In addition to great creators from outside the Midwest, like Black Widow artist Phil Noto (as we mentioned here at borg.com yesterday), the great thing about returning to a Con year after year is running into all our friends who write, sketch, or paint incredible works for a living.  Planet Comicon 2015 was no different.

Take for instance Des Moines artist Ant Lucia (pictured above).  Three years ago Ant was just beginning to put together great genre characters like DC superheroes and Star Wars characters in a unique retro style of poster art.  Flash forward to 2014 and an entire month of cover art at DC Comics was devoted to his creations, and statues based on his DC Bombshell designs are selling off the shelves in every town across the country.  Ant’s beautiful designs are second to none, and there’s not a more deserving guy to achieve such success from his ideas.

Other creators at Planet Comicon this weekend with national success included Jason Aaron, who had his own rock star sized line of fans getting his new Star Wars series autographed, as well as artist Freddie Williams II, drawing sketches for fans and signing copies of his Legendary Starlord series, among other works.

Pictured above are artists Damont Jordan and Bryan Fyffe.  Damont had a new “spirit fox” print available that blew us away, and he churned out sketches for fans all weekend long.  And we noticed other artists at the Con were coming to Bryan’s booth to buy his framed art for their own homes.  Bryan has the best eye for design of anyone we know, and creates a variety of inspired multi-media works.  His most recent commercial illustration was for some major franchise properties, as well as the cover of John Renehan’s new novel The Valley.  Check out some of his work at his website here.

Here we caught up with Dayton Ward and Kevin Dilmore (pictured above with author Elizabeth C. Bunce and apparently a bit wary of her crossbow), known to Star Trek fans for their many Trek novels.  We could have spent the entire show chatting it up with these guys.  If you’re not following Dayton’s blog The Fog of Ward, you should be.

Artists Nathen and Keven Reinke were back again this year selling prints of their sketch work.  Known for their Topps sketch cards from Star Wars to The Hobbit, this year they added even more characters to their catalog of works.  Firefly fans in particular should grab up their framed cast portraits.  We ran into other Midwest artist and writer friends at the Con who have become fixtures at Planet Comicon, too, including Ande Parks, Jai Nitz, Phil Hester, Greg Smallwood, and Darryl Woods.

And your borg.com writers were back again for another year at the show.  Above is author Elizabeth C. Bunce (pictured with the far-too-good looking Kris Holden-Reid, star of Lost Girl).

And here is writer Art Schmidt with your humble editor.  Our other writer, Hollywood writer and actor Jason McClain, couldn’t make the show, but you can see him on last week’s episode of Fresh Off the Boat on ABC.  Check out prior writings at borg.com from Elizabeth, Art, and Jason at the links at the right side of our home page.

Tomorrow come back for some more cosplay from Planet Comicon 2015.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

We’ve already shown some photos of a great set of little green army men as well as the best Arrow cosplay from Planet Comicon 2015, but we have a few more images to share.  Not surprisingly, with a new Star Wars film due out by year end, Star Wars cosplay could be seen everywhere this past weekend.  One couple, shown above, expertly recreated the Clone Wars villain Asajj Ventris and Jedi Shaak Ti.

It’s hard to beat all the great Imperial armored soldiers that appear at Cons these days.  This speeder bike trooper was no exception.  If you’re not willing to create your own outfit, ANOVOS and other companies now make it possible for anyone to wear screen-accurate Star Wars costumes.

Several homemade remote-controlled astromech droids could be found skimming across the convention floor.  Who wouldn’t want one of these at home?  I remember when I first saw an R2 unit at a Con more than a decade ago and it was the highlight of the show.  Now we take these awesome robots for granted.

Boba Fetts were everywhere, too, but we really liked this steampunk riveted helmet take on the mysterious bounty hunter.

When I encountered the above Mandalorian-armored fellow, I couldn’t resist comparing the efficacy (and yes, coolness) of arm weaponry, whether you’re in a galaxy far, far away, or in an alien invasion in the Old West.  This Boba Fett costume couldn’t have looked better.

We caught a look at this shirt at the show.  A clever idea for the fan of both “Country and Western” sci-fi lover.

The current retro leading women characters were represented well, like the above Agent Carter.  We still haven’t seen a Miss Fury at a show yet.

But our favorite retro at the Con was the Ant Lucia bombshell Black Canary (worn by the Kansas City Renaissance Festival’s own Madame Red) shown above, far right.  And a great microphone prop!

And I continued my annual tradition of re-creating an action figure in cosplay (the last two years was the large-sized Bionic Man action figure seen with Lindsay Wagner in 2013 here and with Lee Majors in 2014 here).  This time I went with one of my favorite action figures from the early 1970s, the “Secret of the Mummy’s Tomb” Adventure Team G.I. Joe.  Complete with life-like hair, facial scar, kung-fu grip, and shovel accessory.  I’m standing with the awesome re-created 4.5 inch Kenner Stormtrooper monument, one of many statues made by Gentle Giant and sold by our friends at Entertainment Earth here.  (They also have a life-sized Darth Vader and Boba Fett. You know you want one).

And speaking of toys, check out this great city of Gotham created in Legos for the show:

Nice job!

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

It’s Alfred Hitchcock’s most suspenseful film, his most engaging and atmospheric, and it features top lead actors with stars Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly.  It’s his 1954 blockbuster Rear Window, and if you haven’t seen it on the big screen then you haven’t seen it at all.

Tomorrow, March 22, 2015, and Wednesday, March 25, 2015, as part of the Fathom Event series, theaters across the country will screen the restored cut of the film.  Presented by Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Universal Pictures Home Entertainment, the film will be introduced by TCM host Ben Mankiewicz.

It’s a steamy, sultry summer, and L.B. Jeffries (Jimmy Stewart) is a war photographer bedridden from an injury to his leg.  He’s being taken care of by nurse Stella, played by Thelma Ritter, and is constantly being prodded for his affections by the beautiful fashion model Lisa Fremont, played by Grace Kelly.  Jeffries’ apartment overlooks a courtyard and the back sides of other apartments, and as Jeffries gets more and more bored he begins following the goings-on out his rear window.  Newlyweds, a musician, an unhappy couple, an older couple, a dancer, a lonely woman.

Is the heat getting to Jeffries, or could one of these tenants have committed a murder across the way?

Film classic character actors Randall Corey stars as Jeffries’ friend Detective Tom Doyle and Raymond Burr is the strange Lars Thorwald.  Based on a 1942 short story by Cornell Woolrich called “It had to be Murder,” Rear Window continues to influence entertainment. Riffs on the theme have shown up in recent TV series Castle and Leverage, and a 1998 made-for-cable remake starred Christopher Reeve and Darryl Hannah.

Check out the Fathom Events website here for more information on screening locations and showtimes.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Review by C.J. Bunce

One of the first classic movies restored using a state of the art Technicolor dye-transfer process, the restoration of Alfred Hitchcock’s most stylish and suspenseful film, Rear Window, provided 1990s audiences a presentation of the film better than it was originally seen upon its initial release in 1954.  That version was back on the big screen this week, thanks to Turner Classic Movies and the Fathom Events series.  Inspired by a Cornell Woolrich short story about voyeurism and murder, Hitch’s classic piece of cinema still holds up, keeping a 2015 audience completely engaged with his unique use of humor juxtaposed with some pretty grisly circumstances.

Anchored by top performances from Jimmy Stewart and Grace Kelly, and just as superb supporting performances by Thelma Ritter and Wendell Corey, Rear Window is as atmospheric as any film of its decade.  Hitchcock filmed primarily in the muted brown tones of a sweltering urban summer, but he used targeted deep reds to highlight key imagery: the mercury of a wall thermometer, a bright and significant bed of flowers, a perfect lobster dinner, crisp uneaten bacon, and a certain fashionable socialite’s lipstick in her opening scene.  And yet, unlike Hitchcock’s The Birds or Psycho, the red of blood–and any gore at all–is kept off-stage.  He didn’t need it.  The suspense builds for two hours and even after 60 years, the payoff–and especially what we can’t see–is still able to transfix audiences with nail-biting action.

Highly memorable is the music–a soaring clarinet rises up above Franz Waxman’s jazz score from the film’s first scene, reflecting the liveliness of the block, the active and important parts of all the lives visible from the rear window of Stewart’s L.B. “Jeff” Jeffries, a war photographer laid up with a broken leg.  Waxman’s stylish music propels the story forward despite Jeff’s claustrophobic, trapped circumstance.  Love themes, like Bing Crosby’s “To See You is to Love You” and “Many Dreams Ago” reflect the seemingly hopeless plight of Miss Lonelyhearts–a single woman longing to find love who is attacked and then plans to commit suicide.  Waxman’s own song “Lisa” takes on its own life, composed over the course of the film by a piano player across the courtyard, to get noticed by Miss Lonelyhearts, and be picked up as the love theme for Jeff and Grace Kelly’s character, Jeff’s girlfriend Lisa Fremont.  And to relieve the tension at story’s end, a rousing accordion plays “That’s Amore” to the curtain.

Be warned: The relationship of the leads, Jeff and Lisa, will have you ripping at your seat by film’s end.  For most of the film Jeff is a jerk.  How could anyone so rudely reject Grace Kelly’s advances?  Lisa throws herself at Jeff, but he thinks she is too perfect and… well, forget about the real villain: Hitchcock manages to make us want to kill the otherwise lovable Jimmy Stewart.  Luckily, Jeff’s visiting insurance company nurse Stella, played by Thelma Ritter, and his friend Doyle, played by Wendell Corey, whose dialogue is full of some really funny lines, easily distracts us all from Jeff’s antics.

Hitchcock built his most elaborate stage set on the Paramount lot for Rear Window, a recreation of a Greenwich Village apartment block you’d swear was filmed on location with the real thing, requiring so many filming lamps he had to borrow extras from Universal and MGM to complete the production.  The giant set is a stunning achievement by itself.

If you missed Rear Window’s return to theaters, you can still pick up the re-mastered version for home viewing on Blu-ray here, or find it in Hitchcock’s Essentials Collection here, or in Hitchcock’s 15-film Masterpiece Collection here, all at Amazon.com.

British TV series that travel to U.S. audiences via PBS’s Masterpiece series usually take a year to get across the pond.  And it’s not just an England Proper thing.  The same is true of Canadian series that air in the U.S. an entire year after the original broadcast at home, like Syfy’s Lost Girl.  Before the popularity of Downton Abbey, most PBS viewers didn’t take much note of this.  Now fans of Mr. Selfridge, which returns tonight for Season 3 (“Series 3″ in British parlance) have to face the same problem.  That problem is spoilers.

Fans of Mr. Selfridge will be thrown several sidewinders for Season 3, and dodging these new twists and turns before they air each Sunday night will be difficult, especially since entire story plots are scattered across the Web, and Episode 10 will air in England tonight the same time Episode 1 airs in the States.  Can’t wait to find out what happens next?  It’s right there waiting for you to read.  So what’s your best bet?  Pick up Season 3 on DVD or Blu-ray, available at Amazon.com now here, or stream it here, and start your binge watching before you learn too much, too early.

If you’re interested in why Mr. Selfridge has the most realistic historical costumes of any series on TV, series costumer designer James Keast reveals one of his secrets in an interview done for the show:  Many of the costumes are vintage–actual garments worn more than 100 years ago and found in the department store archives.  Check out that video after the break, as well as some insights and a preview on what is certain to be a tumultuous Season 3:

Here’s a preview for Season 3:

What are some of the character changes that will sure to cause a reaction from American fans?

• Three of the series female leads are not in Season 3.  This will be a blow to many fans.  Mr. Selfridge is a show based in part on historical events.  One key person in his story had died by the time the events of Season 3 occurred.  Another popular actress sits out the season for maternity leave, and yet another was just written out off the show.  But don’t worry, the other three lead actresses are back along with several new key female characters.
• Loxley, Lokley, Loxley.  If you hate the smarmy Lord Loxley, you might as well go do something else and come back for Season 4–if the series gets renewed.  Lord Loxley is a key villain throughout Season 3.
• Another villain returns.  Yet another villain from Selfridge’s past returns this year.  One of those villains we were so glad to see leave.  Drat.

Despite the changes, there’s plenty to look forward to.  Jeremy Piven is back in the title role that he proved to be so brilliant at playing.  We get to see what all those key staff members we love are up to after the end of World War I in 1919.  And that great music, design, costumes, technology, and the changes at the department store are sure to be interesting.

Set the DVR now, Mr. Selfridge airs tonight at 8 p.m. Central on PBS Masterpiece.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Like all good things that get a hold on generations of audiences, Arthur Conan Doyle’s master detective Sherlock Holmes has been interpreted and re-interpreted over and over.  For more than 110 years, Holmes and his trusty companion Dr. Watson have appeared in more than 200 movies that adapted Doyle’s original stories–more than 70 actors have played Holmes–the most of any fictional character on-screen according to the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records.  Interest has never waned, and every new detective show and police procedural seems to borrow something from him, much like all science fiction seems to borrow something from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.  Batman was inspired by Holmes 75 years ago, and more recently TV series characters like Adrian Monk, Shawn Spencer, and Dr. Gregory House all were inspired incarnations of the character.

Holmes was no bigger than with Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law’s blockbuster films, Sherlock Holmes in 2009 and Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows in 2011.  In that franchise director Guy Ritchie opted to showcase Holmes from Doyle’s original stories in his original setting of Victorian England.

Rivaling that series of movies after three seasons is BBC’s Sherlock, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Holmes and Martin Freeman as Dr. John Watson.  Here creators Mark Gatiss and Steven Moffat take Holmes in a completely new direction, present day London, including the clever incorporation of modern technology into Holmes’s sleuthing.  Despite the updated setting Sherlock borrows the spirit of Holmes faithfully from Doyle’s stories.

Coming this Christmas, Gatiss and Moffat are coming full circle, returning Sherlock to his roots, by setting Sherlock in Victorian London for a special insert Christmas episode to appear on BBC, PBS Masterpiece, and eventually BBC America.  It will be a standalone story, to be followed in 2016 by another three regular episodes in Season 4.  It will be a full episode, unlike the Sherlock Christmas short the BBC released last Christmas, shown in its entirety on the BBC YouTube channel here:

Gatiss and Moffat have said they have developed plots for Season 5.  They’ve pointed to the difficulty of coordinating of the lead actors and their own schedules as the reason for the staggered release of seasons for the show.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Last weekend at Emerald City Comicon in Seattle, Archaia, the imprint from BOOM! Studios announced the forthcoming release of The Art of Mouse Guard 2005-2015.  The over-sized hardcover will chronicle a decade of writer/artist David Petersen’s award-winning series about a group of medieval warrior mice.

Better yet, the coffee table style book is printed in a 12-inch x 12-inch format–the same size in which Petersen rendered the original images of his Mouse Guard series in pencil and ink, so fans will be able to see the full-sized artwork as it originally appeared.  The series was originally published in a 8×8 format–making it unique among comic book works.

Winner of both Eisner and Harvey awards, Mouse Guard is a one-of-a-kind fantasy universe that we reviewed previously at borg.com here and discussed extensively here.

The Art of Mouse Guard is a dense 368 pages, including 100 in full color.  It includes never before published sketches, and commentary and artwork from colleagues, collaborators, and Petersen himself revealing his complex artistic process for creating the memorable images of his anthropomorphic animals.

You can pre-order The Art of Mouse Guard – 2005-2015 hardcover now at Amazon.com here.  It will be released by Archaia in July 2015.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

It may have been the first thing you looked for when you got your streaming media service, whether it was Netflix, Amazon Prime, or something else.  Finally, after seemingly every other movie made it to the Digital HD streaming format, the Star Wars saga will now be available to watch on your phone, tablet, or TV.  Disney just announced the news Monday night, including new features to accompany the films.  Thought you’d bought the best format before, via Laser Disc, Beta, VHS, Widescreen, DVD, in their various Special Editions, or Blu-ray?  If you thought you bought everything with the Star Wars: The Complete Saga Blu-rays, be prepared to buy Star Wars again for–at least–the tenth time.

You can buy all six films in a digital bundle from Amazon here, now available for pre-order at $89.99.  Or click on the images below to pre-order each film individually at $19.99 at the time of this posting.

Although Disney’s press release revealed some extra features may vary by streaming service, here’s the general guide to what will be available:

Star Wars: Episode I The Phantom Menace

• Conversations: Doug Chiang Looks Back
• Discoveries From Inside: Models & Miniatures
• Legacy content includes “The Beginning”; The Podrace: Theatrical Edit; plus eight deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode II Attack of the Clones

• Conversations: Sounds In Space
• Discoveries From Inside: Costumes Revealed
• Legacy content includes “From Puppets To Pixels: Digital Characters In Episode II”; State Of The Art: The Previsualization Of Episode II; and “Films Are Not Released, They Escape”; plus Episode II Visual Effects Breakdown Montage and six deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode III Revenge of the Sith

• Conversations: The Star Wars That Almost Was
• Discoveries From Inside: Hologram & Bloopers
• Legacy content includes documentaries “Within A Minute: The Making Of Episode III”; The Journey Part 1; and The Journey Part 2; plus six deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope (20^th Century Fox)

• Conversations: Creating A Universe
• Discoveries From Inside: Weapons & The First Lightsaber
• Legacy content includes “Anatomy Of A Dewback”; Star Wars Launch Trailer; plus eight deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode V The Empire Strikes Back

• Conversations: The Lost Interviews
• Discoveries From Inside: Matte Paintings Unveiled
• Legacy content includes “A Conversation With The Masters” (2010); “Dennis Muren: How Walkers Walk”; “George Lucas On Editing The Empire Strikes Back 1979”; and “George Lucas On The Force: 2010”; plus six deleted scenes.

Star Wars: Episode VI Return of the Jedi

• Conversations: The Effects
• Discoveries From Inside: The Sounds Of Ben Burtt
• Legacy content includes “Classic Creatures: Return Of The Jedi”; “Revenge Of The Jedi Teaser Trailer”; Return Of The Jedi Launch Trailer; “It Began TV Spot”; “Climactic Chapter TV Spot”; plus five deleted scenes.

All of the above movies will be available Friday, April 10, 2015.  You can also buy the titles together or individually at Vudu here.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

This weekend the quirky and unique director and visionary David Lynch announced after months of working on a new Twin Peaks series for Showtime that he was walking away from the project.  The reason cited was, of course, money.  Showtime had been voicing support for the series but clearly negotiations broke down and now the likelihood of a new series is uncertain.  Key cast members including Kyle MacLachlan and Sheryl Lee had already signed on for the project.  Most of the original cast were also in support of the series and eager to jump back into the world of that slightly askew town near Snoqualmie Falls, Washington.

Lynch expressed his status on Facebook:  “Showtime did not pull the plug on Twin Peaks.  After one year and four months of negotiations, I left because not enough money was offered to do the script the way I felt it needed to be done. This weekend I started to call actors to let them know I would not be directing.  Twin Peaks may still be very much alive at Showtime.  I love the world of Twin Peaks and wish things could have worked out differently.”

Showtime issued this response: “We were saddened to read David Lynch’s statement today since we believed we were working towards solutions with David and his reps on the few remaining deal points.  Showtime also loves the world of Twin Peaks and we continue to hold out hope that we can bring it back in all its glory with both of its extraordinary creators, David Lynch and Mark Frost, at its helm.”

It sounds like the typical posturing of any business negotiations.  But it prompted nearly a dozen cast members yesterday to share their own short video message encouraging Showtime to work out a deal with Lynch.  Many of these messages refer back to their characters.  The former cast members who supplied the video messages are Sheryl Lee (Laura Palmer), Dana Ashbrook (Bobby Briggs), Sherilyn Fenn (Audrey Horne), Madchen Amick (Shelly Johnson), Peggy Lipton (Norma Jennings), James Marshall (James Hurley), Kimmy Robertson (Lucy Moran), Gary Hershberger (Mike Nelson), Catherine E. Coulson (The Log Lady), Wendy Robie (Nadine Hurley), and Al Strobel (Phillip Gerard).

After the break, take a look at what all these cast members look like today, and what they came up with to try to coax the powers that be onward and upward:

Stay tuned for more information as the series slowly moves beyond the pre-production stage.  Lynch already prepared several scripts for the series, so it’s possible Showtime has what it needs to move forward with show co-creator Mark Frost.  The earliest the show was expected to air would be in 2016.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

WELCOME TO EARTH-4

A Column by J. Torrey McClain

I do not currently host a pet of any kind in my home.  I grew up with a cat and dogs and I love to visit friends and family with cats and dogs, but it has been a long time since I have enjoyed the company of a pet 24/7.  I add that preface because I want to say that I don’t have stories of a pet’s behavior that reveal “emotions,” “feelings” and “empathy.”  I use quotes because I do not want to personify any animal mostly from a place of ignorance but also from a place of logic.  How I interpret and see the world HAS to be different than a pet.  But, I will not claim they don’t “feel,” I will not claim they don’t “learn,” I will not claim they aren’t “intelligent;” I just don’t know if human language has a word for how animals see the world.

As far as how humans treat animals, I understood about obvious cruelty like I’d see in reports of dog fighting, circus cages and pet abuse.  I remember even in high school, thinking that the idea of anyone “owning” an animal seemed fishy to me and I began to think that zoos might not be the best idea, except in cases of endangered animals, injured animals, education or scientific study, but only in limited scale.  I didn’t think much beyond this for a long time.

In my consumption of books due to my own curiosity and recommendations from friends, I read about nutrition.  I read about healthy diets.  I read about fast food ingredients and practices.  I read about modern factory farm practices.  I read about the idea of sustainable farming.  All of this got stored in my noggin.  Then, I watched the documentary Blackfish.  I started to consider removing meat from my diet as all my experiences combined to form this idea.  It had been simmering in my mind, but the impetus of the call to action came from Blackfish.

I have a friend that works in a scientific field in a museum and she said we may not know all of what happens at Sea World and what they do to benefit orca whales in studies there.  I don’t know about the studies and I am not qualified to make a statement or even hazard a guess about the quality of that work.  I do know they are a public company.  As a person that has worked in the business realm, I know the goal for all businesses is to minimize costs and maximize revenue, especially those beholden to shareholders/private equity firms with an eye toward increasing the value of their investment.  Orca whales are a cost to Sea World.  I know what that means to me through my experiences.

I also will not judge what I saw in the behavior of orca whales in Blackfish.  There may be emotions, intelligence and empathy viewable on your movie or TV screen. I don’t know.  I can try to interpret what I see just like I interpret what I see in pets, but as a person not with the animal 24/7, I don’t really have complete information.  There may be things the documentary didn’t show that could be favorable to Sea World.  However, knowing what I know about other mammals that I see frequently (dogs and cats), the idea that other mammals have “personality” doesn’t seem far-fetched.  I know that having a greyhound in a studio apartment with only short walks around the neighborhood concrete jungle sounds less than optimal, but I don’t have proof of that.  That scenario can be compared to putting an orca in a tank that can be measured in meters where an orca can have a range of up to 100,000 square kilometers.

Once I get to that point of thinking regarding orcas, dogs and cats, I start to think about other mammals.  Honey badgers.  Raccoons.  Otters.  Elephants.  I see adaptation.  I see the use of tools.  I see “anger.”  I see “joy.”  Then into my mind other animals creep like sheep, cows, goats and pigs.  If I believe mammals might have “feelings” and they might have attachments to offspring, what does that mean to my diet?

Then I think of the intelligence of ravens to open zippers on snowmobiles from my time living near Yellowstone.  I think of the trials of penguins in Antarctica to keep their chicks alive.  I think of documentaries on Nature regarding birds of different shapes, sizes and colors that I love to watch.  Then, I think of chickens, turkeys and ducks.  They might not be the same as mammals, but they have nests and they take care of their young and provide me with joy when I see them in the wild, in a park or in a yard.

So, last year I decided to give up mammals and birds in my diet.  I will not advocate for others to do the same because there may be health or food cost considerations.  I know I am in a position to make that choice for myself and I decided to do so.  I did it in steps, giving up beef, pork and mammals in August of 2014 and giving up chicken, turkey and fowl at the beginning of March of this year.  I had a doctor’s appointment this week and got my best marks in a long while.  There may be some correlation (as fast food without beef, pork, chicken or turkey pretty much eliminates most fast food which was probably my biggest diet concern), but I’m sure there are tons of healthy people that still eat meat by the bucket load.

I decided to keep fish and seafood in my diet for the healthy cholesterol and because the “feelings” I see in mammals and birds don’t seem to be present in fish.  I could be wrong and will continue to reflect and ponder that part of my diet.  (I will also look to add insects like crickets to my diet as they look to be a sustainable protein source in times of drought and I also picture them closer to fish than to birds and mammals.)

I write this because I am happy with my choice.  I write this because thinking about the earth as ours to use however we want for profit doesn’t seem sustainable.  I also write this because I highly recommend watching Blackfish.  I can’t say that I have seen another movie that initiated such a large lifestyle change in me.  There may have been other building blocks to my pescatarian decision, but the final catalyst was this superb documentary.

If you’re a fan of Star Trek costumes like we are, you may be familiar with Sanja Milkovich Hays, the costume designer on the ninth film in the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Insurrection.  Hays is responsible for some of the best Star Trek costumes created for the movies that featured the Star Trek: The Next Generation cast.  Her agent released this weekend that she has been tapped to be costume designer for the next film in the Star Trek franchise, unofficially referred to as Star Trek III. 

Hays created the stylish civilian wear for the principal cast, with her designs for Worf and Data particular standout pieces for the characters.  She designed the look of the villains for Insurrection from a fabric she developed from cellulose, including F. Murray Abraham’s Ru’afo and the Son’a, as well as the beautiful copper latexwear for the female Ellora, the purple outfitted Tarlac and blue male Ellora.  For the Ba’ku villagers, she used natural fibers in her costumes that included hundreds of extras.

Check out her Insurrection designs in Terry J. Erdmann’s The Secrets of Star Trek Insurrection here at Amazon.com.

Could these Horatio Hornblower-inspired designs for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan be making a comeback in 2016’s Star Trek III?

Hays has created costumes for many other genre films, too.  Could they indicate what may be coming in Star Trek III?

Original costume designs by Sanja Hays include the Ba’ku, Ellora, Tarlac, and Son’a.

Hays was also costume designer for Blade, Mission to Mars, the adaptation of Philip K. Dick short stories Next and Total Recall (2012), and the Fast and the Furious franchise.  She was also in the costume department for Tombstone, Stargate, and Independence Day.

Better yet, she designed the costumes for the Fox TV series Sleepy Hollow, including the military uniforms for Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman introduced in the series pilot.  Could the selection of Hays be an indication it’s time to bring back the look of the classic Horatio Hornblower-inspired maroon Starfleet uniforms worn by Kirk and Spock and the rest of the crew in the original Star Trek II-VI?

Military costumes from Sleepy Hollow.

Hays replaces Michael Kaplan, who updated the classic red, yellow, and blue tunics of the original Enterprise crew for Star Trek (2009) and introduced the earlier Kelvin era Starfleet uniforms.  Kaplan re-invisioned a completely reconfigured design for the Romulans and Klingons and then took what seemed like an endless costume budget to create several new costume designs for each principal cast member in Star Trek Into Darkness.  He also adapted many costumes from Star Trek: The Motion Picture, such as Dr. McCoy’s medical garb and Admiral Pike’s dress uniform, into new designs for the reboot films.

The selection of Hays should be an interesting change, from someone who already has worked with the Star Trek universe and many other genre films.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Atari, the company that brought us the Atari 2600–the game system that revolutionized what it meant to be a zombie–offered families in the early 1970s the benefit of the neighborhood arcade without that annoying quarter-gobbling component.  Adults who shake their heads today at kids zoning out over their smartphone games forget what it was like when they first zoned out over  Combat, Air-Sea Battle, Duck Hunt, Asteroids, Yar’s Revenge, Berserk, Pitfall, Pac-Man, Donkey Kong, and all their pixelated friends.

When Space Invaders was introduced, kids lined up at Woolco stores for hours on end to play the in-store demo model to try to beat the current high score.  The earlier Pong and Breakout games were revolutionary–and addictive–but Space Invaders was exciting, nerve-wracking, and required a different take on an old skill.  Hand-eye Coordination became a new, finely-honed, almost magical power.  Wielded the best by teenagers.

Then something strange happened.  We got distracted by something else.  Most of us didn’t even notice when Atari vanished.  When modern video games playable on PCs via compact discs came around we all went searching for the original Atari games and for years, nada.  What happened to Atari anyway?

If you didn’t track the business pages for Atari back in the 1970s and 1980s, a new documentary will get you caught up.  Atari: Game Over is a nostalgic look back at the first video game designers and how one designer created the first great game for Atari, and later the last, and then vanished into anonymity.  His journey parallels several die-hard fans’ strange and curious search to prove or disprove an urban legend–that Atari lost so much money on the E.T., the Extra-Terrestrial video game for the Atari 2600 (thought by many to be the single worst video game of all time) that Atari dumped at least a million of the unopened boxes in a desert town landfill back in 1983.  It’s also a story of one of the first Dot Com economic busts long before there were Dot Coms.

Do the amateur archaeologists find anything or is this just another Geraldo Rivera search for Jimmy Hoffa?  Atari: Game Over is worth watching to find out.

More than a passable chronicle of the company and its products, clever pop culture references and film clips spice up the drama, thanks to director Zak Penn.  Penn, known best for writing the screenplays for the Arnold Schwarzenegger action film Last Action Hero, Owen Wilson’s Behind Enemy Lines, Jeremy Piven’s PCU, X-Men 2, X-Men: The Last Stand, The Incredible Hulk, the story for The Avengers, and scripts for the TV series Alphas, brings some real street-cred to the project.  Penn is also said to be working on Ready Player One, based on the Ernest Cline novel reviewed by Art Schmidt previously at borg.com here.

Every geek and nerd will want to check this one out.  Atari: Game Over is now streaming on Netflix and available here at Amazon.com.  

This August thousands of sci-fi, fantasy, and superhero fans will attend the inaugural Kansas City Comic Con, a new comic book and pop culture convention to be held at the Kansas City Convention Center at Bartle Hall.  Four months away and the show has already booked some great movie and TV guests as well as the very best comic book and fiction writers and artists in the U.S.

Headlining the show will be none other than Jackie Brown herself, actress Pam Grier.  Not only is Ms. Grier known for her leading role in Quentin Tarentino’s hit film, but she has also starred in the classic 1970s films Coffy and Foxy Brown, as well as Fort Apache The Bronx, Something Wicked This Way Comes, John Carpenter’s Escape from L.A. and Ghosts of Mars, and TV series including Night Court, Crime Story, Knots Landing, Miami Vice, Bones, The L Word, and Smallville.

Many Doctor Who fans will get their first chance to meet Colin Baker, who played the fan-favorite Sixth Doctor on BBC’s original series from 1984 to 1986.  Known for his bright patchwork jacket, you may have seen him most recently in the funny film The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, discussed earlier at borg.com here.

In this big year of Star Wars, Kansas City Comic Con attendees will get an opportunity to meet two actresses known for their roles as Jedi Knights in the Star Wars prequels.  Nalini Krishan played Barriss Offee, a Jedi Knight and General in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.  Also scheduled to appear is Orli Shoshan, who played Jedi Knight Shaak Ti, also in Star Wars: Attack of the Clones (as well as deleted scenes in Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith). 

Creator guests scheduled to attend the Con include Jason Aaron, C.W. Cooke, Nicholas Forristal, Bryan Fyffe, Michael Golden, Damont Jordan, Jim Mehsling, Jai Nitz, Ande Parks, Chris Sebela, Greg Smallwood, Rick Stasi, Bryan Timmins, Darryl Woods, Mike Zeck, and our own borg.com writer, fantasy author Elizabeth C. Bunce.

Comic book artist Michael Golden.

More media guests, including Lost Girl stars Ksenia Solo and Rick Howland, and creator guests are listed at the Kansas City Comic Con website.  Even more are expected to be announced soon.

The show expects to have hundreds of vendors, plus displays, cosplay, autograph and photo opportunities.

Kansas City Comic Con will be held August 7-9, 2015, at the Kansas City Convention Center in downtown Kansas City at Bartle Hall, the venue for the region’s biggest events.  Come back here to borg.com for more updates between now and August, and follow Kansas City Comic Con on Facebook and Twitter and check out their website here for more updates.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

What better item to take to a convention to get Chris Evans’s autograph than a set of Agent Coulson’s Captain America trading cards–vintage and near mint, as Coulson bragged in the movie The Avengers.  Next month you’ll be able to land your own collectible set of the cards designed from the original digital images used in the film.  And that’s not all that is coming your way if you like collectible trading cards or playing cards from your favorite movies and TV shows.

In fact you can pre-order the set now here from Entertainment Earth, including both a near mint set and the bloodied Captain America cards resulting from Coulson’s death scene.  The set comes with its own display folder.  It’s scheduled to ship in April.

While you’re at it you can pick up a deck of the Tall Card game inspired from the game played on board the Serenity in Firefly.  You can pre-order it from Entertainment Earth here.  That game includes those recognizable round cards you remember from the TV series.  It also is scheduled to ship in April.

Fans of The Princess Bride will not want to miss three new decks of playing cards, stylized to match the storybook world from the all-time favorite fantasy film.  You can choose from the As You Wish deck, the Stormin da Castle deck, or the The Brute Squad deck, or all three in a Collector’s Box set, all available now from Amazon.com.

Finally, despite no new movie from The Hobbit this year, new collectibles are still being released, including a new collectible card series for The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug due out by June.  If you’re lucky you might land one of these insert sketch cards, created by artists Nathen Reinke and Keven Reinke.

The Hobbit trading cards are not yet available for pre-order.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Convention planner Wizard World will hold its first pop culture convention in Iowa this June–one of dozens of Cons it is holding across the country this year.  Wizard World Comic Con will introduce Des Moines to sci-fi icon William Shatner (Star Trek), horror icon Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street), Billy Dee Williams (The Empire Strikes Back), and Jewel Staite (Firefly), plus Emily Kinney and Michael Cudlitz (The Walking Dead), and a giant roster of other celebrity guests from film and TV, past and present.

Arrow’s Slade Wilson/Deathstroke, actor Manu Bennett.

Other familiar genre actors scheduled to attend include Manu Bennett (Arrow, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey), Dean Cain (Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman), J. August Richards (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Angel), Michael Rosenbaum (Smallville), Lou Ferrigno (The Incredible Hulk), Ernie Hudson (Ghostbusters, Psych), Cassandra Peterson (Elvira, Mistress of the Dark), Giancarlo Esposito (Breaking Bad), and both Sean Patrick Flanery and David Della Rocco from Boondock Saints.

Dean Cain, from Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman

Several well-known comic book writers and artists will be featured in Wizard World’s Artist Alley: Des Moines’s own Ant Lucia (DC Comics “Bombshell” covers and posters), Neal Adams (Batman, Green Lantern/Green Arrow), Mike Zeck (Marvel Super Heroes Secret Wars), Iowa-based artist Phil Hester (Green Arrow, The Flash), Michael Golden (Star Wars, The ‘Nam), and many others.

Des Moines’s own Ant Lucia, creator of the DC Comics Bombshells.

Englund, Kinney, Cudlitz and Staite will appear Saturday and Sunday, June 13-14; Shatner will attend on Friday and Saturday, June 12-13.  Check the Wizard World Des Moines website for guest and schedule updates.

Billy Dee Williams, who played Han Solo’s pal Lando Calrissian, is a guest at Wizard World Des Moines.

Show hours are Friday, June 12, 3-8 p.m.; Saturday, June 13, 10 a.m.-7 p.m.; Sunday, June 14, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. at the Iowa Events Center in downtown Des Moines.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

Review by C.J. Bunce

Oliver Queen was dead, to begin with.

The average superhero fan today probably wouldn’t know Oliver Queen today but for three events: (1) the modernization of the character by writer Dennis O’Neil and artist Neal Adams in the 1970s, (2) his update to urban longbow hunter by writer/artist Mike Grell in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and (3) the literal resurrection of Oliver Queen in the early 2000s by the partnership of writer Kevin Smith, penciller Phil Hester and inker Ande Parks.  No TV series would have arrived without the survival of the character thanks to these stories–reprinted and available in a deluxe hardcover for the O’Neil/Adams stories here, and in paperback reprinted only recently for Mike Grell’s stories here, here, and here.  In light of Green Arrow/Arrow’s popularity today being greater than ever before in his 73 year history, it’s only fitting that DC Comics is releasing the third great chapter in the character’s history with Absolute Green Arrow this month.

Absolute Green Arrow, available here from Amazon.com, reprints Issues #1-15 of Green Arrow, Volume 3, in a matte black with gloss hardcover with slipcase  in a sharp, over-sized, 9.6 inch X 15 inch format.  It includes all of Matt Wagner’s stylish painted covers, previously released introduction by Smith and afterword by Hester, and original artwork in an appendix by Hester.  If you ever wonder how much work the inker must conquer, just take a look at Hester’s pencil work and you’ll have a great appreciation for Parks’ inks.

Hester and Parks did shading and shadows like nobody else. Original art seen in full color as published in Absolute Green Arrow.

The first ten chapters form the “Quiver” story arc, and the last five the “Sounds of Violence” arc.  This is the entire run of Kevin Smith’s stories for Green Arrow.  Phil Hester took over writing and artistic duties for the next several issues with even better stories than found in these early chapters.  But these Smith stories present a Green Arrow in a way a bit like Frank Miller played with Batman’s mythology in The Dark Knight Returns.  Smith’s Green Arrow is not as innovative as the seminal Miller work, but it’s plenty fun, and each new chapter feels like Smith saw this opportunity to play with DC Universe characters like a kid in a toy store.  You’ll encounter the Justice League, memorable encounters with Aquaman and Hawkman, and even a quirky adventure featuring Stanley and his Monster.  Former sidekicks Roy Harper and Connor Hawke are here, too, but most importantly Oliver Queen rebuilds his relationship with long-time love interest Dinah Lance aka Black Canary.  Difficult to come back from after being presumed dead.

Hester and Parks at Planet Comicon

These stories also define the unique Phil Hester artwork style that you can spot a mile away today in his current work on The Flash comic book TV tie-in series.  It’s in the “Quiver” story arc that we’re first introduced to Mia Dearden, another incarnation of the sidekick Speedy, a modern young woman with much to offer readers and whose character is expanded further in Hester’s later stories.

The best of the chapters is a confrontation between Oliver and Hawkman and a hilarious series of panels of Dinah by Hester as she enters to break-up their antics.  Oliver’s first encounter with the Justice League is also a great scene, especially when Superman arrives.

New comments by Smith and Hester would have been a nice addition.  Smith’s dated comment from 2002 that begins this volume includes a final point praising the cover art for the series, stating that Matt Wagner’s original painted covers were all hanging in his comic book store, and that “I’ll keep them forever… Or at least until I run out of cash.”  Only a few years later Smith must have run out of cash, as they were all broken up and sold at auction along with many of Hester and Parks’ original art pages and Wagner’s cover roughs.  Then again, it sort of fits Smith’s persona.

How was Oliver resurrected after being shot down in an airplane toward the end of the earlier series begun by Mike Grell?  You’ll have to read it to find out, but if you’ve been watching The Returned on A&E recently you’ll have an idea.

Absolute Green Arrow is a must for any Green Arrow fan, and a good read for anyone who loves superhero comics who is looking for a good romp.

Review by C.J. Bunce

Next month Dark Horse Comics releases a must-read for fans of He-Man, She-Ra “Princess of Power,” and the Masters of the Universe world of toys, animated series, magazines, chapter books, posters, comic strips, and comic books.  The Art of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe Limited Edition Hardcover includes more than 300 pages full-color art, a portfolio featuring an exclusive print by Gerald Parel, a foil-embossed cover, and a die-cut two-piece Castle Greyskull slipcase.  A standard edition of the book will also be available.  Many well-known creators worked with these characters since its inception in the early 1980s, including Ralph McQuarrie, Drew Struzan, Dick Giordano, J. Michael Straczynski, George Tuska, Klaus Janson, Boris Vallejo, Tony Moore, Darwyn Cooke, Geoff Johns, and Tommy Lee Edwards.

Designers from every stage of the creation of He-Man, She-Ra, Skeletor, and the large cast of sword and sorcery heroes and villains, offer insight into character development, decision-making, and the impact on 1980s kids.  The best feature is the inclusion of hundred of pieces of full-color art, concept artwork, page layouts, sketches, storyboards, packaging art, prototypes, never before seen and unused imagery, advertising art, original comic art, and final comic book pages, covers, and animation cels.  It features restored art from master illustrator Earl Norem, as well as interviews with Dolph Lundgren, who played He-Man in the 1987 movie, director Gary Goddard, well-known TV producer/comic book writer Paul Dini, and voice actress Erika Scheimer, among many others.  Captions for photos were written by comic book creators Tim Seeley and Steve Seeley.

Particularly of interest to toy collectors are the original notes from the development stage of the toy line at Mattel.  Mattel, which had passed on the ground-breaking Star Wars action figure line, developed He-Man as a direct competitor to that toy line.  Mattel drove the look of the characters–this was first and foremost a toy line, inspired in part by the fantasy art of Frank Frazetta.  But it grew beyond that.  Artists and writers and other creators remark with pride about the focus on the stories that went beyond the toy line.

The Art of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe includes chapters on the mini-comics, which introduced kids to new characters, the Filmation animated adventures and later animated series, and the 1987 film.  One section includes reprints of art cards included with a DVD release, with great work by Adam Hughes, Frank Cho, Dustin Nguyen, Gene Ha, and Bill Sienkiewicz, among others.  Mattel partnered with both DC Comics and Marvel Comics to tell these adventure and fantasy stories over the course of the brand’s three decades.

Fun for both fans of the franchise and those wanting to learn more about the step-by-step process of developing a story from idea through animated series production, The Art of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe can be pre-ordered at a discount off the list price from Amazon.com.  Check out the deluxe limited edition–limited to 4,000 copies only–here, and the standard release here.

If you like cool cars (and who doesn’t?) and you like ogling the latest and greatest high-end, high-performance cars, then you need look no further than the latest James Bond movie.  Bond will be back this November in SPECTRE where he takes on the latest villain, Mr. Hinx, played by Guardians of the Galaxy’s Dave Bautista.  The production recently closed down the streets of Rome for the next Bond high-octane car chase, this time pitting Bautista against Daniel Craig’s Bond in two unreleased cars.

First is Bautista in this sleek, jaw-dropping Jaguar C-X75.  Then Craig, of course, has his Aston Martin, this time the new DB10. And they apparently made plenty for filming action scenes in the new entry in the Bond franchise.

A new featurette just released by MGM shows some behind the scenes images and interviews with cast and crew.  Check it out, after the break:

SPECTRE arrives in theaters November 6, 2015.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

When I first started borg.com in June 2011, I wrote it in my basement on Saturdays, trying to prepare concept articles as much in advance as possible.  At the time I planned on writing weekly, but the first day then became seven days which became a month and it kept on going until I wrote something at least every day for the next 1,421 days.  In the background was the TV set, playing things that wouldn’t distract me like major league baseball, Lawrence Welk reruns and Antiques Roadshow, and even lame cable shows like reruns of My Fair Brady (yikes).  And beside me every day was Gracie.

Gracie had her own couch, and sometimes preferred lying beside me on the floor near my chair.  Sometimes I would give up on writing and move over and fall asleep next to her on her couch.  Gracie had the bubbliest, vibrant soul and fun-loving spirit of anyone I ever met, human or otherwise.  She coined the term “pie-eating grin”  after I left a cherry pie on the counter on Thanksgiving that she very delicately and completely hollowed out with her tongue.

I don’t watch dog movies or read dog stories because they all end bad.  The dogs always die.  Dogs don’t live as long as humans and the only thing that can be said, to quote a great philosopher, is: It sucks.  But Gracie’s life was awesome and she inspired others.  About a year and a half after I started borg.com she got pneumonia, and fought her way back.  Then she got diagnosed with lymphoma.  What I feared was a death sentence ended up as a “life” sentence.  Unlike with humans, chemotherapy with dogs does not typically produce the side effects humans encounter.  Gracie made it through two rounds of chemo in more than two years and made it halfway through a third round.  And she passed away Friday a little more than a day shy of her fourteenth birthday.  That’s age 98 if you believe in that “dog years” stuff.

If anyone ever says “oh, I would never put my dog through that” either knock them upside the head for me or send them my way.

The doctor in the initial consultation informed us that without chemo she’d have been gone in 45 days.  With it, he said, she may very well die of some other old age issue before the cancer gets her.  And he was right.  Her oncologist bought her 2.5 years.  A bonus, and they became the best years of her life.  That’s right, she enjoyed every day, never was in pain, and ended up dying of a failing, well-used, worn-out heart–a strange irony considering that girl was all heart.

My message to you is simple.  Remember Gracie’s story if you or a friend ever hear a dog is diagnosed with cancer and they don’t want to go forward with treatment.  Without it they are cutting the dog’s life unnecessarily short, or leaving their dog to die a painful death.  Gracie’s sometimes monthly, sometimes weekly, visits made sure she was well-monitored, meaning she fought off infections that crept in that any dog might get, but were treated immediately with antibiotics.  She never was in pain, from chemo or side effects, and her visits to the doctor became visits with her friends who cared about her.  And she had a great, long life.  As dog years go.

Gracie was also an awesome cosplayer.  Some people don’t think dogs like cosplay, and some dogs don’t.  But Gracie loved it.  She even won a cosplay contest and got a medal.  And she was pretty proud of it.  She wore a pirate hat which was apt–she was the first of her pack to open her eyes–one eye, actually, and so we named her after Grace O’Malley, the famous Irish pirate queen.  She enjoyed meeting people at the Renaissance Festival each year and would have attended Comic Cons if she could have.  She was fun-loving and managed to squeeze the pulp out of each day–setting a good example for everyone.

We’ll miss our sweet girl here.  Thanks, as always, for reading.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com

You probably heard it all day yesterday: May the Fourth be with you.

But this year’s annual Star Wars observance meant a whole lot more in light of the next Star Wars installment coming our way in December.  We saw some new images of several new characters, some with actors we’d heard of, others as strange as those from the original Mos Eisley cantina.  All thanks to Vanity Fair magazine.

The biggest news was that the slick new chrome-armored stormtrooper from the second Star Wars VII trailer (seen here) is played by Game of Thrones’ Gwendoline Christie–yes, women can serve the Empire–and she’s apparently hunting down a certain AWOL trooper played by Attack the Block’s John Boyega.  We’re predicting that even with a very 1930s action serial/”something George Lucas would come up with” name, this new villain, called “Captain Phasma,” could be getting primed by toymakers to be one of the highest-selling action figures of 2016.

If this seems a bit familiar it may be because Vanity Fair has previously featured fans’ first looks at the last entries in the Star Wars saga, also with Annie Leibovitz photo shoots.  For those new to Annie Leibovitz, she’s one of the best known photographers of the past 40 years, with many famous shots of rock stars.

Visit the Vanity Fair website at this link for an Annie Leibovitz photo shoot, with some cool new images from behind the scenes of The Force Awakens.  The magazine reveals Adam Driver’s role as Kylo Ren–the masked wielder of the three-bladed lightsaber from the first teaser preview released earlier this year (seen here), a look at the (awesome) new snowtroopers (this time the Empire, not the Rebellion, is hiding on a frozen ice planet), and Lupita Nyong’o is portraying an entirely CGI pirate named Maz Kanata (those are some denizens from his castle shown above).

Let’s take another look at Captain Phasma from the second trailer:

Yep.  She’s the coolest character we’ve seen from The Force Awakens so far.

You probably have the date memorized by now:  Star Wars: The Force Awakens hits theaters December 18, 2015.

C.J. Bunce
Editor
borg.com