Charles Wallace writes, "In 1891 the Royal Albert Hall hosted what may be the first sci-fi convention, centered on the book 'The Coming Race' by our old friend Edward Bulwer-Lytton. The video linked above features a trip to the archives of the Royal Albert Hall by host Brady Haran. Good proto new-age weirdness with through-threads to current neo-nazis. Fun for all!" Read the rest

In 1942, Horst Rosenthal was sent to the Vichy concentration camp Gurs, where he drew a comic-book that survived him: Mickey au Camp de Gurs, it tells the story of Mickey Mouse being snatched from the street and sent to Gurs, and features a tour of Gurs that uses a brave face of humor to cope with enormous suffering. Read the rest

Miami artist Brian Reedy creates pop-culture block prints that he sells on Etsy; his store is full of amazing handmade linoblock rice-paper prints, at $20 each, like "A Trip To The Moon," "The USS Enterprise," "Darth Vader Samurai," "Star Wars Still Life," and a superb set of Universal Monster prints: "The Creature From the Black Lagoon," "Frankenstein's Monster," "The Mummy," "Dracula," and "The Wolfman." Read the rest

John Frost writes, "Travis, a railroad engineer, recreated iconic buildings from Disneyland's Fantasyland in his spare time. The result is an incredibly detailed and faithful recreation of facades to Mr. Toad's Wild Ride, Snow White's Scary Adventures and more." Read the rest

For two years, a group of die-hard Star Trek fans labored to create Stage 9, a totally noncommercial virtual replica of the USS Enterprise built with Unreal Engine; they assumed that when CBS Vice President for Product Development John Van Citters was serious in 2016, when he publicly acknowledged the debt that Star Trek owes to its fans and assured people creating fan media that "They’re not going to hear from us. They’re not going to get a phone call, they’re not going to get an email. They’re not going to get anything that’s going to ruin their day one way or another and make them feel bad, like they’ve done something wrong." Read the rest

John Wiswell's story "Tank!" tells the sweet, sad story of a fannish tank that wants to attend a comic-con and is confounded by their nonbinary gender, their social awkwardness, and the fact that no one will believe that their main gun has been peace-bonded. (via Super Punch) Read the rest

July 29-August 2, 2020: even the (no-foolin' awesome) Prime Minister is getting in on the act! Read the rest

Pablo Defendini (previously) writes, "Fireside Magazine’s editor, Julia Rios, is part of The Mexicanx Initiative, a scholarship fund John Picacio put together for sending Mexicanx and Mexican-American sf/f authors to Worldcon. A few of the Mexicanx Initiative authors decided to create an anthology to commemorate the occasion, and had been planning on subsidizing the cost of printing and shipping themselves. When Fireside got word of this last week, we decided to pitch in, and we put together a Kickstarter campaign to raise the $1500 they needed.

"Well, we blew past our funding goal, and we decided that any money left over would be split evenly among all the participants (Fireside isn't making a cent off this). So now we're trying to reach a stretch goal of $7500 by the end of the campaign this Friday, so that we can not only cover their production costs, but pay every author, artist, designer, translator, and editor who donated their work a SFWA-qualifying pro rate."

Mexicanx Initiative Anthology [Fireside/Kickstarter] Read the rest

In 2008, Universal Music fraudulently claimed that a short Youtube clip of a toddler dancing to Prince's "Let's Go Crazy" was a copyright infringement, leading to eight years of litigation and, eventually, a landmark ruling secured by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in which the court found that Universal had a duty to consider fair use before using the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to censor other peoples' media. Read the rest

In 1976, Walt Disney World was riding high: the oil crisis was over, tourists were flocking back to Florida, and the successful bicentennial celebration at the Florida Disney resort had been national news. Read the rest

Andy W writes, "An artist/illustrator friend of mine just put an illustration of hers up on RedBubble — two iconic science-fiction television characters sharing a tender moment on the couch." Read the rest

Dani Ochoa, a self-described " girl with too much time on her hands," writes, "I spent way too much time figuring this out." Read the rest

My middle-school used to take us on field trips to the Spaced Out Library, the Toronto Public Library's science fiction reference collection founded by legendary author, critic, editor and activist Judith Merril, who emigrated to Canada after witnessing the police brutality at the 1968 Chicago Democratic National Convention. Read the rest

Bed Hog Shop, an Etsy seller from Bethlehem, PA, sells these custom made, $138 Sarlacc Pit baby loungers: " (would also likely be suitable for small pets): "Own your Star Wars fandom and allow the young one to snuggle in awesomeness without the fear of being digested over a thousand years!" (via Geeks Are Sexy) Read the rest

UK Etsy seller Retromend (who specialise in vintage VW-related gifts) sell this Stranger Things-themed Upside Down doormat (coir fibers with rubber backing) for £20/USD27. (via Geeky Merch) Read the rest

A dear friend slipped me these as an Xmas gift; the provenance is unknown, but there's vector art for all your t-shirt, wallpaper and billboard needs. Read the rest

Into the blue again after the money's gone. Read the rest