We regret to announce the passing of George Scithers, who died Monday after suffering a heart attack on Saturday at the age of 80. He was an award winning editor, winning the Hugo award four times, and a World Fantasy Award for Life Achievement in 2002.

Scithers’ first published fiction, the story “Faithful Messenger,” appeared in If magazine in 1969. His involvement in the field, however, dates back to 1957, when he began submitting to the fanzine Yandro. Two years later, he began publishing the Hugo Award-winning fanzine Amra. The term “swords and sorcery” first appeared there, and Amra became a leading proponent of the genre. Several of the articles originally published in Amra were later re-printed as part of two volumes about Conan the Barbarian which Scithers co-edited with L. Sprague de Camp.

In 1963, Scithers chaired Discon I, the 21st Worldcon, held in Washington, D.C.. He was a regular parliamentarian for business meetings of the World Science Fiction Society (the people behind WorldCon) and authored an invaluable guide to running science fiction conventions, The Con-Committee Chairman’s Guide.

In 1973, Scithers founded Owlswick Press, a small independent publishing company.
In 1977, he was named the first editor for Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, staying in that position until 1982 and winning two more Hugo Awards for his work there. After leaving IASFM, Scithers took the helm at Amazing Stories, and edited that magazine until 1986.

In 1988, he worked with John Gregory Betancourt and Darrell Schweitzer to re-establish Weird Tales, the magazine that had introduced one of his earliest interests, Conan the Barbarian, to the world, which won him a World Fantasy Award in 1992.

He was also a member of the all-male literary banqueting club the Trap Door Spiders, which served as the basis of Isaac
Asimov’s fictional group of mystery solvers the Black Widowers.

He was the first publisher of many SF and fantasy talents, including Esther Friesner.

For a good look at the man, here’s an essay about George Scithers written when he was Fan Guest of Honor at the Millenium Philcon in 2001.

We’ve just been informed that American anime producer and pioneer Carl Macek died Saturday of a heart attack. He was 58.

Carl created Robotech out of editing and redubbing three separate anime series Macross, Southern Cross, and Mospeada, co-founded Spumco with John Krickafalusi (Ren & Stimpy) and
co-founded Streamline Pictures (Akira, Vampire Hunter D, Fist of the North Star,
Laputa, My Neighbor Totoro) with Jerry Beck. Jerry remembers him here.

His history with comics was long-standing, as he directly wrote some of the Robotech comics for Comico, the books that pushed that company well into the black. Gerry Giovinco, publisher of Comico, has his own remembrance here. In later years, he was also responsible for the animated movie of the Chaos Comics character Lady Death, and had been working on translating episodes of Bleach and Naruto.

It could be argued that he was the most influential man in animation that never worked at Disney or Warner Brothers. He was a one of a kind guy, and will be missed.

Pop culture continues to find new and innovative ways to plant itself on the web and two of our contributors, Aaron Rosenberg and Bob Greenberger, along with fellow novelist Steven Savile, are trying something new. ReDeus is a new fictional world that will come to life on the Internet as a subscription-based site that will offer, for starters, three serialized stories set in a shared world. Not only that, they’re fundraising in an unusual way too, through Kickstarter.  We wanted to know more, so we digitally sat down with the three for a conversation.

ComicMix: Where’d the idea for ReDeus come from?

Steven Savile: I was actually invited to the party after Aaron and Bob had already come up with the core concept of the gods and monsters returning, so it’s best I let them field this particular question.

Aaron Rosenberg: Me, it was all me! :)
No, seriously, it was Bob, our friend Paul, and I. We’d been talking about the economy, and writing projects, and the changing face of publishing, and we agreed that we needed to find new ways to get stories out to our audience. I had an idea about putting things up on the Internet, and Bob and Paul both liked the notion, so we ran with it. Then we started talking about the kind of world we’d want to build, something cool and unique and interesting with enough room for all of us to tell stories and then some. We all agreed that near-future was the way to go, and then the question was “how is it different from today? What changed?” I don’t remember which of us came up with “the gods were all real—and they’ve returned!” but the minute it was stated all three of us said “YES!!!” And we took it from there. Paul had to bow out, unfortunately, but Bob and I both already knew Steve and were already working with him on some other projects, so we approached him and he was happy to step in.Bob Greenberger: Basically we had to forgo one Jew with a beard for a Swede with a beard. We think it’s an upgrade.

CMix: Why three writers rather than one of you?

Savile: Personally, I love the collective aspect of it. Writing is by necessity a lonely business but there is something very gratifying about the act of collaboration, the idea that what comes out of all three of us together is greater than what might emerge from my mind alone, or Bob’s or Aaron’s, plus it is an absolute delight to learn from these guys. They’re not only great people, they’re great friends, and how often in this life do we get to work with real friends? Not often enough would be my answer.

Rosenberg: Two reasons, really. First, the world is just so much richer for the three of us. I can come up with a world on my own—I’ve done it enough times—but that means it’s all from my perspective, my style, my tone. With three of us, one of us will come up with something and one of the others will say “Hm, that’s cool, but what if we do this to it?” and it’s something the first person never thought of but it makes everything that much better. We really build off each other’s creativity, crafting a setting that’s more complicated, more engaging, more exciting than any of us would have had alone.

The other reason is the scope of the project. Putting up a new piece of content every single day—if any one of us were to do this, he’d run himself ragged. With three of us, we can split that up. Each of us writes one storyline. Each of us handles one type of additional content. It becomes more manageable. And you get materials from three different viewpoints.

Greenberger:  I love collaboration and brainstorming so have a blank slate and starting to fill it in is very exciting. This is a huge concept worthy of deeper exploration, which three can do better than one. Who knows, maybe it will grow from there and more will be invited to come explore with us?

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James Marsters has been added to the cast of the pilot remake of Hawaii Five-0 for CBS, portraying a villain. He told Australia’s Herald Sun, “They saw me in a fight sequence and something about it made them think ‘Let’s keep him around for a little bit’. I’m like a poor man’s Jackie Chan. But I have to say of all of the pilots that I knew about this year, this one stands the best chance of actually making it to the light of day. So I’m pretty hopeful.”

Pop culture reinventors Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci wrote the pilot for showrunner Peter Lenkov. The series picks up from the original by focusing on Chris McGarrett, son of Steve McGarrett (Jack Lord). Casting includes Alex O’Loughlin as Chris, Lost veteran Daniel Dae Kim as Chin Ho Kelly and Battlestar Galactica’s Grace Park as Kono Kalakaua. The remake is likely to make the 2010-2011 prime time schedule, although formal announcements are not expected until mid-May.

Marsters, who appeared with Kim in Angel, reflected on constantly being cast as the heavy. “I think frankly it’s because I got known for a villain early on,” he told the paper. “When I first came to LA, the only job on TV I’d had was as a very nerdish priest on Northern Exposure. I really lucked into that role. I was actually playing a killer on stage at the time for John Pielmeier who wrote Agnes of God, but I just happened to score this priest role on Northern Exposure.

“So when I came down to LA the only thing I had on my reel was this nerd character, so I got put up for a bunch of nerds. I scored a couple of guest spots as people who were uncomfortable in their own skin. Then Buffy was looking for somebody at the last minute, and I don’t know why but they thought I could do accents, so they called me in. And I lucked into that role, and ever since everyone thinks of me as a villain. So, I’ll take it man. The villain is a good role.

“Cos when you’re a villain, you’re standing in the shadows, not having to do much, then when the hero walks by you pop him a couple of times, big music sounds, and you go home. Whereas if you’re the hero, you have to have long scenes with guilt, and you have to be running around all night sweating, and then at the very end of the night you get popped in the face by the villain, who looks cool and gets all the credit.”

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Several actresses of note have been cast in or out of projects so here’s a roundup.

French actress Astrid Bergès-Frisbey has been announced as playing Syrena, a mermaid, in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, the fourth film in the series. She is expected to play a key role in the further adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp).

Unknown to American audiences, she has appeared in French films including Bruc and La Première Étoile along with television fare such as La Reine Morte, and Elles et Moi . She was born in Barcelona to French-American and Catalan parents and has done stage work including Equus.

Production on the big budget film is set for later this year in Hawaii, Great Britain and Los Angeles with a May 20, 2011 release date planned. Rob Marshall (Chicago) makes his maiden voyage as director, replacing Gore Verbinski.

Meantime, Nikki Finke’s Deadline Hollywood broke the news that heartthrob Kristin Kreuk has been replaced in the CBS pilot Hitched. The site reported, “The switch was made Wednesday, just before the multicamera pilot’s table read. Kreuk starred on two drama series, including her star-making turn on Smallville, and she was wonderful in an arc on Schwartz’s NBC dramedy Chuck this season but she has never done a half-hour sitcom and Hitched ultimately proved not a perfect fit for her.” Sara Fletcher was signed to replace her.

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