QUICK BITES
Jesse Eisenberg says his comparison of Comic-Con to genocide was 'hyperbole'
Yeah, well, that's the way I took it. As an obvious joke. To misconstrue it as Eisenberg being remotely serious would be putting him in a class of Jim Carrey crazy. And I haven't seen Jesse go that Whoopie off the wall yet.

Full story at EW.

AND

The Case for Custer: Is 'Preacher' on the Right Path?
On the one hand, this is written by Seth Rogan, who as a writer, is hilariously big on comedy but seriously short on everything else.

Granted, Preacher has a stitch of dark humor running through its flesh, but comedy is not the flesh itself.

On the other hand, the script is also written by Sam Catlin of BREAKING BAD, and that's nothing to sneeze at.

Story at WordAndFilm.

PLUS

This multiplayer horror game will be alive only as long as its players are
Like your freaking life, this is the game that dies with you.

Story at Polygon.

ALSO

Soma could be the creepiest game of the year, because the ocean is terrifying
Science Fiction Horror. From Lovecraft to Sigler it's my favorite kind of Horror because the premise suspends your disbelief with the idea that it could happen.

Story at TheVerge.

WASSMOR

Jurassic World was wrong: velociraptors looked like this
I can see why they didn't do this in the first JURASSIC PARK - we didn't know this.

I can see why they didn't do it in JURASSIC PARK III, they didn't know shit.

I don't see why they didn't do it in JURASSIC WORLD, as a five foot Velociraptor with feathers and freaking sharp teeth IN a sharp beak would kick ass!

Story at Telegraph.

FINALLY

Stephen King's 'It' Lands New Director in Andy Muschietti
Exit TRUE DETECTIVE'S Fukunaga, enter MAMA's Andy Muschietti. Regardless of what you think of Andy's first Horror movie (based upon his short movie of the same name), it was a mild hit and Stephen King's IT could be a step up. True, a massive tome like IT would be better served as a cable series instead of a movie, but I could say the same thing about a lot of novels.

What we do know is this: Stephen King's IT, as a feature film, will be a severely abbreviated version of the book and at best, will serve as more of the spirit of King's story than the actual Horror adventure.

As of this writing, Muschietti is a mere placeholder for the director chair, as NewLine doesn't have a script and anything can happen from now until they have one they like.

Full story at CBR.

QUICK BITES
Let's Be Honest: You Don't Have a Problem With the New 'Ghostbusters,' You Have a Problem With Women
Say! You know how we geeks always have a huge problem with remakes? From THE THING to THE DARK KNIGHT to SPIDER-MAN to ROBOCOP and everything in between?

You know how touchy geeks get when there's too much cgi? Or the Joker is too Heath Ledger or the Batman is too Ben Affleck?

Well what you didn't know is this. Regardless of your gender, whenever you have a problem with reboots, remakes, or anything else Hollywood ever does to a franchise for whatever reason, You Have a Problem With Women.

Yep. That's the root of it all.

At least according to Sean Mulvihill and FanBoyNation.

AND

SDCC: 'Ash Vs. Evil Dead' Battles Deadites, Demons & Old Age in First Trailer
Okay, we get EVIL DEAD, we get ARMY OF DARKNESS, and we even get Ash played by The Bruce!

Sure, he's a much older Bruce, but I have a feeling we're all gonna connect to an older Ash a lot better than we connected to an older TERMINATOR.

Check out the article at CBR.

QUICK COMIC BITES

"If there's a real honesty to fan culture relationships, we owe the world the finale of Hellboy. It's a deal we made, man! We did two fucking movies! I don't want to do Hellboy Four or Five. I want to do the third fucking movie in the trilogy! It's a covenant we made. We owe it to you."
- Ron Perlman, 2015 San Diego Comic Convention International, "Hand of God" panel

AND

Comic-Con: Christian Activists Disrupted By "Beast Rises" A&E Promoters
It's a sign I tell you! A sign!

Story at THR.

PLUS

Animal brains connected up to make mind-melded computer
Away to your laptops O' Writers!

Science fiction Horror writers especially!

Tons of comic books warned us of this day, and not just HIP FLASK.

If you think this idea is creepy time, bear in mind that the surgical research is being done on animals now in the hopes of performing it on humans later.

Article at NewScientist.

ALSO

Who Won Comic-Con? Day 1: The Hunger Games dominates, and Street Fighter gets booed
So no surprises in that arena.

But there *were* surprises at the Comic Con overall!

Story at The Verge.

WASSMOR

Here's why the actors of Teen Wolf are the Beyoncés of Comic-Con
If only Entertainment Weekly could have revealed why they were the Beyoncés of Comic-Con(most attendees didn't know or care that they were there - is that it?). Or it would have been mildly interesting to tell us why being the ignored Beyoncés of Comic-Con is a good thing.

Story at EW.

THEN

Arnold Schwarzenegger: they 'screwed up' Predator franchise
Was PREDATOR 2 a rush job? Yeah, probably. Was it as good as the first? I don't think so. Was it bad? No way! Even without the far worse PREDATORS, PREDATOR 2 wasn't bad.

Arnold has a difference of opinion.

Find out at TheGuardian.

FINALLY

SDCC: AMC Debuts First "Fear the Walking Dead" Trailer, Announced Premiere Date
Video time! Grab the popcorn!

Continued at CBR.

QUICK COMIC BITES
Perpetual Bullet
Going to the San Diego Comic Con?
There is still time to order my paperback book, PERPETUAL BULLET (amazon will deliver to your hotel). Also, when you buy at Amazon, you get the Kindle version Free (and that's cutting me own throat!)!

God DAMN, but that's an amazingly sweet deal! I'm a freaking Saint!

Find me at or around the San Diego Comic-Con and I'll sign your copy of PERPETUAL BULLET and pose with you for a photo!

Even more, when you use the link I provide here, Amazon donates a portion of the price to Doctors Without Borders.

Holy shit I'm just so unbelievably cool!

AND

Not going to the San Diego Comic Con International?
Did you know that my second short story collection, WILLOW BLUE, was recently reviewed by none other than Jeffrey Reddick? Creator of the FINAL DESTINATION movies?

PLUS

15 underappreciated books: sci-fi, fantasy, horror fiction
I often undervalue such lists because tastes are subjective. Plus the fact that most people who make lists often have no idea what they are talking about and they're only creating click-bait to pad out 10 or more pages of browser choking ads.

Yet Padraig Cotter over at Den of Geek has an intriguing list of titles here that is so strongly supported by powerful hard-to-find stories that I've read, that I'm now curious about the ones I haven't. Plus, there is no dicking around. It's all on one page.

Check out the list at DenOfGeek.

ALSO

Eli Roth Wants to Change the Way You See Sharks
Roth just wants to have fun - in his relatively shark resistent chain link diving suit and an ocean full of well-fed sharks.

Full story at Esquire.

QUICK COMIC BITES
Poll in San Diego has large majority picking comic books over Chargers
Seems San Diego not only has more Comic fans than sports fans, but the city has more people who prefer a fantastic week of International Comic Convention fun over a single day of a single game that is over and done in mere hours.

Huh. Go figure!

COVER ARTWORK BY MICHAEL CHO

Story at NBCSports.

AND

Dispute over 'Comic Con' name is heading to court
I'm not picking sides here, I'm just seriously bummed about Comic Conventions fighting each other over branding in the first place.

It's not the kind of close-knit community of Comic fans that we tell ourselves we have and that I'd like to see.

Story at CBR.

PLUS

London has its own real-life superhero
Who knows what evils lurk in the hearts of men?
The Shadow knows!

Story at Wired.

ALSO

New Image Comics lineup has 'Saga' writer Brian K. Vaughan taking on 'The Walking Dead'
Who else will walk through this world?

Story at DailyDot.

TERMINATOR
TERMINATOR GENISYS is out today.

What's that? You say you haven't seen all of the previous ones? Well unless you want to have one hell of a marathon (see you next week), this will help you catch the hell up today!

THE TERMINATOR
TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY
TERMINATOR 3
TERMINATOR: THE SARAH CONNOR CHRONICLES
TERMINATOR SALVATION

Articles (but no reviews - no spoilers) on the upcoming TERMINATOR GENISYS and THE TERMINATOR franchise to date.

TERMINATOR GENISYS: Trailers @Hulu.

It's Like It Never Happened: A 'Terminator' Dossier

DEAD POOL IS GETTING A HARD R
DEAD POOL producer Simon Kinberg, tells EW writer, Joe McGovern, that DEAD POOL "...is a hard R."

Yeah? How hard?

Simon says, "It's graphic. Nothing is taboo. You either commit to a truly outrageous boundary-pushing kind of movie or you don't."

Wow. That is pretty hard!

Marvel has had R rated movies in the past (BLADE), but nothing you could call a hard R. Warner Bros. has skirted Hard R with a few soft-core scenes of nudity in movies like WATCHMEN, but that's pretty much it.

In fact, I can't think of any Marvel movie that got an R rating, that could not have easily dropped to a PG-13 if they merely lost an F-Bomb or two. Seriously, knowing someone is going to say a word onscreen that you already say yourself, several times a day, is not likely to drag you to the theater.

Full story at EntertainmentWeekly.

So cool, looking forward to this crazy, no-holds barred movie? "Not so fast," says Scott Mendleson at Forbes Magazine. He'll have you know that ...

'Deadpool' Is Not The First 'Hard-R' Comic Book Superhero Movie
Okay, so what's your side here, Scott?

"But one thing I can say for sure, contrary to the headline-friendly exclamations the Entertainment Weekly article that dropped the photo above, is that Deadpool is not remotely the first R-rated superhero."

Well no shit! Duh! But that's not what the Entertainment Weekly headline said. In fact, that's not what Your headline says Scott. Producer Simon Kinberg specifically said, "Hard R." and he went onto explain how hard.

The first thing Scott does in his Forbes article is Strawman Joe McGovern's article at EW, by cutting the word "Hard" from the Entertainment Weekly headline.

So kudos to writer Joe McGovern at Entertainment Weekly, kudos to producer Simon Kinberg, and a fat middle finger in the face of Scott Mendleson, who didn't know what to say on the matter, but needed a paycheck.

Read the fatuous article at Forbes, inspired by a Facebook comment. Sheesh!

QUICK BITES
STUNG: Director Benni Diez On The Buzz Surrounding His Directorial Debut
Low budget indie directors can only be grateful to hit upon a notion that naturally garners so much genre attention. Having an actor like Lance Henriksen helps, of course, but Lance is in loads of low budgets every year that vanish with nary a trace.

No, the big story here is monster sized varmints and the self-deprecating sense of humor that Director Benni Diez brings to his project. Benni loves ALIEN, but he wants to make fun monster movies like TREMORS.

Here is hoping he can pull it off!

Full story at IconVsIcon.

AND

SLASH Reveals How Horror Movies Have Influenced Him (Video)
When Slash talks Horror movies, he means old, Old, OLD School. 1980s Horror, long cherished by many genre fans, is not for him. His kind of scary monster Horror pretty much zips it up in the 1970s and only a few crumbs were made in the early 80s.

Watch the video at Blabbermouth.

PLUS

Are Creepypastas The Next Big Thing For Horror Films?
Creepypastas (sharing video links across forums - Copy Paste - but with a severely scary bent) have been around for a while. Even folks on facebook are used to the "Look closely at this video" posts to get their dose of surprise heart attacks.

But are Creepypastas popular enough to become the Next Wave?

Continued at FilmSchoolRejects.

ALSO

Mysterious deep web horror game Sad Satan has terrified and confused the internet
When it comes to fiction reading, confusion and terror have an awesome success rate.

Check it out at Geek.