By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 5/18/2016
Author Cullen Bunn (Sinestro) has a few holes in his schedule thanks to his landmark title, Sinestro coming to an end along with his other DC work. While the writer moved onto X-Men as part of Marvel’s All-New, All-Different line of books, the author still has the time for a Battlestar Galactica ongoing at Dynamite […]
By: Carolyn Napolitano,
on 5/4/2015
May the Fourth be with you! Playing off a pun on one of the movie’s most famous quotes, May the 4th is the unofficial holiday in which Star Wars fans across the globe celebrate the beloved blockbuster series. The original Star Wars movie, now known as Star Wars IV: A New Hope, was released on 25 May 1977, but to those of us who waited in line after line to see it again and again in theaters, it will always be just Star Wars.
The post May the Fourth be with you! appeared first on OUPblog.
By: Heidi MacDonald,
on 10/6/2014
Battlestar Galactica art edition? Why yes, when Walt Simonson drew it. Dynamite is adding to its oversized Art Editions line with Simonson’s BSG book, Jose Gonzalez’ Vampirella and Marvel’s John Carter Warlord of Mars series which had art by Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Dave Cockrum and more. Tasty!
Dynamite Entertainment proudly announces the expansion of their Dynamite Art Edition line to include three new high-end collections that meticulously reproduce the actual storyboard and cover artwork from classic 1970s comic books. Jose Gonzalez’s Vampirella Art Edition and Walter Simonson’s Battlestar Galactica Art Edition celebrate the seminal work of two master storytellers, while the Edgar Rice Burroughs’ John Carter: Warlord of Mars – The Marvel Years Art Edition showcases the artistry of numerous industry legends, including Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino, Dave Cockrum, and many more. Scanned in high-resolution color and printed at the original size of the artwork, these gorgeous hardcover collections preserve every detail of the prestigious artists’ meticulous skill and hard work.
The process of creating each oversized Art Edition format involves high-resolution color scanning of original storyboard artwork, capturing the look of the artwork as originally illustrated, with all blue lines, corrections, pasted letters, editorial notes, and other distinctive creative elements intact. Each scan is then printed on heavy stock paper to give readers the most realistic experience of what it would be like to hold actual storyboard pages.
Jose Gonzalez’s Vampirella Art Edition honors an illustrator whose mesmerizing and macabre interpretation of the raven-haired heroine established him – in many readers’ minds – as the definitive Vampirella artist. Introducing an unparalleled level of sophistication to the visual storytelling of Warren Publishing’sVampirella Magazine in the 1970s, Gonzalez transformed the one-time horror hostess into a layered protagonist and industry icon. Longtime fans will thrill to see his mesmerizing and macabre artwork in the Art Edition’s high-quality reproductions, representing ten complete stories selected from throughout his entire body of Vampirella work, including “Resurrection of Papa Voudou” (as written by Archie Goodwin), “The Blood Queen of Bayou Parish” (Steve Englehart), “An Eye for an Eye” (Bill DuBay), “Spawn of the Star Beast” (Rich Margopoulos), and more.
“For me, the initial exposure to Jose Gonzalez’s lush artwork was eye opening. The reproduction of the original stories in black and white allowed for a subtlety which was never approached in four color comics. I was lucky enough to be able to acquire a number of stories from the original series over the years. I am looking forward to Dynamite Entertainment’s efforts to expose new readers to the artwork that I love and to give longtime fans access to the work as it was originally created.” Steven Morger of Big Wow Art.
Walter Simonson is one of the most prolific artists ever to work in the comic book medium, a universally admired innovator whose work – whether it be onManhunter, The Fantastic Four, The Mighty Thor, Jack Kirby’s Fourth World, the list goes on – leaves a mark in the hearts and minds of readers for years afterwards. Walter Simonson’s Battlestar Galactica Art Edition commemorates the master draftsman’s senses-shattering work on the Battlestar Galactica comic book series, published by Marvel Comics from 1979 to 1981. Truly, the adventures of brash pilots Apollo and Starbuck were never so epic as they were under Simonson’s skillful hand, as demonstrated in the scanned storyboard art of the complete stories contained therein. While Simonson himself assumes writing chores in many of the Art Edition contents, contributing writers also include Steven Grant, Roger McKenzie, and Bill Mantlo.
“Marvel’s Battlestar Galactica comic will always hold a special place in my heart. I’d been penciling the series for a year in the late 1970s when I was given the opportunity to write a few issues. It was my first professional writing gig, and I loved it. I wrote four of the title’s last five issues. I knew the characters as they had developed in the comic quite well, and as a fledgling writer, I had no idea what I was doing, and consequently, no fear. I got reference from every Galactica book or magazine I could find at the time, and I studied video tapes of the episodes my pal, Allen Milgrom, had made on what have been one of the earliest home video tape machine. The late Archie Goodwin, one of the finest writers and editors the comics business has ever seen as well as a friend, was very complimentary about the writing and offered me my next writing gig when Galactica wrapped. My career as a writer/artist in comics had been launched, thanks in large part to Adama, Apollo, Starbuck, and the rest of the doughty crew of the Battlestar Galactica and their bitter enemies, the Cylons. Thanks, guys. I don’t know that I could have done it without you.” States Artist (and writer on final issues) Walter Simonson
The John Carter: Warlord of Mars – The Marvel Years Art Edition is the product of a recent and comprehensive licensing agreement between Dynamite Entertainment and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc., a fruitful arrangement that opens the vaults of the Burroughs library for the enjoyment of science fiction and fantasy fans everywhere. This Art Edition collects high-end reproductions of stellar artwork from a huge assembly of industry pioneers, including Gil Kane, Rudy Nebres, Bernie Wrightson, Alan Weiss, Ernie Chan, Sal Buscema, Larry Hama, Ernie Colon, Carmine Infantino, Dave Cockrum, Alex Nino, George Perez, John Byrne, Bob McCleod, Ricardo Villagran, and Mike Vosburg. The cover artwork and interior pages are drawn from throughout the 1977-1979 run of John Carter: Warlord of Mars originally published by Marvel Comics.
“We are very pleased that our new licensing agreement with Dynamite Entertainment not only creates a fully new John Carter: Warlord of Mars comic book line, but also encompasses the reproduction of the rich, vibrant art of earlier periods by many masters of the medium”, said James Sullos, President of Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. “These are some of the legendary artists who contributed so much to comic art. I know that fans everywhere will want to add this beautiful edition to their collections”.
“I was thrilled to hear that Dynamite is doing a John Carter of Mars art edition. I have a great fondness for the original novels and the Marvel comic book series was released shortly after I had finished reading the books. The series boasted work by some of the true giants in the industry and seeing the original art at its full size will be such a treat. I acquired my first John Carter original art page more than 30 years ago and continue to collect to this day. I am happy to be sharing art from my collection and I am also looking forward to seeing all of the other contributions.” Tom Fleming of Fanfare.
“Words cannot begin to express how delighted I am that we’re able to announce the expansion of our Art Edition Program. With timeless classics like Dynamite’s Vampirella, with the first series focusing on incredibly talented artists, with the first being Jose Gonzalez, to one of my heroes, Walter Simonson on one of his earliest works, Battlestar Galactica, where you can see he was always destined to be one of the greats. Add to that Gil Kane, Carmine Infantino and many other great artists in the Warlord Of Mars Marvel Years Art Edition,” States Dynamite CEO/Publisher Nick Barrucci. “These are great high end collectibles for fans, and just the tip of the iceberg for what we have in store for 2015!”The Dynamite Art Editions are solicited for retailer orders in Diamond Comic Distributors’ Previews catalog, the premiere source of merchandise for the comic book specialty market. Comic book fans are encouraged to place preorders through their local comic book retailers or online booksellers.
By: Lauren,
on 6/23/2011
I love bullshit.
Perhaps I should clarify. It’s not pure, unadulterated bullshit I enjoy (or even the hard-to-find alternative, adulterated bullshit). I agree with the great George Carlin, who said, “It’s all bullshit, and it’s bad for ya.” Hard to argue with that.
What I love is the enormous lexicon of words for bullshit and nonsense. Studies show they are all wonderful words. Piffle! Tommyrot! Poppycock! Truthiness! Balderdash! Rot! Crapola! Hogwash! Intellectual black holes! Using a vivid, meaty word like gobbledygook almost makes it worth dealing with gobbledygook itself. A few years ago in this very blog, I looked at some of these words.
Three years later, I’m older, wiser, and no less enamored of BS and all BS-like terms. This time, instead of looking at the origin stories of terms you already know, I’m going to share some terms I bet you don’t know: bullshit obscurities, some of which I’d never have found without the help of newly published sources, like Green’s Dictionary of Slang, the magnificent work of Mr. Slang, Jonathon Green. I implore you: give these words a home in your doomsday prophesies and cupcake recipes. They should be useful. You can never, ever have enough words for bullshit.
flummadiddle
Here’s a spin on flummery that would make Ned Flanders proud. Like flummery, flummadiddle (also spelled flummerdiddle and flummydiddle) has been used to mean either horsefeathers or something that would taste just as awful, as in this 1872 OED example: “Flummadiddle consists of stale bread, pork-fat, molasses, cinnamon, allspice, [etc.]; by the aid of these materials a kind of mush is made, which is baked in the oven and brought to the table hot and brown.” Mmm, mush. No wonder this diddly-fied version of flummery works so well when describing mushy thoughts and words, as in this 1854 use: “What does she want of any more flummerdiddle notions?” Bonus BS: this word is related to fadoodle and fairydiddle.
arkymalarky
One of my top five favorite BS words has always been malarkey, so I had at least two wordgasms when I found this variation in Green’s. Green spots two uses from the 1930’s and 40’s, both by Carl Sandberg, so this term might be an invention of his. Surely it deserves broader use, partly because it has the reduplication that makes jibber-jabber, mumbo-jumbo, and pishery-pashery such fitting words for fiddle-faddle. Yet another BS-y reduplicative term has a Shakespearian résumé: skimble-skamble appeared in Henry IV: “Such a deale of skimble scamble stuffe, As puts me from my faith.”
ackamarackus
Green notes that arkymalarky may be related to ackamarackus, which the OED defines as “Something regarded as pretentious nonsense; something intended to deceive; humbug.” Apparently, giving someone the old ackamarackus is like giving them the old okey-doke: a maneuver perfected by politicians and other flim-flammers.
donkey dust
This Massachusetts term—recorded in t
By: Michelle,
on 2/1/2011
127 years ago today the Oxford English Dictionary published its first volume (A to ANT), so I thought I’d pay tribute with the story of how I recently learned the word “shibboleth”:
While rubbing elbows with fancy people at the recent OED re-launch party, I had the chance to meet contributors Matt Kohl and Katherine Connor Martin. Naturally the topic of conversation came to words, and I brought up one I had been using a lot lately: frak (the fictional version of “fuck” on Battlestar Galactica). I explained that I just started watching the show (better late than never, no?) and had been testing “frak” out in conversation to pick up other fans. Matt said, oh that’s a “shibboleth.”
A whateth? According to the OED:
The Hebrew word used by Jephthah as a test-word by which to distinguish the fleeing Ephraimites (who could not pronounce the sh) from his own men the Gileadites (Judges xii. 4–6).
Matt told me that he had first heard the word on The West Wing. Martin Sheen sums it up nicely: a password. A more recent sense in the OED defines shibboleth as:
A catchword or formula adopted by a party or sect, by which their adherents or followers may be discerned, or those not their followers may be excluded.
The sect, in my case, is Battlestar enthusiasts. I e-mailed Katherine later for more examples. She said:
I think politics affords some good examples. The pro-life movement is distinguishable by its use of certain buzz-words (abortionist, abortion-doctor, etc.), and the pro-choice movement by terms like “anti-choice”. Republicans use the word “democrat” as an adjective, while Democrats use the adjective “democratic”. If you ever hear someone talk about the “Democrat Party” on cable TV, you can be sure s/he is a conservative.
Shibboleth, it’s frakking everywhere!
(Thank you to Matt and Katherine for your countless hours spent keeping the OED alive, and for helping me realize the educational value of my addiction.)
"Let's get he frak outta here!" -Kara Thrace, S4E7
By: Nathan Bransford,
on 10/26/2010
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By: Aaron Starmer,
on 5/17/2010
The latest season of Lost premiered on February 2nd, aka Groundhog Day. It was a joke, a cheeky clue for the audience. Because they introduced a major plot device in the premiere. It’s come to be known as the “flash-sideways” narrative and it’s essentially a big “what-if.” What if the characters had a chance to do it all over again? What if the circumstances were different – no island, no smoke monster, no Geronimo Jackson spinning on the turntable? What would have happened to these poorly reared, trigger-happy pawns of science and faith? The answer seems to be that their pesky destinies would have eventually tracked them down anyway. In a week, the series will come to a close, and hopefully we’ll have a better idea about what exactly is at play. But if Lost peddles anything, it peddles ambiguity. And the faithful aren’t shy about hitting the bulletin boards to shout their opinions and theories. The internet might bust a spring or two in the hours after the finale.
I can say with a certain amount of confidence that most people will not be discussing Groundhog Day. The wink-wink-nudge-nudge premier date will be just another piece of Lost trivia, no more significant than the Hurley Bird. The date was a reference to the movie, of course, and on the surface it doesn’t seem to be much more than that. We’ve all seen the movie. A cynical weatherman played by Bill Murray lives the same day over again and again, until he finally gets it right and becomes a man who can love and play the piano.
I remember when Groundhog Day came out. It was a hit, though it barely beat forgettable fare like Dave and Cool Runnings at the box office. Critics thought it was enjoyable and clever, though they hardly thought it was earth-shattering. A better than average comedy – not much more. Over 15 years later, Groundhog Day has become not just a favorite of the revisionist cineast, but a genuine classic. The Writer’s Guild considers it the 27th greatest screenplay ever written. The New York Times even put it in a list of the Ten Best American Movies. Of the 1990s? No. Of all time! Say what you will about the existential implications of the film, about searching for meaning in our post-9/11 world. It makes for a good term paper, but I don’t think that’s the reason the film has gained such a following of late. The reason is TBS.
If you turned to the cable station TBS in the late 90’s and early 00’s, it’s likely you would have seen Groundhog Day on more than a few occasions. TBS syndicated it and played the grooves off the thing. Over time, the film worked its way into the DNA of many a channel surfer. The more familiar you became with it, the more you enjoyed it, because it was offering you the experience of its main character. You were living the film over again and again. You began to anticipate plot points (Ned Ryerson punch in 3, 2…), and the exact words and inflections of the dialogue (“Too early for flapjacks?” ”
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By: Lizzy Burns,
on 4/20/2010
Battlestar Galactica
Original series show on Syfy.
As I explained back in 2005, I watched the original Battlestar Galactica and was highly skeptical of the remake. But since I always fall for a good story, I fell for Battlestar Galactica. Even if they did make Starbuck a girl. They took all the best about the original series, and dirtied it up, made it darker, made it real, made it classic.
Here is the promo that convinced me to give the new Battlestar a chance:
In a nutshell, the plot: The Twelve Colonies (twelve planets) created a robot life form called Cylons, who, rather than be mindless servants, rebelled against their human creators in a violent war that ended in a truce. Forty years later the Cylons end the truce with a devastating attack on the Twelve Colonies. Less than fifty thousand humans survive in a handful of space ships; they are fleeing the Cylons and looking for a refuge and new home. Oh, and another thing? The Cylons have been evolving and inventing (or reinventing?) themselves. They now look like humans. The person next to you? Could be a Cylon. Who wants to kill you. And I have to add... because it was in the original and the sequel... the myth-planet they are looking for, as their hope and salvation and sanctuary is called... Earth.
The Good: So, right there, what more do you want? We're talking classic survivalist, people! Imagine you're on the bus to work and BAM that bus aka space ship turns out to be your new home as you're fleeing murderous skinjob Cylons. And the only clothes you have? The suit you're wearing.
From the start, what made this miniseries, and then television series, terrific was nuanced, in depth characters who made you go "wow." Forget the special effects and the "it's kinda like our world only not" setting. Forget saying "frak" instead of something else. Forget the oddly cut papers.
Instead -- the characters. Bill Adama, his estranged son Lee, gruff Tigh, suddenly President Roslyn. For example, Roslyn begins as a Secretary of Education who becomes President because no one is left. Adama is the defacto head of the military. What kind of community, what kind of government, should they have? Democracy? Military rule? What steps will these people take to ensure both the survival of civilization and of people? These were people you cheered and yelled at, wanted to hug or throw across the room.
As a viewer, you cared. While I love me my teen drama, as you can see from yesterday's entry on My So-Called Life, I also love show
By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 2/19/2009
Some of my recent online reading.Hal Duncan writes about Battlestar Galactica, and, as on most topics, does so intelligently, forcefully, and at great length. Lots of interesting ideas here: some more exploration of what it means that the show's premise maps more accurately to the Holocaust than to 9/11 (I hadn't, for example, thought of Gaeta as embodying the cliché of the victim made monstrous
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 2/14/2009
What is it with TV scheduling? It was bad enough that something like half of the shows I follow air new episodes on Monday, but now Friday's become a hot spot as well. On the other hand, maybe it was a good idea to suddenly supersize the quantity of shows I watch on this night, because quality-wise nobody brought their A-game this week.Battlestar Galactica, "No Exit": This episode was trying to
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 2/12/2009
Here's a hypothetical scenario for you: imagine that several years after the September 11th attacks there was a violent split in Al Qaeda, and some of its top members had been forced to flee for their lives. Imagine that in their desperation, they turned to the US, offering crucial intelligence in exchange for, not asylum, not immunity from prosecution, not the right to live and move freely in
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 7/30/2008
Now that Comic-Con is over, the folks at io9 can get back to their regularly scheduled mix of quirky science stories, film and TV news, off the wall lists (best TV robots! is actually a rather unremarkable example), and opinion pieces. I'm fond enough of io9. I wouldn't like it to be the only source for genre news and commentary around, and it's certainly not my first stop when looking for same
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 7/3/2008
I don't care. No, really, I just don't. Granted, my level of interest in Battlestar Galactica has plummeted over the last year and especially over its last half season (funny how that works. When the show was meeting my expectations in its first season, or falling tragically short of them in its second and third, I couldn't shut up about it, but now that I've come to expect mediocrity and
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 6/16/2008
Last year, when it was announced that Battlestar Galactica's fourth season would be its last, I responded to the show's producers saying that "This show was always meant to have a beginning, a middle and, finally, an end" by quipping "Good luck trying to cram all three into a single season." I wasn't expecting Ron Moore and his writers to take me up on the challenge. Alright, so that's
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 4/6/2008
I watched three major SF-related shows this weekend, and I was hoping to get a blog post out of at least one of them, but instead I find myself with very little to say. So, I'm going to smoosh all three reactions into a single catch-all post, and hope that there's something more substantial for me to write about in the pipeline. (That said, I'm anticipating a bit of quiet around these parts
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 3/27/2007
In the podcast for Battlestar Galactica's first season finale, "Kobol's Last Gleaming II", Ron Moore talks about his original concept for the season-ending cliffhanger (end of act 2 and beginning of act 3): [Baltar] comes into a room and he hears music and it's a recognizable Earth-tune ... It was Jimi Hendrix was playing, actually, and he goes, "God, I recognize that." And then somebody- or
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 3/22/2007
Bad news for people who still believe Battlestar Galactica's problems have anything to do with season length: SCI FI Channel has increased its episode order for the fourth season of Battlestar Galactica to 22 from the original 13, including a special two-hour extended episode that will air during the fourth quarter of this year and be released on DVD by Universal Studios Home Entertainment
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 3/7/2007
Monday was the busiest day in AtWQ's history. Nearly five times as many visitors as I get on a regular day visited this site, the overwhelming majority of them coming through web searches for some variant on the phrase 'starbuck dead,' and ending up at this post (lying, at the time of this entry's writing, in seventh place for that search string)--a year-old response to the second season episode
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 2/27/2007
I surprised myself by enjoying this week's Battlestar Galactica entry, "Dirty Hands." By the standards of television in general, the episode was no great shakes, but compared to the level that Galactica has been striking in recent weeks, especially in its 'issue' episodes, it was quite an improvement. It certainly helps that Aaron Douglas is one of the few younger cast members who can hold his
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By: Lizzy Burns,
on 1/28/2007
You scored as President Laura Roslin. You may be ill but you have a job to do. Fate has put you in a powerful position by accident, but it turns out you are damn good at it. You are no warrior, but in the political arena you are without peer.
President Laura Roslin | 69% | ||
Number 6 | 56% | ||
Capt. Lee Adama (Apollo) | 44% | ||
CPO Galen Tyrol | 38% | ||
Lt. Kara Thrace (Starbuck) | 38% | ||
Col. Saul Tigh | 38% | ||
Tom Zarek | 31% | ||
Dr Gaius Baltar | 31% | ||
Lt. Sharon Valerii (Boomer) | 31% | ||
Commander William Adama | 13% |
By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 1/18/2007
Over at Strange Horizons, Dan Hartland writes about Battlestar Galactica so I don't have to, and is, as usual, thoughtful and eloquent on the subject: Moore these days seems almost exclusively interested in the endpoint rather than the journey. So "Unfinished Business" needs to be a story about Apollo and Starbuck's relationship, and thus crafts an entirely unconvincing sequence of flashbacks to
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 1/1/2007
This online comic strip answers the question (honestly, I think 300 is a bit low for Starbuck). See also. (Via)
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By: Abigail Nusbaum,
on 11/12/2006
One of the problems with Battlestar Galactica's premise is that given the Cylons' opening gambit--the extermination of all but a tiny fragment of a civilization that once numbered in the billions--there was nothing, absolutely nothing, the humans could do that would measure up. Gina's mistreatment, all of the indignities visited on Sharon, Hera's kidnapping, Leoben's torture, the bombings on
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Jose Gonzalez work on Vampirella is one of the reasons I love that character. His art and Archie Goodwins scripts. I’ll probably buy that artist edition.