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SYFY WIRE Ad Astra

WIRE Buzz: The Far Side returns; Fate: The Winx Saga adds lead; Ad Astra uses space sounds

By Jacob Oller
Ad Astra

One of the legendary comic strips may be bringing its Bizarro-world antics back to pop culture. That’s what The Far Side fans found when checking creator Gary Larson comic’s website earlier this week. “Uncommon, unreal, and (soon-to-be) unfrozen. A new online era of The Far Side is coming!” the update reads, below an image of some classic Larson characters being defrosted from an iceberg.

The strip has been dormant since 1995, when Larson retired. Now 69 years old, Larson ran one of the largest comic empires this side of Jim Davis’ Garfield or Scott Adams’ Dilbert, eschewing relatable cat jokes or office humor for oddball one-panels that played with convention and dabbled in the world of sci-fi. He even got the spikes on the ends of a stegosaur’s tail named after one of his comics. Who knows what kind of topics Larson will tackle in the new strip — or when (or whether) it’s really happening at all.


Chilling Adventures of Sabrina

Next, Netflix’s latest magical school has enrolled its lead student. Coming from the witchy world of Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Abigail Cowen will be headlining Fate: The Winx Saga — which isn’t Harry Potter, or The Magicians, or The Order, just FYI.

According to Deadline, Cowen will play Bloom, the main character among the five lead friends who make Fate an ensemble. The live-action series spins off from the long-running Italian animated series Winx Club. Netflix has already exclusively released two seasons of spin-off World of Winx. Fans will certainly know the premise, even if they haven’t heard of the series: It’s about some pals at a magical boarding school where magic and mayhem are the norm.

Showrun by The Vampire Diaries’ Brian Young, the show will hope that Cowen and her cabal of magical buddies will drive even more YA-influenced traffic to the streaming service as the market continues to crowd.

Fate: The Winx Saga is currently in production in Ireland.


Finally, this year’s serious space movie has dropped some serious knowledge about its interstellar soundtrack.

Ad Astra, Brad Pitt’s father-chasing foray into the stars, has earned excellent reviews but may need to prove its sci-fi bona fides for the casual genre fan. Thankfully, composer Dev Hynes has released a new trailer for the film highlighting his music — remixed with sounds taken from out of this world.

Check it out:

“Hynes utilized actual sounds of space such as planetary radio emissions and archival vocals from space missions to create this hypnotic and moody score to accompany the new film visual,” the YouTube description reads. Those are some good beeps and boops, and those staticky vocals are way more documentary than Deep Impact.

Director James Gray certainly channeled 2001: A Space Odyssey in his new epic, and with this kind of fidelity to space travel and its acoustic accompaniment, it looks like the film may find a similarly devoted cult audience.

Ad Astra hits theaters on Sept. 20.