One of the fun activities while attending comic and scifi conventions is heading off to one of the side rooms to watch fan films. These range from the basic no-budget stories shot on a smart phone while making it up as you go along, to large budget Star Trek stories with special effects and -- sometimes -- actors from the actual series. Mostly they're a mix, with a modest budget, inexperienced actors, and a simplistic plot. The goal overall is just to have fun watching them as well as making them.

The Associated Press has been informed that Chadwick Boseman, who portrayed the groundbreaking and inspirational superhero in the Marvel Cinematic Universe CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR, BLACK PANTHER, and AVENGERS: INFINITY WAR, has passed away today at the age of 43 from colon cancer.

Boseman was diagnosed with the illness four years ago, about the same time CAPTAIN AMERICA: CIVIL WAR introduced the Black Panther to live action audiences. He never spoke publicly about his condition, choosing instead to continue filming.

The Boseman family statement to the press said that Boseman was 'a true fighter,' “Chadwick persevered through it all and brought you many of the films you have come to love so much; from MARSHALL to DA 5 BLOODS, AUGUST WILSON'S MA RAINEY'S BLACK BOTTOM, and several more — all were filmed during and between countless surgeries and chemotherapy."

"It was the honor of his career to bring King T’Challa to life in BLACK PANTHER.”

EMPEROR is inspired by the legend of Shields "Emperor" Green (Dayo Okeniyi), a descendant of African kings turned outlaw slave in the pre-Civil War South. Seeking freedom for his family, Emperor fights his way north, joining the daring raid on Harper's ferry and helping alter the course of American history.

Starring Kat Graham, Naturi Naughton, Ben Robson, James Cromwell, and Bruce Dern, EMPEROR is an inspiring story of courage and determination. Keyaira Boone of Essence says "Emperor is Taken meets Django Unchained."

For your chance to own this DVD, use the options on the form below. We always remind our readers that we do have a Rules and Regulations page for all our giveaways that you may find informative.

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Fans of the soaps GUIDING LIGHT and ONE LIFE TO LIVE are well acquainted with actress Crystal Hunt, who played Lizzie Spaulding and Stacy Morasco on each show, respectively.

But the actress has kept consistenly busy since her time on the daytime dramas, putting in work in films as well as other serial entertainment, suc as HILTON HEAD ISLAND for Pure Flix.

With MOOD SWINGS, Hunt gets to bring the full range of her experience to bear; not only is she acting in the Pure Flix situation comedy, she's also the creator, serving as writer and producer. With an ensemble cast featuring Robin Riker, Cristina DeRosa, Sophia Gasca, and Donna Mills, MOOD SWINGS draws its inspiration from THE GOLDEN GIRLS, and it's not hard to begin to draw the parallels between the characters once you see them.

It was a long, loud, and violent night for the residents of Kenosha. The citizens of the Wisconsin city on the shores of Lake Michigan, following the news and footage of the police shooting of 29-year-old Jacob Blake, may have thought they were prepsred for the protests that would come. After all, they had seen what had happened after the George Floyd incident in Minnesota, and in Ferguson after the Michael Brown shooting.

Riots were the expectation.

But sometimes reality overwhelms expectations. Such was the case for Victor Estill, founder of the Gravity Gaming Lounge, which posted the following on their Facebook page in the wake of the devastation.

Jeff Daniels narrates WASHINGTON, a three-part miniseries for The History Channel that mixes re-enactment with seated interview segments that do a deep-dive into the events in the life of George Washington, the first President of the United States.

Nicholas Rowe (YOUNG SHERLOCK HOLMES) plays the titular founding father in program that strips away the folk history to reveal the man beneath, complete with flaws and failures. From his first military command -- which resulted in an embarrassing attack on a French diplomatic party with Washington signing a confession branding him as an assassin -- to his tactical decisions as the Commander in Chief of his own army in the American Revolution, WASHINGTON is a story of growth and maturiing, of making mistakes and learning from them. Rowe presents a stoic Washington throughout, even when forced to make hard decisions such as hanging deserters or having mutineers execute their leaders in a firing squad.

If you're a dyed-in-the-wool Lucifan, you've probably already binged the first eight episodes of the fifth-and-final season of LUCIFER released on Netflix today. I mean, what more could you truly desire?

How about all the great music that we've heard these past five seasons?

Part of the charm of LUCIFER has been Tom Ellis sitting down at the piano now and again as Lucifer Morningstar, entertaining (or, sometimes, depressing) the crowds at his nightclub, Lux. And sometime later into he series, we find that Lesley-Ann Brandt -- Lucifer's right-hand demon, Mazikeen -- also sports an exquisite set of pipes, as she's allowed to strut her stuff with some sultry numbers like "Fever" and "I Want to Be Evil."

Particular highlights of this set include the duet of Brandt and Ellis performing "I Will Survive," and Ellis's emotional interpretation of Beck's "Creep" which opened up the fourth season when the show made it's Netflix debut.

2020 was meant to be the biggest year ever for CW's THE FLASH. From the very first episode when viewers got teased with that headline from the future, we knew the series was building toward the legendary "Crisis on Infinite Earths" story -- a story which, in comics, rebuilt the entire DC Universe from scratch at the cost of the lives of The Flash and Supergirl. And while it seemed unlikely that the showrunners were going to sacrifice two of their titular characters for the sake of telling the story, expectations among fans were nonetheless high.

The Short Answer 

No.

The Longer Answer

On July 30, 2020, our esteemed competition in reporting on comics and entertainment, Bleeding Fool, published the second part in their ongoing series of articles investigating the so-called "Whisper Network,"  And while the bulk of that article continued to delve into the secret Facebook group, Women in Comics, it led with a blockbuster accusation that had been completely excluded -- and, in fact, in the case of one website, completely deleted -- from coverage. That accusation came from comic book writer Bill Willingham (FABLES, ELEMENTALS), when he claimed that Stephanie Cooke, working at the time as his assistant, embezzled in excess of $10,000 from his accounts.

Biblically-inspired comic book stories are not a new thing. One could argue they go as far back as Superman himself, as an allegory to the tale of Moses. But that doesn't mean some of them can't feel like a new thing, and when they do it truly captures the imagination and runs wild with it.

This is the case behind DOMINION: FALL OF THE HOUSE OF SAUL, created by Dr. Barron Bell and co-written by Daniel Hancock. It's very much a re-interpretation of the Old Testament book of I Samuel, beginning with Saul already established as king and having  beaten the armies of the Amalekites one year prior. However, DOMINION gives this story a twist in that it is told using anthropomorphic beasts in an extra-galactic setting, making it a "Star Wars in Narnia" event.

From its very preconception, BATWOMAN seemed to be a project destined for failure on the CW. From the inflammatory pre-show trailers to the shoe-horned identity-driven approach to storytelling, the series was determined to trip over itself to be something rather than letting an organically told story do the work for them, ultimately resulting in the lead actress, Ruby Rose, opting to leave the role of Kate Kane -- the titular hero -- after the freshman year.

DC's STARGIRL has been nothing short of stellar throughout its 13-episode freshman season. The latest entry into the Arrowverse (the show was teased at the end of the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" crossover, so we're counting it), the show has been one of the most consistently fun, fresh, optimistic, adventuresome, straight-up superhero shows to have graced the CW network. There's a respect and an adherence to the source material -- not just to the STARGIRL comic book heroine herself but to much of the DC Universe in general. The costumes, the props (there's a green lantern seen more than once that I'm still waiting to see get fired up!) and the name-drops have all been enough to make a comic book fan giddy to his core.

Dave Sim, the man behind the legendary run of CEREBUS, has a new project wrapping up on Kickstarter, with artist Carson Grubaugh. YOU DON'T KNOW JACK! TWO-FISTED COMIC STORE MANAGER is a by-product of the collaboration of Sim and Grubaugh on his other work-in-progress, THE STRANGE DEATH OF ALEX RAYMOND. During the latter project, Grubaugh, an art professor, drew on one of his students as a model for the piece -- Jack VanDyke, a comic store manager.

The Joker has struck his biggest blow against the Dark Knight -- he has taken all the billions of Bruce Wayne and has assumed control of Wayne Enterprises, including all the attendant Batman technology. Bruce Wayne has been exposed as an embezzler, redirecting Wayne Foundation funds into financially supporting Batman's war on crime -- which is, in fact, true, since Bruce Wayne set up several shell companies to hide the fact he had been doing exactly this for years.

Now Gotham City is under seige, with Batman and the police being the last line of defense against the Joker and his minions, armed to the teeth with Batman-weaponry. The new Wayne Foundation lawyers are also pressing things on the legal end -- against the police and the press, silencing all opposition as best they can.

RAVAGE: KILL ALL MEN began as a Kickstarter campaign under the Cautionary Comics banner. It was loudly heralded and brought with it high expectations, due to the gravitas lent to the series by writer Chuck Dixon who joined Benjamin Henderson in crafting the story. The dynamic and sexy cover by Geebo Vigonte and Lorenzo Thellier D'Auzers also no doubt moved units to the success of the crowdfunding campaign.

Since then, the title has shifted its masthead to Fanatic Comics, and is getting a second "redux" printing through an Indiegogo, which is still in the offing.

So lets dig into this offering, both external and internal, and deliver the breakdowns.

The premise of Philip Pullman's HIS DARK MATERIALS is one with a lot of promise. It's theological at its core, positing an alternate world much like our own, with an identical creation story of Adam, Eve, and Serpent. But beyond that, things diverge. The world is one of dirigible and balloon transport, and the architecture seems older and more industrial revolution era. But beyodn the trappings of technology, there is more: humans are born with a "daemon" -- a spirit animal that can change its form until the human host reaches puberty, at which point it settles on one specific animal. The connection between human and daemon is considered sacred, and indeed what effects one is felt on the other. When humans die, their daemons disintegrate.

I've greatly enjoyed the movies adapting Tom Clancy's novels. There was plenty of action and suspense, and you felt the character was always in a (wait for it) clear and present danger.

Now, I admittedly missed the first season of the JACK RYAN streaming series, and honestly I wasn't lost entering the second season without it. The storyline here was clearly a new beginning bringing back the titular character (played by John Krasinski) with James Greer (Wendell Pierce), and introducing Mike November (Michael Kelly). The setting is Venezuela, where the current corrupt leader, Nicolas Reyes (Jordi Mollà), is having his position challenged in the upcoming election by Gloria Bonalde (Cristina Umaña).

If you haven't watched any STARGIRL by now, you are lucky. Because you're only one week away from getting to binge the entire first season.

It's been a shortened first season -- only thirteen episodes in total -- but it's been a fun and enjoyable ride. DC and CW have given viewers the family-friendly super-hero show that its lineup had been sorely missing, and fans have responded positively to it. Brec Bassinger's portrayal of Courtney Whitmore, the teenager who becomes Stargirl, is fresh and optimistic, always appealing to the good in people. It's with this determined outlook that Stargirl recruits a new Justice Society from the unlikely group of social outcasts at Blue Valley High: Doctor Mid-nite (Anjelika Washington), Hourman (Cameron Gellman), and Wildcat (Yvette Monreal).

In the first season of THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY, the quirky sibling superhero group failed to prevent the world-shattering apocalypse that they themselves caused, leaping through time at the last moment through the powers of their brother, Five (Aidan Gallagher), to wind up scattered across the early 1960s in Dallas, Texas, with the last of them arriving in 1963, days before the Kennedy assassination. Diego (David Castañeda) sees this as an opportunity to prevent the assassination, but somehow -- a mystery for the season -- this leads to yet another world-ending apocalypse of global nuclear war. Diego ends up committed to an insane asylum. Luther (Tom Hopper) is forced to become a bare-knuckle brawler for Jack Ruby. Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman) settles into a marriage to a local civil rights activist, Ray Chestnut (Yusuf Gatewood), Klaus (Robert Sheehan) starts a cult, and Vanya ends up without her memories living on a farm with a family raising a disabled child.

Every month the staff at Critical Blast combs the cosplay community for up-and-coming cosplayers who deserve to have a broader audience for their work, taking into account not only costuming skills and spirit, but also how they use that ability in service to others. Through this, we've not only met some talented cosplayers, but also some fine human beings.

With summer now in full swing, the heat is definitely on -- but it has nothing on the cosplay of this month's featured cosplayer! With her ability to bring to life our favorite characters but also place them in settings that complement the scene, as well as finding ways to make a character cosplay uniquely her own, we find ourselves awed at the talents on display, and we think you, dear reader, will be similarly blown away by our...