Tag Archives: Ralph Senensky

Pixel Scroll 11/6/25 He’s A Pixel Wizard, There Has To Be A Twist

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(1) MOST RECENT HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA. Chris Barkley’s daughter, Laura, and her family are back from Jamaica after riding out Hurricane Melissa – but not without further adventures, all of which made Cincinnati TV news: “Cincinnati family’s return from Jamaica delayed by deadly Louisville plane crash” at WCPO. Here is a photo of Laura and Dad taken at Chicon 8, the 2022 Worldcon. An excerpt from the news coverage follows.

Charlie, Laura and 5-year-old Navia Moorman were stranded in Jamaica for more than a week after Hurricane Melissa ravaged the island, leaving many roads blocked and the country’s two airports damaged.

They’ve made it back to their Westwood home after one final curveball they never could have seen coming.

The family learned while flying back into the United States through Atlanta on Tuesday afternoon that their connecting flight in Louisville wouldn’t be possible. Laura said she was watching election coverage when news of a UPS cargo plane crashing at Louisville’s Muhammad Ali International Airport flashed across her screen….

…The Moorman family was left in limbo in Atlanta as they tried to find an alternate route to get home…

…Charlie said eventually, Delta representatives were able to route them a flight directly into Cincinnati on Tuesday night, but they had to spend most of Wednesday driving to Louisville and back to recover the car they’d left there more than a week earlier.

“It was a wonderful moment to know that our car was ok, that it could be driven, that this final chapter was over. We can go home. We can be done with this trip,” Laura said.

When we talked with the family late Wednesday, they hadn’t even had a chance to unpack their luggage. Charlie told us they haven’t had time to process it all.

Laura said it was difficult to be a confident parent to a 5-year-old girl while being near so much catastrophe.

“Just knowing how much harm was actually done both in Montego Bay and, when we got back home in Louisville, that was very overwhelming,” Laura said….

Some of you may remember that Laura was one of the ushers (bringing the awards to recipients) at Chicon 2000’s Hugo Award Ceremony. (Mom and Dad were the Hotel Liaisons at Fairmont Hotel).

(2) GOLDSMITHS PRIZE 2025. The winner of The Goldsmiths Prize 2025 is C.D. Rose’s We Live Here Now, which was not one of the finalists of genre interest. The award was announced today. Goldsmiths University of London created the £10,000 award to recognize fiction that “breaks the mould or extends the possibilities of the novel form”. 

(3) TOMORROW PRIZE OPENS SUBMISSIONS. The Omega Sci-Fi Projects is taking submissions from LA County high school students for the 2026 Tomorrow Prize and Green Feather Award. The deadline is February 13, 2026.

We welcome your incredible submissions to Omega Sci-Fi Project, which invites Los Angeles County high school students to submit their short science fiction stories to The Tomorrow Prize & The Green Feather Award.

The Tomorrow Prize, encourages young writers to use sci-fi to explore the diverse issues humanity wrestles with, spark creative solutions, and unite the worlds of art and science.

The Green Feather Award, co-presented by the Nature Nexus Institute, highlights an environmentally focused sci-fi story. We are seeking stories that integrate creative solutions to the climate and biodiversity crises.

  • Selected finalists will be chosen to have their stories read in their honor by celebrity guests during the May 16th, 2026 Culminating Event.
  • First, Second, and Third place Tomorrow Prize winners will receive $250, $150, and $100 USD cash prizes.
  • The First place Tomorrow Prize winner will be published in L.A. Parent Magazine. 
  • The Green Feather Award is a special prize for an environmentally focused sci-fi story. The winner will receive $250 USD & online publication by the Nature Nexus Institute.

For more details see the Omega Sci-Fi Terms and Conditions 2025-2026 and the Omega Sci-Fi Submission Guidelines 2025-2026.

(4) SENENSKY Q&A ABOUT DIRECTING TREK. TV director Ralph Senensky, whose death was reported in yesterday’s Pixel Scroll (item #7), was interviewed by several podcasts about his work on Star Trek: The Original Series, as Juan Sanmiguel pointed out in comments.

Senensky was interviewed twice by the Inglorious Treksperts:

He also was interviewed on the Enterprise Incidents podcast. Senensky talked about six episodes he worked on:

(5) HOW BATMAN STAYED FROSTY. CrimeReads’ Olivia Rutigliano invites us to “Remember when Celebrated Film Director Otto Preminger Played Mr. Freeze?”

The thing about Batman is that it had a slate of unbelievable guest-stars that it stuck in goofy, funny, fully wild roles….

…But my favorite situation concerns the villain known as named Dr. Art Schivel/Mr. Freeze. Good ol’ Mr. Freeze, a scientist turned villain (aren’t they all?). In his introduction, he was played by George Sanders. George Sanders!!!! He’s a suave, authoritative Mr. Freeze with a German accent… (a bit of a damning quality in the 60s, no?). He’s cold-blooded, and not just literally… he kills innocent people!!…

…Sanders stopped playing Mr. Freeze after this double episode. And guess who took over the role after him?

Celebrated film director Otto Preminger. Yes, that’s right, three-time Academy Award nominee Otto Preminger, director of Laura and Anatomy of a Murder, among many other classics. (He did act occasionally… most memorably as a Nazi in Stalag 17.)…

(6) TODAY’S BIRTHDAY.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

November 6, 1914 — Jonathan Harris. (Died 2002).

Jonathan Harris was the ever not-to-be-trusted Doctor Zachary Smith, of course, on Lost in Space. But before we get to that role, we should mention several of his previous genre roles. 

Well, I would but it turns out that all he had was two minor roles on Twilight Zone. If Zorro is genre adjacent which is really stretching it, he was Don Carlos in Disney’s Zorro.

So, Doctor Zachary Smith. 

In the pilot, not seen by the general audience until the late Nineties, there was no Doctor Smith. The marooning of the Space Family Robinson and their spaceship, the Jupiter 2, came about as the result of a meteor storm. The staff came to feel that an antagonist was needed, and so certain scenes were re-filmed with Smith having snuck aboard, with his extra weight having thrown the delicately-balanced ship badly off course. 

An outright villain on a small craft was a bad story idea and Jonathan Harris very well knew that such a villain would not be tolerated or kept around for very long, even if he were not killed off. Fond of the role as written for him, not to mention staying as a cast member, he and the writing staff kept rewriting his story as the series went so he’d be much, less evil, more sympathetic and even comical. 

However, it is my opinion, and that of many reviewers, that this change resulted also in a change in the show, turning the series from a mostly SF series to more much lighter series, more comical in tone.

He remained typecast as a villain showing up as such as Mr. Piper on Land of the Giants, The Ambassador on Get Smart and the voice of Lucifer on the original Battlestar Galactica. He did play an occasional lighter role such as Johann Sebastian Monroe on Bewitched in the “Samantha on the Keyboard” episode.

Worth noting is he played Commander Isaac Gampu, the head of the Space Academy, on the children’s series of the same name. It was produced by Filmation and aired Saturday mornings on CBS for one season of fifteen episodes in 1977.

He did so many voices on so many animated shows that I couldn’t even begin to list them all here. It made up the bulk of the work that he did with A Bug’s Life, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, My Favorite Martian, Spider-Man and Toy Story 2, ones where I recognized his voice.

Without doubt, his best work was  Zachary Smith. A comical role that had sinister edge to it and I thought it worked really well within the constraints of the show.

(7) COMICS SECTION.

(8) 2000 AD ANNUAL. [Item by SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie.] After a gap of decades 2000AD brought back its Christmas Annual last year.  And it must have gone sufficiently well as they are doing it again this year.

I don’t know whether comic annuals are a thing in N. America as they are here in Brit Cit. The 2000 AD Annual 2026 will be out on November 12 — US$32.99 / £25.

The 2000 AD Annual 2026 brings Thrill-Power home for Christmas with a standard-edition cover from superstar artist Ladronn (Final Incal) and webshop-exclusive cover from 2000 AD legend Simon Bisley (Sláine)!

Inside, we’ve got all-new stories for you featuring Judge Dredd, Rogue Trooper and Judge Anderson – from an all-star lineup of 2000 AD writers and artists including Rob Williams, Joe Currie, T.C. Eglington, Staz Johnson and more. We also have some surprises from the archives for you this year, readers – but we’ve been sworn to secrecy for now! 

With over a hundred pages, The 2000 AD Annual 2026 contains a hearty mix of all-new stories, features and hidden gems from the archives – making it the ultimate stocking Thriller.

Tharg The Mighty blesses us once more with such nuclear-powered comics to keep your fires burning! Who needs a winter fuel allowance?

(9) WHERE THE LIBRARY DOUBLES AS A DUNGEON. [Item by Kathy Sullivan.] We’d had a local D&D group in Winona for years, but now the news has discovered the recent popularity. “Dungeons & Dragons is taking over” reports the Winona Post.

While exploring a mysterious mansion, a band of adventurers investigate the library, but before long the shelves begin to rumble as a tornado of books come to life and attack the party. The adventurers engage with the encounter in wildly different ways, with one trying to befriend the books, another attempting to ensnare the books in vines but accidentally trapping half her team, and another setting the flying books on fire. Finally, one casts an illusion spell that allows the group to escape. For Winona middle schooler Zebedee Alford, this episode demonstrates what Dungeons and Dragons is all about. “What I really like about Dungeons and Dragons is how you get to interact with your friends and their characters, and you get to make the choices,” Alford said. “I mean, it’s kind of up to the Dungeon Master and the story, but it’s at least 50% up to you what happens in the story. I love how you get to have input and how you get to interact with items, characters, friends.”…

…In Winona, the game has also grown in popularity with seats for D&D sessions at the game store Jimmy Jams filling up fast and the Winona Public Library splitting its new weekly D&D campaign into two groups because of the demand. …

…At Jimmy Jams, Heather said that D&D is hugely popular, and although they have three Dungeon Masters (DMs) regularly hosting campaigns, there is still far more demand. DMs  manage the logistics of each play session, and create the world, story, and encounters. The problem is, everyone wants to play instead of leading a campaign as the DM. “There’s a little bit of a deterrent there for a lot of people, because if they know that you can [DM], and you can run it well, you almost never get to be a player,” Heather said….

(10) GREMLINS ON THE WAY. Variety reports “’Gremlins 3′ Release Date Set for November 2027”.

Warner Bros. is officially reviving the “Gremlins” franchise, with a new installment set to barrel into theaters in November 2027.

The film has been added to the studio’s release schedule for Nov. 19, 2027, David Zaslav, the CEO and president of Warner Bros. Discovery, revealed on Thursday’s investor call.

Steven Spielberg is returning to executive produce “Gremlins 3” while “Harry Potter” filmmaker Chris Columbus is set to direct and produce, Zaslav confirmed. Zach Lipovsky and Adam Stein will co-write the screenplay. Kristie Macosko Krieger and Holly Bario are producing for Amblin Entertainment alongside 26th Street Pictures’ Michael Barnathan and Mark Radcliffe. All other details, including a plot description and anyone starring in the film, haven’t been disclosed.

(11) DOES THE UNIVERSE HAVE A REVERSE GEAR? “Universe expansion may be slowing, not accelerating, study suggests” – details in the Guardian.

Astronomers have cast doubt on a Nobel prize-winning theory that the expansion of the universe is accelerating, suggesting that instead it may be slowing down.

If confirmed, this would have profound implications for the fate of the universe, raising the possibility that rather than expanding for ever, the universe could ultimately enter a reverse big bang scenario known as the big crunch. The astronomers behind the work say their observations also imply that dark energy – the mysterious force thought to be propelling the expansion of the universe – is weakening over time.

“Our study shows that the universe has already entered a phase of decelerated expansion at the present epoch and that dark energy evolves with time much more rapidly than previously thought,” said Prof Young-Wook Lee, of Yonsei University in South Korea, who led the work. “If these results are confirmed, it would mark a major paradigm shift in cosmology since the discovery of dark energy 27 years ago.”The paper is likely to be greeted with heavy scepticism, but with the influential Desi consortium independently reaching a similar conclusion earlier this year, a fierce debate is opening up in cosmology over the nature of dark energy and the probable fate of the universe….

(12) OPENING THE DOOR. [Item by N.] A trailer has been released for the American premiere of Chinese director Bi Gan’s acclaimed sci-fi epic Resurrection, hitting NY and LA theaters on December 12.

(13) DO YOU THINK WISHES COME TRUE? [Item by N.] A trailer for the indie animated French film Arco, introducing its English dub and American release date: “ARCO – Official Trailer – In Select Theaters November 14”.

[Thanks to Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Juan Sanmiguel, N., Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, John King Tarpinian, and Chris Barkley for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Dan’l.]

Pixel Scroll 11/5/25 Oh, Sweet Mercury, We Have A Notification On Vellum

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(1) BIG DOLLARS BID ON TV COLLECTIBLES. Heritage Auction has announced the top sales from “The Stewart Berkowitz Television Treasures Auction” held in October.

Headlining the auction were the original 1960s Batman series costumes worn by Adam West and Burt Ward, which together realized $575,000. The Caped Crusader’s legacy dominated the event, with seven of the top twelve lots tied to the show. Highlights included Cesar Romero’s Joker costume ($212,500), Yvonne Craig’s Batgirl outfit ($87,500), Julie Newmar’s Catwoman suit ($68,750), and the Batscanner console from the Batcave, which brought $150,000.

Beyond Gotham, other TV legends found eager buyers. Lynda Carter’s complete Wonder Woman costume, including her signature golden Lasso of Truth, fetched $225,000. From Happy Days, two of Henry Winkler’s Fonzie leather jackets sold for $87,500 and $75,000. And Star Trek fans boldly bid on William Shatner’s Captain Kirk ensembles, realizing $62,500 and $52,500.

(2) HERE THERE BE COPYRIGHTED DRAGONS. [Item by Mike Kennedy.] There is something inherently comical about a paywalled article that describes efforts by copyright holders to block illegal access to pay-to-read material. Mashable reports (behind a paywall): “Google reportedly blocks 749 million Anna’s Archive URLs”.

Have you ever heard of Anna’s Archive? No? Well, then, that’s good news for copyright holders. They don’t want you to know about Anna’s Archive, and they’re making sure Google helps keep it that way.

Google has taken down a whopping 749 million links to Anna’s Archive from its search engine, according to the company’s own transparency report, and as first reported by copyright and digital rights outlet TorrentFreak….

… What is Anna’s Archive?

Anna’s Archive is an open-source search engine for “shadow libraries,” or online libraries made up of usually paid or paywalled content that’s been pirated and uploaded for free. It’s basically a Pirate Bay, but for books and other literary material.

The takedown requests are mostly from copyright holders, like book publisher Penguin Random House. However, more than 1,000 different publishers and even authors themselves have submitted takedown requests to Google for Anna’s Archive links.

The Anna’s Archive platform itself is just a search engine. It does not host any of the pirated material. It simply helps users find material elsewhere on the internet….

(3) I STILL HAVEN’T FOUND WHAT I’M LOOKING FOR. Radio Times ranks “Doctor Who’s 5 most sought-after missing episodes – and how they could be found”.

It’s almost hard to imagine how something as culturally significant as an episode of Doctor Who could go missing.

How could anybody hold a piece of television history in their hands and throw it in a skip? Well, it isn’t quite as straightforward as that – even though this dramatic “junking” may have been the fate of many episodes; in fact, there are 97 episodes still missing from both William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton’s years as the Doctor.

How did this happen? To find out we have to understand a little about how the show was made and distributed. In the early years Doctor Who was recorded on 2-inch quadruplex videotape in-studio (on location it was recorded in 16mm film and model shots were sometimes recorded in 35mm film – these would then be recorded, or telecined, onto the 2-inch videotape).

The BBC often looked to sell Doctor Who overseas, and as such it had to make a few copies to ship out to countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Sierra Leone. But the countries and the number of copies made varied from story to story.

The copies were created via a process called telerecording. Essentially, the videotape would be played back through a (CRT) monitor and a film camera would record the playback onto 16mm film. These copies would then be shipped around the world with a label attached showing the copyright expiry date, instructing them when the film should be destroyed, or returned to the BBC.

Meanwhile, the 2-inch videotape itself would be stored for a short period of time before finally being wiped to be used again. The BBC changed its archiving policy in 1978, but before this, there was a lack of clarity between departments when it came to cataloguing programmes….

…Although the footage of most of the 97 episodes remains lost, there are other ways that they have been preserved. Some very dedicated fans made reel-to-reel tape recordings at the time of broadcast, meaning that every single episode of Doctor Who survives via audio. Unfortunately, it wasn’t common practice for home viewers to make their own video recordings in the 1960s….

Radio Times says these are the five Doctor Who stories featuring some of the most wanted missing episodes. The article has a synopsis of each story plus a rundown on efforts to recover the episodes.

5. The Celestial Toymaker by Brian Hayles (1966)

4. The Evil of the Daleks by David Whitaker (1967)

3. The Web of Fear by Mervyn Haisman and Henry Lincoln (1968)

2. The Tenth Planet by Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis (1966)

1. The Power of the Daleks by David Whitaker and Dennis Spooner (1966)

(4) DID CHANGING OF THE GUARD KILL PW’S INTEREST IN SFF? Has Publishers Weekly stopped running sff news? Andrew Porter thinks so.

Didn’t even run the World Fantasy Awards.

They have not used any of the numerous articles I have sent them the links to since the departure of John Maher, who went to the New York Times.

Here’s the list of all the recent awards and prizes reported by Publishers Weekly.

(5) A CENTURY AS SEEN HALF A CENTURY AGO. A Deep Look by Dave Hook praises “Damon Knight’s Survey of SF #1, ‘A Century of Science Fiction’, 1962 Simon & Schuster”.

The Short: I recently read Damon Knight’s first anthology, A Century of Science Fiction, 1962 Simon & Schuster. It includes 26 short stories, novelettes, and several novel excerpts, and a great introduction and story introductions. Functionally, it’s Knight’s first anthology of three from the 1960s surveying the history and development of science fiction. My favorites are the Odd John excerpt by Olaf Stapledon, 1935 Methuen, the excerpt from The Time Machine by H. G. Wells, 1895 William Heinemann/Henry Holt, “What’s It Like Out There?“, a novelette by Edmond Hamilton, Thrilling Wonder Stories December 1952 (his best short fiction work IMHO), and “Call Me Joe“, a novelette by Poul Anderson, Astounding April 1957. My overall average rating is 3.87/5, or “Great”. Strongly recommended….

That’s followed by “Damon Knight’s Survey of SF #2, ‘A Century of Great Short Science Fiction Novels’, 1964 Delacorte”.

It includes six novels, novellas, and novelettes, along with insightful story introductions. Functionally, it’s Knight’s second anthology of the 1960s surveying the history and development of science fiction, and a supplement to his first anthology, A Century of Science Fiction, 1962 Simon & Schuster. My favorite was the classic novelette, “E for Effort“, Astounding May 1947, by T. L. Sherred. While I do question Damon Knight’s inclusion of two works of fiction, it’s still a great anthology. My overall average rating was an impressive 3.98/5, or “Great”, and just below “Superlative”. Strongly recommended….

(6) AURORA AWARDS OPENS ELIGIBILITY LISTS FOR 2025 WORKS. The Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Association is accepting submissions to the eligibility lists for next year’s Aurora Awards.

As of November 2025, our annual eligibility list submission period is underway. You can see our current list of confirmed eligible works on our public list page here. This page can be shared widely, everyone has access to it. This public page contains links to external URLs for each work, which you will find to the right of the entry marked as [info]. For works that are available to read in full online (eg. short stories in online magazines), the [info] link should direct you to that work so you can read it. For other works, the info link provides publication details, synopses, and purchase options.

CSFFA members are encouraged to add works they are familiar with or published in 2025. In order to add works before the end of December, you must have a 2025 membership (ie. paid the membership fee in the first half of this year). Starting in January, you will need to purchase your 2026 membership in order to access the member-only eligible work submission forms.

If you are a publisher or a creator without a membership and would like assistance adding works to the lists, please contact us. If you only published a few works, we are more than happy to put them in for you. You must send us full details of the work and a URL where members can get more information about the work or access it in full (if such is available online).

The eligibility lists are for works done in 2025 by Canadian citizens and permanent residents.  For full details on eligibility rules, see here. and on the Aurora Award categories, here. Reminder that no work can be nominated unless it has been added to the eligibility lists before the nominating period begins. Nominations are made directly from the confirmed eligibility lists on our website, so this is a necessary first step in each year’s awards process.

(7) RALPH SENENSKY (1923-2025). TV director Ralph Senensky died November 1. The Hollywood Reporter profiled his career: “Ralph Senensky Dead: ‘Star Trek,’ ‘Waltons’ Director Was 102”.

…Among Star Trek fans, Senensky is synonymous with some of the best episodes of the Paramount/NBC series. Season one’s “This Side of Paradise” is regarded as one of the early standout Spock installments, and season’s two “Metamorphosis,” another installment that premiered in 1967, was his personal favorite.

For the third season, he embarked on 1968’s “The Tholian Web,” which saw Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and Chekov (Walter Koenig) don shiny silver spacesuits as they investigate a crippled sister ship.

There was trouble ahead, however. Those zipper-less suits meant the actors had to be sewn into their costumes, then unsewn when they needed a bathroom break. By the third day of shooting, Senensky was four scenes behind schedule when he was called into producer Fred Freiberger’s office and fired.

On the pages of The Hollywood Reporter, Paramount executive Douglas S. Cramer announced that Herb Wallerstein would finish things up. Senensky got zero credit for his work.

“The article pointed out the studio’s intent to curtail the problem of films not being completed as scheduled,” Senensky reflected on his website. He said he received a phone call from Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who was “outraged, apologetic and sympathetic.”…

…Despite directing nearly 200 TV episodes over 25 years, Senensky realized he primarily will be remembered for those 6 1/2 Star Trek shows. (He also helmed “Obsession,” “Return to Tomorrow,” “Bread and Circuses” and “Is There in Truth No Beauty?”) Shortly after wrapping “This Side of Paradise” — he earned $3,000 for his first Star Trek gig, he said — he received a letter from Nimoy. “It was not only a special Spock experience, but it was special for me as well in that I felt safely in the hands of a capable and sensitive director,” Nimoy wrote. “Unfortunately, a rare experience in TV…

(8) BRUCE FRENCH (1945-2025). Actor Bruce French died February 7 at the age of 79.

He was noted for having portrayed a number of different characters across the Star Trek universe, including the empath adjutant to Jean Simmons in “The Drumhead“, cited as one of the best episodes in the franchise. He is also one of the few actors to appear in both Star Trek and Star Wars, having contributed his voice to Star Wars: The Original Radio Drama in 1981.

File 770 just became aware of his passing, and since he wasn’t on the Seattle Worldcon’s in memoriam list the news may not be generally known.

(9) MEMORY LANE.

[Written by Cat Eldridge.]

Star Trek’s “The Corbomite Maneuver” (1966)

Fifty-nine years ago, “The Corbomite Maneuver” aired for the first time. If you rewatch it again, do be aware that it is the first episode to feature Kirk’s “Space: The Final Frontier” monologue in the opening credits.

It was the tenth episode of the first season, and it was written by Jerry Sohl who had previously written for Alfred Hitchcock Presents, The Outer Limits, The Invaders, and The Twilight Zone. (His other Trek scripts were “Whom Gods Destroy” and “This Side of Paradise”.)

It was the first episode filmed in which Kelley played Dr. Leonard McCoy, Nichols played Lt. Uhura and Whitney played Yeoman Rand, though we first saw them on the air in “The Man Trap”.  

Clint Howard, brother of Ron Howard, played the alien Balok but he didn’t voice him — Walker Edmiston provided that. Ted Cassidy, who was the Gorn in “Arena” and the android Ruk in “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” voiced the Balok puppet. 

The Balok puppet itself was designed by Wah Chang, who, among other things, shared an academy award for The Time Machine prop in Pal’s movie of the same name. Cool fact: Chang is responsible for the Pillsbury dough boy. Any resemblance to Balok is probably accidental. 

So did critics like it at the time? No idea as I can’t find any contemporary reviews of it anywhere even on Rotten Tomatoes though media critics now love it as most put it in their top twenty of all of the Trek series episodes. 

It was nominated for a Hugo at NyCon 3, the year that “The Menagerie” won. “The Naked Time” was also nominated that year. 

It is, of course, streaming on Paramount+. 

(10) COMICS SECTION.

(11) FORTNITE ENGAGES SIMPSONS.  “The Simpsons is Fortnite now, sorry” apologizes AV Club. “The Simpsons/Fortnite crossover includes new animated shorts, a Springfield-based map, and the ability to shoot John Cena while dressed as ‘Stupid, Sexy Flanders.’”

…As part of the collaboration, Gracie Films has produced a series of Simpsons shorts that will air both in Fortnite and on Disney+, which, if the first one is anything to go off of, feature a cheaper version of the show’s animation, paired with some of the least enthusiastic line readings we’ve ever heard from its talented cast. (If that’s Dan Castellaneta voicing Kodos and Homer, he sounds like he’s on the wrong end of a grueling graveyard shift in the voice actor mines.) Oh, and there are all the little irritations inherent to having Springfield shoved into a universe designed and aimed directly at 12-year-olds, including the fact that the version of Moe’s Tavern on “Springfield Island” serves sugar-y energy drinks and not beautiful, life-restoring Duff Beer. (Also, it looks like the Stupid Sexy Flanders skin skimps on the juicy backmeat, and, like, what are we even doing here?!)…

(12) ENCOUNTER THE WORK OF JOHN P. MOORE. Amazing Selects has released A The Martian Trilogy, reprinting three stories by John P. Moore that originally were published within the “Amazing Stories” section of the Illustrated Feature Section, (published by William Ziff of Ziff-Davis, eventual owners of Amazing Stories), a syndicated publication distributed to Black newspapers in the 1930s, long forgotten and erased.  These historically significant stories are the first space opera tales written by a Black author.  Available once again after nearly ninety years.

Moore’s tales follow the exploits of a well-to-do Black journalist who is swept up in the first expedition to Mars, where he encounters warring nations, advanced civilizations and unrequited love.

Accompanying these stories and the original illustrations published with them (restored and enhanced by Jennings) are essays, commentary and critique by leading contemporary Black authors and others.  Contributors to this volume are: Dr. Lisa Yaszen, Brooks E. Hefner, Sheree Renée Thomas, Chris M. Barkley, Maurice Broaddus, L. Marie Wood, Bill Campbell, K. Ceres Wright, Minister Faust, Dedren Snead, Edward Austin Hall, Steve Davidson, Val Barnhart, Tanvi Bhatia, Mitali Ghande, MaxAnthony Mateer, Devi “Diya” Patel, Killian Vetter, Kermit Woodall and Lloyd Penny.

The cover image is by John Jennings, Hugo Award winner and NY Times Bestseller — a homage to Harlem Renaissance art.

The Martian Trilogy:  John P. Moore, Amazing Stories, Black Science Fiction and the Illustrated Feature Section is now available in print, eBook and audio formats from Amazing Selects.

(13) GODZILLA MINUTE ZERO. MovieWeb says it’s on the way: “’Godzilla Minus One’ Sequel Teaser Unleashes Chilling New Details About the Monster Movie”.

Following the monstrous success of 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, the first teaser for the upcoming sequel has now emerged from the depths. Directed by Takashi Yamazaki, Godzilla Minus One proved to be not just one of the greatest Godzilla movies ever made, but one of the greatest monster movies, period, with the sequel expected to build on the almost unbelievably solid foundations laid down by its predecessor.

The new teaser, which you can check out below, reveals that the Godzilla Minus One sequel will be titled Godzilla -0.0, aka Godzilla Minus Zero, with the footage being unveiled by the official Toho X/Twitter account. The teaser also confirms that Godzilla Minus Zero will once again be written, directed, and supervised for VFX by Takashi Yamazaki with VFX work by Shirogumi, thus reuniting the creative team that won the Oscar for Best Visual Effects at the 96th Academy Awards….

(14) COLBERT STRUTTING HIS TOLKIEN GEEK CREDS. [Item by Daniel Dern.] Well, not strutting, simply demonstrating his serious knowledge.

In talking with Robert Plant in this YouTube excerpt from his Tuesday, November 4 show, “Robert Plant’s Led Zeppelin Bandmates Had No Idea He Was Referencing Tolkien In The Band’s Lyrics”, Colbert, among other things:

  • Notes the publication years for The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings
  • As Plant and he meander to Tolkien, including JRRT’s recording his (JRRT’s) Tom Bombadil songs/poems, Colbert clearly without having to think recites four lines of “Fair Lady Goldberry”

The latter happens around the 2:40 mark. (Warning: you’ll see that the instant auto-transcription/captioning isn’t keeping up with the recitation, nor getting it even close to correct.)

[Thanks to Chris Barkley, Cat Eldridge, SF Concatenation’s Jonathan Cowie, Steve Davidson, Francis Hamit, Leigh Strother-Vien, Mark Roth-Whitworth, Steven French, Kathy Sullivan, Mike Kennedy, Andrew Porter, and John King Tarpinian for some of these stories. Title credit belongs to File 770 contributing editor of the day Cat Eldridge.]