Trending Issues

Sun
16
Oct

Big Media: "All Your Copyright Are Belong To Us!"

Big Media

If you've shared anything on the Internet, whether in video, image, or textual form, you're probably at least glancingly familiar with copyright laws. It doesn't matter if it's accidental, if it's a small infringement, if you did it with or without the intent to make any money from the matter, or even if you credited the copyright owners: If it belongs to someone else, you're violating copyright.

In most cases, a violation will be handled simply by the removal of the content. Other places, like YouTube, will either mute a segment of video that has copyrighted material or, if the video is monetized, send that monetization to the original copyright holder. They won't overlook you. Big Media employs teams of lawyers who specialize in looking for these kinds of things in order to protect their intellectual properties (often referred to as "IP").

Mon
18
Jan

How to Stay Healthy and Fit During College Semester

Being a college student is no walk in the park. There are plenty of things that require your immediate attention: classes, communities, parties – for many even jobs. It is easy to forget about healthy habits and start drifting. Regrettably, wrong choices can lead to life-damaging outcomes in the future, and now is the best time to prevent this.

Making a decision to stay healthy and well in college is halfway to success. These tips will help you to figure out how to do that.

Build a Healthy Eating Routine

Food is the main source of energy that helps us go through the day, stay active, and focused. For students, their academic progress and productivity largely depend on what they fuel their bodies with. That is why it is crucial to build healthy eating habits that will help you go forward rather than pull you back.

Sun
08
Nov

Zachary Levi Attacked For Reminding Some Humans That Other People are Humans Too

Zachary Levi post-election Tweet

Sometimes when an actor finishes a film, he or she retains a prop of some kind, a souvenir or memento they can look to in the future for a conversation piece.

Zachary Levi seems to have come away from his stint on SHAZAM with the coolest and most valuable vestige ever: The Wisdom of Solomon. (The superhero character more commonly known as Captain Marvel gains his powers by shouting out an acronym, which gains him the combined powers of Solomon, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles, and Mercury.)

During the trying and tiring time of the last few days, as votes were being tabulated with deliberation and states were switching colors more slowly than leaves in autumn, Levi interected a thought onto Twitter -- a place designed ostensibly just for that purpose but, ironically, in abject opposition to the ideal on most days.

Sat
07
Nov

Mike S. Miller's MAGANIFICENT SEVEN May Be Last Hurrah for Trump-Trend Comics

Maganificent Seven

Presidents have been featured, satirized, and flat-out lampooned in comics for as long as there have been Presidents and free speech. Superboy and Superman both managed to meet President Kennedy. Spider-Man met President Obama. President Roosevelt was nearly a junior member of the All-Star Squadron.

But unless my comics memory is failing (it could be -- I'm getting older, and I've read comics for a long, long time), there hasn't been a deluge of praise-and-parody comic books such as that which has been unleashed following the 2016 election of President Donald Trump. From Antarctic Press's TREMENDOUS TRUMP and TRUMP'S SPACE FORCE, Keenspot's TRUMP'S TITANS, and a cascade of others, Trump comics has become a cottage industry over the past four years.

Tue
03
Nov

America Elects James Marshall as President -- From Among Fictional Presidents

Air Force One

The old adage goes, "Vote for the best man for the job. And someday, the best man for the job might actually run."

While Americans across the country are beating their chests or holding their noses to pick from among the current slate of candidates, Reviews.org asked Americans to select a Commander-in-Chief from among a select group of those whose track records we are more intimately familiar with -- the fictional Presidents of movies and television shows.

The report finds that, if we were using the electoral college system, the winner by a plurality would be AIR FORCE ONE's James Marshall (played by Harrison Ford, who knows a thing or three about walking away from landings) with 171 electoral votes. Following closely behind him is Thomas J. Whitmore (Bill Pullman) of INDEPENDENCE DAY with 124.

Everyone else was left in the dust.

Fri
23
Oct

Top Tips for Choosing the Best Vape Juice

Vaping

Vaping has become common among many people, and this is because of the benefits it has over smoking. It is quite different from smoking cigarettes since it involves the inhaling of vapor instead of smoke. This also adds to the experience that vapers get. According to resourceful data, vapers could outnumber smokers in the coming years. Apart from more new entrants into vaping, many smokers are changing camp to get this new experience and reduce the health risks associated with smoking.

The consumable part of a vape device is the e-juice, which comes in many flavors and types. Some have a high ratio of propylene glycol to vegetable glycerin or vice versa. Today, there are healthy e-juices that are made of marijuana, hemp, and other natural herbs with medicinal purposes. All of these options leave users in a dilemma and it is sometimes hard to choose exactly what you want.

Tue
25
Aug

Gravity Gaming Lounge Looted and Pillaged During Violent Raping of Kenosha Businesses

Gravity Gaming Lounge

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.

Thu
13
Aug

Did Bill Willingham Fabricate Embezzlement Accusations Against Stephanie Cooke?

Willingham Cooke Embezzlement

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.

Fri
31
Jul

Bill Willingham Reaffirms $10K Embezzlement Claims Against HMH's Stephanie Cooke

Stephanie Cooke Bill Willingham Embezzlement

In the hotly anticipated second installment of Bleeding Fool's exposure of the Women In Comics Facebook group, colloquially referred to as the "Whisper Network" came surprise allegations from FABLES creator Bill Willingham against Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's Stephanie Cooke of embezzlement "in excess of ten thousand dollars."

The claim dates back to 2015 and references the period when Cooke was Willingham's assistant. Willingham reconfirmed that this is still an open case, hampered by the fact that Cooke had since moved back to Canada.

Sun
19
Jul

Defused: Dynamite Cancels Crowdfunding Project After Pros Turn Nasty

Defused. Dynamite cancels Cecil, Delay

Dynamite Comics has an interesting side-model to their business of producing monthly comic books starring licensed properties like BETTIE PAGE, VAMPIRELLA, RED SONJA and others. They allow for creators in the industry to create unique covers for already published books, and then crowdfund the publishing of these books. It's a neat way for collectors to get limited edition artwork, and it gives Dynamite some extra mileage from work that's already been done and paid for.

Tue
14
Jul

Twitter Outrage Mob Descends on Sebastian Stan Because His Girlfriend Wore a Kimono

Sebastian Stan and Alejandra Onieva

It seems a day doesn't go by that the Twitter trending list doesn't include a "...isCancelledParty" hashtag. Today it's THE WINTER SOLDIER star Sebastian Stan's turn in the online outrage grinder, as the #SebastianStanIsOverParty tries to gain traction in social media.

The cybermob is stirred up on two fronts.

The tempest-in-a-teapot began when a Twitter user, @angelas550, shared a photo of Alejandra Onieva -- Stan's rumored paramour -- dressed in a kimono, with the caption beneath reading "Asian Night."

That's literally it. Onieva replied to the caption with "Menuda noche de chinos. [What a Chinese night.]"

Tue
14
Jul

Lucifer Faces the Devil Himself in Final Netflix Season

Lucifer Season 5

When LUCIFER was damned to cancellation after its third season, fans reacted globally with an online campaign to #SaveLucifer: and it worked. Streaming service Netflix stepped in to offer salvation to the "police procedural meets theological fantasy" series, based off the comic book series created by Neil Gaiman.

At least, for a time.

The fourth season started answering the questions raised by that season three cliffhanger, where Detective Chloe Decker (Lauren German) became fully aware that Lucifer Morningstar (Tom Ellis) was exactly who he always purported to be, and ended with him having to return to his place ruling Hell in order to keep Decker safe.

Mon
13
Jul

From Depp, Heard Libel Case Arises Heist Story of Staggering $750 Million!

Depp Robbed of 750 million

Celebrity divorces have seldom been as replete with salacious details as has been that of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard, with each side throwing accusations ranging from physical abuse to purposeful defecation on the marital bed.

However, testimony on Monday, July 12, went into a reason for one of the altercations, in which Depp claimed that Heard had thrown a "haymaker" at him on her birthday (a reference to which was later captured on one of the many secret recordings Heard made of Depp prior to their divorce).

Thu
09
Jul

Busted! Comics' Whisper Network of Female Creators Outed by Bleeding Fool Journalist

Bleeding Fool Busts Whisper Network

Bleeding Fool Writer Outs Secret Facebook Group of Comics Professionals from Inside

On July 8, the pop culture website Bleeding Fool broke the story that a group of comics professionals were colluding in a secret Facebook group (a level higher than 'private' which allows it to evade being found by search results) where they would target and mock male peers within the industry.

Fri
03
Jul

First DC, Now Asmodee. How Many More Hits Can Diamond Take?

Asmodee

While the departure was announced on BoardGameGeeks back in March, the departure of game manufacturer Asmodee from Alliance Distribution has been one that has happened a bit silently.

Alliance Distribution is the games arm of Diamond Comics Distribution, which took a major hit when DC Comics pulled out of their distribution contract this spring, opting to shift their operations to Luna Distribution and UCS, which allowed them to get product to comics retailers well ahead of their competition, who were still hamstrung with Diamond's COVID-19 related shutdown of operations.

Wed
24
Jun

Fear Leads to Codes for Survival in Comics Industry

CCA Pledge overlay image

It was a year of turmoil for comics professionals. Livelihoods were on the lines as those who worked in the industry began to see their peers picked off right and left, as the field of comics was being laid waste by the scythe of a force that had found it ripe for harvest. There were rules, arbitrary and unwritten, that had been broken, and the piper had come with the invoice, stamped "Past Due." In a rush of adrenalin-fueled panic, those still standing cobbled together a promissory note, a token to the aggrieved that they would change their behavior, codified for the world to see.

If you think this is a summary of the events of 1954 that led to the Comics Code Authority, it would be understandable. But it's 2020, and the professionals in comics are circling the wagons to protect themselves from threats internal, not external.

Fri
12
Jun

Blumhouse Hunt a Swiftian Satire Through Modern Lens

The Hunt Blu-ray

When THE HUNT was first publicized, it was received with a tremendous amount of online criticism. The elevator pitch was that it was going to be a riff on "The Most Dangerous Game" except that those hunted would be kidnapped Trump supporters released into the wilds of a private estate, to be chased down and killed in gruesome fashion by powerful elites. It was seen as further persecution of conservatives in some corners, and as the seal of approval or an open season on GOP voters by others. Paranoia, as the bards put it so eloquently, runs deep.

In truth, the film is actually a riff on "The Most Dangerous Game" except that those hunted would be... oh. Okay, so maybe the elevator pitch plot was actually spot on in that regard -- but it was hardly the whole story.

Mon
08
Jun

That's a Stretch: Hartley Sawyer Fired from The Flash for Tweets of Misogyny, Racism, Homophobia

Elongated Man Hartley Sawyer Fired from Flash

The Hollywood Reporter has just announced that Hartley Sawyer, who playes Elongated Man on The Flash on the CW Network, has been fired over tweets that have been deemed misogynistic, racist, and homophobic.

The tweets, dating from 2011 through 2014, were all posted before he began his stint on the DC Comics supehero show about the Fastest Man Alive, and read:

Sun
07
Jun

The DC / Diamond Divorce Dominates Discussion: The LCS Guys

The LCS Guys talk DC and Diamond

The buzz of the comics industry this week has centered around the shocking (or not so shocking) news that DC has ended its decades-long arrangement with Diamond Comics Distributors in favor of splitting their workload over two smaller distributors, Lunar and UCS.

Naturally, that was the dominating topic in this week's round table with The LCS Guys -- Uel Carter of Fantastic Comics, Berkely, California; Dave Dyer of Cosmic Comics in Belleville, Illinois; Michael Tierney of The Comic Book Store in Little Rock, Arkansas, and Ryan Seymore of Comic Town in Columbus, Ohio. Find out how retailers feel about the decision, their hopes and concerns, as well as what's selling this week and what's languishing on the shelves, as we settle in for another bullpen session.

Fri
29
May

False Statements, Lies Pressure Alterna Into Releasing Police Reports on 2019 Swatting

Tweeted Accusations

In February of 2019, Alterna Comics publisher Peter Simeti was on a live stream broadcast from his apartment, when a knock at the door drew him away from his microphone. The stream was left running, and viewers could clearly hear the police enter the apartment and question Simeti, in response to a 911 call about a violent domestic disturbance.

The violence did not happen. The call was faked -- what is termed a "SWATting" in which the perpetrator calls the police pretending to be in distress or emotional turmoil, specifically the kind that would urge police to enter with weapons drawn. The obvious intent is that the person targeted would thus be harmed by the police.

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