Archive | April, 2006

Black Hole

21. April 2006

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Not the graphic novel by Charles Burns but the astronomical feature which gets Stephen Hawking so excited – NASA has managed to create a mathematical script to describe how the gravitational waves from two merging black holes would look animated on a computer (previously the maths simply crashed the programmes). Scientific theory and science fiction [...]

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From off the streets of Cleveland

21. April 2006

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Hope Harvey Pekar doesn’t mind me using his catch-line! No, it isn’t American Splendor news – it is the news that Spider-Man 3 will be filming from today on the streets of Cleveland, with the local radio station WMIJ 105.7 getting into the spirit of things by using the Spidey theme by the punk gods [...]

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Author talks to author

20. April 2006

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Padraig over at Irish SF News directs my attention to the transcript of an interview between to excellent fantasy novelists as Juliet E McKenna interviews Susanna Clarke over at Fractal Matter. There are also some other damned interesting interviews available on the main page, including Colin Greenland and Mike Carey – well worth a visit.

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Respectable comics

20. April 2006

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Graphic novels and comics continue to become more respectable (but don’t expect me to wear an FPI tie when I write this!) as the Beat notes that the 27th Women Writers Conference this weekend at the University of Kentucky has a slot on Saturday’s itinerary entitled The Graphic Novel Quorum at 3pm, described on their [...]

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Initial D at Hong Kong

20. April 2006

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A live-action Chinese film based on the long-lived Manga racing car series Initial D (volume 22 has just been released) has picked up several nods at the Hong Kong Film Awards, according to the Beat. The manga movie adapatation picked up a Best New Performer award for Jay Chou (a singer from Taiwan apparently) and [...]

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Author mini-interview: Margo Lanagan

20. April 2006

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Joe: I’d like to welcome Margo Lanagan, one of the latest fine Australian authors to be published in the UK when Black Juice came out in February. Margo, it is unusual for a major publisher to introduce an author to a new market with a collection of short tales rather than a novel. Some people [...]

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Moving graphic novels

19. April 2006

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Visitors to the stand-alone graphic novels site may have noticed that large, cheery image of Captain Marvel (the Shazam variety, not the Marvel variety, if you see what I mean) on the top banner explaining that the site will soon be moving. The latest version of the FPI webstore now has all of the graphic [...]

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Stealth ads in comics

19. April 2006

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Cynical audience are well used to enduring product placement in television programmes and feature films. We’ve seen rather (in my view) vulgar and obvious corporate sponsorship in literature as well, pimping Bulgari jewellery by an author who should know better. So it shouldn’t be a great surprise that the advertisers want to use the medium [...]

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Dead by Dawn extra screenings

18. April 2006

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Just in from Adele, the driving force behind Dead by Dawn, Scotland’s major horror film festival: Dead by Dawn, Scotland’s International Horror Film Festival is hosting a second all-nighter on Saturday 22 April, in Cinema 2 to compensate the horror-hungry for the main event being sold out. Tickets priced £20 are on sale now and [...]

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Pilot of the future

18. April 2006

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Digital radio station BBC7 is repeating the first Dan Dare tale Voyage to Venus, which sees Dan and crew captured by the evil Mekon of Mekonta and his Treens while exploring Venus to see if crops could be grown there to feed the hungry Earth. Check out the Listen Again button on the left-hand side [...]

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Woman of Mass Destruction

18. April 2006

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The latest pre-orders for Image Comics’ July graphic novel releases are live on our webstore now. Among their latest crop is the first collection of the much-talked about comic series from Jimmie Robinson, Bomb Queen: Woman of Mass Destruction. I’ve had a look through some of the original issues and quite enjoyed this cheeky little [...]

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Hordes

18. April 2006

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My colleague Paul, our resident RPG fiend (who can always be distracted with a 12-sided dice) is tickled pink and even mauve over a new range of RPG goodies he has just added onto our webstore. Over to Paul: HORDES is the brand new game from Privateer Press, the same people who made the outstanding [...]

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VanderMeer International

18. April 2006

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As I enjoyed an ale break at Eastercon over the weekend I picked up one of the many fliers on the tables and blow me if the international VanderMeer label didn’t leap out at me. Strange, I thought Jeff and his other half were busy ‘sampling’ fine European ales that weekend (he said, putting it [...]

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More awards

18. April 2006

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It was a busy weekend for awards; in addition to the delightful anarchy of the BSFA awards ceremony at Eastercon, Cheryl at Emerald City reported that the Philip K Dick awards were announced (as Eastercon goers were busy sipping real ale and admiring the large number of pirates wandering the hotel). War Surf by M.M. [...]

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New Who takes the top spot

17. April 2006

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Hurrah – the first, cracking episode of the new Doctor Who season has claimed the top viewing spot for Saturday night, trouncing ITV’s screening of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by several million, with an unofficial audience of 8.3 million, which doesn’t include those who recorded it to watch later. I wonder if [...]

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