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Stefan Blitz, editor-in-chief
@ForcesOfGeekInstagramLinkedIn
Stefan Blitz is the founder and editor-in-chief of Forces of Geek.  A self-proclaimed pop culturalist, Blitz also is a freelance writer/consultant/creative guru/publicist.  He continues to seek emotional fulfillment through his consumption of media.  His dog, Sophie, a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel runs his life.  He believes in Bigfoot, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and Harvey Dent.  He likes falafel.

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Andre Bennett
@AndreBennettGOandrebennett.net
Born in Philadelphia to a journalist and an educator, P. Andre Bennett is a filmmaker and podcaster currently operating in the City of Brotherly Love. His directorial debut, Alice, won a Best Directing award at the 2011 Philadelphia Film & Animation Festival, and he has directed and/or shot a number of shorts and other projects since. He has also been involved with the internationally popular independent pro wrestling promotion CHIKARA, shooting their live events as well as their first feature film, The Ashes of CHIKARA. In addition to film work, Andre is the co-creator and co-host of the cult movie podcast “Cinema Obscura,” for Philadelphia’s KYW News Radio.

David Bitterbaum
Twitter: @thenewestrant • Instagram: @thenewestrant
David Bitterbaum is the longtime writer of The Newest Rant where he discusses how he loves all of popular culture, except for the stuff he hates. He rambles about everything from movies and television to music, video-games, and often comic-books. He lives in Saint Louis with his wife, son, and two cats.

Steven T. Boltz
Steven is an American playwright, columnist, and creative writing instructor, making his home in Melbourne, Australia. His play, “Orson Welles and The Mercury Theater on the Air in ‘The War of the Worlds’ by HG Wells” was staged in 2018 for the 80th anniversary of Welles’ War of the Worlds radio broadcast, and his play, “Lenore – A Tale of Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance”, performed in 2021, is inspired by the works of Edgar A Poe and the films of Roger Corman. He has also contributed an essay on WKRP in Cincinnati for a book called Tonight on a Very Special Episode: When TV Sitcoms Sometimes Got Serious.

Howard Chaykin
Howard Chaykin is a longtime veteran of the comic book business, serving as an artist and writer for nearly every publisher of comics in the past four decades…and counting. He took the ’90s off to work on mostly unwatchable television, so he missed the money and dreck that was comics in that execrable decade. He is responsible, some might say culpable, for introducing a number of previously unexplored themes to comic books. If you’re not hip to what that’s supposed to mean, there’s always Wikipedia.

David E. Goldweber
Claws & Saucers Homepage
David E. Goldweber spent one quarter of his life writing and researching his Claws & Saucers guidebook to classic sci-fi, horror, and fantasy movies. When not watching (or ranting about) old movies, David teaches English at two San Francisco Bay Area colleges. He lives in Oakland with a wife, a kid, and a couple of cats.

Thomas Lakeman
Thomas Lakeman started his entertainment career answering fan mail for Chucky and the Crypt Keeper: this has helped his mastery of puns. He has authored three published novels and won on Jeopardy! Visit him at thomaslakeman.com. He is very tired.

William McGuire
@Instagram
William McGuire (or Will, to his friends) is a cinema contributor and amateur hack. Went to Temple for Philosophy, and it didn’t screw him up too badly. Lives outside Philadelphia where he works in organizing, reads and watches the most appalling trash ever committed to paper or celluloid, and is currently bashing together his first original, full-length screenplay which no doubt will be filled with gratuitous violence, paper-thin characterization and his own barely disguised fetishes.

Leyla Mikkelsen
@LeylaMikkelsenMikkelsen’s Musings
With a background in English language and culture studies as well as rhetoric and communication, Leyla Mikkelsen left the cold wastes of Denmark behind to pursue a career in media in London, England. Since she arrived, she has become a permanent fixture in the film section of the weird and wonderful Fortean Times, which allows her to stalk the cinemas and screening rooms of the city in a quest to watch everything so you don’t have to. Outside of her cinematic antics, she is known to plan Halloween with military precision, decorate her Christmas tree in a manner she assumes John Waters would approve of, and is finding it increasingly difficult to find room for her ever-growing collection of Captain America action figures.

Cleveland Oakes
@oakes945Instagram
Born and raised in Bushwick, Brooklyn, Cleveland, is a lifelong fan of science fiction and fantasy long before it was “cool.” As a youth, he spent hours on end watching Star Trek, Dotctor Who, and reading the works of accalimed authors like Piers Anthony. Today Cleveland works for a well know entertainment company, is a cohost of the weekly podcast Black Daddies in Space, and is working on his Masters Degree in mental health counseling at Wake Forest University. As Cleveland learns more about the fascinating human mind, he appreciates how his love of fantasy has informed him on the fallacies of the human condition. Around the office, Cleveland is well known for his various quips and quotes. His favorite is “Fiction informs non-fiction.” His latest is, “Sometimes a happy marriage means you need to get up on stage and slap a fool at the Oscars.”

Andrew Osborne
@NewBaitShopBaitShop.org
An Emmy-award winning screenwriter with credits including the Sundance premiere On_Line, his own feature debut Apocalypse Bop, and the Discovery Channel game show Cash Cab, Andrew Osborne has also written film, comic, and interactive scripts for Warner Bros., MTV, HBO, Orion, MPCA, Platinum Studios, enVie Interactive, and the Image Comics series Blue Estate.  He teaches screenwriting for UCLA Extension and elsewhere, reviews films for Nerve.com, CultureVulture.net, and Forces of Geek, and his afterlife thriller Building Heaven is now available on Amazon and elsewhere.

Marvin C. Pittman
@MarvinPittman
Marvin Pittman grew up on TV, reading and drawing comics, and taping songs off the radio. These days he works in sports television, follows black feminists on Twitter, is falling out of love with the DC Comics’ New 52 and in love with Image Comics, and remains surprised at how decent Arrow is. Marvin lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, with his nerd wife, who will always want to be a naked extra on Sparatacus.

Shade Rupe
Shade Rupe has been writing on film for over 40 years, his first published entry was a newspaper pull quote for FIRST BLOOD (1982). When not getting banned on Facebook, Shade keeps on traveling, and looking for unusual films and experiences. His book Dark Stars Rising (2011) sold out its print run in a matter of months, and Funeral Party (1995) and Funeral Party 2 (1997) are both out of print. His two favorite movies of 2021 were PIG and BENEDETTA. He will be performing in Hermann Nitsch’s 2-Day Play in Prinzendorf, Austria, in July 2022.

James Ryan
James Ryan is a writer, historian, and pop culture commentator. In addition to his fiction work, he wrote extensively for REBEAT, the original home for the column Fantasia Obscrua. You can follow him on Facebook, Instagram, Mastodon, and his website.

Lenny Schwartz
@LennySchwartzIndie Theater Now
Lenny Schwartz is the writer of such plays as Subject 62. The Scarecrow, The Man Who Saw Snoopy, Our Distance Between Stars, KungFu Babies, amongst many, many others. He is also a screenwriter for such films as Murder University, Normal, Accidental Incest (based on his play) as well as the upcoming films of Higher Methods, The Hanuted and the Hunted, and I Love The Night.

Kyle A. Seifert
Twitter
Kyle A. Seifert is a freelance writer with a BA in English Language and Literature from Southern New Hampshire University. In June of 2022 he ceased being a lifelong Pennsylvanian and started traveling the United States with his wife and a potted succulent named Antonio. He loves a bad movie almost as much as a good one and is a huge fan of terrible background acting.

Fred Shahadi
@FredShahadi
Fred Shahadi is an award winning playwright and television writer living in Los Angeles. He was the head writer/host producer for the Emmy nominated Recipe Rehab on CBS, winning a Parents Choice Award for its final season. His play BOX enjoyed two stints Off Broadway. Fred is a two-time consecutive winner of the Heck Rabi Dramatic Award for his plays Brigantine and Supezrtrain. Fred’s sci-fi novel Shoot the Moon debuts later this summer.

Anthony Sword
@TheImperialCommInstagram
Anthony Sword is a working filmmaker, wannabe writer and Star Wars toy collector in dire need of an intervention. You can find his stop motion and time-lapse toy reviews on his YouTube channel, The Imperial Communique, follow him on Twitter for random musings and on Instagram for gratuitous Star Wars toy photos.

Steven Thompson
@RealBooksteve
Steven Thompson is Booksteve of Booksteve’s Library (booksteveslibrary.blogspot.com) and a dozen other blogs. He has written for Yoe Books, Fantagraphics, Bear Manor Media and Time Capsule Productions. His current book is THE BEST OF BOOKSTEVE’S LIBRARY, a product of Creative Differences, now available at Amazon

Alex Vaello
@Alex252
Alex Vaello was born in Puerto Rico and raised in Philadelphia. He still has scars from the time he stole change from his mother’s purse to buy comics from a 7-11 rack. Now he is just trying to raise a kid in Philly while surviving a pandemic.

Noel Vera
@NoelVera1

Works as overnight treatment supervisor at an institution for at-risk youths while writing film criticism for Businessworld. Maintains a blog. Published a book–Critic After Dark: A Review of Philippine Cinema. Has had no regrets so far.

Elizabeth Weitz
@ebethisawesome
Elizabeth Weitz can usually be found writing in bed, watching TV in bed or just laying in bed…yes, she really is that lazy. When not in the horizontal position, she will occasionally make her way down to the basement to check on her stash of Zombie Apocalypse-related survival gear and Canwich supplies. Feel free to follow her on Twitter or on Facebook where you will probably unfriend her after reading some of her status updates.

 

FOG! Alumnus

Vincent Alexander
NonsenseIslandNonsense IslandVincent Alexander Cartoons
Vincent Alexander is an animator and cartoonist who draws the daily one-panel comic Nonsense Island. His work has appeared in Reader’s Digest and The Columbus Dispatch. He also owns a sweatshop of underpaid camels who write all of his articles for him (SEND HELP – HE’S CRAZY).

Peter Briggs
@PeterBriggs
Peter Briggs has been a professional writing monkey for longer than he cares to remember.  A former assistant cinematographer, he’s the credited co-writer of the movie Hellboy, and has utterly failed to master the art of writing winning pleading letters to the Writers Guild of America Arbitration Boards on such features as Freddy Vs. Jason, Judge Dredd and Alien Vs. Predator (his original draft of which featured ignominiously in a book called The 50 Greatest Movies Never Made). A stubborn advocate of the semi-colon; like Hemingway, he’s discovered Writer’s Block on any given scene can generally be resolved with a notebook and a pint of something refreshing in a very noisy public bar.

DJ Crystal Clear
@DJCrystalClear6yay9.com
DJ Crystal Clear is a Pop Culture Demolition Specialist/Media Gadfly who reviews all of the major award shows and other televised tragedies that stick in her craw for FOG!  And in her spare time – she’s a KICK ASS DJ, Singer, Artist, Arts Educator, Writer, and Photographer of the absurd in NYC.

Kas DeCarvalho
Kas DeCarvalho is an attorney, comic book collector and would-be writer.  He lives in New England with his wife, their two children and two ridiculously goofy dogs.

Adam Dechanel
@AdamDechanelsupermanhomepage.comclockworkdigitalstudios.com
Adam Dechanel is an award winning author, comic book writer/artist and scriptwriter for television & theatre.  He is most notable in comics and science fiction for his work on Superman Homepage for which he continues reviewing weekly. In his spare time he works on comic art commissions which he loves doing and writing/illustrating his comic book ‘The Insurgent’. He has a love of all things creative and is always keen for a discussion on comics.

Vito Delsante
@Incogvitoincogvito.com
Vito Delsante is a comic book writer, graphic novelist, editor, letterer, and the co-creator/writer of STRAY with Sean Izaakse, and THE PURPLE HEART with Dean Haspiel and artist, Ricardo Venâncio. He’s written for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Image Comics, AdHouse Books, and Simon & Schuster, among others, and his stories have been reprinted in other countries. He lives in Pittsburgh, PA with his wife, Michelle, his daughter, Sadie, his son, James, and his pitbull, Kirby.

Rory Doherty
@RoryHasOpinions
Rory Doherty is a recent graduate of University of Glasgow, a screenwriter, and playwright. Obsessed with films for as long as he can remember, he loves sci-fi, comedies, mysteries, and anything that combines the afore-mentioned genres. He currently lives in Edinburgh, Scotland.

Joshua Gravel
@HauntedraculaHaunted Dracula’s House of Dorkness
Providence based film enthusiast, projectionist, film festival programmer, and hobby film archivist, Joshua Gravel serves as the programmer for The Arkham Film Society organizing New England area screenings of obscure cult movies often from original film prints and help to keep reparatory film alive. In his spare time he rummages through piles of oddball movies to watch and review.

Gavin Hignight
@GavinHignight
Gavin Hignight is a writer based in Los Angeles.  Author of The Freak Table and creator of the webcomic The Concrete World. He’s a writer on animated series such as Iron Man: Armored Adventures and Nickelodeon’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

Mike Hodge
@RewiredGeek | Mike’s Rewired Geek Blog
With a mutant ability to remember useless information, the less useful the longer it will stay in his head, Michael Hodge is a champion of many Trivia contests; most of which you didn’t know you were playing. With a degree in Astronomy and wide ranging experience working in magazine publishing, civil engineering, web programming, computer engineering, and film and video production, Mike spends most of his free time thinking about 360 video, writer’s block, and whether the book is really better than the movie.

PJ Hruschak
PJ Hruschak is a freelance writer, designer, editor and marketing specialist strategically located in Southwest Ohio. (He’d tell you why but then he’d have to kill you.) His twisty past has allowed him to work on video games, mobile apps, comics, blogs, several dead tree-based publications (remember newspapers and magazines?) and even radio.

Eugene Johnson
@BlueWriter03
Eugene Johnson, a writer and lifelong resident of Rhode Island, is an avid geek of music, literature, television and films. Pop culture is what nourishes his soul.

Sharon Knolle
@SKnolle
Sharon Knolle is an entertainment journalist who’s written for Variety, USA Today and TV Guide and is a regular AOL Moviefone contributor. She’s obsessed with mysterious islands and time travel and runs a ridiculously in-depth Robert Mitchum site.

Charles Knauf
Charles Knauf has co-written Marvel’s Iron Man, Iron Man: Director of S.H.I.E.L.D, The Eternals, Captain America: Theater of War and the Syfy channel movie The Phantom.  These days, between professional Bigfoot wrestling and protecting the innocent, he can be found in Hollywood doing Hollywood-type stuff.

Seth Levi
@von_levi
Seth Levi is a downtown-Philadelphia native who wasted his time at Cornell University getting a degree in Film Studies; he also holds a degree in Arts Administration from Columbia. He currently resides in central Alabama working for a civil rights organization.

Little Sofi
@little_sofiInstagram
Between compulsive Tweeting and Instagraming about her traveling habit, former Literature and Culture student that Little Sofi spends her days wearing crazy clothes in her day job as an alternative model. As a gamer/reader/movie watcher/cartoon enthusiast/music addict, playing dress up comes naturally, and writing about seemed the next logical step.

Jon Mattingly
Jon Mattingly enjoys, among many things, comics, life, and art. And also loves it when they all come together, which is often, one way or another.

Erin E. Maxwell
@erinemaxwell
Erin E. Maxwell has been writing, reading and living pop culture ever since the days when her parents decided that it was cheaper to leave the TV on than hire a babysitter. She has written for Variety, LA Weekly, Hollywood.com and the Quantum Leap IMDb page.

Surprisingly, she has no cats.

Lauren Milberger
@LaurenMilbergerlaurenmilberger.com
Lauren Milberger is an actor/writer, essayist, and playwright based in NYC. She is also the co-host of The Fordcast: A Harrison Ford Podcast (on iTunes, Google Play, Soundcloud, and Stitcher Radio).  As a young child Lauren was found in a hollowed out television set in Victoria Station.

Ilan Mitchell-Smith
@IlanMS
Ilan Mitchell-Smith is best known as the actor who played “Wyatt” in the movie Weird Science. He is also a professor of medieval literature at Cal State Long Beach, where he teaches and writes about knights, monsters, and contemporary American versions of the Middle Ages. He is also a huge nerd, and he spends his free time writing for Talkwargaming.com and organizing table top games in the Los Angeles area for gaming conventions and for his local chapter of The Historical Miniature Gaming Society.

Vikrant Nallaparaju
@Vikrantn96
Vikrant Nallaparaju is purported to live in Atlanta, though sightings are rare and actual evidence is spotty at best. Eye-witness accounts describe him as being fond of surf rock, lagers, and writing about the films of Larry Cohen. The best place to catch a glimpse of him is the local AMC where he might be found hiding in the back row.

Elizabeth Robbins
Robbins StudioRobbins Studio Facebook Page
Elizabeth Robbins is a photographer and artist who spends most of her time photographing hot ladies or taking the most beautiful pictures of rust you have ever seen.  She co-wrote and illustrated the Tick mini-series, The Mangalicious Tick, with her partner-in-crime, Benn Robbins. Mrs. Robbins is currently plotting world domination from Boston’s South Shore.

Glenn Sanders
@propagandery
Glenn Sanders is a WGA screenwriter and director, and is currently an entertainment exec. He has sold multiple screenplays and helped launch major films and TV series for studios, networks and streaming services.

Steven Scott
@Scott_DuvallGreat Scott Comics
Steven Scott is a comic book writer and publicist with a background in film and television. He blogs about comics at Great Scott Comics and self-published his creator owned sci-fi comic Cryozone, available in print and digital.  He recently won his first Eisner Award for Best Reality-Based Work for his book, They Called Us Enemy which he collaborated on with George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Harmony Becker.

Steven Segal Twist
Steven Segal bears no relation whatsoever to the “actor” with a similar name. Born and raised in Philadelphia, Steven grew up on a steady diet of movies, music, TV and pop culture, and went film school. He’s written movie columns for both print and Web publications, since way back when laserdiscs were the shit and before there were such things as Internets.

Todd Sokolove
@TSokoloveBeware of The Babylon
Todd Sokolove is a Michigan-born Los Angelino Producer, Blogger, Podcaster, Photographer and general social media misfit who lives with way too many cats and a nice sized Criterion Collection. You can hear him co-host the popular pop-culture podcast Beware of The Babylon for free on iTunes or experience him in 140 or less characters at a time on Twitter.

Mark Wensel
@profwagstaff42www.profwagstaff.com
Mark Wensel was proudly born and raised in Austin, TX. In high school, he was a band nerd/tech-theatre geek. After a brief stint in engineering at the University of Texas, he realized that he was terrible at math and went into the film program when it was still cool to like Robert Rodriguez. Since then, he has given up his dreams of making films, but still writes about them whenever and wherever he can.

Joe Yezukevich
@sasquatchevich
Joe Yezukevich loves rock and roll. His favorite table top game is Star Frontiers.  Once, on command, he did an impression of Sam the Eagle in front of a sold out Colonial Theater in Boston.

Dean Galanis, R.I.P.
Dean Galanis is an ex-Marine and Gulf War Veteran, ex-night manager of TLA Video, ex-lifeguard, ex-busboy, ex-paperboy and current production assistant/assistant director/screenwriter/driver to the stars. Galanis wrote his first short story, the well received, The Prince of the Cave, at age 4 and made his first short film, Attack of the Mean Monsters on Super 8 at age 11. By age 18, Galanis had written his first feature screenplay, the as-yet unproduced sci-fi musical about Ronald Reagan, 77 Lives.

Since then, Galanis has failed to live up to his potential.  His love of horror movies can be blamed on his irresponsible grandmother, who when babysitting would wake up 4 or 5 year old Galanis in the middle of the night to watch Son of Dracula or Tales of Terror.  He did his best not to let on that he was terrified. She was also a huge James Bond fan, God bless ‘er. Dean passed away unexpectedly on May 4, 2022)

 

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In many cases free copies of media and merchandise were provided in exchange for an unbiased and honest review. The opinions shared on Forces of Geek are those of the individual author.