EXCLUSIVE: Strength in NUMBERS Featuring HOYA by Chi-Yun Lau

The Strength in NUMBERS train keeps rolling as we unveil the latest “variant” album cover to Chops’ massive Asian American hip-hop movement.

The latest Strength in NUMBERS album cover features New York emcee — and Strength in NUMBERS original cover artist, HOYA illustrated by Boston-based cartoonist and graphic designer CHI-YUN LAU.

After the jump, download a high-resolution jpeg of the latest Strength in NUMBERS alternate album cover. Just right-click on the image and save. And remember to DONATE NOW to help make this project a reality!

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NOC Recaps The Legend of Korra: Wan Where it All Began

Watching The Legend of Korra: Beginnings on Friday felt like watching a masterpiece develop. Like watching Enter the Dragon for the first time. Taking a break from all of the action that has been building up over the last several weeks, “Beginnings” goes back to the… uh… beginning. Literally.

So instead of the regular recap of the episodes, we decided to “bend” our own rules and combine the forces of Julie and Rodrigo — our regular recappers and the two resident Avatar Aficionados — to process the tons of information that was delivered to us in this two-part special.

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#DiversityInSFF Roundup: Some Links

The #DiversityInSFF hashtag gave a solid signal boost to the longstanding, often-ignored, ever-trolled, much-needed convos about race and gender, privilege and science fiction/fantasy that have been going on since the dawn of time. For a few weeks twitter was all aflame with debates, links and related shenanigans. We have these convos, increasingly in depth, at cons and across the blogosphere. Backlash against those who speak out has come in the form of death and rape threats, hate mail, doubling down on sexist/racist/homophobic/ableist material, and mind-numbingly nonsensical counterarguments. And, of course, comments sections. Still, we move forward, take breaks to recuperate and then move forward some more towards a vision of SF/F that isn’t just another white male savior fantasies, a diversity that’s more than fake smiling multicolored dress up dolls.

This month Rose Fox and I have been wrapping up the selection process for Long Hidden, an anthology of speculative fiction from the margins of history. It’s busied me up and kept me from banging my head against the keyboard trying to piece together a coherent response to some never-ending fuckery and maybe that’s a good thing. My words are coming, but sometimes the best counterattack is to simply reroute the conversation to creativity, to create something new, a new space for voices that don’t get play in mainstream venues.

Read on to find some links to recent conversations about race and SF/F:

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