The Stranger, Seattle's Only Newspaper: Slog: Nerd

The Ruins of Tatooine

Paul Constant — Wed, 22 May 2013 07:18:47 -0700

The film sets from the original Star Wars movie are just sitting there in Tunisia, rotting away. They're kind of beautiful.

(Thanks to Slog tipper Ben.)

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Star Trek Into Darkness: Less Space, More Opera

Paul Constant — Thu, 16 May 2013 08:10:13 -0700

"For the last time, I do not look like an otter!"

Though it's hard to write meaningfully about Star Trek Into Darkness without spoiling anything—it's packed with surprises—this review will be spoiler-free. Which means I have to keep the specifics about the plot to a minimum. (I'll do a spoiler-filled review after everyone gets a chance to see the movie this weekend.) So here goes: The crew of the Enterprise runs up against a mysterious man named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch, a delight of growling disdain) and then they find themselves drawn into a much larger conflict that could imperil the entire United Federation of Planets. As is shown in the trailers and on the poster for the movie, the Enterprise suffers a considerable amount of damage along the way.

So let's start with the good news: With one unfortunate exception, the actors are all growing pleasantly into their roles. Some of them (Chris Pine as Kirk, Simon Pegg as Scotty) choose to riff on the performances of Star Trek: The Original Series actors while wisely not hewing to staid impersonations. Zachary Quinto's eerily exact Spock feels less like a perfect copy of ST:TOS Spock and more a kind of seance—is it insulting to say that this is the role he was born to play? And Karl Urban's DeForest Kelley schtick, all bad metaphors and outraged puffery, is hambone acting at its finest, which makes sense, because no one in their right minds would want to watch an understated interpretation of Bones. Of all the actors in rebooted roles, Zoe Saldana gets shortest shrift. Her Uhura is an embarrassment, the highest-profile female character in the movie pushed to the periphery, only earning a line when it's time for her to react to men, never truly getting a great moment of her own.

And now for the bad news: There's very little trekking in this Star Trek. Outside of a pre-credits taste of interstellar adventure involving a dilemma around that classic Star Trek saw, the Prime Directive, way too much of this movie is set on Earth or is simply floating, semi-stationary, in outer space. The script from Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof doesn't get the point of Star Trek, really: It's too petty and small and uninterested in adventure. A silly little analogy to current events wraps the movie in the wrong tone, and the pacing, with a series of tense, exciting action scenes layered between some very long expository passages, is downright weird. Star Trek Into Darkness is a pretty thing to look at—the 3D is decent, but by no means necessary for enjoyment of the movie—but it's just so dumb and uninterested in the possibilities of the premise that it feels like a waste. And one of my favorite parts of the 2009 Star Trek reboot, the commitment to comedic adventure, fails to materialize here. This movie is too busy dwelling in darkness to remember that Star Trek should be about optimism and aspirations and fun, and that's a goddamned shame.

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What Do You Think of the Riddick Trailer?

Paul Constant — Wed, 15 May 2013 12:29:27 -0700

Pitch Black was a fun little pulpy creature feature. I think I tried to watch The Chronicles of Riddick once, but I certainly didn't get all the way through. Now, nine years later, the third movie starring Vin Diesel as Riddick is about to be released. It's titled Riddick. Here's a trailer:

Is it me, or did that trailer feel like five times longer than it really was?

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The Cutest Thing I Have Seen on the Internet in Ages

Paul Constant — Tue, 14 May 2013 08:04:39 -0700

The PINTO tag at Suicide Blonde brings Kirk/Spock slash fiction into the age of the .gif, and it's totally fucking adorable.

(Thanks to Twitter user The Amateur Cineaste for turning me on to this.)

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Tease Me! Here's That Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D Teaser!

Wm.™ Steven Humphrey — Mon, 13 May 2013 10:36:16 -0700

As promised/warned, here is the first official teaser/trailer for the most awesome, yet annoying to type, show of the fall season Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. And it features every fanboy's current fave, Coulson. And his car! And somebody punching somebody else in the face with fire, I think? I dunno. Life moves fast when you're with the annoying to type Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D! (That's why you should also read io9's report on "Every single clue hidden inside the Agents of SHIELD trailer!")

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Will Money Tear the Avengers Apart?

Paul Constant — Wed, 08 May 2013 07:50:25 -0700

Deadline Hollywood has a great piece up right now about how Marvel Comics' notoriously cheap business practices are running headlong into actors who feel they're worth more than they're getting for starring in Marvel's wildly profitable movies.

The issue going forward is how many of the Avengers stars and starlets are still bound by early agreements and longterm options which Marvel can continue to exploit individually. To counter, I’ve learned the Avengers cast are becoming united behind Robert Downey Jr who is seen as the “leader” – like “a big brother” in the words of one rep - for all the younger actors in the ensemble. “He’s the only guy with real power in this situation. and balls of steel, too. He’s already sent a message that he’s not going to work for a place where they treat his colleagues like shit,” one source explains. Another rep tells me, “I have four words for Marvel – ‘Fuck you, call Robert.’” As Downey himself has said publicly about his $50M-plus payday, ”I’m what’s known as a strategic cost,” adding that Marvel is “so pissed” he earned that much.

It's funny—this almost exactly mirrors the way that Marvel has mistreated comics creators for decades now. (Read Sean Howe's excellent Marvel Comics: The Untold Story for more information about the history of Marvel's shameful history with artists and writers.) But unlike comics, where Marvel successfully bet that fans wouldn't care who was drawing Iron Man as long as Iron Man comics came out every month, I don't think an Iron Man 4 starring, say, Joel Edgerton as Tony Stark will be breaking any box office records, although it might still be a profitable movie. Could you imagine an Avengers 2 with an almost-entirely new cast? This issue, rather than superhero fatigue, might wind up being the thing that upends the Marvel Comics movie universe.

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Iron Man 3 Kills Iron Man 2 Dead

Paul Constant — Fri, 03 May 2013 13:16:06 -0700

Iron Man 3: Google Goggles are for amateurs.

Since it's in the bizarre position of being the third film in one series and the seventh in the larger Marvel Comics movie universe, the average viewer will probably enter Iron Man 3 with at least two questions: With its focus on a solo superhero, can it possibly outdo the over-the-top team geekfest that was Joss Whedon's Avengers? Or will it at least be better than the property-management-obsessed mess that was Iron Man 2? The answers: Of course not, and, oh my God, so much better.

New Iron Man writer-director Shane Black treats Robert Downey Jr.'s Tony Stark as less of a superhero than a jittery cross between James Bond and Thomas Edison, a wholly American, tech-obsessed adventurer. But he's got a sensitive side: Stark is suffering anxiety attacks after saving the world at the end of The Avengers, and his nervousness manifests as a lack of sleep, a compulsion for building dozens of new suits of armor, and an inability to be close with his girlfriend, Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow, surprisingly likable)...

Keep reading >>

Seattle Needs to Shame the "Real Life Superheroes" Into Retirement

Paul Constant — Thu, 02 May 2013 11:09:40 -0700

Slog tipper Tim asks, "Are we going to stand for this depiction of Seattle?" Tim was linking to a Slate story from yesterday headlined "Seattle Is Overrun With People Who Dress Up Like Superheroes and Cause Trouble." Here's a sample paragraph:

Seattle, being a somewhat silly place, is the home town of the Rain City Superhero Movement, a group of eccentric citizens who roam the streets wearing homemade superhero costumes, occasionally attempting to stop crime but mostly posing for photographs. Last year, several of the Rain City members inserted themselves into the protests, attempting to stop the anarchists from causing trouble. The independent review on May Day 2012 found that the superheroes just made things worse: “Rain City Superhero Movement individuals were allowed to participate in the melee at 1010 5th Avenue (U.S. Appeals Federal Courthouse). Their participation resulted in allegations of assaults/crimes.”

I'm ordinarily the first person to come to Seattle's defense when a journalist pokes fun at Seattle's provincialism. But the answer to your question, Tim, is that there is no defense for this shit. Our city deserves every ounce of ridicule that it gets for tolerating—and even, on the media's behalf, encouraging—these sad little children LARPing their little-kid fantasies all over the city. This is one case where a little street harassment could do some good; I'd love to see an entire block of Seattleites shouting "GROW UP" at these preening fuckwits as they mosey around feeling good about themselves.

Phoenix Jones trolls the parts of town where drunk people mill about after bars close, looking for a fight and calling it heroism. He causes more problems than he solves. I have no problem with him wandering around Emerald City Comicon acting like a celebrity, but the people of Seattle need to let him know that he's not welcome on our streets until he puts on his big-kid pants and behaves like a responsible citizen. The anarchist clowns silly-stringing Phoenix and his dress-up fanboys was a good start, but if you can think of any legal, nonviolent ways to shame these jackoffs into retirement, I'm all ears.

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The Superhero Battle

Paul Constant — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 13:31:15 -0700

Did you know that the word "superhero" is jointly owned by Marvel and DC Comics, and that anyone else who uses the word is likely to get a cease and desist order? There's a suit to change that fact, but it's going nowhere fast, The New York Daily News explains.

Ray Felix grew up idolizing Spider-Man, Batman and other stars of Marvel and DC Comics. But when he created his own superheroes, the companies he once loved became his archenemies.

Felix' battle with the comic conglomerates began after he registered his online comic series "A World Without Superheroes" with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Marvel and DC opposed the move on the grounds that the companies own the trademark on the word "superhero." Almost two years later, the case is still awaiting a decision by the Trademark Trial and Appeals Board.

Felix says he knows he'll probably lose, which is a safe bet when you're battling an unholy consortium of lawyers from both Time Warner and Disney. But still: This is bullshit.

(Via Kevin Melrose at Robot 6.)

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Not With A Bang But A Side Order Of Cheese Sticks

The Stranger Testing Department — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 17:18:12 -0700

As of today, your Kinect is now good for something: You can use it to place Pizza Hut orders through your XBox. That is all.

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What Do You Think of the Thor: The Dark World Trailer?

Paul Constant — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 14:09:54 -0700

Iron Man 3 is almost here, but it's not the only Marvel movie coming out this year: In November, the Thor sequel, The Dark World, will be released. Here's a trailer:

And so?

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The Batty Nanomolecular Paintings of Shane Hope

Jen Graves — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 09:27:27 -0700

These are all details of Shane Hope's paintings, on display at Winkleman Gallery in Chelsea, New York.

Visiting New York two weeks ago, I wandered into the great gallery of Ed Winkleman and found the works of Shane Hope.

The hype of Hope is strong.

He creates his own 3D printers to make his boggling works, about which:

Accelerating progress in nanometer-scale science and technology continues to expand the toolkit with which we can eventually assemble things from the atom up. This will potentially give rise to nearly costless systems for controlling the structure of matter itself.

People! Occupy matter!

The statement about Hope's exhibition grows more byzantine and absurd as it progresses, in a hilarious mirroring of what happens when you fall into the batty surfaces of the works.

Forever optimistic, Hope puts forth these pieces as plans for playborground ball pits of pure operationality all about an atomic admin access-privs picturesque.

The writing's a perfect nerd companion to the paintings, which share the quality of being simultaneously sexy and amazing, and not too serious. They're pretty marvelous.

In Hope’s own words, “So run this, for here’s how you in the form of pathetic-prophetic techno-poetics for reals forge future’s futures: nano-nonobjective-oriented ontographic scribblin’ on scriptable-scalable species-tool-beings... metacompetitive metabolisms of things-executin’-things-executin’-things-executin’-things…”

Got it. The gallery web site is here, and more pictures are on the jump.

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Publishers' Weekly Hasn't Said Squat About My New Book

Chicago Fan — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 07:00:00 -0700

But you should pre-order it anyway!

Did you like Devil in the White City? Of course you did. Who doesn't? Chicago By Day and Night: The Pleasure Seeker's Guide to the Paris of America was a guidebook published for visitors to the 1893 World's Fair in Chicago. Daniel Burnham might've picked it up, though he's never once mentioned (the book was written before we began to worship architects as artists). H. H. Holmes's hotel might've rated a mention, had it been built when the book was composed. If you're a DitWC fan, this book will complement your enjoyment of Larsen's.

CBDN guides potential visitors to "free and easy" shows, saloons, carousels, masquerades, and other fun things to do away from the Fair itself. It's a fascinating artifact of the late 19th Century, when any woman who flirted with a man on the street might be an "adventuress" who planned to take him for all he was worth, via blackmail, the badger game, or the panel room. A taste from that chapter, with our notes after the jump:

The term adventuress is applied to women of careless reputation who, being much too smart to endure the ignominious career of professional demi-mondaines, resort to various shrewd schemes to fleece the unwary. Some of their class work in concert with male partners, and in such cases the selected victim generally becomes an easy prey. The confidence man may be dangerous; the confidence woman, if she be well educated and bright, as well as pretty, is irresistible except with the most hardened and unsusceptible customers. The shrewdest old granger of them all, who steers safely through the shoals and traps set for him by male sharpers, will go down like the clover before the scythe under a roguish glance, as it were, from a “white wench’s black eye,” as Mercutio said.
There is no mortal man in this universe of ours, be he never so homely or ill-favored, who does not cherish in his heart of hearts the impression that there is a woman or two somewhere whom he could charm if he wished to. It is the spirit of masculine vanity that forms the material upon which the adventuress may work. With the art of an expert she sizes up the dimensions of her victim’s vanity the instant she has made his acquaintance and plays upon it to just the extent she deems expedient and profitable. If it were not for masculine vanity, the American adventuress could not exist.

Along with my colleague Paul Durica, I've introduced, edited and annotated this fascinating bit of history. Some key features you might like: lots of dirty jokes, along with serious economic history (the chapter on gambling, for instance, includes the Chicago Board of Trade as just another way to lose your shirt, along with back-alley craps games or faro banks in saloons). Reminders of how cities change, and how they stay the same. Very cool illustrations, and lots of double-entendres (watch for the "delicious lays").

But all in the service of scholarship. Pre-order! Use the code DURICA13 for a discount.

This chapter outlines the three primary methods used by female con artists, and/or crooked prostitutes, to make money, in descending order from genteel blackmail to the badger game to the panel room. Just as a con man presenting an out-of-town visitor with a chance for some easy money requires his mark to cooperate, a con woman depends on her victim’s sexual desire and vanity to put him in a place where he will pay her off or be robbed. The emphasis placed throughout the chapter on not trusting any woman one meets for the first time in a public place continues the theme of gendered spaces in the city: women on their own in public were an erotic opportunity, a physical threat, or both. Blackmail would simply involve threatening to expose a man’s indiscretions to his family or business partners back home. The badger game involves a fake husband or other outraged man demanding satisfaction for his dishonor (see Nelson Algren’s “Design for Departure” in The Neon Wilderness for a story about a couple playing the badger game). The panel game was more straightforward robbery, although the writer here neglects to mention that this last ploy would not happen with a supposed dalliance but during prostitution. Some brothels were constructed with rooms furnished with only a bed and single chair. The man would leave his clothes on the chair, and as our author delicately puts it, “while the interview between the more or less affectionate lovers is in progress,” the woman’s compatriot would slide the panel back and steal the man’s watch, money, and other valuables. The customer could not complain (if he even noticed before leaving the “establishment”) because doing so would mean admitting he’d patronized a prostitute, and the brothel would have both paid-off police protection and on-site bouncers in any case.

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Get Ready to Get Really Sick of Star Wars

Paul Constant — Wed, 17 Apr 2013 13:23:40 -0700

Slashfilm says:

Today at Disney’s CinemaCon presentation, the studio announced that beginning in 2015 we’ll see a new Star Wars movie every summer. The plan is to begin with Episode VII, written by Michael Arndt and directed by JJ Abrams, then alternate between standalone “spin-off” movies and new Episodes in the core storyline.

You see, if we cut the goose wide open and take a look at its intestines, we'll be able to figure out how it lays those golden eggs. Then we'll all have more golden eggs! It's what we like to call a win-win situation.

UPDATE: Related:

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Local Cartoonists Go Head-to-Head in Comic Book Awards Season

Paul Constant — Tue, 16 Apr 2013 13:18:25 -0700

Robot 6 has a list of all the nominees for this year's Eisner Awards, which are basically the comic book Oscars. It's a solid list, mostly full of the usual suspects (Seattle's Fantagraphics Books is well-represented, as is Brian K Vaughan and Fiona Staples' excellent Saga and Chris Ware's Building Stories). They're all good comics, and you should check them out. But two Seattle cartoonists are in a direct competition for one award: Ellen Forney and David Lasky (along with Lasky's co-writer, Frank M. Young) are nominated for their works of non-fiction. Here's the full lineup for the category:

Best Reality-Based Work

Annie Sullivan and the Trials of Helen Keller, by Joseph Lambert (Center for Cartoon Studies/Disney Hyperion)
The Carter Family: Don’t Forget This Song, by Frank M. Young and David Lasky (Abrams ComicArts)
A Chinese Life, by Li Kunwu and P. Ôtié (Self Made Hero)
The Infinite Wait and Other Stories, by Julia Wertz (Koyama Press)
Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo & Me, by Ellen Forney (Gotham Books)
You’ll Never Know, Book 3: A Soldier’s Heart, by C. Tyler (Fantagraphics)

Forney, of course, is last year's Genius Award winner for Literature. But I really liked The Carter Family, too. And I've always been a fan of New York cartoonist Julia Wertz's autobiographical comics, too. Who will win? Can you possibly handle all the drama? The winners will be announced July 19th, during the big San Diego Comic-Con International.

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Apple Will Sell Saga #12 After All

Paul Constant — Wed, 10 Apr 2013 11:41:53 -0700

Yesterday, writer Brian K. Vaughan published a press release announcing that Apple had banned the new issue of his very good ongoing comic book series Saga due to some very small images of gay sex. Comixology CEO David Steinberger just published a blog post saying that the issue will be available for sale on iOS devices after all:

As a partner of Apple, we have an obligation to respect its policies for apps and the books offered in apps. Based on our understanding of those policies, we believed that Saga #12 could not be made available in our app, and so we did not release it today.

We did not interpret the content in question as involving any particular sexual orientation, and frankly that would have been a completely irrelevant consideration under any circumstance.

Given this, it should be clear that Apple did not reject Saga #12.

After hearing from Apple this morning, we can say that our interpretation of its policies was mistaken. You’ll be glad to know that Saga #12 will be available on our App Store app soon.

Say, does anybody else smell bullshit? I swear, I've got a strong whiff of some bullshit over here.

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Joss Whedon Sells Out SIFF in Record Time

David Schmader — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:17:41 -0700

This just in from SIFF's press office:

Yesterday, the Seattle International Film Festival announced that its 39th fest would open with Joss Whedon's adaptation of Much Ado About Nothing; six hours later, the Opening Night Gala became single-greatest success in SIFF box office history.

"We are thrilled with the success of Much Ado and for what it means for this year's Festival and film's theatrical release," said SIFF Artistic and Co-Director Carl Spence. " This is a great triumph for us as an organization, for the Seattle film-going community, and of course, for the 'Whedonverse' at large. As Whedon has famously said, he has the 'smartest, most loyal, most passionate, most articulate group of [fans],' and I'd have to agree with him, and add that his Seattle fans are among his most devoted."

SIFF 2013: Already a lovefestTM.

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Apple Bans Comic Book That Features Gay Sex Scenes

Paul Constant — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 12:03:40 -0700

Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples's science fantasy comic Saga is the best ongoing comic book series in the business right now. The first trade paperback, which you really should be reading, is selling like crazy. Readers are jumping on board all the time. And Apple refuses to release tomorrow's Saga issue number 12 on any of their apps because it features gay sex. The Beat reports that Vaughan has released a press release about the ban:

As has hopefully been clear from the first page of our first issue, SAGA is a series for the proverbial “mature reader.” Unfortunately, because of two postage stamp-sized images of gay sex, Apple is banning tomorrow’s SAGA #12 from being sold through any iOS apps. This is a drag, especially because our book has featured what I would consider much more graphic imagery in the past, but there you go. Fiona and I could always edit the images in question, but everything we put into the book is there to advance our story, not (just) to shock or titillate, so we’re not changing shit.

Apologies to everyone who reads our series on iPads or iPhones...

Vaughan recommends that Saga fans go buy a physical copy of the book from their local comics retailer instead. Unless your comics store owner takes to the issues with a pair of scissors before you go to buy a copy, you're guaranteed to get the story intact, just as Vaughan and Staples intended. Fuck Apple's ridiculous censorship. I could go on the Comixology app on any iPhone or iPad right now and buy any number of comics with scenes of graphic violence. This is bullshit.

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Buy Your Neil Gaiman Tickets Now UPDATE: Too Late!

Paul Constant — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:56:28 -0700

Big Monday for nerds: First, there's the SIFF news, and now University Book Store is selling tickets to their July 2nd event with Neil Gaiman. Gaiman will be reading from his upcoming The Ocean at the End of the Lane, and he says this will be his final United States book tour ever. I have a feeling these are going to sell out quickly. ~~Go buy tickets right now.~~

UPDATE 3:36 PM: Sold out!

@thsea —Yes, just a bit ago. SOLD OUT!
— University BookStore (@ubs_events) April 8, 2013

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Get Ready, Nerds: Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, and Clark Gregg Will Debut Much Ado About Nothing at SIFF's Opening Night Gala

Paul Constant — Mon, 08 Apr 2013 12:27:59 -0700

Looks like SIFF is getting a red hot nerd injection this year:

Start the Festival in style with the SIFF 2013 Opening Night Gala! The evening features the Seattle premiere of Much Ado About Nothing, with director Joss Whedon and cast members Alexis Denisof, Amy Acker, Nathan Fillion, and Clark Gregg scheduled to attend.

Follow the link to buy tickets. We did a Slog poll on the trailer of Whedon's Much Ado adaptation, and Slog is apparently very excited about this movie. I'm thinking a whole lot of people are dying to see Whedon and his crew in person on opening night, too, which means this could be the biggest SIFF opening night gala yet. It's definitely going to be the nerdiest.

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When Publishers Collapse, Authors Pay the Price

Paul Constant — Fri, 05 Apr 2013 15:31:39 -0700

Phil Foglio, half of the local team that makes the webcomic and prose novel series Girl Genius, has posted on Facebook about all the troubles his books are in, now that his publisher Night Shade Books is in the process of going under:

So– Got a call from our agent, telling me that Night Shade Books, the American publisher of the Girl Genius novels, is folding. This made me sad. I became markedly less sad when my agent assured me that our sales were sufficiently good that any number of other publishers should be interested in picking us up, so– Hurrah! Well…maybe hurrah.

You see, there's the whole tedious business of disengaging ourselves from Night Shade, which has decided to sell our contract to another publisher in order to cover their debts. This other publisher, Skyhorse, is perfectly willing to buy Night Shade's assets (our contracts). However, they will rewrite them and everybody now gets paid a flat 10% of net sales. Let me put this another way; If I was a monkey, I'd be throwing this.

Foglio goes on to explain the different scenarios, including one in which the prose books published by Night Shade might remain in a publishing limbo, out of his control forever. Let's be clear about the fact that the Girl Genius comic isn't published by Night Shade, and the property still belongs to the Foglios, so it's not like this is the end of Girl Genius; it just means that readers might not get access to the books that have been published by Night Shade for a long, long time. This is a shame.

Phil and Kaja Foglio are the kinds of working artists who have done everything right in their careers—they're great to their fans, they've contributed to Stranger charity auctions, they're out cheerfully representing their work at every local convention I've ever attended—and because they decided to be published by a smaller, quality independent press, their work (or, in the best-case scenario, their wallets) might suffer for it. This isn't how the publishing industry should work.

(Via Bleeding Cool.)

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Carmine Infantino

Paul Constant — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:45:27 -0700

The great comic book artist, who helped drag superhero comic books out of the stodgy Golden Age and into a more modern era, has died. He was 87. Infantino drew some of the greatest comic book covers of all time, including this one, this one, and this one. If you're looking for more of his artwork, I suggest checking the Infantino tag on Tumblr.

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The Doctor Who Business Is Male-Dominated

Paul Constant — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 12:38:47 -0700

I would encourage you to go read this post at The Mary Sue about why Doctor Who has not had a single female writer since 2008.

If a show has zero female writers, it’s not because there are somehow zero female writers who are qualified to do that job. In the Guardian article [that inspired the Mary Sue post written by] Jenny Colgan, who wrote a Doctor Who tie-in novel, [she] points out just a few female writers with a “proven track record” in sci-fi, among them Margaret Atwood, J.K. Rowling, Ursula le Guin, and Suzanne Collins...the TV and film industries, more than just having a long history of being male-dominated, were built upon the idea that men hold leadership positions, whether it’s being a director or a writer or a studio exec. With few exceptions, that’s how things were in the formative years of the industry, and that’s how they’ve continued to be, even though few(er) people think (or would admit to thinking, at least) that women can’t do the job.

Television writing is still a male-dominated job. (For proof of that, go read Lauren Weedman's great piece about her time writing for The Daily Show.) The only way that's going to change is if people demand to see a change. Because television writing is such a non-visible role, though, the demand is low. And because men write for television, we're less likely to see strong female characters on television. It's a cycle that's only going to stop if we shine some light on the process.

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The Decline and Fall of Harry Knowles

Paul Constant — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:28:33 -0700

Today, The Hollywood Reporter published a long story about how Ain't It Cool News has gone from the must-read website for nerdy spoilers to a nearly defunct vanity project. It's a sad story, with a sad beginning:

It was July 2012, and Harry Knowles was working up a sweat. Eighteen months earlier, the creator-owner-figurehead of Ain't It Cool News collapsed and had back surgery to treat the effects of spinal stenosis, a chronic condition stemming in part from a 1996 fall that left him intermittently reliant on a wheelchair. So now he was walking on a treadmill at a clinic near his Austin home as part of his physical therapy.

His phone rang. Still trudging, Knowles answered. It was Roland De Noie, his business manager.

"I really f—-ed up," said De Noie in a panic. "It's all my fault." He had discovered that Ain't It Cool News — the website Knowles started in his Texas bedroom that grew to be the scourge of Hollywood, redefined the nature and pace of entertainment journalism and turned an overweight, ginger-haired self-diagnosed movie nerd into the face of a geek nation on the rise — owed about $300,000 in unpaid taxes.

When I first started using the internet on a regular basis, I visited Ain't It Cool News all the time for Buffy the Vampire Slayer spoilers and updates on movie news that I couldn't find anywhere else. Now when I make the occasional visit, it's like dropping by to check in on a high school friend who still lives in his mom's basement.

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Sakura-Con 2013

Mary Traverse — Mon, 01 Apr 2013 11:26:50 -0700

Here's some of what you missed at Sakura-Con this past weekend. See more photos here!
(All photos by Vic DeLeon.)

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TONIGHT! It's Slog Nerd Happy Time Again!

Mary Traverse — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 12:44:47 -0700

mr. herriman

Join us tonight from 5-10 pm at Raygun Lounge for our monthly evening of board games and beers!

It is also Tabletop Eve, the night before 3/30/13, which celebrity nerds Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day have announced will be International Tabletop Day*. Saturday is full of board game events, so check in with your favorite local game store to see what they've got on offer.

* Check out Tabletop, the web series hosted by Wil Wheaton. I cannot recommend it enough, it's turned me on to several games and it's fun to watch!

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What Do You Think of the Trailers for The Wolverine and White House Down?

Paul Constant — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 16:28:34 -0700

Here's the trailer for the X-Men spinoff movie The Wolverine:

And here's the trailer for the non-Olympus Has Fallen movie about the White House under terrorist attack, White House Down:

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Popsicle Stick Bridge Takes 2,277 Pounds of Weight

Jen Graves — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:30:39 -0700

Neat!

^{Disclaimer: I'm on the board of the community school where this bridge was made. Which has nothing to do with popsicle sticks and physics, and I had nothing to do with this bridge or this contest, but I just thought I would disclose.}

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100 Years In a Single Day

Paul Constant — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:32:35 -0700

As much as I love the Hernandez Brothers, I'm sad to report that I don't feel the same urgency anymore when I see a new Love and Rockets title on the shelf. I think the serialized, pamphlet-based publication of Love & Rockets in the 80s and 90s gave the Hernandez Brothers' work some much-needed urgency, and lately their newest work has struck me as a little...well, boring.

But I hope the newest work by Gilbert Hernandez marks the beginning of a whole new era for the brothers, because Julio's Day is incredible. In one hundred pages, Hernandez illustrates the whole hundred-year life of a background L&R character—a perpetual bachelor who lives with his mother—and frames the whole life as a single day. It's ambitious, it revels in its formal constraints, and it's a meaningful, moving story.

Hernandez takes the life of a sad, quiet man—born in 1900, Julio struggles with his homosexuality for his whole life, keeping his proclivities hidden from almost everyone—and enhances his voice by defining the community that surrounds him. Julio's whole family, dark secrets and all, are introduced with great economy and a surprising amount of empathy. This is obviously a work by Hernandez—there are genre tropes pushing in at the seams of the story, in the form of a science fiction parasite that murders in a quick, ghastly fashion—but there's a clarity and a scope that feels new. Even if you've never read a Love & Rockets book, I'd encourage you to check out Julio's Day. It's funny, scary, sad, maddening, weird, and special; you've never seen a life portrayed in a comic book quite like this one.

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Neal Stephenson Asks Sci-Fi Writers to Imagine a Better Future

Paul Constant — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 16:26:19 -0700

Hieroglyph is a website "that brings together writers, scientists, engineers, technologists, industrialists and others to create ambitious new visions for the future." Now, local author Neal Stephenson is working with Hieroglyph to put together an anthology that gets science fiction authors thinking positively about the future again. The goal is to produce some Big Ideas to lead the way for scientists and engineers, the way sci-fi predicted space travel and the internet.

The idea is to get SF writers to contribute pieces to an anthology. These pieces would all be throwbacks, in a manner of speaking, to 1950′s-style SF, in that they would depict futures in which Big Stuff Got Done. We would avoid hackers, hyperspace, and holocausts. The ideal subject matter would be an innovation that a young, modern-day engineer could make substantial progress on during his or her career.

Go read Stephenson's whole article and visit the Hieroglyph site for more information.

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