Wizard World Comic Con Sacramento 2017: Mini Report

I mentioned last time that I would have a review of Steve Sabatka’s YA sci fi novel, Mr. Fishback’s Monster. However, this weekend was Wizard World comic con in Sacramento which your blog host, Big Bro Steven of the UnOrthodox Geek Church, has been attending and will attend tomorrow (the last day) as well. So I’ll save the review for another time, since I’m not even going to have time for a full write-up of the con this evening. As far as the con goes, though, I’ll give a small brief.

There has been some some really great panels on fiction and comic book writing at this year’s Wizard World, one about creating villainous characters and another about the Satan myth in horror and other dark fiction. I met some really interesting fellow authors there who were really helpful with advice at their panels. And the dealers’ room is always big. There must’ve been at least a hundred booths there, which is a lot for a comic convention in Sacramento. Even though much of the dealers’ room emphasises new factory-line collectibles, such as Funko’s Pop vinyl figures, there are some booths that sell vintage collectibles and there are always super artists, writers and other creators selling their super work. Wizard World has gotten so big since its debut here four years ago that it’s nearly become San Diego Comic Con for Sacramento! Like I said, I’ll have a fuller review of the con, especially of the fiction writing panels, next time. But for now enjoy the pics below that I snapped there.

The Screen Man Maitre D’? of an animaid cafe there at the con.

Credit: Marvel Comics

This statue of the Hulk must’ve stood at least 12 feet high. Fifteen feet if you count the debris base he was standing on!

Credit: Marvel Comics

Iron Man gets ready to shoot a blast of energy from his high-tech hand!

Credit: Marvel Comics

The Man-Thing, man, with a mug of muck mead (perhaps) at his side (at his right knee, look closely). The advantage of being a muck monster is that you’ll always have a cup holder with you! Unlike the two Marvel figures above, this one's a live costumer.

Well that’s it for this week. Until next . . .

My First Novella; R.I.P. Adam West ‘Batman’

Progress Report

I may be behind in my writing projects but I’m making progress. I just completed writing my first novella last night. It’s a virtual reality-video game sci fi/dark fantasy. Sure, it’s going to need a lot of revising but as many long-time authors will say, one of the most important steps in the fiction writing process is to finish the first draft. A year or two ago, I had started writing a novella but never finished it. I allowed myself to drift away from it and never resumed writing it. Maybe I’ll go back to it someday after revising this new one.

Besides finishing the first draft of my novella, I’ve been working on the cover to the print edition of “Circa Sixty Years Dead”. The illustration, title and byline lettering are all set up since I’m using the same graphics as I did for the ebook edition. But I need to write the back cover summary which shouldn’t take me long. However, I may need to examine a copy of the print edition before I can release it for sale. Amazon would have to send me the copy, or proof as they call it in the publishing industry, which could take a couple of weeks. You really don’t know how good a print book looks until you see it in actuality as opposed to on screen.

Credit: Wikimedia Commons/ABC Studios

Adam West ‘Batman’ Dies at 88

It seems that all year, Hollywood stars have been dying left and right. It may just be that many of them are up there in age and so they are naturally reaching the end of their life spans. Adam West, who was most known for the campy 1960s Batman TV series was one of them. He died at 88 Friday night. It’s hard to believe he was that old. So it was a shock when I saw the news about his death on SpyVibe, a blog that discusses ‘60s espionage fiction in its various mediums (movies, TV, books, etc.). Jason Whiton, the blog host of SpyVibe, has a far out article that pays tribute to Mr. West, which if you grew up watching the ‘60s Batman series like me (even though it was a little before my time, I watched the re-runs weekday afternoons), I strongly suggest you read it. It brought back a lot of the sensations I felt when I watched the series as a kid and so it will probably do the same for you.

Sure, Adam West’s Batman was not your Dark Knight Detective as we know the character today from Christopher Nolan’s movies or Tim Burton’s 1989 cinematic adaptation. But many of us came to know the true Dark Knight, the Gothic super hero, through the campy ‘60s series from when we were kids which therefore served as a starting point. So I owe a lot to Adam West’s Batman since it was what got me started on the Batman character to begin with. If I never watched the TV series, I probably wouldn’t be as much of the Bat fan that I am today.

I just finished reading a good sci fi novel which is nostalgic for the 1970s and millimeter filmmaking of monster movies. It’s called Mr. Fishback’s Monster, by Steve Sabatka, which I’ll try to have a review of here next time.

So, Bat fans, did you grow up watching the ‘60s Batman TV series? If not then what got you started on Batman?

Until next time, same Far Out Fantastic channel . . . !

Quick TV Review: ‘The Man In the High Castle’

Intergalactic Expo wasn’t as enjoyable as it could have been. But that was mostly due to me. I went to bed too late the night before and so was tired. But you know, even though I turned down purchasing table space there for my books, one of the organizers came up to me and said my space was reserved. I didn’t believe her until I walked over to a corner on the second floor of West Sacramento’s City Hall, where part of the con was held, and lo and behold! Taped to the wall was a paper sign with my name written in marker! Just the space, no table which I’m glad because I’m not paying for a table I didn’t give my consent on. I didn’t have any of my books with me to present, anyway. But it was really nice that the organizers considered me, so I give them credit for that.

The Man In the High Castle: A Mini TV Review 

 

Credit: Pixabay.com

For the first time in my life, I watched the very first episode of Amazon’s The Man In the High Castle a couple nights ago. It was really neat. The series is based on Philip K. Dick’s novel of the same name. It’s set in an alternative 1960s, after Nazi Germany and Japan won the second world war. It has plenty of suspense and great characters that you can actually sympathize with, unlike too many of these overly typical or stale TV characters in speculative programs today. Those seem to be based on some Hollywood violence exploitation action hero template. But not the characters in High Castle. This series’ characters are life-like and at least show potential to love humanity rather than just their own motives. Even the Axis Power characters show some of this potential as brutal as they are, a brutality that gives viewers the sense of just how horrible fascism can be. That level of realism can even serve as a warning for our own times.

Episode one of High Castle can be watched for free on Amazon’s YouTube channel.  If you are new to this series like me (I haven’t even read the book yet, as much of a Philip K. Dick fan that I am) then I strongly suggest you check it out there as soon as possible. It can disappear anytime (as with many YouTube videos).

Credit: Pixabay.com

Memorial Day Weekend Catch-Up

I’ve been trying to catch up with my fiction projects and even though I’ve been making some progress it’s not as much as I’d like. I’m going to try to get some more work done on them through this three day weekend since it will give me more time to get caught up. I hope to have more progress to report by next week. Enjoy the rest of the Memorial Day weekend.

Until next time . . .  

History and Horror of Sci Fi, and the Return of Intergalactic Expo

Credit: Pixabay.com

It’s that time of year again for Intergalactic Expo, one of Sacramento’s biggest local sci fi cons. I was trying to rent table space there to sell my books but unfortunately it didn’t work out, mostly due to pricing and lack of space. Let alone lack of tables. I told the facilitators of the con that I would be willing to bring my own blanket and lay it out on the floor or lawn somewhere along with my merchandise like they do at middle eastern and North African bazaars but they said it would demean the con’s reputation. Good grief! It’s a sci fi con, anything should go! Well okay, almost anything. They can’t have real light saber duels or somebody could get hurt, not to mention that there probably isn’t a way to make real light sabers yet. So, Star Wars fans, you’ll have to settle for glass and plastic ones. I just thought my suggestion of the blanket would add to the exoticism of the con’s theme.

So you won’t see me there. Or at least not as presenting anything. Feel free to come up and talk sci fi/fantasy and writing if you see me walking around. It starts Sunday 21 May at 10 A.M. and goes on til 6 in the evening in. See the above link for more details. The author who is scheduled to be featured there is Davidson Haworth. He’s a historical fantasy writer said to be “the first writer to reinvent book tours byconducting his signings at pop culture conventions.” 

Intergalactic Expo started back in 2013 as May the Fourth Be With You, which was mostly a weekend Star Wars con. But ever since the fourth of the month moved away from the weekend, starting in May 2015, it’s been renamed “Intergalactic Expo” and caters to all things sci fi. However, one of the things I’ll miss this year are its speculative genre panels. Last year they had two really great panels: one on the history of science fiction and the other on defining steampunk. I wrote about the former in an article at Examiner.com and the latter here at the Fantastic Site. If you missed the article presented here then you can read it by going to the above link. If you never got a chance to read the article presented at Examiner.com then you’ll never get that chance again. Examiner.com was sadly shut down only a month or so after I published that one. But don’t despair! I have the honour of presenting it to you in its original format right here!

Daniel Batt talks about the horror of sci fi at Intergalactic Expo (from 20 May 2016)

Many argue that “Star Wars” isn’t science fiction for the reason that the science isn’t believable unlike in a movie such as “The Martian”. Animals such as Banthas and Tauntauns on planets “in a galaxy far, far away” just aren’t as plausible as absence of life on Mars in our own solar system. In the same way people have argued what science fiction is, they have argued when it began. But author J. Daniel Batt’s (pronounced ‘bot’s’ as in robot!) showed a very open mind to both the genre’s definition and history in his panel, “The History of Science Fiction”, held in the City Hall Council Chambers at the annual Intergalactic Expo in West Sacramento last Sunday. He even said some argue that the genre goes as far back as primitive man. The reason for this is, he explained, that, like today’s science fiction, the stories primitive societies told speculated what existed beyond their own surroundings. While the beyond for them may not have been other planets or future tech but a more nearby unexplored region such as a dark forest or valley, a primal emotion that these stories provoked was fear. Because of this, Batt said that science fiction and horror are very close to each other. Sci fi has often been a mixed genre with that of horror at least since the 18^th century

Out of the ancient tales of underworld monsters and evil spirits evolved many of today’s terrors in sci fi. Horror in sci fi goes at least as far back as Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein”. After all, it was a scientist who created the monster that went on a murderous rampage. In the 1950s, the sci fi horror mix was inspired by fear of the atom bomb. This spawned movies and pulp fiction stories about monsters from forbidden regions of the world such as the ocean depths and subterranean environments where the effects of atomic energy created over-grown creatures such as lizards, spiders and insects.

But the genre in the ‘50s did not remain earthbound. The concern about atomic energy along with the space race also brought stories of hostile, god-like as well as demonic-looking aliens from the dark abysses of space. During that period, movies such as “20 Million Miles to Earth”, “It Came From Beneath the Sea”, and “Tarantula” terrified audiences in theaters. In the ‘60s movies about alien vampires and other scientifically explainable living dead creatures became popular. The ‘70s saw the rise in popularity of movies involving parasitical monsters like the one in “Alien”.

We need to remember that much of the zombie craze in today’s films, TV and books started with movies like 1968’s “Night of the Living Dead”. This movie was one of the earliest to replace magic with science as the source of zombie uprisings. Since then, zombies have been one of the biggest icons of science fiction-horror and have become even more so since the premier of “The Walking Dead” TV series in 2010. “Thanks in no small part to [the] show’s massive across-the-board popularity, zombies have now thoroughly infected and colonized mainstream pop culture”, says Joshua Rothkopf in a “Rolling Stone” article. They couldn’t have “infected and colonize” sci fi any less!

As robots, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality become less science fiction and more science fact, the fears behind scientific-horror stories of all mediums are far from being snuffed out. If anything, they will be enhanced and create more terrifying stories as other technological innovations and scientific discoveries are made. Each new discovery in science and technology brings some degree of fear, because--like with the dark forests that surrounded primitive societies, like with the unexplored reaches of space that we now know surrounds our solar system--there will be some degree of the unknown. As it is human nature to fear the unknown, it’s also human nature to question out of curiosity what lies beyond. Science does this latter to begin with. So there will continue to be science and new technology to make more horror in science fiction.

Project Status

Besides being behind in book tours, I’m still behind in “Circa Sixty Years Dead”’s [link] print edition (which I would need a copy to present at a book tour). My day job doesn’t allow me the amount of time I’d like to have to work on it and so I’ve only been giving it one or two hours a week. Plus I’m writing an article about sci fi/fantasy books and television for an online magazine. I can’t tell you the article’s specifics at this time but I’ll definitely let you know and link to it when its published.

I’ll have more about Intergalactic Expo and “Circa Sixty Years” here next week.

Until then . . .  

Free Comic Book Day and ‘Circa’ Print Edition Update

Credit: Pixabay.com

This Saturday I have to find a way to squeese in my writing projects so I can celebrate Free Comic Book Day. So if you’re shocked to see this post out earlier than usual, that’s why.

Taking Time Out for Free Comic Book Day

Credit: Pixabay.com

Is an author being undisciplined by taking out valuable writing time to hit the comic book shops to celebrate a relatively new holiday like Free Comic Book Day (which debuted in 2002)? Not if comics influenced his/her writing. After all, comic books are a form of literature and while they are not a substitute for prose, they are still a form of story-telling paired with art making it one of the most distinctive forms of pop art of the 20^th century and beyond. This is a fact that is being accepted more each year since many of the most renowned science fiction and fantasy authors have written comic books along side their prose fiction. Some of these authors are ones such as Neil Gaiman, Margaret Atwood, and Harlan Ellison.

If you’ve never been to a Free Comic Book Day event then check out the list of links below that serve as guides. These include Free Comic Book Day’s official page and locator tool that will help you find comic stores in your area that are celebrating the day. Another link is to national news radio NPR which also puts out a guide for the holiday. NPR covers many significantly world-impacting issues from presidential elections and foreign affairs to sciences and the arts. So there’s another example of how the comic book medium is being taken more seriously!

     Free Comic Book Day Resources

        FreeComic Book Day Website 

        FreeComic Book Day Store Locator 

        “AGuide to Free Comic Book Day 2017” 

        “Allthe Comics You Need to Check Out This Free Comic Book Day” 

And if you’re in the Sacramento area, then check out two of Sacramento’s best comic shops: Empire comics Vault, and Comics and Collectibles (those are only two of the best!). They’re both celebrating the holiday by featuring live appearances of some of the finest comic book writers and artists in the area such as Chris Wisnia, Kepi Ghoulie (former musician of the now broken up Groovy Ghoulies punk band), Kyrun Silva and even nationwide artist Eric Nguyen of Marvel’s Old Man Logan!

Credit: Pixabay.com

‘Circa’ Print Edition Update

I have my pages set up for ads in the print edition of “Circa Sixty YearsDead”. I also put in the header information (author’s name and book title) on each page of the body text. Now I just need to insert the ads themselves, including their illustrations, and see about converting the manuscript to HTML so it will upload easily to Amazon. I’m hoping I can get that done by next week. So be sure to tune in here next time for more news on that.

Until then . . .

Lightning News Flashes: Sci fi, Fantasy & Racism; World-building ‘The Circle’

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to get together a bigger story for this week’s post like I had hoped. So here are some more lightning news flashes, or lightning flash non-fiction, with links to the full stories. These stories cover race issues in sci fi and fantasy pop culture, and the world-building behind The Circle. Then comes news of the blogger’s current projects.

Star Trek Licence Plate Removed Due to Racist Connotation 

During the week, a man in Canada was forced by policy to turn in his Star Trek- themed license plate due to “politically incorrect” language. The message on the licence plate unintentionally conveyed reference to a racist method of assimilating the indigenous population of Canada to white culture. However, it was actually referring to Star Trek (post-original series) episodes involving the alien and villainous Borgs’ attempts to assimilate other races.

ReplacingLovecraft’s Image in the World Fantasy Award 

The World Fantasy Award committee introduced a new trophy that replaces the traditional one that had bore H.P. Lovecraft’s image. The new award depicts a gnarled tree overlapping a full moon. The old award became objectionable due to Lovecraft’s racist beliefs conveyed in many of his writings. While Lovecraft wrote some of the greatest horror and sci fi stories of the 20^th century, his outspoken racism gave him a bad image to many minorities of colour and people of Semitic background.

World-building for The Circle 

On this weekend of its release, io9.com talks about how The Circle’s director dealt with the challenges of world-building for the movie, that world being a near future Earth dominated by an internet empire that basically plays Big Brother. It’s not quite Google but it’s definitely a response to Google’s dominance in the internet industry.

“Circa Sixty Years Dead” Update

I just figured out how I’m going to insert the images of ads into the manuscript template so I can meet Amazon’s 24-page minimum for the print edition of “Circa Sixty YearsDead”. Instead of using rich text format, I’ll use HTML format. HTML is a language typically used for making web pages and because of that it can convey images unlike most document file formats. Therefore it is more easily convertible to self-publishing platforms such as Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing.

So what do you think is the line between sci fi/fantasy fandom and racism? When it comes to those genius speculative lit authors who are also bigots, can we separate the author from their creation in order to admire their work, or is admiring the one admiring the other? Feel free to leave your comments in the box below. And no, these questions do not exempt anybody from the blog’s anti-discrimination/anti-racist policy; anybody leaving racist or other discriminatory remarks will be blocked.

See you next time.

Credit: Pixabay.com

Lightning Flash Non-Fiction: Writing; Dr. Who & March for Science; American Gods; YouTube Find

Credit: Pixabay.com

I was desperately and futilely looking for a topic for this evening’s post but couldn’t think of anything. So I decided to go with news bits or, what I like to call, lightning flash non-fiction (or even Lightning News Flashes). I call them that because they are very brief news flashes. Although I don’t believe in depending on a brief news story over full coverage of an event, both myself and you readers out there are short on time and I’m not a full-time news journalist. So I don’t rob you of the full story like too many so-called news outlets do just to attract an audience to make profit, I put the link to the full, or at least fuller, story in each flash. Just click on the link and you are there in a, uh, flash (provided you don’t have a slow internet connection). And so here they are:

Writing Project Updates: I finally finished copying and pasting the text from my manuscript of “Circa Sixty Years Dead” to the template for the print edition.  However, in order to meet Amazon’s 24-page minimum, I now need to insert some ads of my past work. Also, last night, I reached just over 29,000 words of a 30,000-word goal writing my first novella! That is, my first that I haven’t abandoned.

Doctor Who Joins theMarch for Science: Doctor Who actor Peter Capaldi, who currently plays the series’ title character, participated in this weekend’s March for Science, according to io9.com. The March is a global movement against the Trump administration’s denial of climate change.

American GodsTV Premiere and Comic Release: This TV series based on Neil Gaiman’s best-selling book starts April 30^th! Sadly, yours truly’s cable doesn’t get Starz, the network that will be airing the series. He’ll have to wait until some generous patron donates a copy of the series to his local library. Or, if it’s really as good as they anticipate, just buy it on DVD. Also, an American Gods comic book is already out.

YouTube Sci Fi-nd: Yours truly was searching YouTube for a vintage Saturday Morning show to watch this morning (because he hates the majority of today’s kids programming since it seems to not really be for kids). And in his cyber video quest he found Big Foot and Wild Boy. This half-hour sci fi series was part of the Krofft Supershow of the ‘70s when glitter rock (a.k.a. glam rock), disco and Bigfoot were at their most high. Yes, it’s corny, but a good B-rated kind of corny.  

Part One of a Two Part Debut episode of  the 1970s' Bigfoot and Wild Boy

And so there’s your pop culture news in lightning flashes. Tune in next week for, hopefully, a bigger story of what’s going on in the writing world of sci fi and fantasy.

Until then . . .