emote fx: envir fx: inert

What is this?

To celebrate our graduation from beta testing, AnthologyBuilder invites authors of all skill levels to choose their favorite cover art from our database and write a story to match it. Contest Entries must be unpublished, between 1,000 and 50,000 words in length, and submitted on or before September 20, 2009.

Because our site hosts a wide variety of science fiction and fantasy artwork, we expect that most submissions will fall into those genres. Nevertheless, submissions in all genres are welcome.

Rules

1. Entries must be the original, unpublished work of the author and must be between 1,000 and 50,000 words in length. Stories set in derivative worlds (e.g. Star Trek, Middle Earth, or other fictional worlds not created by the author) are not admissible for this contest.
2. Entries must be submitted on or before September 20, 2009. An upload form for contest entries will be available by August 1.
3. No entry fee is required.
4. Stories will be judged in two categories: General Submissions (open to all authors) and Rising Stars (open to authors who are 18 years old or younger at the time of submission.) Rising Star authors may choose to submit in both categories.
5. Entries will be judged based on overall quality and on how well they match the artwork that inspired them. All decisions of our judging panel are final.
6. There will be ten finalists in each category. From them, one winner per category will be chosen.
7. Authors may submit only one manuscript, with the exception of authors 18 years old or younger, who may submit two stories: one for each category.
8. This contest is open to everyone except AnthologyBuilder staff members, contest judges, and their immediate families. Authors do not need prior publication credits to enter. International contestants are welcome, but please be aware that prize money will be issued in U.S. currency.
9. Our apologies, but we are unable to accept contest submissions in languages other than English.

Prizes

• Finalists will receive a $30 gift certificate for AnthologyBuilder and a detailed critique of their story by Nancy Fulda, assistant editor at Jim Baen's Universe.
• The winner in the General Submissions category will receive $200 and publication on AnthologyBuilder.*
• The winner in the Rising Star category will receive $100 and publication on AnthologyBuilder.*

suricattus

jaylake

howardtayler

emote fx: envir fx: better?

Not a superhero with supernatural abilities, or a person wealthy enough to buy high-tech toys to fight evil, but a simple human being named Hüseyin Kalkan, the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party mayor of the southeastern city of Batman, declared war against his city’s namesake superhero, Batman.  

“The royalty of the name ‘Batman’ belongs to us … There is only one Batman in the world. The American producers used the name of our city without informing us,” Kalkan told to the Doğan news agency. Batman is a centuries old city, taking root in the Neolithic age but becoming significant when oil was found in the region at the end of 1940s. Almost a decade before that, Batman was created as a comic hero. Kalkan is going to sue Christopher Nolan, the director of the latest Batman movie “The Dark Night,” not DC Comics, the creator of the superhero.

Mayor Kalkan, speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News and the Economic Review, said last year foreign media picked up on Batman and the city’s increasing suicide rates among women. He said a columnist asked why Batman’s mayor did not sue the movie Batman for royalties while struggling with economic problems. “We found this criticism right and started to look for legal possibilities of a case like that,” he said.

Meanwhile, local newspaper Batman Çağdaş alleged yesterday that Batman residents living abroad cannot use Batman as a title for their business, leading the municipality to think about the royalty rights of that name.

However, mayor Kalkan rejected any allegations about the issue and said they do not have any information that Batman residents living abroad have problems about using Batman as a name.

But Batman Çağdaş newspaper reported that Şafii Dağ, a former Batman resident, currently living in the Germany city of Wesel, is one of those citizens who cannot use Batman as a title for his business, according to the newspaper. “I named my two restaurants Batman. But six months ago, a team of employees from the production company of the movie Batman made me change the title. Telling them that Batman was the name of my hometown did not change anything,” Dağ said.

Meanwhile, the name of a local region cannot be registered as a brand name, said lawyer Vehbi Kahveci, head of the Intellectual and Industrial Property Rights Commission of the Istanbul Bar. Also having overseas clients, Kahveci said “Batman” and his image is registered all around the world. The Batman Municipality missed the period in which they could object to the registration decision for Batman’s name as a superhero, according to Kahveci.