THE WATCHMEN OF PORT FAYT from David Fickling Books, and available in hardcover on August 25^th is the first novel by English author Conrad Mason and the first book in his TALES OF FATE Trilogy.

Conrad Mason is a graduate of Cambridge University and is an editor of children’s books. So while he's no stranger to children’s literature, THE WATCHMEN OF PORT FAYT is his first novel. Based in a mythical town called Port Fayt, inhabited by humans and elves, imps and ogres, trolls and fairies, goblins and dwarfs, Conrad weaves a well-constructed, thought-out story of mystery, intrigue, monsters, magic and mayhem. The book even has a rudimentary map displaying the town and surrounding oceans, islands and old worlds a la Tolkien and a glossary of many of the various beings mentioned above cleverly written as part of the book.

It doesn’t seem like it’s been that long to me, but it was way back in 1988 when a gang--as they called themselves-- of musicians changed the burgeoning hip-hop genre forever. The artists were from Compton, a hard-times neighborhood in Los Angeles where the infamous LAPD could, with little provocation, drive a swat tank through your front door and harass you on the streets just for being black. If you don’t think things have changed much, I won’t argue with you. Things have, however, changed for those pioneers of reality-based street rap, the N.W.A. And no, I’m not talking about the old National Wrestling Alliance either.

In the mid 1960s THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. was a major hit. It won the Golden Globe for Best Television Show in 1966, and stars Robert Vaughn and David McCallum were each regularly nominated for best actor at the Emmys or Golden Globes. The show was conceived in part by Ian Fleming, the man who created James Bond, and as such began as a serious spy program. A couple of years in, the incredible popularity of Adam West’s BATMAN show encouraged the producers to lean heavily towards camp, a decision which ultimately doomed the show. The entire series is available on Amazon Prime.

The first teaser trailer for HALO WARS 2 has been released and it certainly does tease!

Fans of the HALO franchise will be happy to hear that there's plenty of Spartan goodness in the follow-up to HALO WARS, released in 2009. A real-time strategy game developed by Ensemble Studios, HALO WARS sold one million units worldwide the year it was released, making it the best-selling RTS of its time.

Critics of the original game felt that it lacked certain strategic options during gameplay, making it feel shallow, and didn't satisfy the more experienced gamers. Under the guidance of 343 Industries and Creative Assembly, there's hope that HALO WARS 2 will be vastly superior. Creative Assembly is the developer behind TOTAL WAR, which currently exists as one of the few remaining, quality, RTS games in the genre.

Despite the monetary success of HALO WARS, it's highly regarded as the franchise's only misstep.

Entertainment Weekly posted up a bunch of images from the upcoming STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS.  Here they are in all their glory (click on them for bigger versions):

From Entertainment Weekly:

Reviews by Mike Maillaro, Mike Weaver, Grey Scherl, and Gina Maillaro

AGE OF APOCALYPSE #2 by Fabian Nicieza and Gerardo Sandoval

Summary: The X-Men square off with Apocalypse’s Elite Mutant Force. They are all trying to claim Doug Ramsey.  They fight gets real ugly, real fast. 

Marrying up the fairy tales of Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, THE SEVENTH DWARF comes up short in story and in film quality, coming nowhere near the levels set by HOODWINKED or the SHREK franchise.

The scene is the 18th birthday party for Princess Rose (Peyton List). It's more than your average big deal, because it marks the day the princess can take off all her armor, which she's been forced to wear since she was born, having been cursed to sleep for 100 years if she were to prick her finger. But the evil witch, Dellamorta, is determined to bring her curse to fruition, and put Rose in a slumber that only the kiss of true love can dispel.

Welcome back to Critical Blast’s weekly look at what new comics you should check out each week.   Just a warning, I make these picks pretty much a week BEFORE I actually get to read any of these comics, so if something is a stinker, I take no blame on that.  Let's get to it! 

Comics shipping this week

I have an obscenely long list of comics coming out next week. I really need to start trimming down my pull list some, but it is pretty much all stuff I enjoy reading...

Galaxy Zack: Hello, Nebulon! 

Written by: Ray O'Ryan
Illustrated by: Colin Jack
Published by: Simon & Schuster (2013)
Cover Price: $4.99

Kira: HELLO, NEBULON!  is the first book in the GALAXY ZACK series.  GALAXY ZACK is about a eight year old boy named Zack who explores space.  Zack used to live on Earth, and in this book, he moves to the planet Nebulon.

Mike: How does Zack feel about moving?

If you're one of the many Star Wars fans that is hungry for more visuals, and don't care where they come from, then feast your eyes on a newly released Korean trailer!

Mixed with scenes we've already seen, this trailer is heavy on the Empire with a side of Rebels on the run. More explosive than adding Tobasco to your Tteokbokki, it appears the victory at the end of RETURN OF THE JEDI has the Empire a little hot under the collar. As a matter of fact, they look more organized and lethal than ever before, as the desire to rule the galaxy continues to burn.

Just take the first opening shot for example. It has a lot of people excited. As the camera pans across and shows a large...well, watch it and see for yourself!

by Chris Delloiacono, Mike Maillaro and Jeff Ritter

This week!

- WWE gets into the S+M Business

- Stardust...you have failed this city!

Recorded live in Redding, California at Bethel Church, with additional recording at the Soundhouse, MIGHTY did not immediately strike me as a live recording. It was very polished sounding. Oftentimes in live shows the audience sound is immediately heard before and during the performance and usually very much so in Christian recordings. Replete with a full band, strings, and a choir, this album is quite a production, many times giving the songs immenseness.

Social media buzz is something a lot of studios are using to drum up hype for upcoming movies. And with Snoopy's birthday coming up on Monday, August 10th, Blue Sky Studios (in association with FOX) is encouraging everyone to share their drawing of the beloved beagle with the hashtag: #DrawSnoopy. The following thumbnail was this writer's attempt:

FANTASTIC FOUR is the fourth film and the third attempt at turning Marvel’s superhero family into a gold mine franchise like X-MEN, SPIDER-MAN and the AVENGERS. It’s also easily the worst. In fact, it might be worse than SUPERMAN IV; THE QUEST FOR PEACE. This is rarified territory. You would almost have to work harder at screwing this up than getting it right. I mean, there’s only like 600-plus issues of the comic book to mine for story and plot and characters. Pick one that is exciting, funny, a little tragic, a little heartwarming, and then go shoot it on film. No, that’s too easy for director Josh Trank. He eschewed the readily available and beloved stories presented by America’s favorite storyteller Stan Lee to make a boring, tedious, muddled mess of a movie. Fans saw this train wreck coming for years. Now it’s here, and I think the Internet owes oft-ridiculed videogame movie director Uwe Boll one hell of a big apology. Even he couldn’t make such a fantastic flop.

 Meryl Streep is an impressive figure in Hollywood. We all knew she could act. She’s been nominated for dozens of awards and is not shy about taking on varied and challenging roles. For the lead role in RICKI AND THE FLASH, Streep learned to play guitar in 3 just three months. Is that a nearly impossible task for most people? Probably not, but despite my deep appreciation of music I have neither an ear nor talent for it myself. When I heard that the Streep was playing a rocker who gave up her family to pursue her dream in a film written by Diablo Cody (JUNO) and directed by Jonathan Demme (SILENCE OF THE LAMBS) I was intrigued. It sounded like there could be a “Chick Flick” underneath the electric guitar jams, but I couldn’t pass it up.

Reese Witherspoon and Sofia Vergara forge an unlikely partnership in this cop film / buddy film / road trip film that goes off the rails almost immediately after the credits.

Witherspoon plays Officer Rose Cooper, whom we see grow up in the back seat of her father's patrol car. This upbringing has made her a rather intense person with a complete knowledge of the codes and regulations, but not much in the way of social interaction. In summation, she's a female Barney Fife, working a desk. For reasons that defy even the plot, she's selected to accompany a detective to bring in a Federal witness to testify, so that she can accompany the witness's wife, Daniella Riva (Vergara).

For the last week or so, Blizzard has been hyping the announcement of the newest expanion to WORLD OF WARCRAFT.  The timing was pretty vital to the company.   Just a few days ago, Blizzard was forced to announce that WORLD OF WARCRAFT'S subscribers numbers are the lowest they've been since 2005.  In fact, since December of 2014, they have dropped from 10 million subscribers all the way down to 5.6 million. 

Granted this is still far more than any other MMORPG, but it still has to be the cause for some concern from Blizzard.  They made the announcement at Gamescom today for WORLD OF WARCRAFT - INVASION:

Here's the trailer for the next expansion:

Okay, go ahead and ask the inevitable question: Why in the world is CriticalBlast delving into political coverage?

Well, that's a very good question. I could say that it's technically political theater, but you'd see right through that. But the truth is that this door was opened by reality star host of THE APPRENTICE, Donald Trump. So we thought it would be fun to sort of grade the speakers tonight, based on their presentations and speaking skills, and ask you via our poll below who you felt did the best job of the evening.

Before the questions even come, we're reminded that the Happy Hour Debate winner seems to have been overwhelmingly Carly Fiorina, as Megyn Kelly bluntly laid out there. Chris wallace reminds us that the questions were submitted by the populace through Facebook.

The Rules: 1 minute per answers, 30 seconds for follow-ups. Let's see how well that gets followed!

Ryan Reynolds did not disappoint with his first full length, available to the public, ‘Red Band’ trailer for his upcoming movie: DEADPOOL. With a re-hashed Wolverine movie plot, where the hero is ‘modified’ and something goes wrong so he seeks revenge, the trailer has all the curse words and violence one should expect.

I don't really do comic reviews that often these days. It's not that I don't read comics, they're still a staple of my pop culture diet, but after writing regular weekly reviews for many years, I prefer to write about other forms of entertainment. When I heard about the graphic novel STEVE MCQUEEN: FULL THROTTLE COOL from Motor Books, well, I needed to read it and write a review. In all my years of online journalism, I've never had the chance to talk about my passion for the filmography of Mr. McQueen.

After requesting the review material, I was a little worried. What if the book was horrible? I mean, I own his movies, a replica of his jacket from THE GREAT ESCAPE, several McQueen dolls, figures, cars, you name it. It would be a shame to have to write a scathing review about the King of Cool. Or worse, what if it was a mediocre mess that couldn't inspire any emotion whatsoever? Writing one of those reviews is just not fun, at all.