The podcast this week is going to be our InnoSera and Dragonflight wrap up show. We had an amazing time at both conventions and we are glad that they are almost certainly not going to be on the same weekend again next year (now if we could only get Norwescon and SakuraCon to do the same).

We talked with some game designers and tried out a few new games at Dragonflight which we’ll be talking about. We also had the opportunity to record the Retrospective on role-playing panel that featured Peter Adkison, the founder and first CEO of Wizards of the Coast, Tim Beach, who contributed material to virtually all of TSR’s campaign settings in the 1990s, Skaff Elias the original VP of R&D for Magic: The Gathering and Johnathan Tweet one of the lead designers for the 3.0 edition of Dungeons and Dragons.

At InnoSera we took a ton of pictures and video and we had the opportunity to talk with the band Kissing Violet who’s song Feel the Disease is the theme for the Tokyopop iManga Bizenghast. We were also able to get a few words (though her interpreter of course) with Kumiko Uehara one of Japan’s top designers of Sweet Lolita fashion.

Your Monday news is under the fold

Books

The Hugo Awards were given out at Worldcon in Montreal this weekend. Winners included The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman which won for Best Novel, Elizabeth Bear who won Best Novelette for “Shoggoths in Bloom”, Ted Chiang who won Best Short Story for “Exhalation”, Joss Whedon who won the Dramatic Presentation: Short Form for Dr Horrible’s Singalong Blog and Phil Foglio, Kaja Foglio and Cheyenne Wright who won the brand new Best Graphic Story award for Girl Genius. You can hear our interview with Phil Foglio about Girl Genius in our webcomics show, episode #14. The full list of winners should be up at thehugoawards.org

MMO

Second Skin, the documentary about MMO players is out in “select theaters” as of Friday. I don’t think Seattle has one of the select theaters but it looks like the filmmakers will be at PAX and there may be a screening there. It will also be available on DVD on the 25th of this month. Until then check out the trailer.

Movies

Geek Tyrant is reporting that Sony’s Screen Gems has green lit yet another Underworld sequel. Underworld: Rise of the Lycans made over $100 million in theaters and was a massive hit for the studio so it is no surprise that a fourth film is in the works. Underworld 4 is supposedly aiming for release in January of 2011 and will be in 3D! No word on if it will feature the original cast from the first two movies or the “prequel” cast from Rise of the Lycans.

The footage from Iron Man 2 that was shown at Comic Con has leaked on to the web. This is not bad quality for shaky hand-held camera pirate footage but that isn’t really saying much. Obviously it also could be considered spoiler-y if you’re trying to avoid learning anything about the plot of the movie.

Update – Looks like Paramount is making the rounds with takedown orders. The video has been pulled from YouTube but it is still available on Gizmodo. No telling how long that will last though.

TV

The Jim Henson Company and Lionsgate have teamed up for a multi-year distribution deal. Under the agreement Lionsgate will have the distribution rights to over 350 hours of content in The Jim Henson Company’s extensive film and television library including television series, television specials and catalog home entertainment titles for DVD. The first new titles scheduled to be released are the much anticipated Fraggle Rock: The Complete Final Season (Season 4) and Fraggle Rock: A Merry Fraggle Holiday in November 2009. Peter Schube, President & COO of The Jim Henson Company, said when announcing the deal “We are looking forward to collaborating with them to release more classic titles as well as to introduce lesser-known gems from the Company’s library to our audience.”

Video Games

Competing rumors about Beatles Rock Band. Big Shiny Robot has posted a track list that they claim to be “mostly right” according to a “reliable source”, while joystiq is quoting a spokesperson from Harmonix who says that the leaked list circulating on the web is “definitely not the track list”. You can be boring and just wait until the game actually comes out this September or you can check thebeatlesrockband.com for official, presumably accurate though incomplete, information.