Wandering Planet Toys, the manufacturers of The Prisoner action figure line, have a new line of action figures coming to the market focusing on the classic children’s sleuth Nancy Drew. Doc Wyatt and Gavin Hignight’s raised over $210,000 in the Kickstarter campaign for The Prisoner and they are hoping that their Nancy Drew campaign will be at least as successsful.
This is the first time that Nancy Drew has been licensed for an action figure and Doc and Gavin have gone all out to ensure that the action figures are of the highest quality. nancy Drew is a beloved character who has been the focus of 9 movies, 3 television shows, and many successful video games. Backers of this campaign have a number of surprises in store for them? What kind of surprises? Well, you’ll have to listen to the podcast to get the big one.
As you can see from this video clip from the episode (the actual podcast is audio, but I couldn’t resist including a couple of video clips) Doc and Gavin are committed to capturing the beauty of the Rudy Nappi cover illustrations and showing that Nancy is a woman capable of rescuing herself.
As with The Prisoner line of action figures, the Nancy Drew figures will come in packages that key in on specific episodes/books. This is clearly a project of passion for Doc and Gavin, and you can really see Doc’s excitement as he talks about The Mystery at Lilac Inn. We didn’t go as deep into Nancy Drew lore as is possible, but I’m quite certain that Doc could have geeked out for hours about the character and never missed a beat.
I’m very excited about this project and if you are interested, you can check out the Kickstarter page and follow it. The project will be launching this week.
On October 15, 2007, Jeff Mariotte visited our show for a short 15-minute interview that helped us kick off a conversation about Vampire movies and television shows, as well as other nasty things that go bump in the night. Jeff Mariotte is a former editor-in-chief at IDW Comics and the co-author of two published 30 Days of Night media tie-in novels. In this interview, Jeff discusses his comic book series Graveslinger, his 30 Days of Night media tie-in novels Immortal Remains and Rumors of the Undead, as well as his novel Missing White Girl. After the interview, Shawna Benson, Eric Lytle, and Christian Lindke discuss there favorite vampire stories on film and television.
This is the episode where Shawna Benson coined the phrase Friday Night Death Slot referring to how networks increasingly scheduled shows they thought would fail on Friday evenings.
Episode 166: Jim Pinto Talks Player Agency and the DM/Player Compact
Our guest for episode 166 is the prolific game designer Jim Pinto who has some interesting thoughts about current trends in role playing games and how they present challenges to all game masters, novice and experienced alike.
While there are a lot of books discussing how to be a good game master
and how to run the best role playing sessions, not a lot has been
written about what responsibilities the players have to the game master.
In the most recent episode of Geekerati Radio (Episode 166), I chat with game designer Jim Pinto of Post World Games
about how each edition of D&D has made game mastering more like
work and less like play and about what the proper role of the game
master is.
As always, I don't want to reveal too much about the discussion here. I want you to listen to the episode after all, but I have provided a list of some of the products and concepts we talk about in the episode below.
Concepts
Jim's concept of reliant focused play.
Game master's fiat.
Player Agency vs. Consumer Agency. What is the proper role of the game master?
Film adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft's fiction have a record as mixed as Lovecraft's legacy. Some of them are very good (I'm looking at you Call of Cthulhu), some are fun (like Re-Animator), and some are best left to the dustbin of history (no, I'm not linking The Unnamable).
There's no doubt that there is rich potential in Lovecraft's fiction that can be exploited and adapted to a modern environment. Cosmic horror, the terror of knowing that in the end everything is meaningless, is a truly terrifying concept. We can fight that fear with nihilism or irony, but it still lingers in the backs of our minds. What if nothing matters? That is the question at the heart of much of Lovecraft's fiction and it is a question that digs deep into our subconscious.
Film makers like Guillermo Del Toro have discussed making a big budget adaptation of At the Mountains of Madness, but derivative films like Prometheus present challenges to film makers who want to go straight to the source in the same way that Star Wars and Avatar present challenges to those who want to make Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom tales on the big screen. There is the risk that audiences will think that a film inspired by the original material is the derivative film.
Stepping into this challenging market is Color Out of Space. The film is written and directed by Richard Stanley, who directed 1990's Hardware. You remember Hardware right? No? I liked it, but you might not. It's in the "not everyone's bag" category of film. This leaves me thinking the film could be good, or it could be very bad. The cast includes Nicolas Cage, Tommy Chong, and Joely Richardson, a cast that leaves me feeling the same way as the choice of director. If Nicolas Cage goes full Nicolas Cage, or dials his Cage level to Zero, the film could be great. If Cage sets the Cage level to 5, it could be trouble. I cannot tell by the trailer which Cage we are getting, so I'm still on the fence.
This isn't the first time that The Colour Out of Space has been adapted to film. Die, Monster, Die! (1964) adapted the story, with some liberties, and Wil Wheaton starred in an adaptation called The Curse in 1987. Die, Monster, Die! is on my annual horror viewing list, but I've not seen The Curse or heard anything good about it.
The story itself is a classic Lovecraftian tale, that draws more than a little imagery from American Gothic fiction and in particular Washington Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow."
Compare the introduction to "Colour":
"West of Arkham the hills rise wild, and there are valleys with deep woods that no axe has ever
cut. There are dark narrow glens where the trees slope fantastically, and where thin brooklets
trickle without ever having caught the glint of sunlight. On the gentler slopes there are farms,
ancient and rocky, with squat, moss-coated cottages brooding eternally over old New England
secrets in the lee of great ledges; but these are all vacant now, the wide chimneys crumbling
and the shingled sides bulging perilously beneath low gambrel roofs" -- H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour out of Space" 1927.
To the introduction to "Sleepy Hollow":
"In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore
of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the
ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently
shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they
crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is
called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly known by the
name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in former days, by
the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the inveterate
propensity of their husbands to linger about the village tavern on market
days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to
it, for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far from this
village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little valley or rather lap
of land among high hills, which is one of the quietest places in the whole
world. A small brook glides through it, with just murmur enough to lull
one to repose; and the occasional whistle of a quail or tapping of a
woodpecker is almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the uniform
tranquillity" -- Washington Irving, "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" 1820.
The paragraphs are by no means identical, but both set the stage for bucolic New England farmlands that hide horrors in the shadows. Lovecraft's almost reads like a sequel to Irving.
Check out the trailer and let me know what you think.
Alien Bones answers the question, "What's more awesome than dinosaurs?" with the perfect response. "ALIEN DINOSAURS!" Doc Wyatt and Chris Grines' Alien Bones is a kid friendly and action packed "dim dark" science fiction adventure that is fun for the whole family.
Alien Bones is a middle-grade comic book of pulp and pop culture inspired science fiction adventure. The story centers on a ten year-old fossil hunter named Liam Mycroft, who is the son of a well-respected Xenopaleontologist. You read that right, he collects fossils of the "Alien Dinosaurs" that his father discovers various locations throughout the known galaxy. Liam's father mysteriously disappears on one of these digs, and it up to Liam, his friends Dianna and Rosa, and his trusty robot bodyguard Standard-5 ("Stan") to solve the mystery and save the day. Along the way, they bond closer as friends, encounter sinister traitors, battle space pirates, witness a major starship battle between massive armadas, and find the answer to one of the most dangerous mysteries in the universe, "What is The End?" In doing so, they discover a terrible foe that is an existential threat to the entire universe.
What Works?
In addition to being the producer of films like Napoleon Dynamite, Doc Wyatt is a skilled television and film writer who has over a decade of experience writing on many of your favorite major action oriented cartoons. He's worked on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Avengers: The Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Iron Man: Armored Adventures, Avengers Assemble, Batman Unlimited, Stretch Armstrong, My Little Pony, and that's only scratching the surface.
Doc Wyatt demonstrates his expertise with writing kid-friendly action oriented tales, as well as a wide array of genre influences, in Alien Bones. He gets readers into the action quickly and keeps his characters in a near constant state of danger for all 176 pages. There is little room for the reader, let alone for the characters, to breathe as they are thrown from one peril to another. Wyatt follows the well established formula of many great pulp writers like Lester Dent:
Introduce the hero and swat him with a fistful of
trouble. Hint at a mystery, a menace or a problem to be solved--something the
hero has to cope with.
Shovel more
grief onto the hero.
Shovel more of the grief
onto the hero.
The mysteries
remaining--one big one held over to this point will help grip interest--are
cleared up in course of final conflict as hero takes the situation in hand. Final twist, a
big surprise, (This can be the villain turning out to be the unexpected person,
having the "Treasure" be a dud, etc.) The snapper, the
punch line to end it.
And when in doubt always make sure to have Raymond Chandler's rule in reserve. I doubt Wyatt was using Dent's formula, but his action adheres to Dent's advice almost perfectly and it provides for a wonderfully quick reading pulp inspired adventure that left my daughters and me hoping that there would be a sequel.
Chris Grine illustrates the breakneck action with a cartoony style that conveys the sense of adventure, hints at the horror of "The End," while remaining very kid-friendly. Grine's cartoony style maximizes the psychological effects of using minimal facial details on protagonists and more detail on antagonists and threats that Scott McCloud details in Understanding Comics. By having the young and diverse cast of protagonists have minimal specific features, Grine's art makes it easy for young readers to see themselves as the protagonists. His illustrations of antagonists, like Captain Scarbones, have more specific details which separates them in the readers' minds and signals their status as threat or other.
In his attempts to demonstrate how dangerous various antagonist and beasts are, Chris Grine never illustrates details that would be frightening to younger readers. He instead relies on a more subtle technique to convey discomfort and a sense of danger, the color scheme. The colors that tend to dominate the book are pastel versions of brown, red, purple, and green. This is Stan Lee's classic quartet of villain colors. Grine's use of green in Alien Bones is similar to the use in The Wachowski's Matrix films, green lighting is used to signify danger and threat. From the mysterious unexplored city, illuminated in green, to the light illuminating a traitor's face, green is used to signify danger. Similarly pink is used to signify a sense of safety, no matter how temporary. Grine's keeps these colors in pastel, rather than saturated, form which signals the threat, but doesn't make it overly ominous. It's very effective.
Similarly, Grine's dinosaur illustrations keep the careful balance between monstrous and cuddly. One particular dinosaur initially looks very threatening, but through visual cues Grine transforms a potential carnivorous beast into a solar powered dinosaur version of a pug. It's one of my favorite sequences in the book. Grine easily stays on the side of dim dark and avoids wandering into grim dark, making it perfect for middle grade readers, but his ability to convey action and whimsy make his illustrations appeal to even more jaded comic fans like me.
Critique
I have one minor critique of Alien Bones. I wish Wyatt had made a different choice than to have the adventure begin with the disappearance of a parent. It's a very common narrative device in middle grade and young adult fiction that simultaneously enables and requires agency on the part of the protagonist, but it's also one that echoed a little to closely to the opening of another dim dark tale of youthful adventure I read recently. That dim dark tale is Cavan Scott's Warped Galaxies: Attack of the Necrons story (and sequels) for the new line of Warhammer 40k books for young readers. I don't know what other narrative device could have been used as the inciting incident, but after reading both the Age of Sigmar and Warped Galaxies series, I would like to see some other trope used. The fact that my own, still being written story, also uses it only adds to the critique as I am now grilling myself seeking an alternative.
Final Thoughts
Doc Wyatt and Chris Grine have packed a lot of world building content into the 176 pages of Alien Bones, that reflects a deep catalog of inspirations. There are references to Star Blazers, Warhammer 40k, Doctor Who, Indiana Jones, Arthur Conan Doyle's The Lost World, Lost in Space, Scooby Doo, Treasure Island, Philip Jose Farmer'sRiverworld series, Alien, Jurassic Park, and a host of other inspirations. I honestly don't know how Doc Wyatt managed to smash all of these things together while creating a coherent and engaging narrative that takes place in a beautiful and imaginative narrative universe, but he did just that.
I really hope we get to see more adventures in the universe of Alien Bones, whether or not those adventures include young Liam and his friends. There is a lot of space to explore and a lot of interesting characters are introduced. I'd like to get to know them all a little better, and even get the chance to pretend I'm one of them from time to time.
If you are a gamer and interested in "playing" in the Alien Bones universe, I've come up with some role playing statistics for some of the characters using the following systems.
Episode 165: Chatting with Doc Wyatt about Alien Bones and Super Dinosaur
We were lucky enough to connect with Television and Film Producer Doc Wyatt a couple of weeks ago to discuss a couple of his newly released projects. While Doc's producing credits include films like Napoleon Dynamite, our discussion focused entirely on his work in comic books and animation.
His most recent comic book Alien Bones is an adventure tale in the emerging "Dim Dark" genre. Tomorrow's post will include a review of the book as well as role playing game stats for some of the characters, which should give a suggestion of what I thought of the book. HINT: I liked it and so did my daughters.
Doc's a busy content creator, who's work includes a wide variety of animated series. If you like super heroes and/or Star Wars, it's likely that Doc and his writing partner Kevin Burke have worked on your favorite show. He's currently working on a number of series, but Episode 165 highlights his work on the recent Super Dinosaur series, which is an adaptation of a comic book by Robert Kirkman of The Walking Dead fame. Super Dinosaur is a mash up of Science Fiction, Super Hero, and Hollow Earth tropes that is currently airing on Amazon Prime.
I don't want to reveal too much of the interview here, but here are a couple of things we touch on during the interview.
The Dim Dark genre and books like the new Warhammer Adventures series. Let's just say that if you like Alien Bones, you'll like Warhammer Adventures and vice versa.
The Spelljammer setting for the Dungeons & Dragons role playing game, a setting of wild fantasy adventures in outer space.
Season 20 of Doctor Who featuring Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor, and the Enlightenment storyline in particular.
The classic Vincent Price horror film Witchfinder General and the comic book of the same name by Doc Wyatt.
The short lived Jeph Hephner series Agent X that ran on TNT in the early 2010s.
The amazingly entertaining Disney Junior series Octonauts that my family loved so much I had to order toys from England as Christmas presents.
The old show Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, which is the live action adult equivalent of Octonauts, cool ships and all.
The Marvel comic book Death's Head featuring a character originally published by Marvel's British Comic book division in the 1980s.
It's a great conversation and we'd love for you to listen.
In Episode 164 of Geekerati Radio, we had the honor of speaking with award winning game designer Greg Gorden about his work on the Torg Eternity Role Playing Game and his thoughts on game design in general. Greg Gorden is one of the most influential game designers in the role playing game industry and his design work includes James Bond 007 for Victory Games, DC Heroes for Mayfair Games, Earthdawn for FASA, Deadlands for Pinnacle Entertainment Group, and Torg for West End Games, andTorg: Eternity for Ulisses Spiele. He has also worked on the Star Wars Role Playing Game for West End Games and many editions of Dungeons & Dragons. Many of his games have gone on to win Origins Awards in their respective categories. He is Ulisses Spiele's line developer for the Torg Eternity Role Playing Game.
Segment 1
In the first segment of the episode, we talk about Torg Eternity and its innovative concept of "invading realities" as a role playing game setting. During this segment, we begin to see some insights into Greg Gorden's continuing efforts to bring player agency into role playing games.
Segment 2
In the second segment, we do a deep dive into Greg's past role playing game design work and explore where he came up with the concepts of "exploding die rolls" and using "dice as attributes." These are only some of the elements of our discussion, but it's a great chat. Have a listen and feel free to share your thoughts.
Segment 3
Episode 164 wraps up with our "Dungeons and Dilemmas" segment featuring Game Master Extraordinaire David Nett. This time we discuss the challenges of designing one shot adventures for three different audiences: your home game, a gaming convention, and for an online streaming show. David's experience working on Geek & Sundry's Starter Kit show and his recent show on ShoutTV! provide him with a wealth of experience on the topic. Give him a listen, then read his followup Twitter thread, and join in the conversation.
Products Discussed
Every episode, we discuss a wide range of popular culture. The discussion can include references to role playing games, comic books, television series, and films. As a part of our mission to share the things we love, we always include a section of the blog post dedicated to highlighting the things we mention so you can check them out and see why we love them so much.
Episode 163 is filled with reviews and interviews and comes in at one hour and 52 minutes!
Segments 1 and 2: Something Old/Something New
The "something new" for episode 163 are the Young Adventurer's Guides from Ten Speed Press. Weapons & Warriors and Monsters & Creatures are written by Jim Zub, Stacy King, and Andrew Wheeler as introductions to D&D fantasy tropes for younger readers who are interested in playing Dungeons & Dragons.
The books are described as "all the information you need to start building your own characters and putting together your adventuring party," but are they? Listen and find out.
The Supercrew by Tobias Radesäter is a rules light roleplaying game of superheroic action. Like the old Masters of the Universe Role Playing Game, the rules for the game are presented in a comic book format. Supercrew's central conceit is that the players are playing super heroic versions of themselves, which provides game masters with an interesting opportunity that I discuss in my review.
Does The Supercrew work as a role playing game, or is it a mere novelty item?
Segment 3: An Interview with the Toy Wizards
Toy-Wizards is one of the go to websites for toy collecting news and we had the honor of interview to of the Toy Wizard crew, Loryn Stone and Scott Zillner, in this episode.
Image Source -- Toy Wizards
Loryn Stone is the Editor in Chief of Toy Wizards and has dedicated her
life to the Word of the Nerd. She is most excited by collecting toys,
writing about them, and infiltrating the convention scene. Loryn is also
the writer of SyFy Wire’s ‘Important Toy News’ column, as well as the
site owner and Executive Editor of Toy Wizard’s sister site, PopLurker.com.
Her writing has been published on other pop culture websites such as Cracked, LoadScreen, Nerdbot, That Hashtag Show,
and Temple of Geek. Her toy collection is comprised of Megazords,
Gundam, miscellaneous robots and trinkets, Sailor Moon, Snoopy, Otaku
Garbage, and Mystery Science Theater 3000.
Image Source -- Toy Wizards
Scott Zillner is a world-renowned toy collector and the owner and
founder of Toy Wizards. He grew up in the 1980s, the undisputed greatest
decade ever. He truly believes in collecting, and his once hobby is now
his lifestyle. A new world Renaissance man, he is a professional
Artist, Toy Expert, and Convention promoter. He collects massive amounts
of toys, games, and art. He also runs several pop culture conventions.
As a Professional Artist, he worked on Disney’s 2010 Tron Legacy film, painting the light bikes and toys in young Flynn’s room. The same year, his Tron Stich collectible
vinyl sculpture from Disney was released.
In our second Dungeons and
Dilemmas segment, writer/director David Nett and I discuss the challenges Dungeon Masters face when running mystery themed adventures in role playing games. David came to the discussion with three key recommendations, but the conversation ended with five. Along the way, we make a number of pop culture adventures and give insight into our own personal game campaigns.
Episode Segments Featured Discussion of the Events and Products Listed Below:
Toon Con (November 10, 2019) - A new convention that celebrates all genres and eras of animated entertainment.
Powermorphicon - The largest convention dedicated to the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.
Japan World Heroes (August 16-18, 2019) - A convention dedicated to Kaiju, tokusatsu, Giant Robots and more.
D&D Basic Set - This is the Tom Moldvay Basic Set that inspired a Generation of young kids.
The Veiled Society - One of the first D&D modules to break out of the dungeon and into the city.
The Tomb of Horrors - The dungeon Gary Gygax wrote to put power gamers in their place.
Players Essentials: Heroes of the Fallen Lands - While the early 4th edition books didn't capture the imagination the way some hoped, the Essentials series was fantastic.
We hope you enjoy your listening experience. We've got a lot of great interviews lined up in the future and you can leave us voice messages on our Anchor.fm page if you have any topics you'd like us to discuss.
It's time for Episode 162 of Geekerati and this one is a doozy, coming in at approximately 2 1/2 hours of content.
Segment 1:
The first segment of episode 162 is a 30 minute interview with Alan Bahr of Gallant Knight Games who joins us to discuss GKG's wonderful catalog of role playing games. During the interview we go into a detailed discussion of Tiny Supers, Tiny Dungeon, and GKG's other Tiny d6 role playing games. We also discuss how Alan's company runs the gamut of the indie rpg world from OSR style games like For Coin and Blood to one shot pick up and play narrative games like Beach Patrol. It was a great conversation and our experience with the Tiny Supers role playing game inspired us to write up quick statistics for The Human Torch and The Invisible Woman using the Tiny Supers rules set. You can find those characters down below and we'd love to hear your thoughts on how you would adapt the characters to the Tiny Supers system.
Segment 2:
Since we were highlighting Tiny d6 games in our main interview, we thought it would be a great opportunity to expose listeners to a delightful Kickstarter project launched to support Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition. The Micronomicon Kickstarter features new spells, new archetypes, and more importantly new "micro-settings." John D Payne and Gregory Israel stopped by to chat about this wonderful project and to share their love of the Tiny d6 system in general. It's a wonderful discussion.
John D Payne is the editor of The Micronomicon and he has a Patreon account which supports his game design efforts. The Patreon has a large number of backer supported extras that you might want to check out.
Gregory Israel's designs have been featured in the Tiny Dungeon 2nd Edition rulebook and in issues of Tinyzine, an official online magazine that supports the Tiny d6 line of games. Gregory is also the author of Between Sun and Shadow, a setting for the Tiny Dungeon system.
Segments 3 and 4:
Segments 3 and 4 contained our regular Something Old and Something New segment. This week, I highlighted the Beach Patrolgame from Gallant Knight Games as the Something New and Tales from the Floating Vagabond by Lee Garvin as the Something Old. Both of these games are humorous in nature and can be used to emulate the action of 80s and 90s shows. I had intended to include a review of Extreme Vengeance by Archangel Studios as well, but that will have to wait for a future episode. Hopefully an episode where we interview Philip Reed or Tony Lee who were involved with that particular project.
Segment 5:
We were finally able to reveal one of the exciting changes to the Geekerati podcast in Episode 162 with the addition of the Dungeons and Dilemmas segment with writer and director David Nett. Nett was on the vanguard of gaming related webseries and his Gold series set a high standard, particularly its second season Night of the Zombie King. We are honored to have him as our regular game mastering expert Dungeons and Dilemmas.
Segments of this episode discussed the products and blogs below.
Products Discussed/Featured in this Episode
Tiny Supers by Alan Bahr from Gallant Knight Games.
No post should be without gaming content if we can help it, so here's this post's weekly does of gaming goodness.
While the Fantastic Four has never quite been able to translate successfully to the big screen, they are among Marvel Comics' most iconic characters. The brother and sister team of Johnny Storm and Sue Storm-Richards are particular favorites of the Geekerati crew, so we jumped at the chance to convert them to the Tiny Supers role playing game system as a way to test it out. It's a pretty good fit, but maybe your take would be a little bit different. Feel free to give us your ideas for how you would adapt these or other characters to this quick and easy to play super hero role playing game. Is Johnny a "Striker"? Is Susan Richards best defined as a "Defender"? Would you use a different mix of powers?
In 2007, GEEK MONTHLY magazine published their Geek Quiz article which readers could use to measure how deep their geek goes. We used that quiz as a way to launch a conversation and then proceeded to stump one another with a series of trivia questions. We all thought we would do well with each others' questions, but alas and alack we were wrong. In the overtime, we continue our discussion of the Friday Night Death Slot and the future of streaming programming.
Join us for this glance into the early days of Geekerati.
The Geekerati Podcast was founded in 2007 and streamed 160 episodes before going on hiatus in 2014. It was meant to be a brief hiatus as the Geekerati panelists coordinated their busy schedules, but it ended up lasting almost five years. With this episode Geekerati returns with new Bi-Weekly prerecorded episodes with new guests and new segments. We are proud to relaunch with an interview with our friend Dom Zook. Dom is the Executive Producer of Saving Throw Show a Role Playing Game Live Play streaming channel on Twitch. If you're a fan of Critical Role, or any other live play show, you should give Saving Throw Show a look.They are currently running a number of gaames online, but their Savage Worlds show launches its new season during the channel's Fundraising Marathon on June 21st!
This
episode also sees the introduction of our first new segment, Something
Old/Something New. This segment will be a regular review segment and
will be joined by other segments including our Dungeon Master advice
segment Dungeons & Dilemmas in the near future. Our current segment
reviews the old Conan Roleplaying Game by TSR and Attack of the Necron, the first entry in Warped Galaxies the new YA Warhammer Adventures book series from Games Workshop.
If the discussion in Something Old/Something new piqued your interest in the system used by the TSR Conan Roleplaying Game, you will want to take a look at its Open Content successor ZeFRS and download the pdf rulebook.
Listen to this blast from the past as the Geekerati panel discusses Win Scott Eckert's book Myths for the Modern Age
and the long lasting legacy of pulp fiction. It's a conversation about
John Carter of Mars, Tarzan, Doc Savage, The Shadow, French Pulps, and
Dashiell Hammett. Who could ask for more?
Win Scott Eckert is one of the leading experts in pulp fiction and one of his major contributions to the continuation of pulp fandom has been his work on the Wold Newton Family and its universe of tales. The Wold Newton Universe was a creation of Science Fiction Grand Master Philip Jose Farmer who asked an interesting question, "What if many classic tales of fiction, literary and pulp, all happened in a shared universe?" Farmer uses the real world occurrence of a radioactive meteor landing in Wold Newton England as the cornerstone event of his shared universe, a universe in which Tarzan, The Lone Ranger, Elizabeth Bennet, John Carter of Mars, Doctor Jekyll/Mr. Hyde, and many more reside. Our conversation with Win begins with a discussion of his book on the topic, but expand into a conversation about what made the pulps successful and why they continue to inspire creators today.
During the Overtime segment, Shawna Benson discusses an unaired pilot for a new Phillip Marlowe show. It is currently available on YouTube if you are interested in seeing whether you think the networks should have picked it up.
In this archive episode, I've re-edited the episode into segments using Anchor.fm's functionality. All future episodes will be edited into segments and new episodes (our first one is coming next week) will have distinct segments with unique and consistent introductions.
