Lillian Diaz-Przybyl is one of the co-founders of Sparkler Magazine, which is a project that I am currently pretty excited about. They have an amazing collection of talents, graphic novels, written fiction and audio dramas under their belt — and all of it need a lot of more love from more readers. Check out our interview with Lillian below and she will tell you all about Sparkler, the work behind it and what’s in store in the future for this unique online publication.

Tell us about Sparkler Magazine’s superhero origin story. Who are the creators? Where did the idea come from and how did it become a reality?

So basically in the mid-90s, all of us got hit by the Anime Bug, and were turned into rabid otaku—I mean. Uh. Actually, that’s kind of what happened… Three out of the four of us founders were Sailor Moon junkies in one way or the other, and after I graduated with a double-degree in nerdery (read: Japanese & English, with a side of running my college’s anime society) I wound up working at TOKYOPOP for several years, where I got to know Lianne as a freelancer (actually, she applied for the same staff job I did—no hard feelings!) and a friend. Lianne and Becca have been friends since middle school, a time during which Lianne describes herself as the local anime pusher, and Jill’s a proud otome gamer and has a real job in the finance industry. We’re lucky to have found her!

Do you love Star Wars? Do you love Disney’s animated musicals? Ever thought you’d see the two combined? It’s the mash-up video you didn’t know you needed until right now.

Star Wars the Musical was created by musician, George Shaw and if you watch Geek & Sundry’s Tabletop with Will Wheaton, you’ve probably heard some of his music.  George answers a few question for us and he talks about how he got into writing music for the geek community and what inspires him.

Watch the video and then check out our interview with George after the jump!

This year we were lucky enough to conduct a video interview with Dennis Calero and Todd Stashwick, the creative team responsible for the awesome web comic/graphic novel The Devil Inside. The bad news is that our audio committed suicide half way through the video interview. OH NOEZ!

Yes, we are very professional and you should let us interview you.

Luckily my brain is ever so slightly larger than the size of a walnut, so I remember a lot of what they said during the interview that you may not be able to make out from the audio.

Here is some supplemental content to the video interview (Author’s Note: This is a summary and is not word for word what Dennis and Todd said):

How have the characters evolved over time?

He started off as a man with an idea of who he wants to be, and over time he has grown more of a conscience. Also he is not what you typically picture when you think of “the Devil”. He does not have a red cape with a pitchfork and it is not necessarily his intention to bring the evil out of others, despite the fact that it happens. In this story it is more humanity that causes the problems than the Devil, so it’s the evil of others that surrounds him more than the evil of being the Devil. In fact, its also a Pinnocchio story. He over time wants to become a “real boy”, or in this case more like a human being. On the back of the book it even says, “Evil is not a force, it is a choice.” He, the Devil, wants and has that choice to not be evil anymore.

It’s hard to not enjoy an interview when you get to nerd out over both The Maltese Falcon and The Mighty Ducks with the person you’re interviewing. This time around I got to chat with actor, writer, and director Mark O’Brien who will be appearing in the sixth and final season of Republic of Doyle and the short film Dennis. In this interview Mark talks about what inspired him to become an actor, what it’s like going from acting to directing, what his dream role is, and what superpower he would choose. For the record, he was a lot of fun to chat with and has pretty much earned my eternal loyalty because he ended our phone interview with, “Go, Ducks, Go!” You read that right, my friends.

Check out the interview to learn more about this hilarious and multi-talented guy!

What inspired you to become an actor?

I have always loved movies so much, particularly when I was twelve or thirteen and I was able to recognize a good performance. I didn’t just see it as entertainment, I could finally see the craft behind it. To tell you the truth it was Edward Norton in Primal Fear which he was so good in that it was the first time that I noticed in a performance in a movie. I watched what he was doing and thought, “Oh my god, that is so cool.” I think it was somewhere around there that I started making films with my buddies and started to appreciate it a bit more and it just went from there.

I agree with you, Primal Fear and Edward Norton’s performance in it is amazing.

Oh my god, yes. It literally changed my life. Fight Club and a lot of his stuff had a big effect on me.

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing actress Amanda Grace Cooper who stars in the horror comedy All Cheerleaders Die which you can go see in theaters now! In this interview Amanda talks about her role Hanna in the movie, what it was like having to deal with all that icky fake blood, what inspired her to become an actor, and her personal passions like writing vegan cookbook for kids. She was very sweet and a lot of fun to chat with (and we also got to bond over knitting). Check out the interview to learn more about her!

What inspired you to become an actor?

Well both of my parents are set decorators. My dad worked on the set of the soap opera The Young and the Restless for years and my mom did as well. When I was younger I would literally just walk the sound stages and I’d watch the actors. When I was three or four I just thought the actors were playing around and having fun and that’s ultimately what I wanted to do! I got involved with dancing and just performing competitively and then when I was seven or eight years old I literally turned to my parents and said, “Look, I want to be an actor. This is what I want to do.” Then they enrolled me in acting class. It all started there.

Tell me about your role Hanna in All Cheerleaders Die.

It’s kind of interesting because I actually came in to read for the role of Leena which I was not right for and they envisioned me as Hanna. Hanna is an average teenager who is just trying to fit in and she’s constantly rejected and the only people who take her in are the cheerleaders on the cheerleading squad because her sister happens to be on of the head cheerleaders. They put Hanna in the mascot outfit as a form of acceptance, although the joke is on Hanna because nobody else would want to do that. She falls into this love triangle between her sister and her sister’s boyfriend because she is deeply in love with him.

If you’re just joining the conversation, here’s what you missed: Earlier this week, Ubisoft unveiled the latest installment of their unstoppable franchise, Assassin’s Creed: Unity. The story takes place during the French Revolution, and players can choose from up to four unique characters–

Alright, not so unique, then.

The fact that Ubisoft chose to omit women in their game without bothering to Google the most famous assassin of the time period is bad enough, but then they made matters worse by trying to explain why.

Basically, it was too much work. … Except not really. In fact, it’s safe to say that excuse is complete bullshit and Ubisoft has no good reason for not including a female assassin in their game.

In response to Ubisoft’s statements, @lionschmion started the Twitter hashtag #WomenAreTooHardToAnimate. In less than 24 hours, there have been thousands of tweets with the hashtag, with a reach of over 1.2 million users. Oh, and Kotaku has just now picked up on it (damn, got there before me).

Jayd (aka lionschmion) was kind enough to pretend to take me seriously long enough to do this interview. We talked about the decline of the Assassin’s Creed series, the overwhelming response to #WomenAreTooHardToAnimate, and what it means for the future of gaming.

For those of you looking forward to Guillermo del Toro’s show The Strain, you are in for a real treat. Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing actor, writer, and director Drew Nelson who plays Matt Sayles in the upcoming horror thriller. On top of telling us about The Strain and his character Matt, Drew also talks about what inspired him to become an actor, his dream role, and even tells us which superpower he’d pick and his favorite comic book movie!

Drew was a lot of fun to chat with, so make sure to check out this interview to learn more about this up and coming talent!

What inspired you to become an actor?

I guess my parents always kind of had an inkling that I was more of an artist type. They’d always get me to do voices for my aunts and uncles at family gatherings and stuff like that. Further into high school I was always the kid in English class reading the Shakespeare text but always putting a character voice on so every time we would be reading plays and stuff in English class they’d always say, “Get Drew! Get Drew to read Friar Laurence.” It kind of stemmed from there.

It’s also kind of a crazy serendipitous thing. Our regular drama teacher went off on maternity leave and they called in this supply teacher from New York City and she had just graduated from Circle in the Square school. She came to our class on a temporary basis and she taught us real scene study stuff that she had learned in New York and I just instantly loved it. Lo and behold she thought that I had a knack for it and asked me to be a lead in a play. She was doing a play that year and cast me as a lead. The play was called Detective Story and it’s all history from there pretty much. She was the main reason why I got into it.

For those of you who are fans of the CW’s Beauty and the Beast you are in for a real treat. I got to talk to actor Austin Basis who plays JT Forbes on the People’s Choice Award winning show. In this interview Austin talks about some of his favorite things about playing JT, what superpowers would he and JT pick, what fans of Beauty and the Beast can look forward to this season, along with letting us know his geeky side by telling us his favorite comic book movies!

Austin was kind enough to take the time for this interview and was a lot of fun to chat with. Check it out!

First off, congratulations on the People’s Choice Award for Favorite Sci-Fi Fantasy Show.

Thank you!

What is one of your favorite things about playing JT Forbes on Beauty and the Beast?

One of my favorite things is getting to have the awesome one-liners that the writer’s write and I am lucky in that respect. Another character, Tess (played by Nina Lisandrello), also gets some zingers, but I feel like JT maybe unfairly gets a lion share of awesome one-liners that kind of stand out in the show as a word or phrase that people will remember. It’s always fun to kind of challenge myself to try and say it in as many different ways as possible, but also try to get the most funny out of the line in a way that doesn’t violate the reality or the circumstance that we’re trying to portray in the world of Beauty and the Beast.