Roleplaying games provided comfort, escapism and social contact for many of us during the pandemic – if we couldn’t party together in person, then at least we could carouse virtually across a landscape built from imagination. But who crafts the signposts and the places they point to and how do they create the mechanics that…
Category: Video
Shelly Bond and the Secrets of Comics Editing
Shelly Bond’s editing career includes a 22-year run at DC Comics’ Vertigo line and the creation of Black Crown, IDW’s ‘indie record label’ imprint that merged music and comics. As well as her work on Sandman, Lucifer, Clean Room, Fables and Kid Lobotomy, she’s also known for the Hey, Amateur and Insider Art anthologies, and…
Judges: The Genesis of the World of Judge Dredd
In a time of widespread poverty, inequality and political unrest, protests and violence meet the first Judges as they hit the street to enforce the Law. The cure, it’s clear, is far worse than the disease. The ‘Judges’ novellas allow for an unprecedented opportunity to delve into the history of this future fictional police state.…
Dare to Speak Their Name: Including the Queer in Worldbuilding
This panel from Octocon 2020 is brought to you in honour of International Transgender Day of Visibility 2022. To find out more about it, visit our 2021 charity: BeLonG To Youth Services is the national organisation supporting lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex (LGBTI+) young people in Ireland. Panel Description Speculative fiction can give us…
4th Wave Feminism in Science Fiction and Fantasy
No one is just one thing, and intersectionality teaches us that the overlapping pressures from society affect us all in different ways. Fourth wave feminism seeks to address these pressures on women without excluding other aspects of identity. The demand for more diverse creators and content, and the centering of women and minorities as superheroes,…
