Welcome to another edition of “Picturing...” You don’t have to be an accomplished equestrian to see that horses are magnificent creatures—majestic, fierce, gentle, wise, often all at once. They are a staple throughout art history in general, as well as in fantasy illustration. Putting this collection together, it was tough to know when to stop building; the amount of fantastic drawing and painting about horses seems limitless.
Above: Scandinavian folklore painter John Bauer. I have Charles Vess to thank for introducing me to Bauer’s wonderful fantasy work—he is now an all-time favorite of mine (both Charlie and Bauer.)
[Picturing horses]
Don’t worry, this Lincolnstein is TOTALLY a real toy you can buy! He’s part of a line of Presidential Monsters, in which various creatures have been mashed-up with some of various leaders of the free world. Fear the bite of Baracula! Hear the song of the Phantom of the White House! Watch out for the webbed digits of the Monster from the Watergate Lagoon!
Your collection of daily offsite links have executive monster powers. Highlights include:
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Two days ago we were questioning how we should feel about a standalone Star Wars prequel focusing on Yoda’s (very long) life. Since then, Walt Disney Co. CEO Bob Iger has confirmed the existence of spin-off films—and Entertainment Weekly now reports that two movies in particular will focus on Boba Fett and Han Solo.
First, the necessary grain of salt: EW acquired the information from unnamed sources, and neither Lucasfilm nor Disney have officially commented. But this seems to be the direction both projects are headed, and they’ve already set the internet ablaze with casting ideas. Seriously, did you ever think we’d live in an era where “Han Solo” is trending on Twitter?
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Check out an excerpt from When We Wake by Karen Healey, out on March 5 from Little, Brown Books for Young Readers:
Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027—she's happiest when playing the guitar, she's falling in love for the first time, and she's joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice.
But on what should have been the best day of Tegan's life, she dies—and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.
Tegan is the first government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity—even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. But the future isn't all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future?
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So that was Season Two, and it was a mixed bag for me. Whereas I found myself far more impressed with Season One this time around, Season Two slipped somewhat in my estimation. I agree with a comment from Colin R on last week’s episode—there were a lot of mediocre episodes front-loaded at the start of the year which made getting into this season a bit of a slog. It did redeem itself, and when the episodes were good they were VERY good, but in retrospect there were more duds than I remembered.
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You know how you want to share a really good book with everyone you know? Mary Doria Russell’s The Sparrow is one of my all-time favorite books. (In fact, I read an excerpt of it for the NYC I, Reader series this past winter.) It’s difficult to write about religion and sci-fi without upsetting both camps, but Russell’s novel treats it artfully by using using space exploration as the lens to examine this huge issue. In The Sparrow we follow two stories: The global miscommunications that arise when one culture attempts to convert another, and one man’s crippling loss of faith.
On February 1st, Russell herself announced that The Sparrow might finally be flying from page to screen.
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Back in 1965, Marvel Comics decided to capitalize on the popularity of spy stories such as Danger Man, Man From U.N.C.L.E., and James Bond, and turned their grizzled WWII foot soldier Nick Fury into a one-eyed badass super spy and situated him as the new head of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which then stood for Supreme Headquarters, International Espionage, Law-Enforcement Division but has since come to stand for any other number of things, depending on the medium). Now as much as I would love to write a million words gushing over the trippy ’60s brilliance of Jim Steranko’s run on Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., we’re here to talk about much more important things: crazy spy gadgets.
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It honestly feels like only a couple months ago (though a whole year has certainly passed) that Being Human made some very brave choices in their fourth season and changed their entire lineup, bringing stories to an end for George, Annie and little Eve. But Honolulu Heights is still occupied, and we’ve got a new team who has a lot to learn. One newly-minted ghost, one werewolf who is still getting used to having friends and his own room, and one vampire with OCD who just fell off the wagon after being clean for 60 years.
Alex, Tom, and Hal are going to need some house rules.
[And a rotor, and jobs, and some guy tied up in their basement… wait, what?]
We’ll admit it, the Internet is amazing. Stubby the Rocket was born on the Internet, and it’s a fantastic place to live. But, even Stubby the Rocket likes to travel back in time every once and awhile a write a good old fashion hand-written letter. And now, we’re being challenged to write A Month of Letters and we’d like to challenge you too!
[Write more letters!]