Mars Garrett

What’s Fair Is Fair: Why ‘The Legend of Billie Jean’ Is Still Invincible, 40 Years Later Helen Slater, Keith Gordon, Yeardley Smith, and Matthew Robbins tell IndieWire why a film that bombed is one of the true gems of '80s cinema.

I finally watched THE LEGEND OF BILLIE JEAN last night and thought it was great. This excellent retrospective piece by @mikeryan.bsky.social does the film justice:

Time to add to my backlog.

A collection of logos. At the top are Tabletop Gaymers, Gaymer Quest: A Queer Coven Scavenger Hunt, Queer Coven, and Gen Con. Between them is the design for the Oracle pin, a witch with purple hair and a blue dress sitting contemplatively on a crystal ball. Below them are the Gaymer Quest Cards and the logos for 9th Level Games, Black Oak Workshop, Bright Bard, Featherstone Games, Looney Labs, Runaway Parade Games, Smoking Glue Guns, Snowbright Studio, Storyteller Squad, and Wet Ink Games

Our epically successful Gaymer Quest from Gen Con 2024 will be returning this year with a new pin! Gaymer Quest is a scavenger hunt with the goal of increasing visibility of queer-owned companies, queer-themed games, and games developed by queer individuals.

Hulk Hogan Was a Racist, Liar, and Scab In the 1980s, the professional wrestler portrayed himself as an all-American hero—but he was really a “jabroni” the entire time.

My latest piece @thenation.com is the loving, heartfelt tribute you've been waiting for: "Real American Scumbag: Hulk Hogan Was a Racist, Liar, and Scab" www.thenation.com/article/soci...

An alert to all creatives using #WeTransfer. Basically, stop immediately! As of August, they will begin scraping everything you send for AI purposes (see the new paragraph in their Terms and Conditions below).

If, like me, you’re a voice artist, they’ll clone your voice. Avoid at all costs.

Samsung

LG uses a rendition of "The Lincolnshire Poacher"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgD4...
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numbers...

Learning to Love Superman It often feels as though one must be taught to appreciate pop culture. There are endless encyclopedias diving into the most minute details of characters and their worlds. A machine of content is fu…

I wrote about Superman. The idea, the character, and how James's Gunn's film puts Superman in opposition to the cynicism of the audience.

We can be good. We can be strong. We can fly.

“In a new paper published earlier this year in the Journal of Marketing, we uncovered a surprising pattern: The more knowledge people have about AI and how it works, the less likely they are to embrace it.”

1996’s Independence Day

Gen Con XV historic convention schedule

Game Designers!

I will be at Gen Con soon.

I will be taking pitches for original board games and card games designed with the hobby game market in mind for some of the tabletop studios at Asmodee.

Please send me an e-mail (bbornmueller@asmodee.com) with details on your game

a host of stickers inspired by the tabletop game Trench Crusade.

A pixel art space marine sticker propped up by an ork miniature.

This is on top of a a whole host of new Trench Crusade inspired stickers from other artists, and some new pixel art marines by our buddy @alignment-ink.bsky.social.

So yeah, go take a look at www.etsy.com/shop/Cripple..., s'good stuff!

Millions of Texans woke up to a Blue Alert. DPS didn't appear to follow its own guidelines. The Department of Public Safety's alert early Friday about a suspect in the Panhandle went statewide — and riled some sleepy Austinites.

This caused a lot of Texans to totally turn off alerts last year.

www.kut.org/crime-justic...

Horrified tabletop publishers fight for their stock as bankrupt Diamond liquidates The now-bankrupt Diamond Comic Distributors is arguing that because publishers did not file a specific piece of legal paperwork, their ownership rights are now void.

A legal loophole in US bankruptcy proceedings has allowed the remnants of a major distributor to effectively seize ownership of stock belonging to over 100 publishers, including tabletop RPG publishers Paizo, Goodman Games and Green Ronin. www.geeknative.com/1...

A cartoon showing two people sitting on benches. The man on the left is feeding pigeons with breadcrumbs, while several pigeons peck at the ground. The man on the right holds a grocery bag with loaves of bread, looking concerned as pigeons around him hold small knives. One pigeon has a knife on the ground in front of it, and another pigeon is passing a knife to another.

Go, my children. Cry havoc and let fly the pigeons of war

The Nightmare Visions (and Surprising Emotional Center) of 'Return to Oz' — Crooked Marquee Disney’s bizarre sequel, released 35 years ago this week, flies in the face of the studio’s current, carefully calibrated approach to nostalgic properties.

'Return to Oz' was unleashed on unsuspecting children on this day in 1985. @roxana-hadadi.bsky.social explains why it's such potent nightmare fuel: crookedmarquee.com/the-nightmar...

How D&D Became Therapy for Some Men on Texas’ Death Row For men awaiting execution in Texas, illicit games of Dungeons & Dragons became a lifeline.

For men awaiting execution on Texas’ death row, Dungeons & Dragons became a lifeline — an escape from extreme isolating conditions, leading to the sort of friendships solitary confinement usually prevents.

See their D&D character sheets, maps & more:

> @realgdt.bsky.social, talking about the role of AI in art. 🔥

The showing of Ballerina I went to last night started exactly on time with no trailers due to an error on the theater’s part- it was lovely.