Esports continues to surge in popularity all over the globe, and South Africa is no exception, but without a doubt it’s still very much seen as a male-dominated space. This makes it difficult for females to find a way into gaming without feeling intimidated by their male counterparts. Steps are being taken, however, to get more women involved, and to identify up and coming female esports talent.

This weekend, SA's Tech Girl, Sam Wright, in partnership with Mettlestate and Evetech, is launching the "Valkyrie Challenge" - two all-girl CS:GO teams (Amaryllis Gaming and Energy Esports) battling it out in a winner take all R50,000 best-of-five matchup. To give you some background as to the importance of these sorts of events, we're proud to present another ICON 2017 panel recording.

At ICON in June, Sam Wright took to the main stage to discuss the state of gaming from a female perspective in South Africa, and talked about the local girl gamers who are on the verge of big things, as well as the recent, and future initiatives to help girl gamers make the mark.

The world of cosplay has grown in leaps and bounds over the last decade, with the scene expected to be worth over R20 billion dollars by the year 2020. How, you might ask? There are a number of factors, ranging from the sheer cost that goes into buying the materials that make a costume, appearance fees by top cosplayers to appear at events and conventions around the world and fees charged by cosplayers to help companies promote their brands.

As the cosplay economy matures, there will be plenty of cosplayers looking to take the next step and become semi-pro or full-time professionals in this new market. Linda was generous enough to share with our audience at ICON 2017 her tips on what cosplayers should do in order to make this leap to becoming a cosplay professional.

And so we begin with our ICON 2017 panel series! In June this year, ICON celebrated its 25th anniversary and ran over 40 informative panels on various pop culture topics. Today, we present to you the panel discussion held by Warren Roberston and Owen Swart on the topic of making money through the speculative trading market around Magic: The Gathering cards.

M:TG cards can fetch thousands of dollars, however their valuations can fluctuate wildly based on the trends taking place in the game. Warren and Owen discuss the best options when it comes to getting in to the speculative game, and where you SHOULDN'T be spending your money.

Freddie Mitchell, Gerhard du Toit and Ruark Swanepoel are the team behind 4Ever Odd Gaming, which is part of a greater 4EverOdd initiative. 4EverOdd wants to to encourage creatives in the South African community by providing a launchpad for the items they create, be it t-shirts, books or other crafted items.

4EverOdd gaming has been working on their original boardgame, TradeWarz - a boardgame that blends the best political, military and trade aspects of other games while stripping away the things that wouldn't work in the real world: TradeWarz is designed to be less luck based than skill-based.

The team is inexorably moving their way towards a Kickstarter launch for TradeWarz, and took time out to chat to us about their respective paths to geekdom, the origin of TradeWarz, and the challenges an opportunities presented by a crowd-sourced funding model for their game.

Eryn Gunzenhauser is a writer and artist, whose style lies somewhere between the influence of Eastern and Western commercial cartoons.

Eryn is drawn to the darkness and her work expresses her curiosities and understandings of psychology, beauty, death and immortality. Eryn is deeply passionate about what she creates: there is truth to her fiction, and it comes from her heart.

While studying, Eryn produced a great deal of art that would eventually influence her comic, “The Legend of Dollaretta”, which is the result of years of story development and artistic grown. Eryn has now gone the self-publishing route, and "The Legend of Dollaretta" is now available on the Comixology platform.

Almost everyone has heard of Bitcoin, the crypto currency that's currently being traded for thousands of dollars online, but not everyone is familiar with the platform Bitcoin is based on - blockchain technology.

While blockchain technology powers a number of different crypto currencies, we wanted to know exactly how this tech could be extended into other areas. We sat down with Bradley Mitri from Vortex Capital Partners to chat about the block chain: what it is, how it works, and how it can be used in some incredible ways - like combining it with power production to make money for, well, free.

While blockchain technology powers a number of different crypto currencies, we wanted to know exactly how this tech could be extended into other areas. We sat down with Bradley Mitri from Vortex Capital Partners to chat about the block chain: what it is, how it works, and how it can be used in some incredible ways - like combining it with power production to make money for, well, free.

John Murray is one of the administrators of a military re-enactment group based in Johannesburg, South Africa. The group, known as World War II Milsim Airsoft Re-enactment, is actually an amalgam of interests: it involves the use of airsoft weapons, similar to paintball but firing BB pellets, and live action roleplay, with a view to being as detailed as possible when it comes to recreating the clothing and gear of the age.

John joined us recently to talk about his path to geekdom, how he became involved in the airsoft community, and how airsoft battles evolved to include the live action roleplay element.

Silver Surfer, Witchblade, Superman, Tarzan, Quasar, Cyberforce, Batman - these are just some of the characters Ron Marz has written on. While Ron has an extraordinary breadth of work under his belt, in some parts he's more famous, or infamous depending on your opinion, for his Emerald Twilight run on the Green Lantern.

Ron was a guest at Fan Con in Cape Town recently, and took time out of a hectically busy to chat about many topics including his path to geekdom, how he came to write THAT Green Lantern story arc and we chat for a little about the Knicks (sorry, non-sports fan).

We also have special guest appearances by Sean Izaakse and by Variants Cover member Nas Hoosen, who joined Ron in a very special quiz.

Once an editor for Wildstorm comics, John Layman turned to writing comics full-time in 2002, and has worked on a stellar array of titles including Gambit, The Fantastic Four, Xena, Thundercats and many more. John has also written a number of creator-owned titles at Image Comics, including the award winning Chew - a series about an FDA agent who solves crimes by receiving psychic impressions from anything he eats ... which can include people.

John was kind enough to take time out of a hectic FanCon Comic Convention schedule to share his path to geekdom, his first exposure to Dungeons and Dragons, falling in love with the Cerebus comic book, and when he knew he wanted to make writing his life's work.

Eric Powell has written and provided artwork for Dark Horse, DC Comic and Marvel, and is known for 'The Goon' - his original series which picked up multiple Eisner Awards as well as an International Horror Guild award.

Powell's origin story is a fantastic one, and serves as a awesome example and inspiration to creators who want to do their own thing.