Category: News

Science Fiction/Fantasy Book Reviews

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SF Signal reviews the novelization of the Transfomers movie by Alan Dean Foster.

Fantasy Book Critic reviews The Dark River by John Twelve Hawks.

Pat’s Fantasy Hotlist shamelessly plugs Tad Williams’s Otherland series.

Strange Horizons continues reviewing John Crowley’s AEgypt novels this week with a look at the second book, Love & Sleep.

Book Fetish covers Marjorie M. Liu’s paranormal romance Soul Song.

Clare Light does quick reviews of Laurie J. Marks’s Water Logic and Walter Mosley’s 47.

Interzone reviews Marianne de Pierres’s new space opera Dark Light.

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Silver Age Great Nick Cardy Speaks!

Some call it the "luckiest day of the year,"  but to us it’s just another day soaking in the warm glow of Pop Culture! The Big ComicMix Weekend Broadcast goes a little old skool with news on new Pokemon and the new Magic cards, a tip on a new film from the Stargate folks, Homer In The Air plus a talk with one of the best comic craftsmen of the last four decades (guess who?) … and the story of a guy who dropped this clothes on Broadway and then went on to have a hit song!

Press The Button, and if a bunch of "7s" turn up on your screen, call a priest!

F&SF Magazine News

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Interzone #211, a special Michael Moorock issue, will be published in a week, so TTA Press has posted its table of contents. Besides a new Moorcock story and novel excerpt, there are stories from Carlos Hernandez, Aliette de Bodard, and Grace Dugan, among other things.

Ansible has put out its 240th issue, full of the usual stuff – quotes that make people look bad, amusing anecdotes, dates, and so forth.

John Joseph Adams’s article about writing workshops, “Basic Training for Writers,” from the SFWA Bulletin, has been posted on the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America website as a PDF.

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Family Guy beta versions

Okay, technically Family Guy is a Sunday night cartoon rather than a Saturday morning one; let’s just go with it.

As you might imagine, Seth MacFarlane’s Family Guy did not spring forth fully formed from the pen like Bosko The Clown did, there were earlier versions. Here we have Seth introducing a 1995 early presentation reel of a proto-Griffin that he developed while he was a student at the Rhode Island School of Design, and yes, we have to warn you that it’s probably Not Safe For Work:

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MARTHA THOMASES: Mansion on the Hill

martha100-4981614Every weekend, when I walk by the newsstands, I see cover stories in gossip magazines about Brad and Angelina, Jennifer, Reese, Lindsay, Britney and others. Although I only read these magazines at the hairdressers, I am fascinated by the lifestyles of people I will likely never meet. On Sunday, I enjoy the Real Estate section of The New York Times, looking at pictures of homes that can cost tens of millions of dollars.

And then, there are my favorite comics.

Batman has always been one of my favorite characters, at least in part because of Bruce Wayne. I am moved by the image of that little boy, watching his mother’s pearls scatter on the street as his parents are murdered. As a child, I was afraid the same thing could happen to my parents. As a parent, I wanted to spare my child from that tragedy.

bruce_wayne-2660942(To his credit, my son wanted to do the right thing. “Don’t worry,” he assured me when he was five years old. “If you’re ever gunned down by criminals, I promise to avenge your death.”)

Most of the people who have written Batman over the years have concentrated on the Caped Crusader and his underground Bat Cave, not the billionaire playboy who lives in the manor above. Most of the more recent writers believe that Bruce Wayne is the disguise, that the little, traumatized boy grew up to be Batman, not Wayne.

That premise allows for many interesting stories, and I understand that it’s more fun to play with the driven, rage-filled Batman, the character with the high-tech equipment and the regimen of martial arts training. A person who fights bad guys is more likely to work in stories that require a beginning, a middle and an end than a single man rattling around in a mansion.

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Cloverfield Madness!

Well, as good as the Transformers flick was, there still seems to be even more buzz about one of the trailers that preceded it. The only things we, the public, know are that it opens 1-18-08, J.J. Abrams is attached through his production company, Bad Robot, and it’s shot from ground level as a giant monster/robot/thing criticizes some of New York’s statues. What we, the Internet savvy folk, know is that the working title of the film is Cloverfield, and that’s about it. 

If you haven’t gone to see Transformers yet and have no clue what I’m talking about, check out the really bad bootleg of it below. With the hype that this is getting, along with the already loyal Lost fans, this project is shaping up to be what Godzilla and The Blair Witch Project should have been.

On another interesting note, a dedicated fan decided to document how he analyzed not only the trailer but the image found on the Cloverfield website. Check it out, courtesy of YouTube.

Also, fitting in with the Dark Knight viral marketing tool, two sites have been put up that are attached to the film. Whether or not the allude to anything that would give us some insight is questionable. The first site is 1-18-08.com and as of right now, we have a screen cap of some possible future victims, but bookmark this bad boy, because I’m sure there will be more content up there soon.

And finally, Paramount secretly released EthanHaasWasRight.com, which is an interesting Java Puzzle that will give you lots of possible info on the plot if you complete it. The further you get, the more videos you unlock in which frightened people speak of "Things Changing on August 1."

For all of the news as it comes on next January’s mysterious and exciting project, keep checking us here at ComicMix.

Science Fiction/Fantasy Interviews

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Bookninja interviews Guy Gavriel Kay, author of Ysabel. Then they flip out and kill a whole lot of people, ‘cause that’s what ninjas have to do. [via Locus Online]

Adventures in Sci Fi Publishing’s twenty-fifth podcast features an interview with author Walter H. Hunt, plus publishing news and the first installment of “Ask a Writer,” with Tobias S. Buckell.

SciFi Wire talks to Michael Swanwick about his story “Lord Weary’s Empire,” currently a finalist for both the Theodore Sturgeon Memorial Award and the Hugo Award. (more…)

Tap-Crazy Superheroics in Chicago

poster-hourglass-final-cut-rgb-small-3146393There’s really nothing to add to Andrew Pepoy’s news aboug The Hourglass in the Stop-Time Chronicles. I mean, really, what can you say about a super-hero tap opera? Click on the link for more details. Dang, I wish I were in Chicago for this one.

And if you want to get your full Pepoy fix, he notes " I also inked Radioactive Man #711, available at 7-11 stores starting today as a promotion for the Simpsons movie."  Just look for the spinner rack beside the Squishie machines!

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MICHAEL DAVIS: If it walks like a duck…

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In this article I use a variation of the ‘n’ word. If this offends you then stop reading now. The last thing I want is 50 comments from people who are offended by the word. So before you get your panties in a bunch, stop reading. You have been warned.

When did we become a nation of sheep? At what point did we decide that if enough people say something is good then it’s good? If enough people decide it’s bad then it’s bad? If enough people decide it’s hip then it’s hip?

Or in this case: if enough people decide that a man obeying a police officer’s command can be shot for doing what the officer said, then that police officer is not guilty of attempted murder.

Regardless of what you think, do you join the flock?

Last week a police officer named Ivory Webb was acquitted in a San Bernardino County California courtroom for shooting a man for getting up after telling the man to get up. No. I was not in the courtroom. No, I do not know all the facts. No, I was not at the scene. I just watched the videotape. The videotape, which CLEARLY shows Webb telling the man to get up.

CLEARLY TELLING HIM TO GET UP.

When the man goes to get up (AS HE WAS TOLD) he was shot three times. I have no idea what went on in that courtroom that resulted in this police officer getting off. I just know WHAT I SAW.

In my VERY first article for ComicMix I wrote this: Now a days you can get caught on videotape robbing and pistol whipping a little old lady in a wheel chair while she was feeding her kitten and not go to jail. All you have to do is blame it on your Dad who was never home or never told you he loved you.

Well Mr. Webb’s jury blamed it on the man who was shot – one juror saying ‘If he had just shut up and listened then none of this would have happened.”

Well, from what I saw when he was told to get up, he did listen, and he was shot.

OK, as I said I don’t know what went on in the courtroom so let’s assume that the jury was correct in their verdict. I still know what I heard: the cop said “get up” and then shot the guy when he did.

I know what I heard; I know what I saw.

A few years ago I heard a rumor that Donald Duck called Daffy Duck “A doggone stubborn nigga” in the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I thought this was simply BS. I had seen the film and did not notice that and simply dismissed it. Fast forward to last week when I noticed that my TiVo had recorded Who Framed Roger Rabbit. While I was watching it this time I clearly heard Donald Duck call Daffy Duck a “A dog gone stubborn nigga.”

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Dennis Hopper Is Doing What?

hopperdennis-1922054Approximately several hundred websites are reporting Dennis Hopper might be guest-villaining in Doctor Who next season. ComicMix is now officially number several hundred and one. It’s also being reported by the London Sun and the British magazine TV Times.

Evidently, the one-time Easy Rider star and two-time G. W. Bush supporter is a big Whoer. When the BBC discovered this, they moved with uncommon speed to get at least a cameo out of the noted actor.