Hey Nerds,
I bought adhesive cable clips to organize the charging cord beside my desk, which seemed like a small, responsible improvement. Twenty minutes later, one clip was attached to the wall, three were stuck to my fingers, and the cable had somehow migrated underneath the desk. I now own eleven tiny pieces of plastic stuffed in a drawer.
IN THIS ISSUE:
Magic: The Gathering loses track of commerce
RoboCop remembers to be funny
Maneater 2 builds a luxury shark-food theme park
Godslap weaponizes hand-drawn animation
...and more
MAGIC SOLD EVERY CARD EXCEPT CERTAINTY
Wizards of the Coast apologized Thursday for the Chaos Vault sale of The Zeta Set, using the unusually direct phrase “it was a disaster.” Buyers reported uncertainty over whether orders actually completed and duplicate confirmation emails. Wizards says it’s investigating whether the cause was an internal systems problem or external tampering and told customers without confirmation after 24 hours to contact support.
Online checkout has one job: tell me whether capitalism occurred. I once panic-clicked a frozen hardware-store page and received three identical toilet-flapper valves two days later. I own one toilet. The extras live in a sandwich bag labeled “PROBABLY IMPORTANT.”
ROBOCOP REMEMBERS THE JOKES BETWEEN THE SQUIBS
Dan Stevens, recently cast as the title character in Prime Video’s RoboCop series, says creator Peter Ocko’s take preserves the original movie’s comic bite. Stevens described the show as “very funny” and “satirical,” while admitting he probably watched Paul Verhoeven’s 1987 original too young.
“Watched RoboCop too young”?? SAME. At my childhood video store, the murderous cyborg cop was shelved about four feet from The Brave Little Toaster, which apparently meant both were equally suitable for children. I saw a robot on the box and figured it was basically a cartoon. If ED-209 had googly eyes, my parents probably would’ve rented it twice.
Maybe bought me the lunchbox too.
MANEATER 2 BUILT JURASSIC PARK FOR A SHARK
Tripwire Interactive and Demiurge Studios revealed Maneater 2 during PlayStation’s State of Play, targeting 2027 on PS5. This time the playable bull shark is loose inside Neptune’s Kingdom, an ultra-luxury private-island theme park experimenting with artificial biomes and bioengineering. One visitor has apparently spotted a crab “the size of their G-Wagon.” Extremely reassuring brochure material.
The park has genetically questionable sea life, armed security, rich people drinking green juice and a shark that can exploit the same mutations to upgrade herself. So basically Goop opened Jurassic Park and gave the apex predator a skill tree.
GODSLAP IS HAND-DRAWN, WHICH FEELS LIKE A THREAT
Lyrical Animation is producing a feature adaptation of Godslap, the comic co-created by YouTuber Charlie “MoistCr1TiKaL” White. The story follows an 18-year-old whose extraordinary power resides in his hands.
So an animation studio is hand-drawing a movie about hands powerful enough to topple a corporation. That’s either elegant thematic craftsmanship or the animators sending management a warning about overtime.
SPEED ROUND OF SMALLER FIRES WITH EXCELLENT PRODUCTION VALUES
Apple bought The Waffle House Index, a sci-fi thriller starring and executive produced by Inde Navarrette. The reported escalation includes a gunman, flood, killer crocodiles, nuclear explosion, magical bunker and aliens. So, a fairly normal Tuesday night at Waffle House. What’s the sci-fi part?
Netflix is developing Ravenloft as a live-action Dungeons & Dragons series, with John August writing and executive producing. The story tracks the making of vampire Darklord Strahd von Zarovich. D&D has finally asked, “Okay, but why is the vampire like this?”
Ignore It is becoming a feature film with Sam Evenson writing and directing and Lily Collias starring. The central survival rule remains brutally simple: there’s a lethal entity called The Woman in your house, and acknowledging her gets you killed. My loose floorboard has been training me for this since May. It clicks. I look away.
Crowbound #1 disappeared at distribution after Jeff Lemire and Dustin Nguyen’s dark-fantasy comic launched Wednesday, so Image Comics has rushed a second printing for September 30. That feels less like a sellout and more like the book learned magic. “Now you see me, now you don’t!”
Lanterns hit a series-high 10 million global viewers for Episode 3 in its first three days, including 7 million U.S. viewers, according to WB’s internal figures. John Stewart has unlocked the rarest DC superpower: making the week-to-week line graph go up.
CALENDAR
September 30, 2026 — Crowbound materializes back onto comic-shop shelves
Later in 2027 — Maneater 2 opens the shark buffet
2028 — Godslap brings weaponized palms to theaters
TBD — RoboCop completes his corporate-mandated satire training
TBD — Apple decides when nuclear crocodile night shift begins
TBD — Strahd finishes his prestige-vampire paperwork
TBD — Ignore It arrives, at which point we will respectfully pretend not to notice
FUND THE PROBLEM
But my a coffee if this newsletter just saved you twenty minutes of opening tabs, closing pop-ups, rejecting cookies and accidentally watching a trailer for something you weren’t even looking for.
-Zak
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