This week’s podcast is going to be another comic book show with a focus on graphic novels. We’ll be talking about some new stuff that will be hitting shelves, getting people’s lists of books they think everyone should read and we’ll have an interview with composer Mateo Messina about his “Symphony of the Super-Hero”.

We’ll also have our full review of the Seattle Symphony’s Final Fantasy concert and an interview with author Kat Richardson about her new novel Vanished.

Continue under the fold for the Monday news.

Comics

♦In “the first one is free, the rest you have to pay for” news, Dark Horse is publishing the Eisner Award winning Beasts of Burden short story “Stray” by Evan Dorkin (Milk & Cheese) and Jill Thompson (Scary Godmother) as a free web comic. Once you get hooked on the web comic you will no doubt be interested to know that Dark Horse is going to publish a new Beasts of Burden mini-series in September.

Manga

♦Anime News Network is reporting that Yen Magazine‘s August issue will begin an English language run of Yana Toboso’s Kuroshitsuji manga series under the name Black Butler. Kuroshitsuji has been running in Square Enix’s Monthly GFantasy magazine since 2006, and seven volumes have been compiled and published.

MMO

♦Champions Online Daily News has a transcript of a talk given by Champions Online executive producer Bill Roper explaining how PvP will work in the forthcoming superhero MMO.

♦There is rampant speculation that the new World of Warcraft expansion will be World of Warcraft: Cataclysm and will be released sometime next year.

Movies

♦Movie casting news! Anyone hanging around the internets over the last few days will already have heard that Ryan Reynolds is almost certainly going to be cast as Hal Jordan in the Green Lantern movie. I have to confess I’m skeptical. I’ve always thought of Hal Jordan as being a little more on the serious side and Reynolds’ forte seems to be playing… well… less serious characters. If he was going to be playing Guy Gardner I would pretty much call it a slam dunk. On the other hand, the picture accompanying the Variety article on this subject demonstrates that, at least physically, Reynolds can pull it off. If director Martin Campbell can reign in Reynolds a bit he may very well be able to make it work.

♦More casting news! Geek Tyrant is reporting that casting has started for the entirely unnecessary American remake of the Swedish vampire movie Let the Right One In.

TV

♦Entertainment Weekly has a spoilerific rundown on episode 13 of Dollhouse which will be premiering at Comic Con in two weeks. Some non-spoilery details are quoted below;

Fox had declined to air “Epitaph One,” which Whedon says was designed to either close out the series or to lead into the second season (which premieres Sept. 25). “So you will find out snippets of everything and all of nothing,” Whedon tells EW. “Every flashback answers something about where people are heading but brings up a lot more questions about where they end up or how they got there.” (Whedon says the season 2 opener he’s writing and directing won’t pick up right where the May season 1 finale left off, with “We’ve got to find Alpha!”, but a little bit later.)

I’m not sure where those of us not attending Comic Con will be able to see episode 13 other than waiting until season 1 comes out on DVD.

♦TrekMovie.com is reporting that the Mythbusters will be testing Captain Kirk’s cannon that he used to defeat the Gorn in the episode “Arena”. The cannon’s construction and effectiveness will be tested in next season’s viewer’s choice episode.

Video Games

♦In honor of the 15th anniversary of the first Elder Scrolls game Bethesda is releasing The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall as a free download. They do caution that “the game is over 10-years-old and we’re releasing it ‘as is.’ In other words, we’re not providing customer support or technical support on the game at this point”.