The playground you frequented as a kid was probably blanketed in sand to help soften the impact every time you tumbled off the jungle gym. But did you know that something magical happens when you pump a pile of sand full of air? It suddenly enters a liquid-like state.
From Harry Potter to Little Witch Academia, the appeal of schools dedicated to witchcraft and wizardry is strong today—so now DC Comics is getting on it all by taking its most famous magician, Zatanna Zatara, and sending her off to magical college.
Witches have come in all shapes, sizes, and powers over the centuries, but there’s one thing they usually have in common: They’re women. Image’s powerful series Redlands highlights the link between womanhood and witchcraft, showing the misogyny behind the mythology.
I’m filing out of New York’s Atlantic Theater, where I’ve just seen British mentalist Derren Brown perform his first American stage show, Secret. Around me, people are trying to work out how the two hours of tricks were done. I keep fidgeting, checking my phone—anything not to eavesdrop. With Brown’s work, and magic…
Magic: The Gathering has issued a rare emergency card ban effective today. One card in a popular but dramatically overpowered two-card combo is now illegal in Standard play. Publisher Wizards of the Coast announced Felidar Guardian’s emergency ban two days after they put out their April “Banned and Restricted” cards…
The next addition to the realms of Magic: The Gathering is taking players to the desert oasis of Amonkhet, a magical land that’s essentially Magic’s own take on the mysticism of Ancient Egypt. Ahead of the 74th expansion’s arrival in stores later this month, io9 is proud to debut a few of the new cards and the art…
Obviously, we all know that Gerard Butler has nothing but the best sense when it comes to picking projects. However, maybe his true talents lay in producing. He’ll soon team with mega-producer Neal Moritz to produce turn the awesome YA fantasy A Darker Shade of Magic into a movie.
A few weeks ago, the internet was wowed by a video of a magic marker stick figure doodle that appeared to magically come to life with a little water. Many assumed there were some unseen shenanigans that made the stick figure leap off the table, but as Steve Mould explains, it’s all due to the simple science of…
If the lighting weren’t so bad, we’d be inclined to believe this video was the work of a Hollywood special effects studio, because somehow, a simple magic marker doodle of a stick figure appears to come to life with nothing more than some spilled liquid.
If you had a power that no one else had, when would you choose to unleash it? That seems to be one of the questions at the center of Sleight. The main character can do something amazing, but when to do it is the real problem.
What if the hustlers and tricksters you see doing card tricks could do real magic? That’s the premise behind Sleight, a lo-fi prestidigitation movie coming to theaters next April.
It’s more fun to believe in a world where magic can possibly exist but then you see a different camera angle of a cool magic trick and realize it’s all just misdirection, tricks, and fantastic finger dexterity. But still it’s worth it just for that brief moment where you absolutely have no idea how the magician did…
Syfy just shared the first trailer for the second season of The Magicians, and there are dark times ahead. In season two, which draws its plot from the third book in Lev Grossman’s fantasy series, magic is dying and the fate of the world is in the hands of our heroes, whose plan is “crazy vague” at best.
In this clip from Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, Newt Scamander uses magic to smoothly reassemble a room that’s been torn to pieces by one of his escaped creatures, hoping to cover his tracks. And he almost gets away with it. Too bad the hairless little critter makes a grand entrance and blows his cover.
Characters in horror movies usually work to keep demons away. In A Dark Song, it’s the opposite. As you can see in this first trailer, when two characters tirelessly work to raise the undead, the result is as creepy as it is surprising.
Magic is mostly just how good you are with your hands. Here are three really easy magic tricks that you can pull with just a pen: making it disappear, making it appear out of nowhere, and making it look super small. Oscar Owen breaks down the techniques for each and they only involve super quick finger movements. The…
Magic: The Gathering’s latest expansion pack has taken players to the mysterious plane of Kaladesh, a land where technology rules over magic. New cards and a new plane to explore means wonderful new card art—and we’ve got an exclusive look at a new art book collecting the art of Kaladesh.
We’ve all fibbed a little when it comes to our resumes or during a job interview. But apparently ‘knowing how to expertly back a truck full of metal pipes onto a floating barge’ isn’t something you’re going to want to just try and fake on your first day of work.
Most of the planes of existence in Magic’s lore are based on the use of magic—it’s a card game about players flinging spells at each other, after all. But the plane of Kaladesh is different, because what would be accomplished by magic elsewhere is done with technology. Now io9 has got a sneak peek at some of the cards…
The Most Magical Place on Earth has started scanning the fingers of three-year-olds in an effort to prevent ticket fraud, because you can never be too careful about tiny babies that have only just started communicating properly.
