Blog Archives

Comic Books (Screen Rant): Marvel Comics has changed the digital version of art from King Conan #2 following criticism over a controversial portrayal of a character with a name related to the Native American historical figure, Pocahontas. Last month, Marvel and writer Jason Aaron and artist Mahmud Asrar were heavily criticized for naming an oversexualized […]

D&D (Jeffro’s Space Gaming Blog): For two years, countless people told me I was mad. They told me I was reading things into the rules that were just not there. They told me that NOBODY, not even Gygax himself played the game like what I claimed would happen if you just played a few rules […]

Fantasy (Ken Lizzi): Swords and Sorcery fiction provides us with exciting action in memorable settings. It also drops terrific characters into those settings and lets them run free. Some of those characters have stood the test of time. I’ve selected ten of those that I consider the pantheon of the genre. There is no science […]

Firearms (Firearms News): Three decades ago, if you asked anyone who was a handgunner or firearm enthusiast, “What’s the best handgun for self-defense or woods carry?” the majority of the time the .357 Magnum would have been their reply. Its high velocity, impressive terminal performance and deep penetration provides stellar performance not only in terms […]

Science Fiction (Bloody Disgusting): Sometime in the spring of 1937, while still struggling to make any sort of living as a writer, he pitched an idea to the editor of Argosy magazine, Jack Byrne, to use the thushol from “Brain-Stealers” in a horror story set on earth. Byrne liked the idea and Campbell set out […]

Coming (Wasteland & Sky): Space pirates and superspies, ghostly singers and half-orc bards, lost cities and deals with the devil . . . all this awaits and more in Pulp Rock: Twelve musically inspired tales of adventure, excitement, and horror by some of the most exciting voices in science-fiction and fantasy. Come explore the nexus […]

Authors (Quillette): It might seem odd to recommend a thriller by a British author as a source of information about the ancient enmity between Russia and the Ukraine, but Frederick Forsyth is no ordinary novelist and his books are not ordinary novels. Forsyth is so knowledgeable about so many things that his name appears all […]

Robert E. Howard (Sprague de Camp Fan): REH hit a certain stride (and formula) with this story. It is a great action yarn with an exotic locale, interesting characters, and strong vivid prose. Weird Tales made it the cover story. REH wrote some better Conan stories but “The Devil in Iron” is good Conan and […]

Authors (Up & Down These Mean Streets): I’d moved to St. Paul, Minnesota from San Francisco and found a place on Summit Hill not many blocks away from Tierney’s rooms. Two years, 1975-76, hanging out with Dick and the weird fiction fan sub-group a.k.a. the MinnCon — Count Koblas, Joe West and others. Stopping in […]

Conan (Venture Beat): Funcom has acquired control of Conan the Barbarian and other popular culture intellectual properties with its acquisition of Cabinet Group. The Oslo, Norway-based Funcom will merge the properties into its IP studio Heroic Signatures. In addition to Conan, it is acquiring IPs such as Mutant Year Zero and Solomon Kane. The purchase […]

Comic Books (Post cards from the Age of Reason): At National Periodicals, Weisinger edited Superman- and Batman-related titles early in his career, and was the long term editor for Superman titles until 1970. Schwartz took over editorial duties on Batman in 1964, shifting the character back to the Dark Detective format. But the top titles […]

Fandom (Wasteland & Sky): Gernsback once again laid the groundwork for his own destruction, all because he misunderstood the people he was trying to connect with. But this is only the beginning. There is still much, much more to be done. The announcement of the SF: was made in the 1934 May issue of Wonder […]