Geekomancer Under Glass – Marvel’s Transmedia Gambit
(No, not that Gambit, Shaun :P.) Spoilers for Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD and Captain America: The Winter Soldier ahead.) When Marvel’s Agents of SHIELD was announced, there was excitement, there was wariness, and everything in-between. An ongoing TV show as a tie-in to a powerful superhero franchise? This was something new, something different. There have been TV->film->TV movements, from La Femme Nikita to Star Trek, Star Wars, and more. The Matrix universe delved deep into transmedia storytelling, with animated shorts, video games, and comics. But Agents of SHIELD was something different — clearly designed as a bridge between movies, the show started weak. Really weak. The pilot episode showed some promise, with Clark Gregg as a compelling lead and Mike Peterson giving a voice to an interesting thematic question (is the American Dream a lie?).
My Superpower: Gregory A. Wilson
My Superpower is a regular guest column on the Skiffy and Fanty blog where authors and creators tell us about one weird skill, neat trick, highly specialized cybernetic upgrade, or other superpower they have, and how it helped (or hindered!) their creative process as they built their project. Today we welcome Gregory A. Wilson to talk about his paternal hilarity. —————————————————— A quick perusal of previous My Superpower entries on Skiffy and Fanty reveals one essential truth: like rappers, for whom every other rapper is a sucker MC afraid to step to the mic and face the miraculous madness (I’m patenting that, by the way — it’s got just enough street cred to work), many contributors to this guest column are anxious to claim that their superpowers are more badass than everyone else’s — even when they involve creating apparently self-deprecating yet still awesome powers like (I quote) “a Non-Event Sphere” where nothing happens, or (again I quote) being “selectively stupid.” So I wish to go on the record and say, right at the outset, that my particular superpower is not likely to trump anyone else’s. You may well have this superpower yourself, and it may even be more powerful than mine. I may be the sucker MC (I’m certainly afraid of the miraculous madness). It’s not broadly applicable or particularly useful outside of one specific context. But within that context, my superpower is completely MC-style legit. I am funny as hell. To my six year old.
189. Our Favorite Things from 2013 (A Roundtable Discussion)
http://media.blubrry.com/skiffyandfanty/dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/archive.org/download/SandFEpisode189OurFavoriteThingsFrom2013/SandF%20–%20Episode%20189%20–%20Our%20Favorite%20Things%20from%202013.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Android | iHeartRadio | Podchaser | Podcast Index | Email | TuneIn | Deezer | RSSBooks, movies, TV, and more, oh my! In a fit of profound genius, most of the crew got together to discuss all the lovely stuff they read, viewed, and experienced in 2013. We hope you enjoy the episode! Note: If you have iTunes and like this show, please give us a review on our iTunes page, or feel free to email us with your thoughts about the show! Here’s the episode (show notes are below): Episode 189 — Download (MP3) Show Notes (all the things we mentioned):
The World SF Tour: A Comics and Graphic Novel Reading List?
Since I’ve been the one blogging about comics here (Mike Underwood doesn’t count), I figured I could do something special for the World SF Tour: read more SF/Fish work by creators from elsewhere. I already read tons of Marvel titles, with a few indies and DC titles tossed in, but most of the folks behind those works are from the U.S. So I went a-googling for works by people from elsewhere…and didn’t come up with much at all (a few things here or there). Short of searching every single country on Earth, I haven’t the foggiest where to find new or upcoming comics by people from outside the U.S. in English (translated or otherwise). The only exception is Japan, whose comics industry is so large that there are entire magazines dedicated to discussing it (manga rules, by the way). This is where the Internet comes in. I’m interested in reviewing or discussing SF/Fish comics by creators from all over the world, published whenever (slight preference for newer-ish works). And if you have a way to find this stuff OR you’ve got suggestions OR you can share this with folks who might have some information, I’d appreciate the help. So…what should I be reading?
Geekomancer Under Glass – 2014 in Geekdom
Happy New Year! Mike Underwood again with some thoughts on what lies ahead for Geekdom in 2014. There’s far more than I could possibly cover here, but please find below a few of the bits of Geekdom I’m most excited for in the first part of 2014. Return of new TV Three new SF/F series have caught my interest this season, which is more than I might have expected. I’ve talked about them before, but I’ll go over each, in brief, with my hopes for the back half of the season.
Confessions of a Comics Junkie: Identity, Obsessions, and Everything
I buy quite a lot of comics — probably not as many as some, but enough that my collection has started to get a little overwhelming. There are currently two long boxes of comics in my closet. Full. And on top of those long boxes are two stacks of comics that are likely to fill a third long box. That’s a lot of comics to have collected in only a few months. Lucky for me, I am good at finding deals, and my local comic guy gives me a discount on new comics if I pre-order them.[1] On top of that, I easily read fifty or sixty comics a month when I’m busy. Right now, I’m 11 comics into Marvel’s The Ultimates, which I mostly read during the shortest third leg of my flight from Florida to California.[2][3] On a good month, I can go through a crossover event or two in a week — Flashpoint and Avengers vs. X-Men events took me less than a week each. [4] So not only am I buying the heck out of comics, I’m also reading them
