The director of next month's Warcraft explains how their film stands out from the crowd. The role of motherhood in the popular animated series Steven Universe is explained. And AMC's supernatural show Preacher debuts to positive reviews. It's Airy Monday, our weekly segment about magic and religion in popular culture! All this and more for the Pagan News Beagle!

A lot is riding on Duncan Jones' fantasy epic Warcraft: the director's career aspirations, the ability of Blizzard to expand the presence of their already popular MMO based on the same universe, and the reputation of films based on video games. But Jones and his colleagues seems confident their film has what it takes to stand out.

Should roleplaying games make use of real-life religion? Or should they invent their owns. Arguably, it depends on the game in question as well as the setting it's based on (it makes more sense for a fictional fantasy setting to use fictional religions than one based in history, for instance). That doesn't mean there isn't room for plenty of debate, however.

When it comes to parent-child relationships in popular culture it seems pretty obvious the focus is usually on father-son relationships. But what about mothers? Feminist website The Mary Sue examines one of the most complete visions of motherhood in pop culture: the popular TV series Steven Universe.

Is traditional print media on the decline? That's been the claim for over a decade now but so far books have hold more or less steady. Indeed, there's evidence to suggest readers might be sliding back to print media over ebooks. Why though? Niall Alexander looks into it over at Tor.

This week, AMC's new supernatural drama Preacher debuted. Based on the 1990s comic book by Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon, Preacher follows a Texan priest possessed by an otherworldly entity as he goes on a search for God with ex girlfriend and an Irish vampire. But how does the comic's dark satire and complex characters hold up on the small screen? Pretty well evidently.

Top image by Aleksi Briclot