LotR Stops Race Swapping This Time, Liefeld Turns To "Uncensored" Covers, LibertyCon Fails To Sell Out - Fandom Pulse Daily Briefing
A long one today because I didn’t have time to drop the daily brief yesterday! Hopefully you didn’t miss any of the great stories and are bookmarking Fandom Pulse anyway. SDCC is starting today and most of the news is just releases and the like, not really that interesting from what I’ve seen so far but I’m monitoring for you all. Make sure to share our articles out when you see them! All visibility helps!
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Mainstream Comics Are Turning To The Same Playbook As Kickstarter Erotica, And Even Rob Liefeld Just Joined It
Rob Liefeld is bringing back Avengelyne this October, and the version he’s using to launch it at San Diego Comic-Con this week says something about where comics marketing has landed in 2026.
Andy Serkis Confirms He Won’t Race-Swap The Hunt For Gollum
Andy Serkis is directing The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, and when the BBC asked him directly why the announced cast is entirely white, he didn’t reach for the answer most franchise executives give right now. He gave a different one, and it’s already splitting fans who expected the usual hedge.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Kicks Off Season 4 With a Dinosaur-Killing Time Paradox
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds returned with its Season 4 premiere, “Valles Marineris,” sending the Enterprise crew 65 million years into the past and dropping them squarely into the extinction event that killed the dinosaurs. The episode opens on Captain Pike finishing up a horseback pursuit on an alien world, a sequence that ran under thirty seconds de…
Boris Vallejo, Fantasy Art Legend, Retires At 85 After A Parkinson’s Diagnosis
Julie Bell announced this week that her husband, fantasy artist Boris Vallejo, has officially retired from commercial and commissioned work. She posted the news on Facebook alongside their recent collaborative painting, “Inferno,” which the couple spent three years completing together:
This Klingon Fan-Film Series Does Star Trek Better Than Star Trek On Zero Budget, All With AI
Star Trek’s official productions are chasing serialized prestige drama right now. A creator working under the name Zulubean is doing something different: building an entire Klingon saga using Daz3D models, AI-generated video, AI voice work, and narration stitched together with music, with no studio, no cast, and no budget.
Baen Books' Premier Event LibertyCon Didn’t Sell Out The Day Tickets Went On Sale This Year
For nearly its entire 39-year run, LibertyCon has sold out the same day registration opens. This year, it didn’t. Four days after badges went live, the convention posted an update fans aren’t used to seeing: “In a strange twist of events, there are still a few badges left for LibertyCon 39.”
No, Stargate Didn't Just Get Saved Despite Some Misleading Text From Deadline
A lot of Stargate fans have spent the past week convinced something is finally moving at Amazon MGM. It isn’t, but it’s easy to draw that conclusion based on what got reported, what got claimed on top of it, but in reality, both are getting ahead of where things actually stand.
Zack Snyder Threw A Jab At DC On Stage With Legendary Artist Frank Miller
Zack Snyder was on stage interviewing Frank Miller at the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles this past weekend, part of Miller’s “Push the Wall” tour, when a fan in the crowd yelled “we want Justice League 2.” Snyder didn’t brush it off. “They’re all f’d up, so don’t forget that part... I mean all the characters, I mean...” he said, letting the pause do the rest of the work. The room read it instantly as a shot at what’s been done to the DC characters since he left, and the clip spread fast.
Elon Musk Isn’t Giving Up On A Better Odyssey, And He’s Pledged To Back It With Real Money
Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey has opened well, pulling in $124.5 million domestically and roughly $264 million worldwide. Elon Musk has spent six months arguing the adaptation strayed too far from Homer’s actual text, and box office numbers don’t settle that argument. Commercial success and fidelity to the source material are two different measures, and M…
Star Trek: The Rift Review: Peter David’s Reluctant TOS Novel Turns Out to Be One of His Best
Peter David’s “The Rift” hit shelves in November 1991 as book number 57 in Pocket’s numbered Star Trek line, and it stands out in his bibliography for a reason that has nothing to do with plot. David’s Star Trek career runs almost entirely through The Next Generation era and his own New Frontier crew. His first Trek novel, “Strike Zone,” was a TNG entry…
Another Legendary Comic Shop Closes: System Of A Down’s John Dolmayan Shutters Torpedo Comics After Nine Years
Torpedo Comics, the Las Vegas store owned by System of a Down drummer John Dolmayan, has closed its physical location for good. A sign on the door read simply: “Thank you to the Las Vegas community for supporting us for the last 9 years!” The Torpedo brand will continue selling online, but one of the most recognizable brick-and-mortar comic shops in the country is gone.