as good at this. The table they stand behind holds beers, coffees, convention newsletters, phone batteries, microphones, and table tents.
Octothorpe at Levitation. Photo by Sue Dawson.

(3) HUGE RESPONSE. “’Joker 2′ Trailer Hits 167 Million Views in First 24 Hours” reports Variety.

The trailer launch for “Joker: Folie à Deux” was no laughing matter for Warner Bros. The marketing for the studio’s upcoming DC sequel, headlined by Joaquin Phoenix and Lady Gaga, got off to a stellar start with 167 million viewers in its first 24 hours. The teaser trailer went online right after it debuted at Warner Bros.’s CinemaCon presentation in Las Vegas.

Sources tell Variety that the “Joker” sequel’s trailer numbers and social engagement surpassed that of the first “Barbie” trailer to become Warner Bros.’ biggest launch in recent years. The release was no doubt bolstered by Lady Gaga’s massive 150 million follower social media footprint. The trailer instantly became the #1 trending video on YouTube on premiere night and currently boasts 15.6 million views and counting on that platform alone, where it remains the #4 trending video nearly two days after its launch…

(4) ANOTHER DISNEY CASTING KERFUFFLE. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] OK, this has gotten out of hand. It seems like every time there’s a movie remake (especially a Disney remake) somebody has to find way to get all bent out of shape about casting. Much of the time, a racist way.

But this time they jumped the gun extra early. There’s a rumored casting of a live action remake for Disney’s Tangled. But, let’s be clear, there’s no further rumor of the remake itself, just the casting.

So now some people online are jumping all over the actress (Avantika Vandanapu) who happens to be Indian-American. Because reasons. Stupid, racist, reasons. 

As one online commentator said, the haters seriously “still need a hobby.” “Avantika Vandanapu receives backlash for rumored casting as Rapunzel in ‘Tangled’ remake” says Variety.

…Although Avantika’s rumored casting received criticism from some on social media, fans also showed support for the “Senior Year” actress.

“These comments are so awful. I’m so sorry girl you are perfect,” one Instagram user wrote, while another added, “She is my Rapunzel ❤”

“Never Have I Ever” star Maitreyi Ramakrishnan also appeared to weigh in on the online controversy, writing on X Tuesday, “And they finally woke up to realize it was all just rumors and the sources never existed. … And to the racists, y’all still need a hobby (for real)”…

(5) ELUSIVE BRADBURY COLLECTION. Episode 2 of Phil Nichols’ Bradbury 101, first aired in 2021, is devoted to a rare OP anthology.

DARK CARNIVAL is Ray Bradbury’s great “lost” book, one of his finest short story collections. But it’s out of print, and has been for decades! Find out why in this episode..

(6) TRINA ROBBINS (1938-2024). Trina Robbins, artist, writer and editor of comics, died April 10. The New York Times has a biographical tribute.

…In 1970, Ms. Robbins was one of the creators of It Ain’t Me Babe, the first comic book made exclusively by women. In 1985, she was the first woman to draw a full issue of Wonder Woman, and a full run on a Wonder Woman series, after four decades of male hegemony. And in 1994, she was a founder of Friends of Lulu, an advocacy group for female comic-book creators and readers….

…Ms. Robbins was responsible for the first publication of some notable cartoonists in The East Village Other, including Vaughn Bode and Justin Green, but she took particular pride in the women’s anthologies she edited and co-edited, and in their explicitly feminist content: It Ain’t Me Babe Comix, Wimmen’s Comix and the erotic Wet Satin.

She also designed the famously skimpy outfit for Vampirella, a female vampire who appeared in black-and-white comics beginning in 1969 — although her design was not as skimpy as the costume later became. “The costume I originally designed for Vampi was sexy, but not bordering on obscene,” Ms. Robbins told the Fanbase Press website in 2015. “I will not sign a contemporary Vampirella comic. I explain, that is not the costume I designed.”…

Prior to her career in comics, Robbins was a clothing designer and seller, and for awhile a pinup model. She was in contact with fandom in the Fifties and Sixties, and posed for the cover of an issue of Fanac, the fannish newzine, wearing a propellor beanie and with her feminine attributes strategically covered by a copy of Fancyclopedia.

Harlan Ellison and Trina Robbins at the 1955 Midwestcon.

(7) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born April 11, 1920 — Peter O’Donnell. (Died 2010.) London-born Peter O’Donnell was the creator of the Modesty Blaise comic strip along with illustrator Jim Holdaway sixty-one years ago. She has no past as she doesn’t remember anything about her life before escaping from a displaced persons camp in Greece after WW II at the age of fifteen. She runs a criminal gang called The Network, and takes her last name from Merlin’s tutor. Her sidekick, of course she has one, is Willie Garvin, to give a bit of friendship in her life.

Peter O’Donnell from the rear dustjacket flap of the Archival Press edition of The Silver Mistress. Photo by Robert K. Wiener.

O’Donnell and Holdaway met when they worked together on a strip about Romeo Brown, a dashing private detective and reluctant ladies’ man, that ran in the tabloid Evening Standard for most of the Fifties. Blaise, too, would run here. It was quickly picked up globally running in the US, Australian, Indian, South African, Malaysian and other papers as she had a great appeal.

After Holdaway’s death in 1970, the art was by Spanish artist Enrique Romero. He would leave eight years later with three artists replacing him until he came back until the end of the strip with it still running in the Evening Standard thirty-eight years after it debuted. 

Yes, it became a film which came just three years into the running of the strip. My did it piss O’Donnell off. Why so? Because he was hired to write the script which they then shitcanned and wrote a new one that had almost nothing to do with characters, the storyline or, well, anything else with the strip. Remember that friendship between her and Willie? Here it becomes full blown romance. And that’s just one of many, many changes. 

A later film, Modesty Blaise, would be done as a pilot for a series that never happened and yet another film, My Name is Modesty Blaise, would be done for yet another series that never happened.  The one had O’Donnell as a consultant and he liked it.

My Name is Modesty Blaise would be the only one with a British actress as the first had an Italian actress. Now Modesty wasn’t necessarily British as O’Donnell repeatedly said her nationality was deliberately not revealed. 

I’ve not touched upon the plethora of books, short stories, graphic novels and original audiobooks that came of these characters in the part sixty years, and I’ll skip detailing them here. 

So there you are. I did enjoy the strip when Titan, one of many who did, collected them in trade editions. I think there’s at least fifty trade paper editions available right now on Amazon. 

(8) COMICS SECTION.

(9) BE KIND TO YOUR WEB-FOOTED FRIENDS. This July, Marvel and Disney honor the 90th anniversary of Donald Duck and the 50th anniversary of Wolverine with an unexpected mashup adventure—Marvel & Disney: What If…? Donald Duck Became Wolverine #1.

Crafted by two acclaimed Disney comic creators, writer Luca Barbieri and artist Giada Perissinotto, MARVEL & DISNEY: WHAT IF…? DONALD BECAME WOLVERINE #1 is the latest comic book collaboration between Marvel and Disney following the What If…? Disney Variant Covers of the last few years and the highly anticipated Uncle Scrooge and the Infinity Dime #1 one-shot comic out this June. Fans can look forward to even more exciting crossovers between Marvel heroes and Disney icons throughout this year and next! 

The comic will introduce Donald-Wolverine along with all sorts of reimagined Disney and Marvel mashups in a wild adventure inspired by one of Wolverine’s most memorable story arcs, Old Man Logan. In addition, the saga will revisit some of the greatest moments in Donald-Wolverine’s history including his time spent with Weapon X and the Uncanny X-Men!  

Travel to the near future where chaos rules as Pete-Skull transforms Duckburg into a super-hero-less wasteland. Only Old Donald Duck can turn the tide, but he’s given up his battling days and prefers naps and his grandma’s apple pie over fighting villains. But when Mickey-Hawkeye comes knocking at the door with Goofy-Hulk at his side, Wolverine-Donald has to make a choice! Will a trip down memory lane change his mind to save the world? Or will the lure of the backyard hammock and a long nap keep him from popping his claws one last time?

(10) FOLLOWING GODZILLA’S ACT. Variety learns, “‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ Renewed, Multiple Spinoffs Set at Apple”.

“Monarch: Legacy of Monsters” has been renewed for Season 2 at Apple TV+, Variety has learned.

In addition, Apple has struck a deal with Legendary Entertainment to develop multiple spinoff series set in the so-called Monsterverse….

…The official description for Season 1 states: “Following the thunderous battle between Godzilla and the Titans that leveled San Francisco and the shocking revelation that monsters are real, ‘Monarch: Legacy of Monsters’ tracks two siblings (Sawai, Watabe) following in their father’s footsteps to uncover their family’s connection to the secretive organization known as Monarch. Clues lead them into the world of monsters and ultimately down the rabbit hole to Army officer Lee Shaw (Kurt Russell, Wyatt Russell), taking place in the 1950s and half a century later where Monarch is threatened by what Shaw knows.”…

(11) SO WE’LL WALK UP THE AVENUE. “They Made a Movie About a Pack of Sasquatches. Why?” The New York Times asks the filmmakers.

…An earthquake and an eclipse weren’t the only natural rarities that happened in New York City this past week. Did you hear about the sasquatch in Central Park? The makers of “Sasquatch Sunset” sure hope you did.

That’s because the sasquatch was a costume and his stroll through the park was a publicity push for the new film from the brothers David and Nathan Zellner. Opening in New York on Friday, the movie spends a year in the wild with a sasquatch pack — a male and female (Nathan Zellner and Riley Keough) and two younger sasquatches (Jesse Eisenberg and Christophe Zajac-Denek) — as they eat, have sex, fight predators and reckon with death.

Droll but big-hearted, the movie sits at the intersection of the ad campaign for Jack Link’s beef jerky, the 1987 comedy “Harry and the Hendersons” and a 1970s nature documentary, down to the hippie-vibe soundtrack.

…Is it a family-friendly movie?

KEOUGH It depends on the family. [Laughs] I think the audience is everybody. It might be scary for small children.

DAVID ZELLNER It’s rated R for nudity, which is the funniest thing.

(12) CATS AND DOGS LIVING TOGETHER. Meanwhile, Camestros Felapton has fled the country, leaving behind to distract pursuers “McEdifice in: MYCOPHAGE! Part 1”.

Cliff “Edge” McEdifice is MYCOPHAGE the intoxicating new thriller from Timothy the Talking Cat, Straw Puppy and the ghost of Michael Crichton.

It is the Year 1995 and Cliff “Edge” McEdifice (ancestor of future soldier Chiselled McEdifice) is entangled in a web of conspiracy, tendrils and webs.

(13) NEXT TREK. “Star Trek Origin Movie Officially Announced By Paramount For 2025 Release” at ScreenRant.

Paramount Pictures officially announces the next Star Trek movie, which is scheduled to arrive in theaters in 2025. As reported in January, the next Star Trek movie isn’t the long-delayed, Chris Pine-led Star Trek 4 produced by J.J. Abrams, which remains in development at Paramount. Rather, the next Star Trek movie is an origin story directed by Toby Haynes (Star Wars: Andor) and written by Seth Grahame-Smith (Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter).

[Thanks to Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Arnie Fenner, Kathy Sullivan, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Andrew (not Werdna).]

Pixel Scroll 3/31/24 I Shall Name This Clever WordPlay After Myself, Said Tom Eponymously

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(1) WHY BARDON DECLINED A 2024 HUGO NOMINATION. Natasha Bardon has posted on Instagram her reasons for declining her Best Editor, Long Form Hugo nomination: 

Learn more about Bardon in this interview from 2020 – “An Interview With… Natasha Bardon” — and this news item from the Bookseller in 2022 – “Bardon promoted to publisher at HarperVoyager and Magpie Books”.

(2) WHAT’S ON THE BALLOT. Cora Buhlert analyzes all the categories in “Some Thoughts on the 2024 Hugo Finalists” which were announced at the UK Eastercon.

Here is Buhlert’s reaction to the voters’ picks for Best Related:

Best Related

I guess everybody knows my strong preference for well-researched non-fiction in this category by now, so I’m pleased that five of six finalists in this category are actually books.

The late Maureen Kincaid Speller was an always insightful critic, so I’m glad to see the collection  A Traveller in Time: The Critical Practice of Maureen Kincaid Speller by Maureen Kincaid Speller, edited by Nina Allan, on the ballot.

Volumes 2 and 3 of Chinese Science Fiction: An Oral History, edited by Yang Feng, are the sequels to the first volume which was nominated in this category last year and most worthy they are, too.

All These Worlds: Reviews & Essays by Niall Harrison does exactly what it says on the tin. I haven’t this collection yet, but it’s exactly the sort of thing I like to see in this category.

A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith is an illustrated popular science book about how feasible it is to colonise Mars. I wasn’t familiar with this book at all, though again it absolutely fits into this category.

The Culture: The Drawings by Iain M. Banks is an art book collecting drawings that the late Iain M. Banks did of spacecraft, locations, etc… of his Culture series. Again, I had no idea that this book existed, but it’s most fitting finalist.

Finally, we have a podcast or rather videocast named Discover X nominated in this category. Discover X appears to be a collection of interviews with various SMOFs and SFF professionaly done by Tina Wong at last year’s Chengdu Worldcon.

Discover X was initially nominated in Best Fancast, but since it is a professional project, it was moved into Best Related. This isn’t the first time a professional podcast was nominated in Best Related. Writing Excuses was nominated in this category several times approx. 10 years ago.  I’m not very happy with podcasts nominated in Best Related, but since there is no professional podcast (procast?) category, there really is no other place to put them. And podcasts are among the less edgy of the many edge finalists we’ve seen in this category in recent years.

There also was a withdrawl is this category, because Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood was nominated for a viral tweet promoting the Hugo-winning novella This Is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone, which pushed the book up various bestseller lists due to Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood’s many Twitter followers. Now the Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood affair is a perfect example of how word of mouth works and can catapult a work into the stratosphere. Bigolas Dickolas Wolfwood also appears to be a great person and it was very classy of them to decline a nomination. However, this nomination also illustrates why the Best Related Work needs to be reformed and the definition tightened. Because how on Earth can you compare a single tweet, even one which sold thousands of books, with a 400 page non-fiction book?

And even if we limited Best Related to non-fiction books and long essays, we’d still get a wide range of potential finalists as this year’s ballot shows….

(3) TAKEN FROM THE SHELF. Haven’t had enough Eastercon this weekend? Rob Hansen is prepared to immerse you in the 1956 edition — CYTRICON II – at his richly-detailed fanhistory site.

CYTRICON II, the 1956 UK national science fiction convention was held at The George Hotel in the town of Kettering over the Easter weekend, Friday 30th March – Monday 2nd April. Overflow hotel was The Royal, with The Swan Hotel hosting a further seven fans. Parties were held in both The George and The Royal. The con was organised by the London Circle.

Here’s a brief excerpt from a contemporaneous conreport.

ARCHIE MERCER:

At a quarter to four on Good Friday I staggered from the train at Kettering station, adjusted my two slung haversacks, took a tighter grip on my gramophone(in the right hand) and a parcel consisting mainly of records for same (in the left), and set my face firmly towards the George Hotel. About fifty yards ahead of me, Walt Willis stalked his proud and lordly way. About as far again behind me, I could discern the chatter of several more humans – if they too were fen, and if so who, I still don’t know. Besides I can’t say that it’s all that important.

Arriving at the George in good order, I was immediately caught up in a furious burst of misapprehensions by Joyce, the receptionist, who was practically insisting that I must have a car and wanted to know the number of it. I explained patiently that the nearest thing was the train I’d so carelessly abandoned down at the station and I hadn’t a clue as to its number. So she decided to humour me and let me in without it. I signed the book under Peter Reaney, moved within — and the Con was on….

(4) EX MACHINA REWATCH MOVIE REVIEW. [Item by Erin Underwood.] 2023 was AI’s breakthrough year, and as we move into 2024, I wanted to take a look back at one of the best AI films to see how it held up over the last decade. Check out my new rewatch review of Alex Garland’s groundbreaking AI film Ex Machina. Does the story and the technology hold up? Is it still the instant classic everyone thought it was back in 2014? “Ex Machina Movie Review – A groundbreaking AI film in 2014. What’s it like now?”

(5) BOOK PRESERVATION. Via WIRED: “This Woman Deconstructs 100-Year-Old Books To Restore Them”.

Author, educator and book restorer Sophia Bogle has nerves of steel: one slip of the hand and a century-old first edition book could be ruined. Come inside her workshop as she breaks down the amazing deconstruction, revitalization, and reassembly that goes into her history preserving speciality.

(6) READY FOR MY CLOSEUP. Forbes shares a look “Inside The Ambitious Plan To Broadcast The Entire Total Solar Eclipse”.

It’s nature’s most spectacular sight, but during North America’s total solar eclipse on April 8, the sun’s corona will only be visible for a few precious minutes from any one location.

However, totality itself will be viewed for a combined total of 100 minutes from a 115-mile path of totality stretching from Mexico to the Canada, via the U.S. So why not have cameras stationed all along the track and broadcast the entire thing as one continuous livestream?

That’s the thinking behind the Dynamic Eclipse Broadcast Initiative, a nationwide citizen science team armed with a $314,000 NASA grant, hoping to pioneer a unique new way to broadcast a total solar eclipse.

It’s as much about solar science as it is about broadcasting, however, with a new understanding of the solar corona the ultimate prize.

DEB is the brainchild of the team behind the successful Citizen CATE experiment from the 2017 total solar eclipse, the last to cross the U.S, which saw more than 60 identical telescopes equipped with digital cameras positioned from Oregon to South Carolina to image the solar corona.

The resulting images were then spliced together to reveal the plasma dynamics of the inner solar corona, which is 10,000 times hotter and dimmer than our star’s surface—and can only be studied in full during a total solar eclipse….

(7) VFX OSCAR WINNER TIM MCGOVERN DIES. Visual effects artist Tim McGovern died March 30 at the age of 68. He won an Oscar for his work on the 1990 film Total Recall. Deadline’s profile covers his other accomplishments.

…The Visual Effects Society recently recognized McGovern with the 2023 Founders Award for his contributions to the art, science, or business of visual effects and meritorious service to the Society.

McGovern was a founding member of Sony Pictures ImageWorks and ran it as the Senior VFX Supervisor as well as the SVP of Creative and Technical Affairs. After leaving Sony, McGovern continued as an independent VFX artist and filmmaker.

McGovern’s most recent film credits include Shazam! Fury of the Gods (2023), Jungle Cruise (2021), Men in Black: International (2019), First Man (2019), Ant-Man and the Wasp (2018), Dunkirk (2017), The Huntsman: Winter’s War (2016), and Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (2015), among many others….

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Born March 31, 1960 — Ian McDonald, 64. What works by Ian McDonald have I enjoyed so much that I’ve read them over and over, and then when they were available as audioworks listened to them several more times? That’s easy. The Desolation Road series, Desolation Road and Ares Express which I’m holding to be the best story ever set on Mars.

Ian McDonald

A town that develops around an oasis on a terraformed Mars with a cast of characters that are truly fascinating? What’s not to really like? Not to mention the Ares Express running across the desert. Damn I wanted to see that train! 

(I do have a list of other works set on Mars I like — Kage Baker’s The Empress of Mars, Larry Niven’s Rainbow Mars, Arthur Clarke’s The Sands of Mars, Kim Stanley Robinson’s Mars trilogy and Frederik Pohl’s Man Plus.) 

Completely shifting his tone was King of Morning, Queen of Day. Multiple generations of Irish women might have the potential to bring the fey who are obviously quite dangerous into their world. That isn’t the best aspect of the novel — it’s the characters herein. He’s very skilled in his character crafting. 

The Chaga saga set in Africa (Chaga and Kirinya) with its slow moving alien biological invasion is perfectly horrific; I’ve not yet read the short fiction set in the series.

I read both of the future India series, River of Gods and Cyberabad. I throughly enjoyed River of Gods but found Cyberabad less than interesting.

I tried the first of Everness series. No, not my cup of tea. Really not. 

Which was not true of The Dervish House, my last choice. An alternative history of Istanbul set now, well it was twenty years in the future when it was written, though the changes there suggest a history that deviated a lot earlier. Loved the characters. Loved the technology he created. Loved the story. Brilliant all around.

(9) CREDIT GRAB? CBR.com explains why “Marvel’s New Addition to Wolverine’s List of Creators Draws Controversy”.

Marvel’s decision to add a new name among Wolverine’s creators in the upcoming film Deadpool & Wolverine has sparked controversy among fans and comic creators alike.

It has been revealed that Roy Thomas, former editor-in-chief of Marvel Comics, will be credited as one of the four creators of Wolverine. The other creators of the character include the late writer Len Wein, artist Herb Trimpe, and designer John Romita Sr. The news sparked a Facebook post from writer Bobbie Chase, who worked at Marvel in the 1980s and 1990s, asking others to discuss the true creators of the character as well as the implications for editors-in-chief to claim creation over other characters.

Chase also mentioned speaking to Wein’s widow about the changes, saying, “Recently my friend and Len Wein’s widow, Christine Valada, got a call from Marvel executive David Bogart, informing her that in the upcoming Wolverine & Deadpool movie, Roy Thomas will now be credited as the co-creator [of Wolverine], and David said it’s a done deal. […] Of course Christine is seriously concerned about Len’s legacy. Len was profoundly important to the comic book industry, and that legacy is being changed for the worse, six years after his death.”

Chase’s frustrations about this change stemmed from the fact that the other creators of Wolverine have all died, making it hard to dispute the authenticity of Thomas’ addition to the list…. 

(10) CLOWNS AND QUESTION MARKS. 13th Dimension called on fans to “Dig These 13 Great ‘Serious BATMAN’ Moments in BATMAN ’66”. Here’s one example:

The Joker Is Wild. Batman and Robin are nearly unmasked by the Joker after being momentarily grabbed by the villain’s henchmen. The heroes are engaging the villain while he hijacks a live TV performance of the opera Pagliacci – that is why Joker is wearing a white Pierrot clown costume. I think that this image is very much in the dramatic style and spirit of the amazing Norm Saunders paintings used for the 1966 Topps Batman trading card set, inspired by the series.

(11) TAKING IT OUT FOR A SPIN. Gizmodo says “Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ Incredible Musical Episode Is Getting the Vinyl It Deserves”. It comes out June 7.

Of all the highs Star Trek: Strange New Worlds’ sophomore season pulled off—intense action, Vulcan drama, familiar faces, and plenty more—perhaps one of the most delightful of all was “Subspace Rhapsody,” its earnestly cheesy all-singing, all-dancing musical showstopper. And if you’ve had the soundtrack streaming non-stop since last year, we’ve got great news for you.

io9 can exclusively reveal that Lakeshore Records is going to release the complete 11-track score for the episode on a black vinyl record, with artwork inspired by the poster released for the episode at San Diego Comic-Con last year forming the cover….

(12) VIDEO OF THE DAY. Matt Mitchell says this is how it would sound “If Dune was Southern”. Y’all pay attention now.

(P.S. I’m told one of the references is to Tony Chachere’s spice.)

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steven French, Wobbu Palzooza, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]

Wolverine Claws His Way Through Marvel History In New Covers

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Next year marks 50 years of Wolverine being the best there is and Marvel Comics will celebrate its most ferocious hero in various ways including new series like the recently announced Wolverine: Madripoor Knights, special reprints, and a new variant cover program.

Launching in January, the Wolverine Wolverine Wolverine variant covers sees Logan take over the most iconic covers in Marvel Comics history, filling in as each and every character along the way. The covers gave artists the chance to spotlight their favorite Wolverine costumes, identities, and alternate versions, and also feature other members of the “Snikt Family.” It’s the perfect way to celebrate one of Marvel’s most ubiquitous and storied heroes and proves that there’s no such thing as too much Wolverine.

Check out 15 Wolverine Wolverine Wolverine covers following the jump. For more information, visit Marvel.com.

Continue reading →

Pixel Scroll 3/2/23 I’m Looking For A Martian With True Grok

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(1) X-MEN GO POSTAL. The Royal Mail marked the 60th anniversary of X-Men by releasing an issue of 17 stamps on February 16.

…The 12 stamps in the main set are all original illustrations and have been created exclusively for Royal Mail by renowned British comic book artist Mike McKone. They feature: Professor X; Kitty Pryde; Angel; Colossus; Jubilee; Cyclops; Wolverine; Jean Grey; Iceman, Storm; Beast; and Rogue….

An additional set of five stamps are included in a miniature sheet, exclusively illustrated by artist Lee Garbett, and feature some of the mutant enemies faced by the X-Men: Juggernaut; Mystique; Magneto; Emma Frost; and Sabretooth….

(2) AURORA AWARDS. Members of the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association will be able to make 2023 Aurora Award nominations from March 4-April 22. According to Garth Spencer in Obdurate Eye #25, due to a lack of eligible movies or TV shows, or works in the Best Fan Organizational category, CSFFA is no longer giving out an award for movies or TV shows, and works that were in the Best Fan Organizational category are now in the Best Fan Related Work category. CSFFA have redefined the Best Artist category as the Best Cover Art/Interior Illustration category. Rather than nominating an artist, CSFFA members will nominate each work that an artist has published in the past year. [Via Obdurate Eye #25.]

(3) LIKE A BASILISK? “Alex North On the Pleasures of Fictional Forbidden Texts” at CrimeReads.

You won’t find Von Goom’s Gambit described in any chess textbook.

… Because the character of Von Goom exists only in a short story. Von Goom’s Gambit by Victor Contoski was originally published in 1966, in Chess Review, before being reprinted a handful of times. One of those was in a slim volume of science fiction stories that somehow found its way into the reading room of my primary school.

…I remember being captivated by it.

Part of that was down to the idea of the Gambit itself. Out of all the possible arrangements of pieces on a chessboard, Von Goom had chanced upon one so alien to the logic of the human mind – so abhorrent – that it could wound and kill. Following that initial heart attack, Von Goom’s opponents in the story meet various terrible fates. One breaks down in tears at the sight of the board before him. Another is violently sick. A third is driven insane, while members of the watching crowd are turned to stone.

As a ten year old – obviously – I loved this a great deal….

(4) OCTOTHORPE. Episode 78 of the Octothorpe podcast is “Sqrrl Grrl”. (Or should that be the Ctthrp podcast?)

John Coxon is chuckling, Alison Scott is conversing, and Liz Batty is critical. We discuss the COVID policy from the 2023 Eastercon, Conversation, as well as discussing the latest news from the Chengdu Worldcon.

(5) ERASED FROM THE LANDSCAPE BUT NOT FROM HISTORY. The New York hotel where the 1967 Worldcon was held, then known as the Statler-Hilton, is in the midst of being demolished. The New York Times ran a full profile about its history, and about one person who tried to keep the historic structure from being torn down: “The Hotel Pennsylvania’s Great Disappearing Act”.

Bit by bit, floor by floor, the building that once rose 22 stories over Penn Station is shrinking before the city’s very eyes. The black netting draped over its ever-diminishing brick is like a magician’s handkerchief; once removed, it will reveal — nothing.

Behold: The Great Disappearing Act of the Hotel Pennsylvania.

This isn’t — or wasn’t — just any building. This was once the largest hotel on earth, with 2,200 rooms, shops, restaurants, its own newspaper, and a telephone number immortalized by the bandleader Glenn Miller with a 1940 song “Pennsylvania 6-5000,”…

You can find many of Jay Kay Klein’s photos taken at the 1967 convention on Calisphere.

(6) VALMA BROWN (1950-2023). Australian fan Valma Brown, a Melbourne fanzine editor married to Leigh Edmonds, died March 2. Edmonds announced her death on Facebook with the note, “It was sudden so there will be an inquest.” She and Leigh were Fan Guests of Honor at SunCon, the 1991 Australian National Convention. She ran unsuccessfully for GUFF in 1987.

(7) MEMORY LANE.

2019 – [Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

Elizabeth Bear’s Ancestral Night which was published by Saga Press four years ago this week is a novel that I fell in love the first time I read it. Now I’ll admit that I’m a long-term fan of her work going back to Hammered, the first in her Jenny Casey trilogy. I think she’s a brilliant writer and a wonderful person. And yes I’ve sent her chocolate. Actually she’s reviewed chocolate for Green Man.

The book is a stellar blend of characters, humans who are almost more than human, aliens that are truly alien, an silicon intelligence who is fully realised, a ship as the primary setting that doesn’t feel cliched and a story that’s fascinating. And it feels friendly I think is the best word. It’s so richly detailed that I notice something new every time I listen to it.

And yes I’m hoping there’s a third novel set in this universe.

And here is the Beginning for Ancestral Night…

THE BOAT DIDN’T HAVE A name. He wasn’t deemed significant enough to need a name by the authorities and registries that govern such things. He had a registration number—657-2929-04, Human/ Terra—and he had a class, salvage tug, but he didn’t have a name.

Officially.

We called him Singer. If Singer had an opinion on the issue, he’d never registered it—but he never complained. Singer was the shipmind as well as the ship—or at least, he inhabited the ship’s virtual spaces the same way we inhabited the physical ones—but my partner Connla and I didn’t own him. You can’t own a sentience in civilized space.

Singer was a sliver of a thing suspended electromagnetically at the center of a quicksilver loop as thin in cross section as an old-fashioned wedding band, but a hundred and fifty meters across the diameter and ten meters from edge to edge. In any meaningful gravity, the ring would have crumpled and sagged like a curl of wax arched over the candleflame. But here in space, reinforced with electromagnetic supports, it spanned the horizon of the viewport in a clean arc.

(8) TODAY’S BIRTHDAYS.

[Compiled by Cat Eldridge.]

  • Born March 2, 1933 — Leo Dillon. With his wife Diane, they were illustrators of children’s books and many a paperback book and magazine cover. Over fifty years, they were the creators of more than a hundred genre covers. They won the Hugo for Best Professional Artist at Noreascon (1971) after being nominated twice before at Heicon ‘70 and St. Louiscon. The Art of Leo & Diane Dillon written by Leo Dillon, Diane Dillon and Byron Preiss would be nominated for a Best Related Non-Fiction Hugo at Chicon IV. They would win a World Fantasy Award for Lifetime Achievement. Some of my favorites? The first cover for Pavane. The Ace cover of The Left Hand of Darkness. And one for a deluxe edition of The Last Unicorn. (Died 2012.)
  • Born March 2, 1939 — jan howard finder. I’m not going to be able to do him justice here. He was a SF writer, filker, cosplayer, and of course fan. He was nicknamed The Wombat as a sign of affection and ConFrancisco (1993 Worldcon) was only one of at least eight cons that he was fan guest of honor at. Finder was even tuckerized when Anne McCaffrey named a character for him. (Died 2013.)
  • Born March 2, 1943 — Peter Straub. Horror writer who won the World Fantasy Award for Koko and the August Derleth Award for Floating Dragon. He’s co-authored several novels with Stephen King, The Talisman which itself won a World Fantasy Award, and Black House. Both The Throat and In the Night Room won Bram Stoker Awards as did 5 Stories, a short collection by him. Ok you know that I’m rarely impressed by Awards, but fuck this is impressive! (Died 2022.)
  • Born March 2, 1960 — Peter Hamilton, 63. I read and quite enjoyed his Night’s Dawn Trilogy when it came out and I’m fairly sure that I’ve read Pandora’s Star and Judas Unchained as they sound familiar. (Too much genre fiction read over the years to remember everything…) What else have y’all read by him?
  • Born March 2, 1966 — Ann Leckie, 57. Ancillary Justice won the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Nebula Award, Kitschies Award Golden Tentacle, Locus Award for Best First Novel, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the BSFA Award. Quite amazing. Her sequels Ancillary Sword and Ancillary Mercy did not win awards but are no less impressive. 

(9) COMICS SECTION.

  • Dick Tracy seems to have started a crossover involving a Nero Wolfe character.
  • And Tom Gauld has been busy, too:

(10) FOR AMAZON PRIME MEMBERS. [Item by Dann.] Amazon just announced the First Reads books for Amazon Prime members.  The genre title for March is House of Gold by C.T. Rwizi.  He is the author of the outstanding Scarlett Odyssey series that concluded in 2022.

First Reads books are free to all Amazon Prime members.  It is how I encountered C.T.’s first book Scarlett Odyssey a few years back.  He is, in my opinion, a talented and overlooked author. House of Gold can be pre-ordered (free for Amazon Prime members) for delivery on April 1, 2023.

(11) PUT ANOTHER BARBIE ON THE MOON. Gizmodo reports how “Liquid Nitrogen Could Keep Moon Suits Free From Lunar Dust”. And promises “No Barbie dolls were injured in the course of these experiments.”

Pesky lunar dust is an annoying obstacle for astronauts landing on the Moon—it sticks to pretty much everything. New research from Washington State University may have cracked the code for keeping space suits dust-free, in which pressurized liquid nitrogen was used to literally blow the dust from surfaces.

(12) TINGLE TIME. Boing Boing points out that “Chuck Tingle’s latest story has Dilbert creator Scott Adams getting screwed by his own racism”.

https://twitter.com/ChuckTingle/status/1630575291738492928

(13) SCOPE IT OUT. Behind a paywall in Nature: “Asteroid photobombs JWST practice shots”.

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has spotted a small Solar System rock by chance during a calibration run…

 …[the body is a] roughly 15-kilometre-wide object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The photos were taken to measure how one of the telescope’s infrared cameras would respond. While analysing the data, the researchers spotted what looked like a much smaller asteroid, which they estimated to be 100–230 metres across.

If confirmed by subsequent observations, this would be one of the smallest objects ever seen in space — and JWST detected it at a distance of more than 130 million kilometres

(14) WORKING…. From Politico we learn: “OK Computer: Romania debuts ‘world’s first’ AI government adviser”.

Romanian Prime Minister Nicolae Ciucă surprised his Cabinet on Wednesday by introducing them to a new member — run completely on artificial intelligence.

Ciucă introduced the new “honorary adviser” called Ion to the rest of his ministers in a demonstration, with a face and words appearing on a digital screen, responding to the prime minister’s prompts along with a computerized voice.

Ion was developed by Romanian researchers and will use artificial intelligence to “quickly and automatically capture the opinions and desires” submitted by Romanian citizens, Ciucă said.

“We are talking about the first government adviser to use artificial intelligence,” both nationally and internationally, he said.

Romanians will be able to send their ideas through an accompanying website (ion.gov.ro) as well as on social media and some in-person locations. Ion will then synthesize their contributions for the government to consider, according to the coordinator of the research team, Nicu Sebe. Users won’t, however, receive a response from Ion itself….

(15) LAST MONTH ON THE SCREEN. Here is what people were watching in February – according to JustWatch.

US Sci-Fi

Rank*MoviesTV shows
1Everything Everywhere All at OnceSeverance
2M3GANWestworld
3Infinity PoolThe Ark
4NopeThe Peripheral
5Edge of TomorrowDoctor Who
6InterstellarThe Twilight Zone
7The OutwatersQuantum Leap
8Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless MindLost
9VesperLa Brea
10Jurassic World DominionThe Nevers

*Based on JustWatch popularity score. Genre data is sourced from themoviedb.org

(16) VIDEO OF THE DAY. An old TV interview has surfaced again: “KGW Vault: Leonard Nimoy talks Spock, Star Trek in 1967”.

Actor Leonard Nimoy who portrayed the now-famous Spock talks with KGW about his new role. The first episode of Star Trek aired on September 8, 1967. Nimoy explains that Spock is a man born of alien and human descent who has complete control over his emotions; a unique look at a character beloved by millions now.

[Thanks to John King Tarpinian, Chris Barkley, Andrew Porter, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Dann, Daniel Dern, Michael Toman, Cat Eldridge, and Mike Kennedy for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Daniel Dern.]