The 2019 New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival will return to its now-established home at the Showboat Hotel on the Atlantic City Boardwalk later this month from October 11th – 13th. The semi-annual event is put on by Ryan Scott Weber and Comic Book Men producer Rob Bruce. They have outdone themselves this time with a huge guest list, a 3-day film fest, and tons of panels, Q&As, and other fan friendly events. With Halloween in season, you’ll definitely want to make it out to Showboat this Columbus Day weekend.

The delightful chaos wrought by Amazon Studios’ new Good Omens TV series at SXSW cannot be denied or ignored, literally. With such an enormously immersive marketing strategy, you’d expect it was being positioned as the next Game of Thrones or Westworld, both of which saw HBO employ similar tactics in years past. But, you’d be utterly and completely wrong.

Good Omens is something entirely different — and, if successful, could have the potential to usher in a new era of TV.

Sometimes I’m left dumbfounded that many people covering the comic book industry couldn’t understand how Marvel Comics, the publishing arm of the organization, fits perfectly into the overall business strategy for Marvel Entertainment and its parent company Disney — that it is the central hub that connects the dots between all the various departments utilizing Marvel-branded content or licensed products. (It’s also not that important, unless you start writing speculative pieces with a limited understanding of, well, business.)

That was the intention behind a SXSW panel featuring Marvel Chief Creative Officer Joe Quesada and Editor in Chief C.B. Cebulski earlier this week. Sure enough, the pair spent nearly an hour outlining the various ways original work in the comic book publishing arm translated over to other mediums with great financial success. Some of the best examples included major comic event storylines being adapted to blockbuster big budget films (Civil War, Infinity War) and mobile game Contest of Champions using exact costume designs from current comic series runs.

Bringing together creator/showrunner Neil Gaiman, seasoned British television director Douglas Mackinnon (Sherlock, Jekyll), and fan favorite actor David Tennant for Amazon Studio’s forthcoming TV series Good Omens not only means the show will impress, but also that it’ll be chock-full of references to Doctor Who.

American Gods, the Neil Gaiman novel adapted into a Starz TV series, is properly represented at this year’s SXSW event to hype up fans ahead of the season 2 premiere tonight, March 10.

The world got its first glimpse of the series at SXSW in 2017, where Starz assembled much of the insanely large cast for a panel discussion following a screening of the first episode. And as Gaiman is as (if not more) popular than Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for this year’s SXSW, there’s no way they were going to miss out on a chance to do something to celebrate the show.

I have been to the Garden of Earthly Delights, and it is stocked with good beer, puppies, and free manicures. By that I mean the adaptation of Good Omens to the small screen is going to make massive waves when it premieres later this year, at least if the show’s presence at this year’s SXSW is any indication.

Horror returns to the Boardwalk in Atlantic City this month, as the New Jersey Horror Con and Film Festival (NJHCFF) hits the Showboat Hotel March 29th through the 31st. After a successful show last September, this year’s event will include countless well-known celebrities from the worlds of horror and sci-fi, rock and roll, and pro wrestling and will feature exclusive Q&A panels, special events, hundreds of vendors, cosplay contests, photo ops, and more!

The NYC Horror Film Festival had a huge day planned on Saturday. The third day of the festival opened at noon and played all through the night with a main event featuring the Candyman, Tony Todd, receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award. The 16th year of the festival originated by the late Michael J. Hein saw packed houses this year since Thursday and already set their festival attendance record. I got to the Cinepolis Chelsea at around 4:00pm, right in time to catch two awesome programs including a feature that is likely to end up in my Top 10 horror films of 2018.

Each year for over a decade and half, the New York City Horror Film Festival has handed out its Lifetime Achievement Award to an icon of horror cinema. The festival was created and organized by the late Michael J. Hein back in 2002 and the first two recipients of the Lifetime Achievement Award were George A. Romero and Tom Savini.

Perhaps fittingly this year’s recipient was Tony Todd, who broke into the horror genre in Savini’s 1990 remake of Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead. Two years later, he became a true horror legend when he played the titular hook-handed Candyman in Bernard Rose’s film based on the Clive Barker story The Forbidden. Since then Todd has used his massive 6’5″ frame, size-16 shoe, and deep voice to leave a lasting impression on the horror industry with appearances in the Final Destination franchise, Hatchet 1 & 2, Masters of Horror, and more. Saturday night at the Cinepolis Chelsea, The Candyman showed up to a sell-out crowd (with probably 50+ others standing in the aisle) to accept his award and partake in a Q&A.

While others are getting ready to light the menorah and decorate the tree, the fine folks at the New York City Horror Film Festival are still in pure Halloween mode. The 16th annual film festival, which started Thursday night, November 29th, was dedicated to its late founder and director Michael J. Hein, and emanated out of the Cinepolis Chelsea. Opening night saw an appearance from acclaimed horror producer/writer/director Mick Garris (The Stand, Masters of Horror), who was there to help kick off the festival with the horror anthology Nightmare Cinema, to which he contributed. Also there was Tony Timpone, longtime editor of Fangoria magazine. I made it in time for night 2 and was treated to an amazing evening of short- and feature-length horror from the cerebral to the emotional to the utterly insane.