Originally previewed here at borg in 2018 and marketed by Dynamite Comics as Miss Fury, Volume 3, the third recent Miss Fury reboot was delayed again to September 2019, finally to be sidelined to an Indiegogo campaign beginning yesterday. Fortunately Dynamite learned fast that Miss Fury fans will keep coming back for each new effort to resurrect writer/artist/creator Tarpé Mills’ first superheroine, as the campaign was funded in less than two hours. So Dynamite will be publishing its third solo Miss Fury project in early 2021, this time taking what was to be a three-issue limited series straight to the graphic novel trade edition with one hardcover option.
In a strange twist to the home video release marketing strategy, IDW Entertainment, the company behind both Wynonna Earp the comic book series and the Syfy Channel television series, is well on its way through what looks to be a successful Indiegogo crowdfunding campaign to bring Wynonna Earp Season One directly to its fans. The first season will only be released on Blu-ray–no DVD–and only via the Indiegogo campaign. Discs are expected to ship around September 2017.
Wynonna Earp follows Wyatt Earp’s great-granddaughter as she battles demons and other creatures in a town called Purgatory. With her unique abilities, a demon-killing gun named Peacemaker, and a posse of dysfunctional allies, only she can bring the paranormal to justice.
Although fans and new viewers can also watch each episode of the first season on Netflix, as Wynonna Earp begins its second season (with the premiere episode of the season airing on Friday nights beginning last Friday, June 9), it’s going to be a little bit harder for the new viewer who would otherwise be willing to buy the first season to get caught up, especially if they missed the Syfy Network recap this Memorial Day weekend. But this likely will really only have an effect on the fans of the show who would ordinarily pay to have Season One in-hand closer to the start date of the next season. Will this be the next regular marketing method for shows that would otherwise not justify a home release to still be able to make fans happy?
In June 2013, more than three years ago, we previewed the Scanadu Scout First Edition here, a medical device in the concept stage that was being kicked off as an Indiegogo campaign intended to be the first step in bringing to the world a functional medical tricorder. The future in medicine was expected to arrive by March 2014. Scanadu, one of the competitors in Qualcomm’s $10 million XPrize competition to build the world’s first medical tricorder, was in final development stages and taking pre-orders for the Scanadu Scout First Edition for only $199.
Inspired by the Star Trek tricorder, medical science already has scanning devices similar to those used by Dr. Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation. The competition entrants are expected to go further, to combine the best of both the original series tricorder used by Dr. McCoy, and the updated, smaller device used by the crew of the Enterprise-D, created for the series by designer Rick Sternbach. To long-time Star Trek fans, we will think of this new Scanadu tricorder not as the “first edition” but as the Mark I. It’s only a first step, as the XPrize is intended to do much more, as explained below.
Scanadu has had its ups and downs with the Scanadu Scout First Edition and did a fine job keeping its backers notified as to its progress since the launch in 2013. Ultimately the devices began to be shipped in the first half of 2015– a year after the expected ship date. When our version arrived we quickly hit the first snag. Since the hockey puck-shaped device requires an Android or iPhone for data transmission, it requires a Scanadu app. The problem was the app compatability was limited. So many of the 8,500 backers were able to proceed, but those of us with a different brand of phone (we used an LG) were out of luck. So when we switched phones last week we finally were able to test the device, now more than three years after the Indiegogo campaign began.
Even with a device that had not been charged, we were able to take it from the box, download and launch the app, and commence the first scan within a few minutes. And it worked. The Scanadu Scout promises to deliver readings for heart rate, body temperature, blood oxygen saturation, and blood pressure. Our readings showed consistent measurements for each category.
The device has two sensors. Holding one on your forehead and the other with the left index finger a circuit with your heart is created. The device reads the data, which takes less than a minute to collect, and sends it to your smartphone via Bluetooth signal where you can track trends in your data, email it to yourself, etc. It works just like Dr. Crusher used her medical tricorder on Star Trek: The Next Generation, shown here–one device as scanner is held to the forehead and data is transferred to a tricorder/reader (in Scanadu’s case, it’s a smartphone) and analyzed:
Some classic car aficionados are creating a documentary about the post-War art designers behind Detroit’s big automakers, including General Motors, Ford, Packard, Chrysler, Hudson, Nash, and Studebaker. American Dreaming: Detroit Automotive Styling 1946-1973 is a project from artist Robert Edwards and Greg Salustro being crowdfunded through Indiegogo.
The filmmakers have interviewed the university-trained art designers behind mid-century car designs, hired by the auto companies between 1946 and 1973, and take a close look at their original artwork, including designs for concept cars that never made it to the city streets. Some of those designs are pretty stunning, and landed in collectors’ hands in a roundabout fashion.
As in many other industries, designs created by in-house staff became the property of the car companies, and in Detroit auto designers were not allowed to even keep a portfolio of their works at home. Worse yet, like the early days of comic books and comic strips, the companies threw nixed designs and old artwork into the trash. It will be those few pages of art that managed to make it out of the companies, through the back door or otherwise, that will be featured in American Dreaming. These hand-drawn designs for real-life classic hot wheels are great works of American art in their own right, yet never before seen as a unique field of fine art study.
Check out this trailer to promote the documentary project after the break here:
