Articles by ccarthern

40 Years of Dragon Con by Shots by Shinobi

Every year, Dragon Con calls to me like a beacon, and this year it called louder than ever. Dragon Con turned 40 in 2026, and Atlanta — my hometown — showed up and showed out for it. Running September 3rd through 7th, this year’s convention pulled in over 75,000 fans, and downtown transformed into the same geek playground it always does, except this time it felt like the whole city knew it was witnessing something […]

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The Cornell 7: A Straight Men Problem

Free P*ssy Shop still open? Those are the messages sent to a Chi Phi group chat with 57 members at Cornell while, a 20-year-old woman was upstairs being drugged and raped for several hours. Cornell 7? No, Cornell RAPISTS. Are we surprised? Look who y’all voted into office. You already told us you’re okay with this. Jane Doe stated two members drugged her and seven sexually assaulted her on October 19, 2024. They are named […]

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My First Trip to the US Open: Women’s Semifinal Under the Lights

There’s a moment right when you walk into Arthur Ashe Stadium for the first time where you just stop. I’ve been in rooms with movie premieres, film festival crowds, comic con floors packed shoulder to shoulder — but nothing quite prepares you for the scale of that stadium and the buzz radiating off 20,000 people who all showed up for the same reason: they wanted to see something they’d remember. This was my first US […]

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San Diego Comic-Con 2026

San Diego always hits different. There’s a specific kind of electricity that only exists in that convention center — the smell of con-exclusive popcorn buckets, the line chatter, the way total strangers become your people for four days because you’re all wearing the same fandom on your sleeve. This year’s SDCC didn’t disappoint, and I want to walk you through it the way I experienced it: kickoff party first, then the floor, then the reveals […]

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The Prefontaine Classic, From the Finish Line

I ran cross country in high school, along with the mile and the 800 on the track side. Nothing that made anybody’s highlight reel — just miles of pushing through the kind of pain that teaches you patience, and two distances that demand you know exactly how much of yourself to spend and exactly when to spend it. Go out too hot in the 800 and you’re paying for it the whole back half. Hold […]

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BY THE POWER OF GRAYSKULL, THEY ACTUALLY DID IT

Let me set the scene for you. It’s May 27th. I’m standing outside Cineworld Leicester Square in London for the UK premiere of Masters of the Universe, and I am not playing it cool. I am a grown man — a filmmaker, a director, a person who has been to Tribeca — and I am genuinely giddy. The kid in me who used to wake up Saturday mornings and plant himself six inches from the […]

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Spider-Man Exhibit at Chicago’s Griffin MSI

I walked into this exhibit ready to geek out. I walked out feeling like I’d been in a master class on how art carries culture, resists authority, and quietly reshapes who we believe deserves a hero’s story. So yeah — it hit different. It starts with the creators — and that’s the right call Before you get to any costumes or movie props, the exhibit takes you through the people who built Spider-Man from scratch. […]

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A-Train: The Most Earned Death in Superhero Television

Season 5, Episode 1 didn’t just close a chapter — it completed one of the most honest redemption arcs ever written for a Black superhero on screen. Let me be honest with you. When The Boys first aired and we watched A-Train — full speed, no hesitation — run straight through Robin Ward and keep going, I didn’t think we’d ever get here. I thought we were watching a cautionary tale about what fame does […]

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Assemble! The Marvel Rivals Voice Cast Panel at WonderCon 2026 Was an Absolute Blast

If you were anywhere near North 200A at WonderCon Anaheim 2026 on Friday evening, you already know — the Marvel Rivals voice cast panel was one of the loudest, most electric events of the entire weekend. And we mean that literally. Video game fans gathered to meet the voice talent behind Marvel Rivals at 6:45pm in North 200A, with almost the entire voice cast in appearance San Diego Comic-Con Unofficial Blog — a stacked lineup […]

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From the Abyss to the Spotlight: Captain Zero: Into the Abyss Part II and the NAACP Image Awards

When Captain Zero: Into the Abyss Part II was created, the goal was never simply to make another superhero story. It was about telling a story that rarely gets told in the genre—one about mental health, vulnerability, resilience, and the quiet battles people fight within themselves. Being nominated for an NAACP Image Award is not just recognition of a film. It is validation that stories like this matter. The NAACP Image Awards have long stood […]

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