It’s the fifth and final season for the SyFy supernatural show, LOST GIRL. Series star Anna Silk talks about her favorite moments (and the things she grabbed from the set on the last day) plus BITTEN’s Laura Vandervoort talks more about her show’s new season and what it was like to be TV’s first Supergirl.
We are back in just a few days and so is the hit Game Show Network series, THE IDIOTEST. We take the test – here – no holds barred! Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
Ding ding ding…! Round 3 of Mix March Madness April Armageddon, it’s the Terrific 32… and you have until Friday, April 17 EXTENDED to Saturday, April 18 at midnight, to vote!
Congratulations to everyone who made it through Round 2, and we’ve raised another $42 for the Hero Initiative. But now it gets even tougher, as we’re down to only 32 webcomics… and we know that every vote counts from you and all your friends, so make sure to share and tweet about it, because Round 3 starts now!
SyFy’s BITTEN is back for a new season, taking a sharp turn deeper into the supernatural with the addition of a coven of witches to the storyline. Stars Greyson Holt and Laura Vandervoort talk about how this changes the show’s dynamic. Plus Amazon Prime expands their programming with their first live action children’s show. GORTIMER GIBBONS LIFE ON NORMAL STREET is under the watchful eye of Oscar winning director, Luke Matheny who talks about making a kids show for today’s market.
We are back in just a few days with more in our exclusive talk with Laura Vandervoort (did you remember she was TV’s first Supergirl?) plus a visit with the star of LOST GIRL as their final season begins. Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
Herbert W. “Herb” Trimpe, best known as the 1970’s artist on The Incredible Hulk and as the first artist to draw Wolverine for publication, passed away last night at the age of 75.
Besides his work on Hulk, Herb Trimpe worked on a wide variety of books from 1962 on including The Defenders, Nick Fury: Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., G.I. Joe Special Missions, Godzilla, Shogun Warriors, and Kid Colt Outlaw. The father of four loved coming out and meeting fans of his work, and had attended the East Coast Comicon just this past weekend.
Our condolences to his family and friends. It just won’t be the same without him around.
You may have heard about how the 2015 Hugo Awards nominations have been disrupted this year by two separate slates of nominees and their respective voting blocks.
There’s a lot of coverage on the matter, with some of the best from io9, the Daily Dot, and George R.R. Martin (yes, Game Of Thrones fans, these people compelled GRRM to take valuable time away from writing to respond to the situation. Add that to their list of offenses.) If you don’t want to click through on everything or read our previous post, here’s what you need to know for this column:
There was a slate released by the Sad Puppies on February 1 that included a varied list of authors, many of a conservative bent, including authors that have been previously nominated for Hugo and Campbell awards.
And then, one day later, there was a slate released by Theodore Beale that he called the Rabid Puppies slate, which heavily copied the Sad Puppies list and added many items that he published through his publishing house, Castalia House, which was founded just last year.
He is the only person to be expelled from the Science Fiction Writers of America for using an official SFWA Twitter account to link to a blog post that called SFWA member and African-American author N. K. Jemisin “an educated, but ignorant half-savage.”
And he boosted his Rapid Puppies slate by reaching out to the #Gamergate community, a group of people (the word “class” seems inappropriate here) that he has long supported, and who clearly tipped the balance in many of the Hugo categories.
In short, we find Mr. Beale to be a racist, sexist, homophobic, inflammatory, self-aggrandizing troll who who has no compunctions about burning down an entire community to exact revenge and gain his own personal amusement. His choice of the name “Rabid Puppies” is spot on, along with his logo choice that blows up the Hugo Award.
But what to do about it? More to the point, since the Hugo Awards won’t be given out until WorldCon in August, what can we do about it right now?
Ironically, Beale has given us the answer himself.
Of the unique items on the Rabid Puppies slate, nine are works that Mr. Beale had a hand in, either as a writer, editor, or publisher through his house, Castalia House, or where he previously blogged at Black Gate. (Hat tip to Mike Glyer for compiling the list.) Replying to a commenter about the quality of his works, Beale said:
No problem. I can objectively prove their superiority. Average Amazon ratings out of 5.
4.64 Sad Puppy Best Novel recommendations
4.60 Rabid Puppy Best Novel recommendations
4.46 2015 Hugo shortlist 4.46
3.90 2010-2013 Hugo shortlists
In short fiction, Amazon ratings and number of reviews
4.6 (63) One Bright Star to Guide Them (2015 finalist)
4.3 (121) Big Boys Don’t Cry (2015 finalist)
4.4 (48) Lady Astronaut of Mars (2014 winner)
4.3 (152) Equoid (2014 winner)
The Sad Puppy nominees are objectively superior as rated by Amazon.
We’d like to thank Mr. Beale for reminding us that Hugo Award nominations aren’t the only things that can be gamed…
You can game Amazon ratings as well.
Here’s a list of all of Mr. Beale’s nominees, complete with handy links to Amazon. It might be a good idea to take a look at the reviews and see which ones are helpful. If you’ve read the works, you should add your own review.
NOMINEES APPEARING ONLY ON RABID PUPPIES 2015 SLATE ON AMAZON
BEST NOVELLA
“The Plural of Helen of Troy” by John C. Wright, City Beyond Time, Castalia House
“Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright, The Book of Feasts & Seasons, Castalia House UPDATE 4/14: “Yes, Virginia, There is a Santa Claus” by John C. Wright was previously published on a web site in 2013 prior to its inclusion in The Book of Feasts & Seasons in 2014, so it is not eligible for the 2015 Novelette Hugo and has been removed from the ballot.
After breaking new television ground with projects like TORCHWOOD, QUEER AS FOLK and of course DOCTOR WHO. Russell T. Davies is back with a pair of new shows for Logo TV. It’s a unique concept he details in our exclusive talk, plus is there a future for TORCHWOOD and what got him to DOCTOR WHO in the first place? Plus TBS revives the domestic sitcom with YOUR FAMILY OR MINE boasting an amazing cast of TV veterans. Kat Foster and JoeBeth Williams talk about how the show is a new twist on the familiar concept.
We are back in just a few days with an exclusive look at the new season of SYFY’s werewolf drama, BITTEN (this time we mean it!). Be sure to follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.
The debate’s been going on for months now – ever since Batwoman v2 #34. Did Nocturna, the vampire super villain in the Bat books, and use her vampire hypnosis powers to rape Batwoman. I say no. But it’s not as simple as that.
Let me explain.
In Batwoman v 2 # 34, Nocturna saw Batwoman fighting and found her alluring. During the fight, Batwoman’s mask was displaced and Nocturna saw Batwoman’s face, which she recognized as that of Gotham City socialite Kate Kane.
That night, Batwoman – well, Kate Kane but I’m going to call her Batwoman – was going to bed when a shadowy figure appeared in her bedroom and this happened:
Panel One: Batwoman saw a figure in the shadows and asked, “Maggs, is that you?”
(For the record, Batwoman is a lesbian. Maggs is Maggie Sawyer, Kate’s ex-fiancée, with whom she broke up earlier the same issue.)
Panel Two: The figure caressed Batwoman’s cheek and said, “Who do you want me to be?”
Panel Three: Batwoman – her speech suddenly slurred with strange purple star-like squiggles in her word balloons – said, “Must’a had too much wine… Feelin’ a little light-headed.” Batwoman was clearly under the influence of something. This panel was from Batwoman’s POV and showed clearly Maggie reaching for her.
Panel Four: From the exact same POV the figure, now clearly Nocturna and not Maggie, reached toward Batwoman in exactly the same position as “Maggie” had been in the panel before and said “It isn’t the wine.”
Next Page: Nocturna bit Batwoman on the neck and said “And I’m not Maggie.”
Marc Andreyko, the writer of the story, responded in some Tweets that the story wasn’t just the usual “mindless slave trope,” and that no one had forced Batwoman to do anything. He asked the readers to hold off judgment until they had seen the entire story.
It’s not that simple, either.
The story didn’t actually show Batwoman and Nocturna having sex. However no one, including Mr. Andreyko, has ever disputed the interpretation that they had sex. Andreyko merely said that Batwoman wasn’t forced. So I think we can safely conclude both from the context of the story and the absence of any denial, that Nocturna and Batwoman did have sex.
Mr. Andreyko asked us to forbear passing judgment on the story until we saw the end. That end came several issues later. So for several more issues, we followed Batwoman and Nocturna through their sexual relationship. It was one where Nocturna was the dominant figure. Batwoman, in fact, seemed to be little more than manipulated and subservient. We finally got to the end of the story in Batwoman v2 #39.
In said comic, Batwoman’s sister, Beth Kane, freed Batwoman from Nocturna’s hypnotic spell. Batwoman confronted Nocturna. Nocturna didn’t deny hypnotizing Batwoman. After that the following exchange occurred.
Batwoman: “You don’t… love me?” Nocturna: “I don’t even like you. You were just so easy to ensnare.” Batwoman: “You used your powers to make me sleep with you?” Nocturna: “I bet you wish that were true. No, Batwoman that was all you. “I’m no rapist. You wanted me so I figured, ‘I haven’t done this college so why not?’ … Hypnosis can’t make you do anything you don’t really want to do… All I did was find an open door in your head. All the interior decorating in that room? Yours.”
So now I’ve seen the end of the story. I need forbear no longer. Here’s what I think.
I think Nocturna was controlling Batwoman’s mind. According to DC Comics’ own on-line database, the victims of Nocturna’s hypnosis act are controlled by her as if possessed. Nocturna admitted that she used her powers to “ensnare” Batwoman. The question is, by “ensnar[ing]” Batwoman, did Nocturna rape her? To answer that, we must examine exactly what Nocturna did.
Nocturna came to Batwoman’s room and used her abilities to make Batwoman believe she was Batwoman’s ex-fiancée, Maggie Sawyer. If Nocturna did that to make Batwoman have sex with her, the answer seems clear. That online DC database I mentioned earlier actually has a page called “sexual assault” that talks about this kind of act. For example, “Nightwing has been raped on multiple occasions. Mirage posed as his girlfriend Starfire to deceive him into having sex with her.”
If Nocturna used her abilities to make Batwoman think she was Maggie Sawyer to trick Batwoman into having sex with her, well even the DC Comics database calls that rape. The problem is, the story’s a little ambiguous and I don’t think that’s what Nocturna did.
When Nocturna came into Batwoman’s room, Batwoman was clearly under the influence of something. Batwoman blamed some wine. Doubtful. Her speech went from perfectly fine in Panel One to slurred in Panel Three. “Too much wine” doesn’t happen that fast. It’s more likely the influencing agent was Nocturna’s powers. That it was Nocturna’s influence not the wine’s is even more likely as Panel Three shows Batwoman’s POV of Maggie Sawyer reaching down to her. Wine wouldn’t make Batwoman see Maggie. Nocturna’s hypnosis could. However, the story also clearly shows Nocturna had stopped looking like Maggie before she bit Batwoman and before they had sex.
I think what happened is Nocturna made Batwoman think she was Maggie, so she could get close enough to Batwoman to bite her. Then she used her hypnosis to “ensnare” Batwoman and lower Batwoman’s inhibitions so Batwoman would have sex with her.
This is, however, one of those differences that makes no difference. Whether Nocturna got Batwoman to have sex with her by making Batwoman believe she was Maggie or made Batwoman think she was Maggie so that she could get close enough to Batwoman to bite and hypnotize her, Nocturna used her hypnosis powers to make Batwoman more compliant.
Nocturna said she didn’t rape Batwoman, because she couldn’t make Batwoman do something that Batwoman didn’t really want to do. So she didn’t use her powers to “make” Batwoman sleep with her. As Batwoman wasn’t forced to do anything, it wasn’t rape.
The fallacy with this argument is that rape doesn’t have to be by force. Remember that DC Comics database page on sexual assault? It talks about another character, Windfall, who was drugged at a frat party and raped. In that instance, force wasn’t used, but Windfall’s ability to refuse was compromised by the drug. It also talks about how Damien Wayne was the product of Batman being raped by Talia after being drugged.
It’s possible deep down both Windfall and Batman would have wanted to have sex with the person who drugged them. But just because they might have wanted to have sex does not forgive the act of drugging them so that they would be compliant and not resist. The DC Comics database calls these acts rape.
The important question is does the law call such acts rape? More important, as Gotham City’s in New Jersey, what does the law in New Jersey say about Nocturna did?
Section 2C:14-2 of the New Jersey statutes says it’s a felony of the first degree if a person has sexual penetration – trust me, the definition of sexual penetration in NJS 2C:14-1 includes the types of sexual acts that occur between lesbians – when “The victim is one whom the actor knew… was … mentally incapacitated, or had a mental … defect which rendered the victim temporarily or permanently incapable of understanding the nature of his conduct, including, but not limited to, being incapable of providing consent.” The statute clearly applies to Windfall or Batman being drugged so that they could not give consent. Does it also apply to what Nocturna did?
Nocturna hypnotized Batwoman to make Batwoman willing to have sex with her. Yes, deep down Batwoman might have been attracted to Nocturna and wanted to have sex with her, but that doesn’t mean that her having sex with Nocturna was consensual.
Let’s look at a hypothetical. A married woman is attracted to one of her neighbors and wants to have sex with him. But, she doesn’t. It would betray her husband. It would violate her wedding vows. Then the neighbor roofies her and lowers her inhibitions, so that she gives in to the desires she had successfully suppressed and has sex with him. That act would fall squarely under the New Jersey statute, because the neighbor knew the woman was temporarily incapacitated by drugs and incapable of giving meaningful consent.
Batwoman’s situation is no different. Even if she was attracted to Nocturna and deep down might have wanted to have sex with Nocturna, the reason she did have sex was because Nocturna’s hypnosis nudged her into agreeing. Batwoman was under the influence of a roofie-like hypnosis which affected her ability to give Nocturna any meaningful consent.
Nocturna did violate that New Jersey statute.
But she didn’t rape Batwoman.
However, the only reason Nocturna didn’t rape Batwoman was because New Jersey calls that crime aggravated sexual assault, not rape. So Nocturna didn’t rape Batwoman, she aggravated sexual assaulted Batwoman.
But, other than that – a difference in nomenclature – she totally raped Batwoman.
BURBANK, Calif. – April 6, 2015 – As anticipation builds for the December release of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, the first new film in the Star Wars Saga in a decade, The Walt Disney Studios, Lucasfilm Ltd., and 20th Century Fox today announced the upcoming release of The Star Wars Digital Movie Collection. For the first time ever, all six epic films in the Saga, from The Phantom Menace to Return of the Jedi, will be available on Digital HD throughout the galaxy – or at least here on Earth – globally beginning Friday, April 10.
“Since the debut of the first film nearly 40 years ago, Star Wars has become a worldwide phenomenon with legions of fans from every generation,” said Alan Bergman, President, The Walt Disney Studios. “It’s only fitting that audiences enjoy this legendary Saga and its many fascinating behind-the-scenes stories on a wide variety of platforms, and we’re very excited to finally bring all six films to Digital HD for the first time.”
“We’re thrilled that fans will be able to enjoy the Star Wars Saga on their digital devices wherever they go,” commented Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy. “These films broke new ground in technology, design, sound, and visual effects, and we’ve created some very special bonus material which delves into the Saga’s rich history, including new and never-before-released conversations between legendary Star Wars artists – the masters who helped George bring his iconic universe to life.”
With Star Wars: Episodes I-VI available for purchase as a complete digital movie collection and individually, viewers will have the Rebel forces at their beck and call across their favorite devices anywhere – sunbathing at the beach, relaxing in their living room with friends, or waiting to board a flight to Endor (or elsewhere).
Enhancing the movie collection are a host of never-before-seen special features including Star Wars: Discoveries from Inside and insightful Conversations between key contributors from across this celebrated film franchise, plus a curated collection of classic Star Wars extras from each film. These are the droids you’re looking for:
BONUS
*Digital bonus offerings may vary by retailer
STAR WARS EPISODE I: The Phantom Menace
Conversations: Doug Chiang Looks Back
Discoveries From Inside: Models & Miniatures
Legacy content includes “The Beginning”; The Podrace: Theatrical Edit; plus eight deleted scenes.
STAR WARS EPISODE II: Attack of the Clones
Conversations: Sounds In Space
Discoveries From Inside: Costumes Revealed
Legacy content includes “From Puppets To Pixels: Digital Characters In Episode II”; State Of The Art: The Previsualization Of Episode II; and “Films Are Not Released, They Escape”; plus Episode II Visual Effects Breakdown Montage and six deleted scenes.
STAR WARS EPISODE III: Revenge of the Sith
Conversations: The Star Wars That Almost Was
Discoveries From Inside: Hologram & Bloopers
Legacy content includes documentaries “Within A Minute: The Making Of Episode III”; The Journey Part 1; and The Journey Part 2; plus six deleted scenes.
STAR WARS EPISODE IV: A New Hope (20th Century Fox)
Conversations: Creating A Universe
Discoveries From Inside: Weapons & The First Lightsaber
Legacy content includes “Anatomy Of A Dewback”; Star Wars Launch Trailer; plus eight deleted scenes.
STAR WARS EPISODE V: The Empire Strikes Back
Conversations: The Lost Interviews
Discoveries From Inside: Matte Paintings Unveiled
Legacy content includes “A Conversation With The Masters” (2010); “Dennis Muren: How Walkers Walk”; “George Lucas On Editing The Empire Strikes Back 1979”; and “George Lucas On The Force: 2010”; plus six deleted scenes.
STAR WARS EPISODE VI: Return of the Jedi
Conversations: The Effects
Discoveries From Inside: The Sounds Of Ben Burtt
Legacy content includes “Classic Creatures: Return Of The Jedi”; “Revenge Of The Jedi Teaser Trailer”; Return Of The Jedi Launch Trailer; “It Began TV Spot”; “Climactic Chapter TV Spot”; plus five deleted scenes.
Orphan Black, BBC America’s addictive science and morals showdown series is back on April 18at 9:00 ET. Season Three throws Tatiana Maslany, in her gazillion (give or take) clone roles, into unexpected territory as they deal with the revelation ofa new line of militaristic male clones played by Ari Millen.It also hopefully brings more sass and wit from more sassy Felix (the British-accented artist/rent boy foster brother we all wish we had.) And fingers crossed it will answer the questions plaguing me since last season ended. Now that Project Leda know they are not alone, what’s next?
There are a bunch of questions that need to be answered! Who survived? Where did they take Helena? Is she preggers?Will Rachel will be rocking an eye patch? I can’t wait to see those play out.But, what’s been plaguing me in the hiatus has been Mrs. S.What’s her deal?Who’s side is she on?How pissed is Sarah going to be?There’s something about Maria Doyle Kennedy’s portrayal of Mrs. S with her brand of harsh compassion that is so compelling.Maybe I just have huge girl crush on MDK ever since The Commitments, IDK.
So, of course I was totally beside myself at Wondercon last Saturday when members of Orphan Black’s cast were on hand before their panel to give some insight on what’s to come.And yes…Maria Kennedy Doyle was there.And no, I didn’t fangirl out.
In this first video, Jordan Gavaris (Felix) and the lovely Maria Kennedy Doyle talk about their characters’ relationship, if we should trust them, and skillfully answer questions without getting spoiler-y. Oh and yes, there is a Mr. S!
